We just received the very sad news from Alan Watson. He sent a bulletin note from John and Tammy Calvert:
We just heard from Norm Nielsen that John Booth passed away last Wednesday.
In January when we were in California, Bill McIlhany and his wife drove us to see John and his daughter. We met Dr Ragatz there and we all went out for lunch. John ate well and he even had a desert, somebody said he loved deserts. He was in very high spirits that day.
John Booth and John Calvert has been friends for many many years. They are both Leos and John Booth is one year younger than John Calvert. Their birthdays are within a few days apart.
John Booth was a prolific writer of magic and travelled the world making documentaries on film.
He wrote, “John Calvert has reached the mountain tops of existence and has opened windows through which we can peer.” John Booth.
Thank you John for all you have done for the magic fraternity. Rest in peace. We love you.
Steve Dacri wrote a wonderful tribute to Carl Ballantine.
He graciously gave permission for Inside Magic to re-publish here for our readers.
Whilst we were formatting the essay, we began to get a lump in our throat and by the end, we were in tears but with a smile. We really miss The World’s Greatest Magician, are envious of the friendship he shared with Steve Dacri, and so grateful Steve allowed us to republish his work here.
The phone rang, it was a little after noon. The familiar gravelly voice said, “Where are we having dinner?”
It was Carl Ballantine.
For a number of years, when we lived in Los Angeles not far from Carl’s Hollywood house, we had dinner at least 5 times a week together. It would start with the phone call, and we would plan the location. Sometimes it was a restaurant, other times, it was his house where he would cook a fabulous meal, and sometimes it was our house, which meant Jan and I cooked for him.
About an hour before the meal, I would drive to his house and pick him up. He would always have the cigar in his hand, and he’d climb into my car and I would say, “Carl, I have never smoked in my car.” And he would say something like, “you should try it.” Then he would re-light his stogie and off we went. He always had a few stops to make along the way (the news stand for the Daily Racing Form, or the coin change machine to cash in some of his seemingly endless supply of gigantic bags of money, for example.)
We were in Las Vegas last week and did not have access to anything that could be used to communicate with the outside world. Consequently, we were unable to pass along the very sad news that Inside Magic Favorite and Hero Carl Ballantine (stage name of Meyer Kessler) died in his sleep last Tuesday.
He was 92.
Mr. Ballantine was one of the most naturally funny performers we have ever met. He was a delightful man who took time for people of all stripes in and out of the business.
He was a successful actor and essentially made the show McHale’s Navy as the always scheming Lester Gruber.
His influence was broad and lasting. Steve Martin, David Copperfield, and Penn and Teller all credit Mr. Ballantine for making a new genre of magic. In 2007, Steve Martin presented Mr. Ballantine with the Magic Castle’s Lifetime Achievement Fellowship.
“Carl Ballantine influenced not only myself but a generation of magicians and comedians,” Martin said Wednesday in a statement to The Los Angeles Times. “His was also the most copied act by a host of amateurs and professionals.”
Kevin Pang of The Chicago Tribune tells us about the Windy City’s new magic enclave and suggests it may be a competitor to the iconic Magic Castle.
Heresy, we murmur. Still, we were born and reared in Chicago just a few blocks from the old Edgewater Presbyterian Church on Bryn Mawr Avenue. It was just up the street from the Walgreens and that liquor store that had no compunction about selling booze or girly magazines to 11 year-olds.
The church is no longer a church but the City Lit Theater. The Trib describes it as an ornate, charmingly old-time performance space with wrap-around, elevated seating for 100. One does not expect a theater like this in a location like here.”
Magic Chicago is the monthly show offered by the performers and includes magic and novelty acts.
Their first performance was in July 2005 and they’ve hosted Max Maven, Arthur Trace, and Michael Ammar.
The Trib provides a psuedo-warning to the lay public:
This show isn’t what most people have in mind when they think of magic. There are no glitzy Vegas productions, with tigers and industrial circular saws. More often than not, minds are blown in the audience, and the performers are close enough to catch the splatter.
We understand Eugene Burger performed his Fear and Fate show this weekend.
Read the full story of the theater’s origins and creative philosophy in The Chicago Tribune here.
Poor Houdini. He works hard his whole life, from circus worker, to neck-tie cutter, to sideshow freak, to dime-museum magi, and finally world’s greatest escape artist and spiritualist debunker. He cannot even rest in peace where ever his soul may now exist or not exist.
His work as an escape artist had him dangled from tall buildings, shoved into tight quarters with little air, submerged in frozen lakes and rivers, and a combination of all of the stunts in his Water Torture Escape.
To prepare for the exhibitions, he had to stay in top physical shape (without steroids or personal trainers), secret picks about and within his body, work the publicity machine around the world without the internets or even a fax machine.
Now, as he looks forward to an eternity of repose with his beloved, we magician types harass him to prove essentially that he will not answer.
We are just as skeptical as the next person — of course no one sits near us because we are constantly making comparisons to them — but wonder if there might be a better target for seance debunking.
Why not go for the spirit of some chatterbox? Alexander Graham Bell might be someone to pick on. He loved to talk. How about Martha Raye, Oscar Wilde, or Woody Woodpecker? Any politician might serve as a better test subject than someone who had already suffered so much attention and demands on his time like Houdini.
We just received the very sad news from Alan Watson. He sent a bulletin note from John and Tammy Calvert:
The phone rang, it was a little after noon. The familiar gravelly voice said, “Where are we having dinner?”
We were in Las Vegas last week and did not have access to anything that could be used to communicate with the outside world. Consequently, we were unable to pass along the very sad news that Inside Magic Favorite and Hero Carl Ballantine (stage name of Meyer Kessler) died in his sleep last Tuesday.
Kevin Pang of The Chicago Tribune tells us about the Windy City’s new magic enclave and suggests it may be a competitor to the iconic Magic Castle.
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