CARDI N I

The World's Most Imitated Magician written by JOHN BOOTH

ROBERT HOUDIN streamlined modern wizardry by slicing off the heavy trappings and draperies, the ornate costumes and ponderous equipment, with which conjuring had always been associated. He stepped into the clothes of a gentleman and magic suddenly shucked its loin cloth. The profession had come of age and was received into its rightful niche as an art fit for the most fastidious audience.

The, next great arrival upon the stage of magicdom to make significant changes in the life stream of legerdemain was a young Englishman named Cardini. He reduced the amount of equipment still further, revived an interest in pure slight-of-hand and opened up a new and lucrative arena for the work of youthful conjurers the world over. So popular did his style of performance become that imitators sprung up on the five continents of the world. His every gesture, his dress, 'even his routine were simulated down to the last tilt of the little finger. This man, who started a new school of conjuring to feed the night club and hotel appetite which had grown ravenously overnight, is still with us.

Richard Valentine Pitchford was born in Mumbles, Wales, November 24th, 1895, of English parents. The blood of a clergyman, a watchmaking jeweler and a bandleader flowed together to produce this man of nimble ringers and an agile brain. At the age of six or seven Chung Ling Soo stirred a wierd longing in the boy's breast. The Great Lafayette, Nate Liepsig and Frank Van Hoven, the madcap magician, added coals to a dormant fire. The flame finally burst forth when, as a caretaker for a Billiard Parlour, young Richard met billiard and gaming sharks face to face. From them he learned the rudiments of the gamester's trade: bottoms, seconds, the pass.

Under their tutelage he became an outstanding billiards player, studying with George Gray, the world's champion billiards player in that period. But for the outbreak of war he would have fulfilled an ambition to make this' his life career.

In France with the King's Shropshire Light Infantry, the future manipulator Cardini, practiced with a dirty pack of playing cards. The trenches were cold and damp. Gloves were in order to keep the hands warm. From his first magic book, Down's 'Art of Magic', he had learned the back and front palm. In the trenches the young magician was trying to emulate a feat attributed to Houdini: the black palming of a full pack. He was annoyed by the fact that in producing the sticky cards they came out in bunches. Thus are great ideas born. Today magicians the world over sit breathlessly watching cards appearing in fans from gloved hands belonging to this once struggling military magician.

Caught in a frightful barrage, shell shocked and suffering from blast concussion, reported killed in action, he finally found himself incarcerated in a mental hospital in Southhampton, England. That psychiatry has discovered the beneficial effects offered by the sense of purpose and meaning given through dabbling in magic we all know; that Cardini maintained his sanity by practicing tricks while surrounded by mental cases, many don't know. The fact that he wanted to do tricks while wearing gloves had contributed to the doubtfulness of his sanity on the part of military officials.

Ultimately he was released and, dressed as a woman whom the world knew as Madame Juliet, he was on the receiving end of a second sight act. Later he joined concert parties presenting a small club act which was expanded into a third rate vaudeville act which managed to play some of the less guilded provincial music halls. Richard Pitchford was still groping for the medium in which he was to become the world's brightest star. His act lasted twenty-five minutes, was done in patter, and featured the rising cards from a swinging roulette and a double flag-stave production. The floating ball was soon added. The cigarette trick had not yet made its appearance in the routine.

Will Goldston, the prolific genius of the magic pen, had just resigned as demonstrator for Gamages Magic Department. Pitchford was engaged. Private lessons in magic swelled his income as his health diminished. One day a short, dapper figure stopped momentarily to watch him practice his card sleights behind the counter. "You're wasting your time. Anyone can do that!" snorted the man. Max Malini moved away.

To regain his failing health Pitch-ford sailed as a crew member on a cargo ship which touched Africa, South America and Australia. Upon his return to England he assumed the name of Val Raymond, The Australian Gloved Card Expert. He had fallen in love with Australia, however, so secured a position for himself as steward on a liner in order to return to the land of the Anzacs. The position was given him because he could entertain the passengers in the evening with his ventriloquism!

In Sydney, with funds nearly exhausted, he landed, by a miraculous piece of luck, a contract to play the entire Tivoli Circuit of theatres. He had fortified himself with two scotch and sodas, appeared in street clothes on a matinee tryout, and tore the house down with his card productions. He was advised, in the manager's office, to change his name.

"Val Raymond is the name of a hypnotist wanted by the police on some pretty serious charges. Why don't you call yourself Houdini?" The man was serious.

"I couldn't do that. I might call myself ... oh ... why not Cardini]" And so it has remained since that day in 1923. In Melbourne, at the manager's request, he switched to top hat and evening clothes.

As a boy in Wales Cardini had first seen cigarette magic. Chung Ling Soo had smoked a cigarette and caused smoke to appear within a covered Oriental vase. Before the denouement of the effect Chung (the ill-fated Billy Robinson) had done a few sleights with the lighted tube. Later Cardini had learned cigarette tongue-ing from the boys who hung their hats in the Billiard Parlor. As the years passed he caught two further improvements of this amazingly beautiful feat. Florenzo and Zelak were the first to do multiple cigarette effects. Frakson followed. The continental procedure was highly spectacular, involving the blowing of huge clouds and smoke and sparks from the mouth. It was an improvement on the fire eating acts of less dignified theatre stages.

In Australia Cardini began to work on the cigarette mystery as a legitimate production routine shorn of pyrotechnical displays. One night he 'gagged' it up a bit at a party. He pretended he was drunk. The frolick-ers roared with laughter.

"You ought to put that into your act," was the cry. In it went. The Billiard Ball Trick, the Thimble Production, Card Mysteries and Any Drink From a Kettle constituted his pet act. He was working with four different routines at the time.

After playing the major circuits of Kangaroo-land he sailed in 1926 for the Mecca of showbusiness, the United States. After a brief stay in Vancouver, he played minor houses in order to reach New York where he hoped to establish himself. Everywhere he played he was asked to brush up on his showmanship.

"And you must not wear your top hat while you work. It won't do," he was advised. Where was he to hang the hat? He solved this problem by wiring to the hotel cashier of a Chicago hotel, whom he had just met. She was hired to walk on the stage, take his hat and walk off. This arrangement meant he saw too little of the young lady. So he made her Mrs. Cardini. Together they began, on that occasion, one grand march together across the greatest vaudeville stages in the world. In years to come he appeared five times upon the stage of the world's largest theatre, The Radio City Music Hall, carrying only a packet of cigarettes, a deck of cards and a pipe to amuse six thousand people at each performance! He set the night club craze for magicians in motion with a nine month run at the first nightclub in the country, Billy Rose's Casino de Paree. To Europe, and there he spent three months in Stockholm, two months in Berlin at the Scala, nine months at the Palladium in London. He has just returned from four months in South America in Rio de Janeiro. In North America he has headlined all the major circuits with the card, cigarette, ball and thimble routine which has excited the imitative instinct in so many less original magicians.

Thus we follow the rise and evolution of a great magician and his brain child. His act has been characterized by various experimental open-

ings. At one time "Three O'Clock In the Morning" was played to bring him on for his drunk bit. Cardini was amused when I told him that an Argentine musician, staggering home one night from a party, concocted the highly appropriate piece when he heard the clock in a nearby tower strike three in the morning. I have taken pictures of that tower in Buenos Aires.

Later, Mrs. Cardini, in smart pageboy clothes, entered, paging the wizard. She took his newspaper and held it as a tray to receive the card productions. Another successful opening saw his better half sweeping the stage as a street cleaner. Whistling the "Blue Danube Waltz" she annoyedly swept up the cards as he threw them down in fans.

His true forte, many claim, lies in the realm of cigarette magic. This was lifted from a smoke belching spectacle to an impeccable demonstration of conjuring, dramatized against a setting provided by the ingredient of inebriation. It is comedy lifted to a high plane.

"What is the theory behind your routine?" I asked Cardini the other day. All successful pantomime acts are built to a pattern; a specific subjective feeling enables the performer to carry out his movements uniformly, year in and year out, because he is acting a definite part. What is the role Cardini endeavors to fill?

"I am trying to register that whimsical annoyance or sophisticated disgust which would be shown by an alcoholic who can't get rid of his cigarette. Just when I imagine that I have gotten rid of the cigarette, another one is between my fingers. There is a definite story I am trying to get over in pantomime. At the moment when I think I have the cigarette business licked up comes a cigar. I am amazed. Then the inevitable cigarettes again. When they taste bad I throw them away. Finally we, the audience and I are all amazed when a pipe appears."

"What are you thinking as you work in pantomime?" I asked

"I am talking to myself as though I am really drunk and amazed and annoyed at the proceedings. I think through my reactions so they will be natural and get across to the audience. There is a rhythm which must be kept; if it is lost I am lost. Neither can I follow myself with an encore because I would have to step out of character."

"I try to convey the impression that these are not conjuring tricks. After all, tricks are secondary to entertainment value. Few people realize when real skill is being utilized. If a thread will do the work more surely I would not hesitate to employ it. If skill involves a great risk of occasional failures, and isn't appreciated anyway, use an apparatus trick if it registers well."

That is the opinion of one of the most skill ful magicians in the magic business. It may be taken to heart by struggling manipulators as well as by apparatus-conjurers.

Cardini wisely makes himself appear to be the goat of all his tricks. He protects himself from over enthusiastic night club imbibers by not appearing to be a 'smart aleck' wizard ; he generates sympathy through his plight. "He's a silly ass but how does he do it?" is the general feeling toward him.

In order to get the feel of his manipulation-articles he spends a few moments warming up before a performance. Cardini uses the largest Billiard Balls available. "They must look like Billiard Balls, to be right," he states. "Little red balls look silly. I use two whites and a red. Billiard players then appreciate what I am doing. Otherwise they would look like trick balls. If a man can't handle the large set he should use the golf

ball sets. They, at least, are appropriate items.

"Most magical skill isn't appreciated because people think there is a trick in it. A juggler gets a big hand because it is obvious he uses skill. This accounts for the small applause which greets most manipulation," answered Cardini to my question relative to weak applause. "When I want to know where the weaknesses in my act lie I ask spectators, with no magic knowledge, what they didn't like."

Cardini covers up every steal with a carefully designed, natural gesture. The monocle drops from his eye as he registers bewilderment; in thaf moment a steal has been made. A laugh comes when he blows smoke through a monocle he has been wearing, without a glass: another crucial move has occurred. An imitator at the Palladium once did his act down to the last move, without realizing why certain mannerisms he had copied were a part of the technical usefulness of the originator's act.

Today Cardini still headlines the nation's big shows. The Society of American Magicians has made him their chief executive this year. He has given command performances in Europe; entertained Presidents of this country. What is the seciet of Richard Cardini's power? I think an astute reviewer for the French newspaper Les Debats, in 1933, answered that question when he wrote:

"is by their ability to renew the old and to give fresh life to what has already been seen that true artists distinguish themselves, and Cardini is one of them."