Orson Welles - The Man Who Was Magic: Part 1

by Barton Whaley

  270 Ceplair & Englund ( 1980), 225-231.

  271Herbert Romerstein & Eric Breindel, The Venona Secrets: Exposing Soviet Espionage and America's Traitors (Washington, DC: Regnery,2000), 303-304; Wolton (1993), 248, etc.; VENONA intercept, Moscow to NYC, 1 Jul 1942.

  October 1943 found Dolivet in the U.S. Army, but was out within three weeks. It was suspected he'd pulled sone of his powerful political strings. In any case, even this brief patriotic service qualified him as an alien for quick naturalization. He applied, his two witnesses being his wife and his assistant.272

  Dolivet visited Hollywood that fall (1943) to whip up West Coast celebrity support for his Free World, Inc., association. He was referred to Jackson Leighter who happened to be Orson’s business manager. Leighter introduced Dolivet to many Hollywood names, including Charles Boyer, the popular French expatriot film star and pro Free French Gaullist. Boyer, as founder and head of the anti-Nazi French Research Foundation (on La Cienega Boulevard), lent space in his Beverly Heights mansion for Dolivet's new Hollywood branch of his Free World, Inc. Although Dolivet became prominent among the Free French in America, many considered him brutal and unscrupulous.273

  Leighter soon introduced refugee Dolivet to Orson who, I presume, shared Michael Straight’s initial view of Dolivet as a “passionate” anti-fascist. And he certainly admired this lanky tall (taller than he) man's abilities as an orator and organizer, a man seven years Orson's senior. Orson contributed his first editorial to Dolivet's Free World magazine for its October 1943 issue, with eleven more following through the war until November 1945. He was in fine company with such other contributors as Winston Churchill, Harry Truman, Secretary of Labor Perkins, Supreme Court Justice Douglas, and Czechoslovakian President Beneš. Orson had found a congenial and very willing political manager in Dolivet. Several of Orson’s public speaking appearances in the period from September or October 1943 until 1946 were arranged by Dolivet. It was also in this period that Dolivet joined Rita and Dr. Bernstein in their concern that Orson’s heavy drinking was getting out of hand.274

  Dolivet's correspondence with Orson shows his "oily" side. His coy subservience, his chummy references to "Poucles" (Pookles), the cocker spaniel that Orson had given Rita; and his rather sly way of steering Orson toward topics he suggested for editorials in his magazine and other bits of help.275

  From Los Angeles Orson went with Dolivet to New York City where from late October on into December he continued his round of speeches and committee work for the war effort, making no effort to conceal his “radical" politics. A fringe benefit for Dolivet's handling Orson was that on 25 October 1943 in New York he also got a very reluctant Rita Hayworth onto the dais at his Free World Congress dinner where Orson was addressing the assembled diplomats and celebrities. But all was not as it seemed with Dolivet for, as we’ll uncover, he had two sinister hidden agendas, one personal, the other political.

  MAGICAL MEDLEY Of Orson's level of conjuring skill that year, pro magician Card Mondor judged, “Welles was a lousy magician but one helluva showman. [But] who needed magic skills when he could sell a trick the way he did."276 Orson would have agreed – on both points. The public and critical enthusiasm for the Wonder Show reinforced his belief that he could become one of the world's great magicians. All he needed were those “magic skills".

  272 Dallin (1955), 311.

  273Colin W. Nettelbeck, Forever French: Exile in the United States 1939-1945 (Oxford: Berg, 1991), 145-146.

  274Leaming (1989), 99-100, interviews with Beatrice Straight and Louis Dolivet.

  275Dolivet correspondence file for 1944-45 in the Lilly Library.

  276Card Mondor letter to BW, 23 Jul 91.

  In fact, he'd already been trying with some success to improve his card magic. He'd read his favorite co-authors' Miracle Methods Number Three. Hugard and Braue's 32-page booklet had appeared the previous year. It included Hugard's own method for The Aerial Cards.277 This was, as Hugard acknowledged, a version of the famous Thurston Rising Cards that Howard Thurston had performed since sometime just before the turn of the century and that the young Orson may have seen him do or would at least have known about. He practiced Hugard's version, found it easy, and performed it to “great effect".278 It was indeed stunning: Volunteers freely select three cards and return them to the deck, which is shuffled by Orson. He holds the deck in one hand and raises his free hand high above his head. At his command, each selected card, in succession, rises slowly from the deck and floats upward into his raised hand. Although Thurston had limited his version to the proscenium stage, Hugard's method was also suited to the corner of a room or any wide entrance-way.

  Seeking advanced lessons in card magic, he turned to Jean Hugard, who was one of the two leading magic teachers in the metropolis. {SIDEBAR} At age 70 Jean Hugard (pronounced ZHAHN hew-GARD) was one of the grand old men of magic. Born plain John Boyce in Australia, he'd become a professional magician in the first year of the new century. Sixteen years later he'd moved to the United States where he worked vaudeville for a couple of years. He then operated his own small magic theater in Luna Park at Coney Island until 1929 when he retired from active performing to write about and teach magic. At the time Orson met him, Hugard had already authored or co-authored (with the brilliant Fred Braue) several major books on magic (plus a couple of translations of French magic books), had recently started publishing-editing one of the better magic magazines, and was giving private lessons in New York City.

  Orson would have been pleased to learn that some four decades earlier Hugard had also regularly performed the Bullet Catch, once even being wounded slightly in the chest. Although Hugard was one of the most knowledgeable men in magic, he had been partially deaf throughout adulthood and was growing blind.

  {END SIDEBAR}

  On a day's telephone notice an appointment was made for Sunday, November 21st. Coming from his home in Brooklyn, Hugard arrived in mid-Manhattan at the Gotham Hotel on Fifth Avenue at noon for their three hour session. Hugard came with a negative preconception about his latest celebrity client: “The impression I had formed of Welles as regards his interest in magic was that he was another of the fellows who buy tricks and so become magicians." But, as Hugard quickly discovered:279

  I had a very pleasant surprise. First, he is a very charming personality. Big fellow I suppose about 26 years of age [actually 28] but looks younger – a rounded face, good eyes, simple in manner and entirely unaffected.

  Began by telling me he had been interested in magic since he was a kid; had never had any chance to get any tuition in it, just picked up little things but formed a high ideal of what magic should be. But he saw, as he said, so much bad magic and so few magicians that came anyway near to the ideals he holds that he despaired of ever being able to become a good magician himself.

  277 Jean Hugard and Fred Braue, Miracle Methods Number Three: Prepared Cards and Accessories; A Collection of Feats of Conjuring with Cards Employing Artificed Cards and Simple Accessories (Alameda, California: Hugard and Braue, 1942), 23-25.

  278As OW later told Hugard. See Hugard letter to Braue, 29 Nov 43.

  279Hugard letter to Braue, 23 Nov 43. This and the following Hugard-Braue letters are from the Jeff Busby Collection.

  Orson explained how he'd discovered the Hugard-Braue books two years before and had tried to master them but soon decided he would need tutorials from co-author Hugard. “All this and a lot more," Hugard relayed to Braue, “in such a frank and pleasant way that you warmed to him at once."

  So we got down to work and it was a really fine experience to have so fine a mind to explain things to. I started right in from the very basic sleights beginning with the ramifications of the overhand shuffle and since he had the in-jog in the rough he made pretty rapid progress. By the time we had spent two and a half hours he was up to the in and out-jog and throw so I drilled him in the set up of three aces and after that your trick with the three aces and royal flush, first six hands and three aces to dealer
then five hands and the royal flush.

  He was simply delighted and amazed to find that after all when the right technique is acquired how easy most sleights are; how much the little neglected details mean in doing magic. But he was so keen on keeping on that we covered too much ground.

  I warned him that he ought to take notes, you know that no matter how clear a thing is at the moment if you keep on and on without notes it's very hard, in fact impossible to remember everything. However, he was enjoying it; in fact there was such a boyish enthusiasm and delight, you'[d] think he was having the time of his life. When we had to stop, he said he'd ring me up for another lesson just as soon as he could manage it.

  Among other things, Hugard taught Orson how to do Erdnase Stock Shuffles.280 Heady stuff. The mysterious American card sharp and amateur magician, Milton Franklin Andrews, who wrote under the pen name S.W. Erdnase, had published his classic The Expert at the Card Table back in 1902.281 His Stock Shuffles enable a card sharp or magician to “stock" (stack) a deck during an overhand shuffle so that 2, 3, 4, 5, or even 12 cards can be kept under control during such later maneuvers as dealing.

  Hugard returned for their second session next afternoon at three o'clock. Asking how his recent Mercury Wonder Show had gone, Orson laughed and explained that he “just got together as much big stuff as he could and didn't attempt what he calls ‘the real magic' that is feats of skill." Hugard assumed that “No doubt he got through in fine style too, being so accomplished an actor."282

  Orson explained he would be out of town for a few days and wanted to be certain he'd understood the material from the first session. “This time," Hugard wrote, “he called in his secretary and the poor girl had to take down in shorthand all about in and out jogs, palms, etc., so that he could have proper notes to refer to and he could put in the hours of train jorney [sic] practicing. We kept on so absorbedly that he suddenly awoke to the fact that he had only twenty minutes to get ready and catch his train. I hope he made it."283

  They held a third session on Tuesday afternoon, November 30th at 3:30 PM and their fourth and final one on Monday, December 13th. On that last occasion they parted with Orson commissioning Hugard to write up and supply him with a ten-card sequence of card discoveries. Hugard, knowing that Fred Braue had developed a seven-card parlay, immediately requested Braue's help on this.284

  280 Hugard letter to Braue, 23 Nov 43.

  281Bart Whaley with Martin Gardner and Jeff Busby, The Man Who Was Erdnase (Oakland: JBMI, 1991).

  282Hugard letter to Braue, 23 Nov 43.

  283Hugard letter to Braue, 23 Nov 43. The secretary was almost certainly Elisabeth Rubino who lived in New York City and worked on-and-off for him there, including during this trip.

  And Hugard needed all the help from Braue he could get. It was a secret concealed from magicians that Braue had been the fresh blood and main brains behind all their joint publications for the previous three years. The “grand old man" had become a bit of a charlatan. His initial efforts to take proper credit from the self-effacing journalist Braue—making him seem some mere protégé—were deplorable. For example the title page of the first edition of Expert Card Technique, of which Orson spoke "almost reverently" to Hugard, gave the authorship as “Jean Hugard with Frederick Braue" when, in fact, journalist Braue was the main contributor of ideas, effects, and sleights, as well as the principal writer.

  This fakery by Hugard didn't diminish the old man's value as a teacher. He was, after all, passing along Braue's revolutionary methods as well as his own quite good ones. The only other first-class teacher of close-up magic (including cards) in New York City at that time was Dai “The Professor" Vernon. But they’d only met him casually the previous year at Orson’s testimonial dinner.

  Hugard had been hoping, as he confided to Braue, that “I'll have a chance of meeting the charming Rita."285 But this wasn't in the cards. Orson’s rooms at the Gotham were only a daytime office. Rita and he were staying in seclusion in Old Westbury out on Long Island in a private suite at “Applegreen”, the family estate of Beatrice Straight and her husband and Orson's political manager, Louis Dolivet.

  Next year, on April 28, Jean Hugard’s life was celebrated by fellow-magicians at the BarbizonPlaza Playhouse with a testimonial show. Orson was back on the West Coast but contributed a full-page ad to the lavish 110-page program. It read simply:286

  FOR JEAN HUGARD,

  A MASTER MAGICIAN. FROM HIS DEVOTED PUPIL

  – ORSON WELLES

  * * * During this lengthy stay in Manhattan Orson and Richard Himber again collaborated in brainstorming the invention of a revolutionary new magic prop. This was a gimmick to use for the classic Linking Rings trick.287

  These special Linking Rings were expertly crafted in Brooklyn by Mr. Connie Haden; and Himber, in Orson's absence from town, premiered their new trick next February 26th at the regular monthly meeting of the local International Brotherhood of Magicians magic club. He simply took four rings (three metal and one of rope), proceeded to link them into a solid chain, and then handed them to the skeptical spectators. “The closest examination", as the amazed Jean Hugard wrote at the time, “failed to uncover any preparation in the rope or metal rings. There was no substitution, the rings handed out were the rings actually used in the routine."288 The magi who handled the metal and rope rings were baffled. And those who only heard about it through the grapevine were incredulous. There had to be some kind of gimmick; but what could it be. (Conjurors will understand if I disclose only that Himber and Welles had cleverly applied the unsuspected principle of the Caesar Gimmick, which had been invented by Dr. Harlan Tarbell back in the mid-1920s.)

  284 Hugard letters to Braue, 29 Nov & 13 Dec 43.

  285Hugard letter to Braue, 23 Nov 43.

  286Jean Hugard Testimonial (1945), 52.

  287Fred Braue "Roundabout" news column in Hugard's Magic Monthly, Vol.4, No.8 (Jan 1947), 288.

  Himber marketed the trick years later as “Three Ring Circus" and still later under yet another title. As clever as the Himber-Welles gadget was, it never competed with the standard props, probably because of its high price (evidently $125 in 1960) and also possibly because it was just a “magician fooler". No performers use it today; and only three sets are known to survive, all in private magic collections.289

  * * * By December, having lost his free office at 20th Century-Fox, Orson had rented costly space for Mercury Productions in an elegant little building at 427 North Cañon Drive at the center of the Beverly Hills business district. Managed by Jackson Leighter and, later, Richard Wilson, this would be Mercury's HQ address for the next five years.

  That month, while still staying at the Gotham in Manhattan, Orson was panicked by a trade paper story that the warehoused Wonder Show props had been put up for sale by Mercury Productions and many props already bought. This was false, as Leighter wired: “TRADE PAPER REPORT SLIGHTLY EXAGGERATED. WONDER SHOW NINETYFIVE PERCENT INTACT AND NOT FOR SALE."290

  In the first week of 1944 Orson went with Rita to the luxurious Roney Plaza Hotel on Miami Beach to rest his bad back and recover from a scary bout with hepatitis, the disease that had killed his mother. (Today, Orson's infection would probably be diagnosed as an acute attack of hepatitis-A, an uncomfortable flu-like but not life-threatening virus.) Hoping to fit in a few camp shows featuring his magic act while in Florida, he telegrammed Jack Leighter to “PLEASE AIRMAIL 3 SETS OF NEEDLES AND SPOOLS" for the Needle Swallowing trick. Jack wired back: “HYDE [booking agent Johnny Hyde] ADVISES NO SPECTACULAR CAMP SHOWS DUE TO SOCONY POSTPONEMENT. I ADVISE SAME DUE TO HEALTH. REST AND RELAX."291 Hyde and Leighter got their way but only because Orson's back got worse.

  * * * Mid-January found Orson and Rita back in the LA area where they soon rented a small house at 347 Fordyce Road in Brentwood. Meanwhile he'd lost the many valued services of Shorty, who'd moved to New York City with a tidy nest-egg of $4,000 saved while working for Orson over the previous couple of years. Without either car or drive
r Orson now got around town by taxis.

  288 [Hugard] in Hugard's Magic Monthly, Vol.1, No.11 (Apr 1944), 48.

  289The lucky collectors are Ed Brown Jr., Ken Klosterman (via Al Snyder who bought it from Himber in 1960 and thence Bob Ellis), and Phil Varricchio. Varricchio telephone interview, 21 Sep 93; Klosterman telephone interview, 13 Oct 93; Himber letter to Snyder, Nov 1960. [

  290OW telegram to Leighter, 31 Dec 43; Leighter telegrams to OW, 3 & 5 Jan 44.

  291OW telegram to Leighter, 5 Jan 44; Leighter draft day letter to OW, 6 Jan 44.

  He wanted to return to stage work and also produce more big magic shows. But the publicity generated by the Wonder Show would keep him much too busy for the last year and a half of the war with frequent guest appearances, his own radio shows, his regular syndicated newspaper column, campaigning for Roosevelt's fourth term as President, and tub-thumping for founding the United Nations. Even so he squeezed in magic when he could—writing about it in one more guest column for Leonard Lyons and giving a few more charity shows for servicemen.292