I Lie for Money

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I Lie for Money Page 5

by Steve Spill


  On one such occasion, Houdini had a large Mexican lunch and was locked in the crate with lots of trapped gas. At the moment Bob was ready to vanish and I was to reappear in his place, the most prolonged and mighty scented wind of methane ever escaped from me. Startled for a fraction of an instant, I lost my footing during the switcheroo with Bob and sharply twisted my ankle, which cracked like an egg. The adrenaline really flowed and I was caught up in the action. With pain shooting through my ankle, I knew I was hurt. How badly I was hurt remained to be seen. Like a crusty old football player, I figured I’d bounce back and told myself I was fine. Staggering to my feet, I finished the trick and the show as if nothing was wrong.

  At that moment, Bob was trapped in the crate with my backdoor breeze and the odor was overwhelming. Tears welled up in his eyes. The volunteers removing the chains and locks were a little slow. When the crate was finally unlocked and we were about to release Bob, I screamed, “We gotta get him out quick, when I was in the box I broke wind.” The line worked great and I kept it in the act.

  That night I took a load of Excedrin PMs. I don’t know how I ever managed to sleep that night, but I must have dozed, because I knew the instant I was awake, the pain began again, and I knew, without any hesitation, something was royally messed up. You’ve heard the old theater saying, “Break a leg?” That’s what I’d done, but in this case it was my ankle. I was in excruciating pain and my ankle was the size of a grapefruit. Had I not had a frame of steel and an abnormal will to live, I might have died of the injury. Okay, that’s not true, it actually was more painful of a fracture than severe. Otherwise I was as good as new. The ankle was put in a plaster cast and with the aid of a cane I could still do the show, except for the Houdini routine, which was physically too demanding.

  A member of our illustrious staff was rehearsed to take my place in the Houdini bit.

  The routine took on a new dimension of humor since my stand-in didn’t speak. He wasn’t a mute, just a little shy in front of 150 people. We had a solution. He wore the Houdini outfit and did the trick, but I did the dialogue with Bob.

  One funny sequence happened when Bob slammed the lid on the box and it looked like my stand-in’s hand was smashed. His hand was smashed and I’m the one who screamed in pain. Bob lifted the lid and I showed everyone—actually, my stand-in showed everyone—it was just a fake rubber hand. Bob and I capped the bit by singing a few bars of the Village People’s “Macho, Macho Man.”

  The situation brought a lot of new comedy to the routine. Bob and I felt pretty comfortable with this new arrangement. Then the show came when the stand-in’s hand really did get smashed. He had fractured fingers, I had a broken ankle, and the Houdini bit went on hiatus for six weeks.

  Between the illusions (that’s what we magic types call the tricks with larger props like people or big boxes), Bob and I alternated doing standup routines. My version of the aged Magic Coloring Book trick was a favorite. It started with a story about my boyhood visits to the barbershop. While getting my haircut I developed a taste for beautiful women by looking at Playboy magazine. As the audience heard the words “Playboy magazine” I held up a Superman comic book and flipped through so everyone could see cartoon pictures of the caped one.

  “With these special spectacles Superman turned into Playboy.” I put on a pair of glasses and suddenly the comic was magically now a Playboy magazine, complete with a sexy girl on the cover. Again I flipped through the pages, and this time everyone saw pictures of finely toned, scantily clad women. “But without the glasses it was Superman.” I took off the specs and again the publication had a Superman cover with superhero pictures inside, and magically changed back to Playboy when the glasses were returned to my face.

  “One time the barber said, ‘Hey Steve your mom is coming . . .’ I didn’t get the glasses off in time, and Mom saw the best Hugh Hefner had to offer; the naked centerfold fell out of the magazine and . . . Have you seen this month’s Playmate? She’s a real pig!” I turned around the centerfold and it was a big picture of the Muppets character, Miss Piggy.

  Here are some of my other favorite tricks from the Brook Farm Inn of Magic:

  • For this first one, I have to credit Mother Nature with an assist. The top half of the Farm’s back door had a frosted glass window; from the outside, after nightfall, it looked like a big white glowing square. Summer evenings a plethora of moths collected there, enabling me to occasionally share a charming mystery that simulated the creation of life. It was an easy matter to catch a big gray fuzzy moth and hold it by the wings, clipped between my fingers in a way that kept it hidden from the audience and allowed me to use my hands in a natural manner. Thusly prepared, I’d tear a tiny portion of a paper cocktail napkin into the shape of a moth. After a magical gesture the paper moth became real, spread its wings, and fluttered away.

  • Another regular part of the act, one of our best bits, was Mr. Sheets’s rendition of fire eating. The lights dimmed. A hush fell over the audience as Bob took his first gulp of a flaming torch. As he became more gluttonous, licking up the flames like a dripping ice cream cone, the crowd, convinced at last that he was not in danger, began to laugh. “You laugh now,” Bob told them, “five thousand years ago you would have made me chief.”

  • This was a reverse pickpocket routine, but instead of a pickpocket, I was a “put pocket.” A man from the audience joined me on stage and was astonished to discover that his sports jacket was full of sausages, a rubber fish, a plastic pig, a frying pan, a baby bottle, several bras, silk panties . . . and then suddenly a spoon fell out of the guy’s sleeve and clattered to the stage. Following that came a fork and two knives. The man looked down confused—to all appearances he had stolen a complete place setting. Finally an avalanche of silverware rained to the stage, with a tremendous crash.

  • Bob always knocked them dead with his Deck Stabbing. After having seven cards selected, the deck was spread face down and mixed over a tabletop. While blindfolded, Sheets would successfully stab each selected card in turn on the point of a knife. The last time he thrust his knife in amongst the scattered cards he would push the knife into the table top through one last card, which allowed him to dramatically tip the table over towards the audience whereupon all the cards would cascade onto the floor, the chosen card pinned to the table as to a target. When the card was plucked free it proved to be the last of the selected cards.

  At the time, other than Siegfried & Roy, Bob and I were under the impression that we were the only male magic duo out there. That is, until that day in 1981 when Penn & Teller came to one of our shows. Relaxed and uninhibited, we swapped stories and our counterparts were friendly, funny, and comfortable to be with. The following day Bob and I went to see them perform at Ye Olde Renaissance Pleasure Faire in Cumberland, Maryland.

  Rumor has it that Penn & Teller are still alive and flourishing in numerous stage, television and film projects, not only as performers, but also as writers, producers, and directors. My admiration of the hardworking daring duo’s talent that began back in 1981 was immense, and they continue to be a refreshing influence on me now in 2015. In fact, how Penn & Teller helped launch Magicopolis in 1998 will afford a few tinkling paragraphs later in this chronicle.

  PART TWO

  WAY BACK

  A LEADS TO B LEADS TO C

  I was pulled out of a hat. Others might say I was destined to be a magician. That it was fate. Supernaturally ordained. You might say it, but I wouldn’t. When it comes to paranormal phenomenon, most magicians are skeptics, and I’m no exception. Yes, magic goes way back in my family. No, I don’t believe in cosmic forces. Yes, I live my life amidst mysteries, miracles, and dreams.

  My father’s father (my grandfather Morris Spillman, whom I never knew) was a tailor in San Francisco. As the story came down to me through the years, one day in February 1910, my grandfather sewed some secret pockets in a magician’s tuxedo. That magician was a type known in the trade as a dove worker. He made birds magically appe
ar at his fingertips. Before the birds made their magical appearance, they were hidden in those tailor-made secret pockets.

  That magician, the dove worker, was more than satisfied with my dad’s dad’s tailoring skills, and he showed his gratitude with more than money. Besides paying the bill, he taught my grandfather a simple magic trick with string. The old man loved that trick where two strings magically became one and showed it to everyone. He passed that love onto my dad, who passed that love onto me.

  Same as my granddaddy, my father, Sandy Spillman, considered doing magic tricks a hobby. Dad was as good-looking as a movie star, charismatic, and happy-go-lucky, with watery gray-blue eyes. His voice was deep and resonant, his enunciation splendid, he was book smart, and had a wandering mind. When mom asked him to pick up milk and bread on his way home, he might show up a few hours late with a magazine. There was an aura about my father. I don’t know how to describe it, but there was something so impressive about him that he commanded love and respect, particularly from strangers. Dad had more charm than ambition, more dreams than follow through.

  As an on-air personality in early television, my dad’s magic hobby came in handy. In the 1940s, my father was a radio announcer. At the end of the decade his radio station got into the talking picture box business when they started KPIX-TV, the first television station in Northern California. That’s where my dad read the news, hosted chat shows, game shows, and did commercials.

  I distinctly recall my first definite memory. Perhaps this dawn of a knowable past was so thunderously certain because it concerned my passion for magic. It’s 1959, in San Francisco, and I’m nearly five years old. I’m seated on the couch in our family living room, a babysitter on one side and my infant sister, Susan, on the other. We’re watching TV. The television was a huge piece of furniture . . . on top were the antennas that enabled reception, called rabbit ears, below was a tiny rounded screen. The black-and-white picture was fuzzy and jumpy, and so was I.

  We were watching a program called The Money Tree. It was a game show, just like Who Wants to be a Millionaire, except this was a local Bay Area show sponsored by a neighborhood grocery store. Correct answers to odd and offbeat trivia questions won contestants a can of baked beans or a package of frozen peas, and the grand prize was an electric can opener. That’s what local TV was like in the 1950s.

  My parents were hosts of The Money Tree and they opened each show by warming up the studio audience. On that particular day, my mom and dad treated everyone to a little magic routine. We watched father tear up some tissue paper. He wiggled his fingers over the torn paper and said, “I want everyone to scream the magic words, ‘Money Tree,’ three times, and wiggle your fingers three times . . .” He unfolded the torn pieces of paper and they’d magically formed themselves into a hat. Dad put the funny hat, which looked more like a bonnet, on a man’s head and continued, “Call me sentimental, but I’d like you to have this.”

  Mom and Dad in a fifties TV press photo.

  As we watched the on-screen laughs and applause, my mom tore her own tissue paper as she spoke, “I’d like to make a magic hat for this handsome man’s beautiful and distinguished wife. I want to hear the words ‘Money Tree, Money Tree, Money Tree . . .’ At the count of three . . . One, two, two and a half, two and three quarters, three!”

  As she unfolded the papers the audience giggled, then laughed, and then applauded loudly. What mom held in her hand was made of tissue paper, but it wasn’t any kind of a magic hat; it looked like women’s bikini-style panties. To me they looked like my sister’s diapers. Mom put the panties on her head, “Stop laughing, it’s a hat!” Father chimed in, “Underwear is fun to wear. After this commercial break we’ll be back to magically make this lovely lady a matching bra!” It was at that moment that I knew I wanted to be a magician. And if it wasn’t, it should have been. The seeds of who I am now had been planted.

  About that time, the Spillman name was becoming firmly entrenched into the KPIX culture. As the face of much of the station’s original local programming, Dad felt secure in his steady solid little world as a San Francisco media personality. Among other station chores, he wrote commercial copy, newscasts, and together with Mom had created The Money Tree.

  Ultimately, my parents moved the family to Los Angeles, where they had sporadic success as actors, writers, directors, hosts—whatever they could get their hands on, really.

  Unfortunately, Hollywood life took a toll on my dad. He was sick of it, literally. He got an ulcer and was bedridden for a couple weeks. That’s when he lit the flame of magic in me, which, to this day, has never gone out. He sat up in bed, his jaws sagging at first, his face pale, stubbled with beard hairs, and taught me the simple trick with two strings that his father, my grandfather, had taught him. What I witnessed that day was one of the great thrills of my life.

  The instant he started teaching me, a transformation came over him or from within him; he was no longer a slumped man in bed suffering from an ulcer, but rather he was suddenly vital and strong as if nothing was the matter with him. He was a regal master mentor, majestically passing the baton, the magic wand, to his son. Nowadays the same sort of thing happens to me; if I’m ill and have a show to do, another set of reflexes takes charge and the ailments seem to vanish while I’m on stage. After that day, instead of Legos or little green army men, the only toys I played with were magic tricks.

  I was six years old when I gave my first public performance. It was in Encino, at the Hesby Street Elementary School talent show. The auditorium was packed with kids and parents. Everyone was watching and listening to my every word. You could hear a pin drop. I was in the spotlight, looking sharp. Mom had dressed me in a homemade cape, a top hat, and a small moustache that was pasted on my upper lip. I can still smell the glue, which made my nose twitch, so as I had walked onstage I pulled off the moustache and stuck it above the fly on my pants. As I did that I noticed my zipper was down. I spun around to fix things and the moustache got caught in the zipper and was hanging out of my fly when I bungled, faltered, and thoroughly screwed up The Vanishing Hanky Trick.

  Me at six years old, ready for action.

  What happened was that the hollow fake finger I was wearing fell off and landed in front of me on the floor, and the bright red scarf that had been hidden inside was hanging out. I tried to sneakily pick it up, stuff the hanky back inside, and put the fake finger back on my hand. I guess my hope was that no one would notice. But they did notice. Big time. Because it fell off again, I was a real smoothie. I screamed . . .

  “I hate you, fake finger. I hate you. I hate you.”

  The audience went into hysterics and I had a mini panic attack. I was marooned on stage with embarrassment. I tried to leave right that second, but I couldn’t find the split in the curtain. To be a truly great magician you have to be able to improvise. I improvised.

  “Someone let me out! Where’s the key to the curtain?! I’m trapped, well there’s only one way out . . .”

  I had started to crawl under the curtain, when it occurred to me that I didn’t want to leave my fake finger behind. It was a prized possession, and I made no secret about the fact that I wasn’t leaving without it. Still on my hands and knees, I turned around, crawled over, and grabbed it.

  “I’m not leaving without my fake finger. Don’t laugh, this trick’s hard to do when you’re wearing a fake finger!”

  The crowd exploded with applause and screams of laughter. And my six-year-old brain thought, I did that. I made them laugh. I felt something rise up in me, a sense of pride, accomplishment—and at the same time absolutely no sense of accomplishment. I wasn’t any good, and I knew it. But that moment a realization came over me; getting laughs can get you out of a jam. It felt like when my mom had the tissue paper panties on her head, which at the time, I didn’t know was a carefully planned accident.

  I also didn’t know that it’s better for people to laugh with you instead of at you. But I knew I liked being on stage, and I liked gett
ing laughs. And I wanted to feel like that again. I was hooked. Believe me, there is nothing that feels as good as standing, or crawling, on stage and hearing the laughter and applause of an audience. At the same time, there is nothing more humiliating during your very first show than reeking of dorkdom. I wanted so deeply to be good but didn’t know how. I guess I had a little talent then, maybe no more than any other six-year-old, but a passion was developing.

  A FIFTY-CENT DECK OF CARDS

  Father directed a low-budget Tarzan movie, and the sudden burst of affluence moved us from our modest Encino address to a better address in the next town to the west, Tarzana. Yep, Tarzan got us to Tarzana, named because the land was once a ranch owned by Edgar Rice Burroughs, the well-known author of the jungle stories of Tarzan the ape-man.

  Our Spanish adobe structure was a stone’s throw from a tall iron enclosure surrounding the old Burroughs mansion, on Otis Avenue, a road named for General Otis, the original publisher of the Los Angeles Times and the guy who sold the ranch to Burroughs. The rock-solid homes that comprised our immediate neighborhood were the oldest in the city and each had a front lawn and a eucalyptus tree or three.

  At the time, the rest of Tarzana were more modern pricier palatial homes in the hills surrounding two golf courses, El Caballero Country Club and Braemar Country Club. Tarzana was mostly a community of affluent suburbanites, many of whom tipped caddies, drove Caddys, and sent their kids to snazzy private schools. I came to resent one of those rich kids who looked down his nose at me.

  I was ten years old when I was a regular at Femia’s Party Shop on Ventura Boulevard in Tarzana. The proprietor, Charlie Femia, was a wild old man who always wore a squashed hat, little round glasses, and a rumpled shirt with baggy pants and suspenders. When he was hawking magic tricks, he would point so that it looked like he was giving people the finger, as he would say, “It’s not three dollars, it’s not two dollars, it’s only one dollar.” Everyone used to laugh at the way he would point with his middle finger because they thought he didn’t know he was doing it. I was never quite sure.

 

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