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.

Thursday, June 21, 2012

Tops Magazine Article

The picture that is the masthead for this blog is a publicity picture used by may dad and featured on the cover of Tops Magazine in October of 1964. Tops is the magazine published by Abbott's Magic, the largest magic manufacturing company in the U.S.. Percy Abbott was a personal friend and mentor to my dad when he was a young magician growing up in Battle Creek Michigan, just a few short miles from Colon Michigan where Abbotts is located.

This article was written Will Rock, one of the old time vaudeville performers, who had acquired most of the Thurston show before the war and then toured it for several years before deciding to retire from show business. I have some nice photos of Will Rock from his touring days and from when he came and visited us in the early 1980s. If you click on the pages, your photo viewer should allow you to scroll in and read the complete text. It is very complementary and has some details that fill in some blank spaces here and there. For instance, there is a reference to Vampira and Bela Lugosi which makes me feel more confident that the IMDB credit on Plan 9 was in fact referring to my dad. I'm not sure that is much of an honor, but it is sort of interesting to me.

There is some additional background on TV and movie credits, as well as some proposed stunts that never came off. I would like to have seen the Indian Rope Trick at Dodger Stadium myself. Will Rock clearly believed the legal claims to many effects that my Dad asserted over the years. The controversy over the stretching a woman illusion appears to have some basis in the deal he and my Dad made when he gained the rights to the equipment. I am sure most of this will be of little interest to magicians these days since they all have their own battles to fight, but it might show that string of conflict that has existed from the ancient past right up to the present time.

As a kid I remember showing off the article to my friends and I think I even took it to school for show and tell one time. Most of us could not grasp all the material that was being referred to but I did like that my name made it into the article along with my Mother and brothers.

Tuesday, June 19, 2012

Kirkham auf Deutch

Found this listing when I was looking around on-line a few weeks ago. It is probably a summary of an English language page, but I appreciate that someone in the world is bothering to be a completest.

Wednesday, June 13, 2012

It's Magic 1967

My Dad was close friends with John Daniels at one time. They were in fact like brothers. I have heard several times that they had fall outs with one another like clock work. I saw that John Daniel passed away a year or so ago, it sounded like he went through some of the same issues my Dad had at the end of his life. I spoke to John after my Dad passed and he purchased a few items from the collection back in the mid 1990s.

While they may have run hot and cold, I know my Dad tried to keep a warm spot in his heart for his old friend. One way I know that is he saved a review of It's Magic from 1967. The second half of the show was entirely John Daniels revue. Here is how it appeared in the Times:

It seems to me that he saved it for twenty five years because he was proud of his old friend.

A Couple of Old Friends In the Kirkham Magic Album

It has been a while since I have posted regularly. Just busy, but I did not want to go too long without an updated post, so here are a couple of quick pictures and Stories.

David Alexander

David was one of those young guys that my Dad encouraged and he became friend with. I remember him visiting us at the house in East L.A. and driving an Opel, which looked a little like a shrunken Corvette. He seems to have been an outsider with the L.A. Magic community a bit like my Dad. I came across a not so nice note reprimanding him for some incident that was embarrassing to Bill Larsen Jr. I have no context but it seemed as if they wanted to drive him out of the Magic Castle over it. That sounds like some one my Dad could get along with. I do know that like most of my Dad's friends, there were a couple of times when they were on the outs with each other, but they usually got over that. I had tried to contact him when I started working on this blog, but he passed just a couple of years ago. I remember speaking to him on the phone after my Dad had died, and he told some great stories. He encouraged me to write about my Dad. I wish I had started all of this earlier so I could check in with David for the inside scoop on some of this.

This is a postcard he sent to my folks when we were living in Alhambra in the Midwick Track. He was one of the early performers to work regularly on cruise ships. As you can see, he was on a Mexican Cruise when he sent this note. I appreciated that he sent his best to my Mom and us as well.

Piet Paulo

I think I have mentioned Piet before. He was a regular at my folks apartment in the 1970s and early 1980s. We built a Mismade girl and a Zig Zag for him in that time frame. I remember going with him and his girlfriend at the time, down to the Sports Arena to see the Ice Capades show we had built. Later on, he married another girl that worked with him in his act, her name was Lexie. At one point he was working at Knotts, doing a show and they left their sleeping baby in the car when they went in to pack up their equipment. It turned into a big deal because someone saw the baby in the car and called the cops. It was night time, and they were only gone a few minutes but it was a big stink. Now a days, everyone is much more conscious of those kinds of potential dangers, when it happened (1981 or 82) we thought it was much ado over nothing. This shot is in front of my folks apartment, around the bicentennial. I had that flag up on the wall of the room I shared with my younger brother. After I moved into the other bedroom, we put the flag out on holidays. I don't have it anymore but I do still have the flag my Mom put out on a pole at the front of the building. I don't know what ever became of Piet, I did get a card or two after my parents were gone, but as to his career, I have no idea where it went.

Saturday, May 12, 2012

Joel McCrea and the Kirkhams

I don't really know any background on this shot. It appears to be a publicity shot from an MGM event. My parents were working behind the scenes on an MGM movie back in 1949, so it is possible that they were at an event on the studio lot. This is a photostatic copy of a glossy 8 x 10. The glossy is somewhere out in the shed and it would take me days to find it, but I saw that Joel McCrea is the Star of the Month on Turner Classic Movies for May and I wanted to get this up in time for that occasion. As you can see in addition to being a big star, McCrea was a big man. He also happened to come from the town my grandparents and parents settled in when the came to Southern California, South Pasadena. My Dad worked on a great number of movie and television projects but neglected to have the foresight to always a have a camera with him. If the smart phones of today had been available in their time, I would have some great pictures to share of Howard Keele, Ann Miller, Dick Van Dyke, Jimmy Durante, Diana Ross and many more. I like this shot because both of my parents are in it and they are not really posing so much as performing. My friend Ron, who was very close to my parents, shared a piece of info about the picture above. It appears to be on the set of "Stars in Your Crown", a Joel McCrea film from 1950. Ron says my Dad was a technical adviser on the film. I looked up the movie and there is a magician character featured in a traveling medicine show in this Civil War era Western. So Dad probably provided props, training or maybe an insert for the show. I was saddened to read that the actor who played the Medicine show magician actually died the week the movie was released. The movie is available as a Warner Brother's custom burned DVD, so I will be looking for it and watching it soon.

Wednesday, April 25, 2012

Kirk Kirkham Tribute Poster

I will be doing a post down the road about the fantastic poster collection my Dad once had. His old friend Norm Nielson, has a terrific business in posters and many other copies of those posters we that we once owned are available on his site. I just happened to notice a bump in visitors to this blog, and when I followed the links, I ended up on Norm's site. He has put together a beautiful commemorative poster of my Dad's magic career. Norm offered some very warm memories and some sad ones in the recent article about my Dad in "Magic Magazine". I was told he wanted to put a poster together, but I did not know it was done. I must say that it is far beyond any expectation that I had. I want to thank Mr. Nielson again for his friendship, and I would encourage any of you who read this page to visit his site. I have linked the page here.

Saturday, April 21, 2012

Orson Wells and Kirkham Magic

In response to the last post, featuring what turns out to be the Nicola Throne Chair, as once owned by Blackstone Sr. and Kirk Kirkham, I received an e-mail note that one of the readers seems to recall seeing this illusion performed by Orson Wells on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, sometime in the early 1980s. I went in search of a video for such a performance and came up empty handed. If Wells did present it, there is a good chance he rented it from my Dad, I don't think Wells kept a collection of large illusions.I was reminded however that we had a couple of contacts with the Great Orson Wells during his lifetime.

At the time that was mentioned in the email, I remember my Dad digging out some props that Mr. Wells was interested in using. One was a large wooden barrel that had some kind of gimmick to it that I was not familiar with. The barrel had warped in storage, and my Dad put it in the swimming pool at the apartment building to try to get in back in shape. I don't think it worked, and the attempt to get a large water soaked oak barrel out of the pool was something for a Laurel and Hardy movie. I remember that Wells came to the apartment but I don't think he even got out of the car. He and my dad had their meeting in the parking area in front of the building.

My Father had history with Orson Wells and that was probably one of the reasons we were contacted. Back in 1956 or 57, Wells did a Magic act at the Riviera Hotel in Las Vegas. My Father was the technical adviser, which meant he supplied a lot of the props, played the role of assistant and did general show work for the run of the performance. I don't think that they worked more than a few weeks in the nascent gambling mecca. I do know that my Mom was with them because of the following physical evidence.

I originally saw this picture in Magic Magazine, shortly after my Mom passes away in 1994. She was given a nice obituary and this photo was featured at the end of the magazine. I have misplaced the copy I have, but when I was looking for the Orson Wells Video on the Carson show, I ran across this photo. Wells looks a little worse for wear, but Mom always seemed great on stage.

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.