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Jack Pyle | |
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| Born | 1909 |
| Died | July 17, 1987 (aged 77–78) |
Jack Pyle (1909-1987) was an American stage magician.
He was the third youngest of eight brothers and sisters, all of whom became scholars and professional people including a brigadier general. [1] He was influenced by a long-lost half-brother, a patent medicine salesman known as “Chief Lighthawk” [2] and did his first magic trick at age nine. An undated press clipping reports him performing at a Kiwanis club in Rockport, probably in 1940.
A later press clipping reports him in the Navy’s 52nd Defense Battalion in the Marshall Islands in World War II, performing for front line troops under “impossible conditions.” [3] He devised a way to produce a large pig (named Tojo) from thin air, which the natives eventually stole and ate. [3] [4] The pig trick evolved into his trademark “giant rabbit production.”
While recovering from illness in Honolulu he met the Japanese magician, Ishida Tenkai, who was reportedly under house arrest and not allowed to leave the island. [5] He and Tenkai both had short fingers and it was from Tenkai that Pyle learned how to do sleight of hand with this handicap. [5]
His first performance after the war was in the Empire Room of the Schroeder Hotel in Milwaukee. [6] He headlined at Milwaukee’s Celebrity Club, 26 Club, the Blatz Palm Garden, [7] Abe’s Colony Club in Dallas [8] He toured for International Harvester Inc. throughout the Midwest and Texas, pulling a house trailer with his wife Barbara and son John (later to become hypnotist John-Ivan Palmer), appearing in hundreds of small town theaters and auditoriums. [9] He did TV commercials for Hudson automobiles [10] and was a model for the riverboat gambler on Stancraft playing cards. [11]
In 1949 he was briefly associated with Harry Blackstone in Kansas City [12] and thereafter appeared at such prestige venues as the Copacabana, the Waldorf Astoria, the Palmer House and the Playboy Clubs. [13] He traveled on USO tours from the North Pole to the Arctic [14] and appeared at one time or another with virtually all the stars of his day including Sophie Tucker, Hank Williams, George Gobel, Dub Taylor, Jan Murray, Conway Twitty, George Kirby and Bobby Vinton. [15]
In the 1960s he performed in the emerging market known as “trade shows.” His close-up magic was known for its simplicity of technique and bold misdirection. He was one of the regulars at Ed Marlo’s ultra-secret Knights of Sleights Roundtable in Chicago. His Lake Michigan penthouse was full of mirrors so he could observe from all angles his natural body movements and their application to sleight of hand. [16]
During the last twenty-five years of his career he was managed by the Charles Hogan Agency in Chicago, the same agency that booked Bob Hope. He emceed for the Sergio Franchi tour. [17]
In spite of deteriorating health, he continued performing until a few weeks before he his death in Tampa, Florida. In his obituary in the conjurer’s journal M-U-M his final words on death are quoted as “If I get out of this one, I’ll be a hard act to follow!” [18]
His ashes were dispersed in the Gulf of Mexico.
The cups and balls is a performance of magic with innumerable adaptations. Street gambling variations performed by conmen were known as Bunco Booths. A typical cups and balls routine includes many of the most fundamental effects of magic: the balls can vanish, appear, transpose, reappear and transform. Basic skills, such as misdirection, manual dexterity, sleight of hand, and audience management are also essential to most cups and balls routines. As a result, mastery of the cups and balls is considered by many as the litmus test of a magician's skill with gimmick style tricks. Magician John Mulholland wrote that Harry Houdini had expressed the opinion that no one could be considered an accomplished magician until he had mastered the cups and balls. Professor Hoffman called the cups and balls "the groundwork of all legerdemain".
Sleight of hand refers to fine motor skills when used by performing artists in different art forms to entertain or manipulate. It is closely associated with close-up magic, card magic, card flourishing and stealing. Because of its heavy use and practice by magicians, sleight of hand is often confused as a branch of magic; however, it is a separate genre of entertainment and many artists practice sleight of hand as an independent skill. Sleight of hand pioneers with worldwide acclaim include Dan and Dave, Ricky Jay, Derek DelGaudio, David Copperfield, Yann Frisch, Norbert Ferré, Dai Vernon, Cardini, Tony Slydini, Helder Guimarães and Tom Mullica.
Card manipulation is the branch of magic that deals with creating effects using sleight of hand techniques involving playing cards. Card manipulation is often used in magical performances, especially in close-up, parlor, and street magic. Some of the most recognized names in this field include Dai Vernon, Tony Slydini, Ed Marlo, S.W. Erdnase, Richard Turner, John Scarne, and Ricky Jay. Before becoming world-famous for his escapes, Houdini billed himself as "The King of Cards". Among the more well-known card tricks relying on card manipulation are Ambitious Card, and Three-card Monte, a common street hustle also known as Find the Lady.
Harry Kellar was an American magician who presented large stage shows during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
William Ellsworth Robinson was an American magician who went by the stage name Chung Ling Soo. He is mostly remembered today for his accidental death due to a failed bullet catch trick.
Harry Lorayne is an American magician and a memory-training specialist and writer who was called "The Yoda of Memory Training" and "The World's Foremost Memory-Training Specialist" by Time magazine. He is well known for his incredible memory demonstrations and has appeared on numerous television shows including 24 times on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. His book The Memory Book was a New York Times bestseller. His card magic, especially his innovations in card sleights, is widely emulated by amateur and professional magicians.
David Frederick Wingfield Verner, better known by his stage names Dai Vernon or The Professor, was a Canadian magician.
The bullet catch is a stage magic illusion in which a magician appears to catch a bullet fired directly at them — often in the mouth, sometimes in the hand or sometimes caught with other items such as a dinner plate. The bullet catch may also be referred to as the bullet trick, defying the bullets or occasionally the gun trick.
This is a glossary of conjuring terms used by magicians.
Johnny Ace Palmer is an American close-up magician. He is famous within the worldwide magical community for his prodigious sleight-of-hand abilities.
Ryan Stock is a Canadian-based TV stunt man from Beaumont, Alberta who has a show on the Discovery Channel called "Guinea Pig". Stock and his fiancée Amber Lynn Walker travel around Canada and the United States and perform stunts involving electrical shocks, automobile crashes and intentional poisoning. The Guinea pig show is no longer in production but may still air in some countries. Stock became fascinated with magic at an early age and quickly developed his skills as a magician. He soon moved on from simple tricks to performing feats such as fire-eating and fire-breathing. Stock is also the creator and originator of several sideshow stunts performed around the world, notably his signature piece entitled "The Human MeatHead", created in 2000. This stunt involves forcing a large meat hook into his nose and out his mouth, from which he then hangs weight from the hook.
Daryl Easton, known professionally as Daryl and born Daryl Martinez, was an American magician based in Las Vegas. In his marketing he used the self-proclaimed title of "The Magician's Magician". Daryl usually went by his forename only.
Chink-a-chink is a simple close-up magic coin trick in which a variety of small objects, usually four, appear to magically transport themselves from location to location when covered by the performer's hands, until the items end up gathered together in the same place. Variations, especially the Sympathetic Coins also known as Coins-n-Cards, have been performed since the 1800s. Popular modern variations are Shadow Coins and Matrix. A variation using playing cards as the objects is known as Sympathetic Aces.
Karrell Fox was a 20th-century American magician and television performer.
David Tobias "Theodore" Bamberg was an itinerant magician who traveled with his full evening magic show from the early to mid part of the 20th century. In Bamberg's autobiography, Robert Parrish wrote in the introduction that no other great illusionist could match Bamberg's skill. The Fu Manchu show was known for its comedy, drama, and color.
The Magic Castle is a clubhouse for magicians and magic enthusiasts as well as the clubhouse for the Academy of Magical Arts. It is in the Hollywood district of Los Angeles, California, and it bills itself as "the most unusual private club in the world".
Francis Carlyle was a professional magician who was a regular and popular performer at Hollywood's Magic Castle.
Ben Seidman is an American sleight-of-hand performer, actor, comedian, and creative consultant who has won the entertainer of the year award for Princess Cruises and guest starred on Netflix's "Brainchild". He is the only person to have served as the Resident Magician at Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino in Las Vegas. In 2013, Seidman co-starred in Magic Outlaws on Travel Channel. Following the debut of his TV specials, Ben taught Johnny Knoxville magic tricks for his film Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa. Seidman’s performances are notable for featuring original magic effects. His inventions are employed in A&E’s program Mindfreak, starring Criss Angel, where Seidman served as writer and adviser for three seasons. Seidman tours globally, bringing his live show—a combination of sleight-of-hand, pickpocketing, and comedy—to colleges, parties and events.
Dennis Watkins is an American magician, mentalist, and actor, based in Chicago, Illinois. Watkins specializes in sleight of hand, walking on broken glass, swallowing razor blades, and a card trick known as the Balloon Trick, where he crawls inside a 7-foot wide balloon. He has performed across the United States, and his public show, The Magic Parlour, has been playing at Chicago's Palmer House Hilton Hotel since New Year's Eve, 2011.
David Williamson is a professional sleight-of-hand artist, magician, and author. David Britland of Genii magazine called him "an exceptional stage performer" and "a magician who changed the way we do magic." He was named Magician of the Year in 2017 by the Academy of the Magical Arts, and was named an Honorary Member of prestigious British association The Magic Circle.
