Orson Welles - The Man Who Was Magic: Part 1

by Barton Whaley

  He also took unusual advantage of his new weekly radio series. From late January into mid July Orson produced and hosted 26 weekly half-hour CBS radio shows. These were broadcast live every Wednesday from 9:30 to 10:00pm. Sponsored by Mobil Gas & Oil, the show aired only regionally, going no further East than Denver, Colorado. Titled Orson Welles' Almanac it mixed guest stars and madcap comedy with two of Orson’s favorite art forms, magic and jazz. First, the magic.

  Knowing that this show, which originated in Studio A, would be aired with a live audience of some 300 people, Orson grabbed the opportunity to make them a captive audience for his conjuring act. Needing a new magic assistant (Tommy Hanlon was now playing the East Coast) Orson asked for suggestions from Bill Larsen Senior who recommended Harrison Baker. Red Baker, as everyone called the redhead, was only 12 or 13 years old. An amateur magician since given a Mysto Magic set at age eight, he'd become a regular customer at the Thayer Studio of Magic whose new owner, Bill, made him a protégé. He was hired over the phone by Orson's secretary, Shifra, who told him to report to Orson at the CBS studios on Sunset Boulevard near Vine. Accordingly, the kid presented himself at the reception desk in the attire proper to a native San Franciscan —double-breasted suit with shirt and tie—and announced that he was there to see Orson Welles. Unused to such elegant dress in southern California, much less on a small boy, the receptionists said, “Nobody gets in to see Orson Welles." Red answered, “Well, he's expecting me." And they said, “No, he's not expecting you." He replied, “Just tell him that I'm here—my name's Red Baker." Red still relishes the moment when the word came down, “Send him in." Red was directed to Orson's dressing room. They were alone. Orson was eating chicken out of metal containers. “He offered me some. I refused. And Welles proceeded to talk to me as if I were an adult his age, and as if he had known me for years instead of just minutes."293

  Red's debut on stage resulted from Orson's having forgotten to load his Applause Confetti that he'd used the previous year in The Wonder Show. An assistant in the wings explained the situation to Red and gave him a handful. He stepped out on stage, went directly behind Orson, stopped and placed his fist-full of confetti into the magician's right pocket. He then walked directly off—the whole time wearing a stony face. Orson got a huge laugh when he said, “There goes Red Skelton's father."

  Each Monday evening before airtime Orson warmed up the audiences with his mindreading and magic act. These half-hour performances ended with his highly original announcement that, if the audience failed to laugh during the show, ice picks would shoot up from their seats.294

  292 Brady (1989), 368, 377.

  293Baker interview, 14 Mar 92; Baker letter to BW, 3 Jan 95.

  294Baker telephone interview, 27 Nov 92; Leaming (1985), 286. Red Baker later borrowed Orson's ice pick gag, which he believes was original with Orson, in his own comedy act.

  The repertory of his tricks seen by the studio audience consisted of the Untying Rope, the Egg on Fan, Magic Welding, a card trick, his original Fruit Cup effect , and three mind-reading experiments. The end of each trick was signaled by his tossed Applause Confetti.295

  {SIDEBAR] In its 26 May 1944 issue, The Phoenix, that worthy fortnightly magic magazine edited in New York City by Bruce Elliott, had published Orson's original Fruit Cup trick that he'd recently developed with much help from Red Baker. Elliott, only a year older than Orson, had also been inspired to take up the art by seeing the Thurston show and had met Orson probably either through magician Walter Gibson or magic dealer Stuart Robson. The two tall (6-footers), plump, dark haired men bore a close resemblance to each other, particularly at that time, as noted by magicians Lee Noble and Jay Marshall, both close friends of Elliott and casual acquaintances of Orson.296 Their physical resemblance had its parallels in their conviviality, boozing, womanizing, irons in many fires, and creative magical thinking.

  Orson's decision to release the secret of this trick to the fraternity while it was still in his current act shows a degree of openness about his inventions that is rare among magi. But, as we've seen in his stage and film work, he was never secretive with his own creations. It's just that few critics or biographers ever thought to ask.

  THE EFFECT: Orson borrows a spectator's marked half dollar coin and vanishes it. Apologizing to the sucker who'd been so unwise as to lend money to a magician, he turns to his “next" miracle. Cutting open a grapefruit, he's surprised to discover an orange. And inside the orange is a lemon. While peeling the lemon Orson announces that he sees an egg. To prove that Boy Wonder needs no ordinary magician's hocuspocus, he uses a pair of metal kitchen tongs to remove the egg from the lemon and hold it aloft for all to behold. To again eliminate any possibility of cheap sleight-of-hand trickery, he takes a large wooden clothespin from his pocket and uses it to crack open the egg. Delicately reaching into the gooey interior with the clothespin, he removes something. Ah hah! Held high, the pin's jaws grasp a silver half dollar! To conclude his modest miracle, Orson—all courtesy—wipes the goo off the coin with his handkerchief and hands it back to the spectator who confirms that it indeed bears his mark. The spectator and the entire audience have just witnessed a miracle!

  ORSON’S METHOD : Orson had a Folding Half Dollar pre-loaded in the clothespin's jaws in his pocket. While fishing inside the egg, he'd opened the jaws enough for the folded coin to drop inside and snap open to its full size, ready to be plucked out and shown. Then, under cover of wiping the gaffed coin, he switched back the original marked coin in time for the owner to examine it.297

  Folding coins were a familiar magical gimmick—too familiar, having often been described in print since 1876. Used almost exclusively for the Coin-in-Bottle effect or as the essential gaff in the Coin Wand, most kids and ex-kids knew the secret.298 By using a folding coin in such a new way and for such a fresh effect, Red could baffle all but the more clever magicians. Orson would have appreciated this. So he added his own presentation to convert a small close-up effect into a big stage illusion, one suited to the large audiences he usually worked. Elliott thought so well of Orson's new effect that he reprinted it four years later in his first book of tricks.299

  Orson had conceived this effect; but, as often, he sought the help of another magus to work out the method—in this case Red Baker. Explaining the effect he wanted, he told Red, “Figure out a way to do it!". Red bought “enormous quantities" of fruits and eggs from his local grocery store and took them home. After much destruction of these edibles, which his mother thought quite “crazy", Red figured out how to nest the egg and fruit. He cut and taped up the fruit in one direction and had Orson cut across the opposite way. He also came up with the idea of using a clothespin to convey the coin into the egg. Although a standard large clothespin could conceal the folded coin, Orson had an oversized one specially made for maximum visibility.300

  295 Baker interviews, 14 Mar 92 and 5 Mar 93.

  296Noble telephone interview, 22 Aug 91; Marshall letter to BW, 29 Feb 92.

  297The Phoenix, No.61 (26 May 1944), 250.

  298For history of the Folding Coin see Whaley (1989), 292.

  299Bruce Elliott, Magic as a Hobby: New Tricks for Amateur Performers (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1948), 94-96.

  Bruce Elliott assumed that Fruit Cup was Orson's stage presentation of “Materialization", a clever close-up effect invented by Dr. Franklin V. Taylor and first published omly some 16 months earlier in Elliott's magazine. Taylor's version had used a clothespin to produce a folding coin from a handkerchief stuffed into his fist.301 Young Red, who hadn't even heard of The Phoenix at that time, had reinvented Taylor's clothespin method. Given the conditions of Orson's effect, there are only a few simple props that could work, particularly such an unsuspicious common household item as a clothespin. As a regular reader of The Phoenix, Orson probably (and Bruce certainly) simply assumed that Red had adapted Taylor's method to Orson's effect.

  {END SIDEBAR}

  He presented the Untying Rope as a running gag about ei
ght times throughout his act. From a table he picks up a length of rope with a large know in the middle and holds it out at arm's length. While he stares at the knot, the rope mysteriously unties itself. This was Al Baker's beautifully simple method, first published just three years earlier by that prolific inventor of magic; and Orson followed Al's highly effective presentation to the letter.302

  Orson had probably recently learned the charming and mysterious Egg on Fan trick from expert practitioner Edgar Bergen303 whom he'd known socially in Los Magicos as well as from having appeared as a guest on Bergen's shows once in 1936 and again twice in early 1944 while Orson's current radio Almanac show was in mid-season. The weird effect is that when a crumpled piece of paper is bounced on an open oriental fan in full view of the spectators it slowly and visibly turns into an egg, which Orson proves genuine by cracking and emptying into a glass. This trick depends on one sleight and an old prop known to magicians as a Sterling Egg. Orson, with the same extravagance he'd shown the previous year with the dozen bird-head props, unnecessarily insisted that Red supply a fresh Sterling Egg for each performance.304

  For his take-a-card trick, Orson's method of forcing was, to say the least, bold, particularly for a recent student of the subtle Jean Hugard. No tricky sleight-of-hand Classic Force for him, not even one of those gaffed Forcing Decks that he later came to fancy. No, he'd just walk up close to a man in the audience and while saying, “Take a card!", simply shove the force card into the guy's hand out of sight of most of the spectators and then proceed to “divine" it in that booming Voice of Authority.305

  Another crowd-pleaser was the Linking Curtain Rings that Orson had introduced in the Wonder Show. He began by taking a handful of these small rings and dumping them in a pile on a tray, which his assistant carried to a volunteer in the audience, pouring them into his cupped hands. Orson then commanded the volunteer to toss them to Orson. When this was done the Sorceror caught them in midair—showing that the loose rings were now all linked in a long chain.306

  300 Baker interview, 14 Mar 92; Baker letters to BW, 7 & 21 May 94.

  301Frank V. Taylor, "Materialization", The Phoenix, No.22 (13 Nov 1942), 91-92.

  302Al Baker, Magical Ways and Means (Chicago: Carl Waring Jones, 1941), 74-75, where it is titled "A Rope Interlude" and credited as an application to a rope of Baker's famous earlier Untying Silk effect and method, and recommended as a running gag. Baker telephone interview, 22 Mar 95.

  303Jeff Busby telephone interview, 16 Mar 92.

  304Baker interview, 14 Mar 92. Two oriental fans autographed by OW and said to have been used in his magic shows were auctioned on 21 Jul 1987 in Waltham, Massachusetts. News Tribune (22 Jul 1987), pp.1, 13.

  305Baker interview, 14 Mar 92.

  306Baker interview, 14 Mar 92.

  Red was (and now, as a pro stand-up comic who writes his own material, still is) particularly struck by Orson's “genius for patter." His tricks were carefully routined and rehearsed; but his lines were largely improvised, changing from performance to performance, yet always appropriate.307

  For one of his mindreading tricks Orson handed a male volunteer a deck of cards and instructed him to take it outside the building, select any card, and hide it any place on his person. After another trick or two when the volunteer returned Orson would (following enough deep thought to fathom the man's mind) proclaim, “Your card is the Ten of Clubs (pause) and it is (pause) in your left (pause) shoe!" Correct on both! In dismissing the man Orson immediately topped that trick by casually handing him a wallet while saying, “Oh, by the way, here's your wallet." The audience went crazy on suddenly realizing that Orson must have somehow earlier managed to slyly pick the volunteers' pocket without even their being able to detect the master's unnoticed move.

  The secret of both Orson's infallibility and his masterful pickpocketing was Red Baker. Red would intercept the volunteer at the street door. He'd take the deck from him, remove the Ten of Clubs, hand it back, and tell him to take off his left shoe and put the card there. Red then said, “For your participation Mr. Welles will give you a wallet, compliments of the show. Please act as if it's yours."308 Thus do some magicians conjure their miracles, as easily as the ancient priests of Baal were seen to have done when exposed by the Apocryphal Prophet Daniel. And Orson proved he'd mastered both the “nerve" and “showmanship" that he'd admired as Houdini's hallmarks.

  Orson's main mindreading demonstration was equally impressive. Four school slates were brought on stage. Orson would pick up one and a piece of chalk and ask everyone in the audience to each think of a single personal question or thought—to really concentrate on it. Then, so the spectators could see, he chalked an answer in large letters or numbers. Typically it was a question directed to him, or a birth date, or a social security or driver's license number. An audience member would acknowledge that Orson had correctly divined his or her thought. Then another correct answer was chalked until all eight sides of the slates had been used. The audience was astounded. Obviously, Orson could read anyone's mind.

  {SIDEBAR:} Orson’s Slate Trick—THE METHOD :

  This trick has been a long-time staple of pseudo-psychics. It has been widely exposed as a scam but, because it still dupes the innocent, I'll describe it again—specifically as used by Orson.

  While the audience was queued up outside the studio waiting to be admitted, Red and Shifra went to the end of the line where they handed out some eight clipboards, each with a sheet of paper divided into six slips. They told the people there to write down a question or personal date or number, tear off his or her slip, and keep it with them to help focus their thoughts during the mindreading portion of the program.

  Red and Shifra collected the clipboards and went backstage. There they removed from each board its secret carbon-paper and underlying imprinted sheet. This gave them some 48 “thoughts" from which they selected about eight. They then wrote these "thoughts" in small print in each of the upper right corners of both sides of the slates. All Orson had to do was copy this covertly obtained information in large visible chalkings.309

  The secret carbon-copy principle was the invention of a psychic reader, reportedly Samri “The White Mahatma" Baldwin who was using writing-paper pads sometime before 1897. Subsequently (by 1907) adapted to a clipboard.

  {END SIDEBAR}

  307 Baker telephone interview, 27 Nov 92.

  308Baker interview, 14 Mar 92, and telephone interview, 27 Nov 92; Baker letter to BW, 3 Jan 95.

  309Baker letter to BW, 3 Jan 95.

  The 15th broadcast (on May 3rd) was from the Naval Air Station on Terminal Island in San Pedro Bay just below LA. As always, Red was the audience stooge—this time dressed as a sailor. Now, as a few old salts will recall, ordinary sailors of the U.S. Navy wore white trousers without a fly. Instead, for some absurd traditional reason, they had a square flap that required 21 buttons. During a break Red needed to go to the base theater's backstage toilet—a one-holer room. However Orson's guest star and old RKO acquaintance, Lucille Ball, beat out Red by a few paces and locked herself in. While Red waited nervously down the hall, Orson arrived and knocked saying, “Open the door", to which Miss Ball answered, “It's me, Orson." He left, Lucille came out, and Red entered. Seconds later, Orson returned and began pounding on the door while saying “Hurry up!" Red silently finished, fastened those 21 buttons as quickly as he could, and emerged, Orson was astonished to be confronted by Red rather than Lucille. All he could say was “Well look what comes out!" And, having realized how this magical transformation had so easily fooled him, and loving such benign surprises, he roared with laughter.310

  Orson was having fun with magic as his audience during the warm-up. But at a growing cost to the following live broadcast. This was the view of the show's director, Jack Johnstone:311 Orson decided to do a magic act. He was an amateur magician and a very good one. So the following week—the audience was always called very early—Orson did about ten minutes of magic. Which was great, fine, it got a b
ig hand from the audience, [then] the show went on as usual. The next week he did about twenty minutes. I kid you not. He finally ended up doing a full forty-five minutes, and by that time, the audience was wrung out completely. They couldn't respond if the best comedian in the world was a guest on the show. It just wore them out.

  * * * A measure of the intensity of his search for new magical ideas, is that during this period he was averaging five mail orders per week for props and books to various magic shops around the country. He would select from catalogs, flyers, and even rip out whole pages of ads from Genii magazine, mark the wanted items with a bold “X" or a circle, and pass these to his Number Two secretary, Mrs. Peggy Vaughan, to type and mail.312

  His orders went out to old friends or acquaintances Stuart Robson, Max Holden, and Lou Tannen in New York City; Jim Sherman in Chicago; and Bob Nelson in Columbus, Ohio. And to nine other dealers he didn't personally know: Al Baker in New York City; Laurie Ireland, Sam Berland, and Joe Berg in Chicago; U. F. Grant in Columbus, Ohio; Bob Stull in San Francisco; Percy Abbott in Colon, Michigan; Mike Kanter in Philadelphia; and John Snyder Jr. in Norwood, Ohio.

  Each order ranged from as many as 106 items (from Abbott's latest catalog for a total of $297) down to a single item: a Talking Skull from Abbott's, but to be custom-made from a human skull—the company agreeing to do so for an extra $25 if “you supply real skull". Because of the wartime shortages of paper, metals, and skilled craftsmen, Orson had much difficulty chasing down such otherwise standard items as a DeMuth Milk Bottle, a Hydrostatic Glass, a Foo Can, and the magnetically scatological Snooty Pups. One major dealer couldn't even fill Orson's order for 100 matching decks of ordinary playing cards because they were being rationed by the manufacturers on a government-directed quota basis.

  310 Baker letter to BW, 3 Jan 95.

  311Johnstone interview by Maltin (1997), 203.

  312This and the next two paragraphs are based on my analysis of 51 items of uncataloged correspondence from the Lilly Library.