Kirkham Magic: Will Rock and Kirk Kirkham in Southern California

Welcome to the Calvacade of Magic Presented By Kirk Kirkham

My Father was the Magician known professionally as Kirk Kirkham, his real name was Charles and many folks called him Chuck. He lived from 1926 to 2001. He was an active professional performer from the time he was sixteen years old. Magic was the only living he ever had. He toured with the USO after World War II, did the spook show circuit and television extensively in the 1950's, did thousands of club dates, school shows, and more television in the 60's, continued performing in the 70's but also became a well regarded prop maker who produced equipment for other magicians and attractions around the country.

Currently, David Copperfield has the largest private collection of illusions in the world, but prior to his success and collection, my father may very well have been the previous holder of that title. He owned parts of Thurston's Wonder Show of the Universe and Mysteries of India. He acquired much of the core of his collection from Will Rock back in the early 50's but continued to add to it the rest of his life. He knew and worked with Harry Blackstone Sr., Percy Abbot was a mentor to him. Dante was a personal friend, and he owned famous illusions that belonged to all of them.

My goal is to keep his legacy alive here in cyber space, and provide some historical context to the Southern California Magic scene in the 60's and 70's. I have had virtually no contact with the Magic world since my Mother passed away in 1994. My Dad suffered from Alzheimer's in his last years and he could not write the book that he always said he would get to someday. I don't know enough about magic to write competently concerning history, practice and technique. I can however provide an historical context for my Father, a man who knew almost everything about magic during the 20th Century. He had a huge library, subscribed to dozens of magazines, and had met every important magician of the second half of the century. He was consulted by many of the experts that now make up the intelligentsia of the magic community. He was also a mentor to many fine magicians and scholars of magic. I hope to hear from some of those people as a result of this blog.

Welcome to the Magical World of Kirk Kirkham.

Saturday, May 23, 2015

Will Rock and Kirk Kirkham in Southern California

Back in the Summer of 1976, the Bicentennial year, our family took a trip back East to visit family, do some work, and check out some of America's great National Treasures. One of those treasures turned out to be Will Rock and his wife. Two years later, they visited Southern California and stopped by to see us.

My Dad was tickled to have Rock at the apartment because he was one of my Dad's mentors and friends. A substantial part of the Thurston Illusion show passed from Will Rock into my Dad's hands twenty five years before this visit. Mr. Rock had retired from Magic but he never seems to have stopped being a showman.

Dad put up a poster at the side of the pool, indicating that Will Rock would be appearing that day to escape from a straight jacket underwater. As you can see, Will took it all in good fun and acted as if he was going to disrobe right there and perform this amazing stunt.

Of course the real purpose of the visit was to celebrate an old friendship and to share stories of the Magic World. Had we been visionaries, we might have thought to record all the conversations that took place at our house. Plenty of Magic history could probably be corrected, or at least debated by the past and contemporaneity magicians that sat at our table or chatted in the "Magic Room" till the wee hours of the night.

A visit often included a meal prepared by my Mother. She was a capable cook but not necessarily a master chef. Most visits were so informal that dinner was a last minute plan rather than a meal tailored for guests. My folks loved having company but never stood on ceremony when it came to friends.

I had thought this visit was after I was married but The Rock's daughter Gretchen told me it was in the late seventies. When I looked at the back of the pictures, the information said Summer 1978. All you really have to do is look at my brother and I in this picture with Dad and Will Rock and you will know it had to be the seventies not the eighties.

I've been meaning to get back to putting up fresh material on the blog. The usual excuses of time and digging through material are the only explanations for the sketchiness of the last couple of years. If you look at the smiles down below, you will see why I have a continuing motivation to share stuff about my dad and his career in Magic. Don't these guys look like they are having a Ball?

2 comments:

Joey CranfordMarch 16, 2022 at 3:46 PM
Hi, I'm Joey, the co-owner and founder of Chicago Magic Lounge in Chicago. We are a theater and lounge dedicated to the history of Chicago-style magic. We also have a large collection of ephemera and posters from Chicago magicians, as well as the masters. Your story of your father, and his connection to Will Rock is incredible. The fact that your father was trusted with some of Thurston's props speaks so highly of your dad. I'm curious if you or your family still own some of the props that could be traced back to Thurston's show. I can't imagine the treasures you've seen. I hope all is well, and let me know if you're ever in Chicago. I'll treat you to the treasures of the Magic Lounge. :) Be well.
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Richard KirkhamMarch 18, 2022 at 8:09 AM
Hey Joey, Thanks for leaving a comment. Most of the props have long gone to other responsible magicians. I have one or two Thurston pieces left, stuff I hold onto because on my Dad. I am still finding pictures and ephemera and when I do, I try to post about them here. I hope to take you up on your offer someday. I hope you will come back to the site and continue to enjoy some magic history from the late 20th century.
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A Life in Magic: Here in Southern California

As a kid, I’d imagined myself following in my father’s footsteps and becoming a performer. I had magic kits, and puppets and a variety of equipment readily available. What I lacked was discipline. Someone once told me that the difference between your current status and expertise in a field was 10,000 hours of hard work. When I got to high school I discovered girls and debate, and suddenly, spending time on the technical craft of performing magic seemed less desirable to me. My father was never disappointed in my choice. He allowed me to stay a part of his world even though that part was on the sidelines. He was one of those people who understood the level of dedication that was required to be really good at your craft.

From the time he was a kid he wanted to be a magician, and that is what he worked his whole life at doing. He practiced and performed and read and dreamed. He talked with everyone who was interested in magic about everything connected to performing. When I was young my friends thought it was strange that my dad would still be asleep at ten or eleven in the morning. They did not understand that some people simply thrive at night. When he came home from a show or an evening with his friends in magic my father did not sit in front of the television; he read. He was a sponge when it came to magical knowledge. He listened to friends like Percy Abbott, Harry Blackstone, Bill Larsen Sr., and Dante tell stories and share secrets. He sought out magicians of all stripes to answer questions and to ask them. He acquired books and articles and lectures and blueprints and anything else he could lay his hands on, that dealt with magic and performing. When we needed funds to provide for his care in his last years it pained me to have to sell his library: I knew it was one of the most unique in the world.

He was more than just a fountain of knowledge though; he was a performer. Being on stage is where he came to life and made his mark. While he was an accomplished illusionist and a talented close-up performer, my father’s greatest strength lay in interacting with an audience. He loved having the little kids come up from the audience to do the hats and pants routine – just playing a silly, wonderful game. When they laughed and smiled, he was in his element. Lots of magicians do a guillotine trick, but Kirkham did ten minutes of audience participation, comedy and drama. The trick was the climax of the segment but it was hardly the highlight. His byplay with the two brave boys who volunteered to be onstage was where most of the fun was. When the curtain opened and an illusion was performed, my dad was as good as anyone else. In front of the curtain, setting up the scene or doing a small effect with patter he was better than everyone else.

We worked all kinds of shows and venues. Club dates at nightspots, corporate picnics in parks, high school auditoriums and legitimate theaters for full evening extravaganzas. When he did TV, I always felt special and made sure to tell my friends to watch ABC on Saturday night or CBS Wednesday afternoon. My older brother worked on my father’s show, along with my mother, for years before I was much help.

From 1965 to 1975, I went on all the state fair shows and company Christmas parties. My younger brother was in the act as well but by the time he was able to do some of the things I got to do my dad had slowed down a bit, so I can safely say that I was the only reason he could offer $10,000 to anyone who could prove he used two girls in the Thurston sawing a woman in half act. And so I got to discover that the smell of sawdust did a lot to minimize any claustrophobia I might have experienced as a kid. Speaking of sawdust, one year my Dad and my older brother, Chris, ran away with the circus; when it came to town, my younger brother, Kirk, and I joined for a couple of days – Kirk sold programs alongside the kid in the circus who was a fantastic juggler – so Kirk and I got the experience but did not have to caravan in a trailer for six months like Chris and Dad did.

In the fifties Dad and Mom worked in Vegas with Orson Welles. In the sixties Phyllis Diller asked Dad to come to Vegas and work with her. He had lots of chances to be a pioneer in sin city prestidigitation, but after all the issues he had with my troubled older brother Dad thought that relocating to Vegas, which was not the corporate tourist friendly spot it is today, was not a good idea. With two young boys at home, he sought a more traditional upbringing. We were kids of the suburbs, but show business and Hollywood were the office that Ward Cleaver went to each day instead of the insurance company. We got to meet movie stars and eat in fancy restaurants. We saw the eccentrics on Hollywood Boulevard before it filled up with drug users and homeless people. And then aside from the mundane Hollywood insanity, there were all my parents friends.

We had close friends who practically lived with us and helped out with the shows Dad was putting together. There were young performers from the Long Beach Mystics who came and milked my Dad’s brain for information and exchanged time working in the show for all of the encouragement they got. We had old timers from vaudeville sit down at the dining room table and regale us with stories of the past. Business associates visited, ate and became our friends as well as our parents friends. We had the star of the Moscow circus, at the height of the Cold War, sharing secrets even though he spoke little English. One time my Dad got into a fistfight with another magician in Baja California while we were down there to see a magic show. My mother had to go out and pay off the cops in the middle of the night to get him out of custody, leaving my younger brother and I at the hotel. Later, he and the other magician became friends again and did business together on several occasions. So while we had the trappings of a fifties family, the reality was often far different.

My Dad was always up for a confrontation, so his relations with some of the other elements of the magic world in Southern California were terse at times. I don’t know what feuds and rivalries were important and which were minor. I just know he loved the life he led in good times and tough ones. When my Mother passed away in 1994, we lost all connection to the magic world because my Dad needed her to keep track of his memory. His decline was accelerated by her absence. Those of you who knew my parents know how much that was true. Those of you out there who are meeting them for the first time through this article, welcome to the real history of magic in Southern California. My family would like to thank everyone involved in putting this material together. It is good to have a legacy, but it is better to have friends who remember you fondly.