Kirkham Magic

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.

Monday, December 26, 2011

Stock Magic Poster

Here is an ad from a web site selling this particular poster.

I have a version of this up in my living room right now. It looks like this.

My little brother and I had a copy of this up in our bedroom at the apartment building when I still shared a room with him. I always thought that it was an original poster for my father. When I started to sell my Dad's collection, I discovered that it really was a generic poster that was designed for any performer to add their name to. I still think my Dad should get proprietary control on the image. look at these two pictures and others on this site from the early forties and fifties. tell me that they did not use Dad as a model for this.

Wednesday, December 21, 2011

Magician Lou Lancaster Celebration of life slideshow video

After mentioning Lou Lancaster in a couple of posts, I went looking for his web page and discovered that he has passed. This was a slideshow at the Broken Ring ceremony for his death.

Zig Zag Girl Early 1970s

I have mentioned this illusion in another post. The original concept came from Robert Harbin the English Magician. A Girl is placed into this cabinet, and then two blades are forced through the cabinet from front to back. The section in the middle is forced to the side and the girl appears to have been dismembered in three sections.

I first saw the illusion performed by Jim Sommers, in a late 1960's convention show in Beverly Hills/Hollywood. As I recall, there was quite a stir because the illusion was not widely available and there were proprietary claims being made by a number of people. The paint job on the Sommers built illusion was white and red. This orange and yellow combination is very indicative of the times that it was built.

One of the novel elements of the trick is that you see the girls face, one foot, and both hands through the whole procedure. It is simple to perform and has a great visual effect for the audience. Again, my Dad added a few improvements, there is a special panel that makes the mid section appear even further over than in the basic design. There were far superior rollers built into the prop he constructed. Also, the whole thing basically collapsed flat for transportation.

He built two or three at least. We kept one to use in our act when we were not doing a sawing in half routine. By the time I was out of High School, I had stopped working in the show on a regular basis. I have no memory of being on stage while the illusion was done by my Dad. I did see him do it a couple of times including a performance at the annual Knott's Berry Farm Halloween Haunt.

If you look closely at the pictures here, you can see subtle differences in the paint job and the frame on the shelf that the girl's middle moves to. This is another one of the props that just looks like a museum quality art piece. I do remember helping with the paint job on one of these, but not much else. My Dad was a stickler about the way the paint needed to look. Lots of layers, very shiny. This last shot is of one of the props in my Dad's library at their apartment.

Mid-60s Full Evening Show

I'm not sure what show this is from. It was clearly a big evening show since there are at least four people on stage at the same time as Dad. The man in the Waiters Jacket is Jim Sommers, and Mom is on the right. I can't see who the other woman is, and in the background is another assistant in a waiters jacket, that I do not recognize. This is near the start of the show, they are all involved in the fast opening. It looks like Dad is doing the vanishing cane, that would be followed by silk productions that would then yield a live rabbit (no top hat).

Shopping Center Show 1976

1976 was a busy year for us. I was in the middle of my first year at USC, we did the first Ice Capades show, the family did a bicentennial tour of the country, and my Dad was promoting shopping center entertainment using the portable stage he had designed for the Christmas shows we did a few years before. I was not a part of the current show since I was at school, but as you can see in these pictures my brother Kirk fulfilled the family obligations by assisting on stage.

This is a shot of the fast opening that was a stock part of the show. My Dad did a dozen or so effects in a two to three minute prelude to interacting with the audience and beginning the main part of the entertainment. I suspect this was a technique he picked up on while working with Blackstone. The girl in this shot is Connie Keeler, she and her husband worked with my folks frequently in big shows we did in the 60's and seventies. I'm sure I will have some more shots of them in future posts. I was out of the loop on this one, she contacted me and I was able to plug in the right info.

This is a shot of the guillotine routine that was also a standard in my Dad's show. He could do seven to ten minutes of comedy and audience interaction with this prop. usually my Mom, and another assistant (my brother or I) were on stage during the bit. Each had a little comedy gag that was part of the act. This is a Lester Lake style head chopper that looks terrific in black, chrome and red. This is one of the props from my Dad's vast collection that I have held on to.

Monday, December 19, 2011

Ice Capades 1976-1977

The first production that my Dad did with the Ice Capades was in 1976. I know that was the year because we went back to Battle Creek, Drove through New York, Down to Atlantic City (Where my Dad worked with the Capades on Rehearsals), made a long drive through Philadelphia, down to Williamsburg, back up to D.C. , and then back to Michigan. It was the bicentennial, and everyone seemed to be on the road. Dorthy Hamil had just won her gold metal at the Winter Olympics and she was joining the show about the same time my Dad showed up to start rehearsals.

Several of the props from this production ended up being re-purposed for the show in 1984, and one specific prop ended up in a Rock show that I will write about in another post. This project was worked on at my dad's shop on Walnut in Pasadena. It was basically a four car garage that he rented. I would say we were there from 1972 till about 1983. It was a place where we developed a lot of ideas, built a lot of props and created some good memories.

This is the show that this production style cabinet was originally made. As you can see it had a modern, deco style design. It was open on both side because I believe the skaters may have jumped thru it as part of the act. With both sides open you could clearly see it was empty. When it came back to us in 1984, it still was in good shape. Most of the work we did on it then was cosmetic in nature. This shot was taken on the driveway of the garage shop area.

One prop that did not come back was a cylindrical crystal casket illusion. Actually, it may have come back and then gone out to someone else, because I think I still have the hoop that held the curtain which was raised and lowered to allow the girl to disappear. Again, you can see my Dad's friend Ed Linde in this photo, the other man is Mark Gregory. He was one of those people in our lives, on a nearly daily basis for a period of time. (Others included Kelly Green, Bob Mason, Jim Sommers, Lou Lancaster, and Torchy Towner). He was the bright guy that came up with the plastic mold material that Dad used in making some small magic props. It was heavier than most plastics, it felt like really dense wood, so they dubbed it "pris-teak" or pressed teak. He later moved to Michigan and began restoring, casting and trading in carousel horses.

Another prop that we built that was not used in a later Ice show was the "Spiker". The skater is loaded into a steel frame box, sides are added, and then two sets of five long spikes are inserted into the box from each side. The girls hand is sticking out of a small window in one side of the box, with a bright silk scarf in it. The magician snatches the silk, the sides are quickly taken away and she has vanished. The sides are restored, the spikes removed, the prop is spun, and again the sides come down revealing the girls reappearing and without any holes.

The "Magician" in this show was the previously mentioned David Sadlier. He was an accomplished skater and appeared as a featured performer in the Ice Capades for several years. He was the most "out front" performer doing the magic sequences. I am pretty sure he did the Chinese Magic in the 1984 show as well. He wore a bright white and silver sequined set of tails with an outlandish top hat to identify him as the magician.

My memory is that he has a flash appearance in a "Throne Chair"illusion that we built. He then does much the same dove catching act and production of four skaters that I wrote about in the 1984 show. The crystal casket produces his beautiful skating partner and assistant in the rest of the act.

I do not have as many memories of this project as I did of the other because most of it happened during my first year at USC, and I only helped out occasionally. I do know that I am lucky I am not blind, because one night when we worked past midnight to clear a deadline, I got a sliver of aluminum tailing in my eye while cutting material for the spiker illusion. My Dad was very calm, and he was able to remove it before it did any damage. We stopped working then and went to dinner at the Salt Shaker in Pasadena at 1 or 2 in the morning. We did not tell my Mom about this incident and I never used a power saw again without having goggles on.

When the show came out to the West coast the next spring, we all went to it with my Dad's friend Piet Paulo. His girlfriend/wife at the time was a pretty girl, but she was also an alcoholic and she caused a scene in the stands while the show was on. My parents were embarrassed, I was mortified and my girlfriend, who came with us (she is now my wife of 31 years) didn't know what to think. It was not long after that Piet had a new girlfriend and later wife that we came to know pretty well Her name was Lexie. Anyway, there are a number of shots here that are from that visit to Southern California by the East Company of Ice Capades.

The title of the show that season was "It's Magic Time". It was a very successful collaboration, one that lead to a return opportunity several years later. My Dad must have loved the challenge of putting together a big production like this because it seems we had something similar going every couple of years in the late 60s through the late 80s.

Thursday, December 15, 2011

Topsy Turvy Illusion

The English magician, Robert Harbin, produced some great effects and published them in a book that he put out around 1970. The book originally sold for around a hundred dollars which was pretty steep for the times. It was supposed to be a limited edition, maybe just a couple hundred sold in the U.S.. There was some controversy at the time because magicians in the U.S. started producing the props that Harbin provided plans for. I don't know if the buyers were supposed to agree not to do so, or if there was some other embargo in place. I do remember that Jim Sommers, a friend of my Dad, presented the Zig Zag Girl out here on the West Coast long before every other magician in the 1970s was using the effect as a substitute for sawing a woman in half.

One of the other illusions in the book was Topsy Turvey. A girl goes in to a narrow box that pivots on a podium from side to side, she can be right side up and then flipped over to be upside down.

The Magician turns the girl upside down, shows her to the audience, and closes the panel. Then with a clap of the hands and by changing the indicator arrow on the fron of the pedestal she reverses positions instantly.

As I mentioned in another post, it would have extended my Dad's stage career considerably if I had been a girl, or if I could stay 13 or fourteen for an extra few years. I am posing here because I was available everyday while he was building this prop. I am pretty sure that this was another illusion he made for Tihany. We never did it on stage. In the early eighties, we did perform the Zig Zag on stage for certain shows.

My Dad frequently added improvements to blueprint plans that he would start with. Most of the time, he figured out proportions and angles that would be much more convincing and dramatic looking, than what was originally called for. Clients often had color schemes they wanted and the customer is always right, but here are some details on this that made the prop look better: he used some sparkling gold material that was very popular at the time for all the arrows, instead of simple paint; the panels are framed with red pin stripes to add color and contrast; the pedestal is not framed, to make it look narrower than it would have appeared as well; there was a set of rollers that covered part of the gimmick, which were far superior to the elastic that was called for in the original plans.

Most of the props my Dad made, could be displayed like fine furniture, but they were also sturdy and practical working props.

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.