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.)
Continue reading Steve Dacri’s Tribute to Carl Ballantine
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.
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