Orson Welles - The Man Who Was Magic: Part 1

by Barton Whaley

  One night over dinner, old friends Dick Himber and visiting Chicago magic dealer Jim Sherman told Orson that Al had finally gotten around to completely revamping his infamously cluttered magic shop. Gone were the “stained"-glass windows that had provoked the judgment that “It's the only store in New York from which you can watch an eclipse without dark glasses." The entire place had, they enthused, been degrimed, enlarged, and reorganized to properly display its treasure-trove of antique and collectable sorcery. However, they cautioned, Al had grown substantially more eccentric since Orson had last seen him, now opening his shop only at midnight. When the three visited the shop after the witching hour Orson was delighted to see the promised changes—until he realized that Dick, Jim, and Al had rearranged just a few obvious items to fool him. Orson roared his delight for having been suckered by his two practical joking peers.431

  Orson became a charter member of the short-lived Magicians' Lunch Club founded by Dick Himber at Bernard “Toots" Shor's mid-town Manhattan celebrity bar-restaurant. The inaugural meeting on March 22nd was attended by professional conjurors and distinguished amateurs from throughout the country: Dick Cardini, Abe Cantu, José Frakson, Galli Galli, Walter Gibson, Arthur Lloyd, Jerry Ross, Warren Simms, and Doc Tarbell. Regrets due to prior commitments were sent by Blackstone, Dell O'Dell, George Karger, and Maurice Zolotow as well as Orson's old friends, John Scarne and Milbourne Christopher. Orson set the then fresh challenge theme for the meeting: improvisational magic—the performance on demand of a trick without special preparation and with common objects at hand. This opened a lively discussion of impromptu magic that produced many practical suggestions, after which Himber, Gibson, and Tarbell each demonstrated an example. Then followed a dissertation on the late great Max Malini as a master of improv magic given by Arthur Lloyd, with Orson adding his detailed account of the superb and subtle methods that he had witnessed and that Malini had explained to him,432 as we've seen in the 1930s.

  428 Smith telephone interview, 27 Sep 91; Spina letter to BW, 7 Mar 92.

  429Jack Flosso telephone interview, 19 Oct 92.

  430Jack Flosso telephone interview, 19 Oct 92.

  431Jack Flosso telephone interview, 3 Nov 92; Jack Flosso taped interview with Ben Robinson, Jul 92. I've paraphrased Al Baker's joke from Hugard's Magic Monthly (Aug 1946), 243.

  On April 1st Orson took the part of the narrator for the premiere at the New York City Center of his old friend Marc Blitzstein’s Airborne Symphony, a grand cantata for voices and orchestra. He fronted the two solo singers and the 85 male voices of Robert Shaw’s Collegiate Chorale with Leonard Bernstein conducting the New York City Symphony. During the prolonged and enthusiastic applause that followed the performance, Blitzstein leapt to the stage to share warm embraces with Orson and Bernstein.433

  Emboldened by the success of his Mercury Wonder Show and the earlier Olson & Johnson Hellzapoppin' smash-hit Broadway comedy featuring Houdini's younger brother Hardeen, Orson thought he could do a repeat with Around the World in Eighty Days. Indeed, Newsweek magazine, in a Timely pun, would dub the show “Wellesapoppin". Unfortunately, Orson had concluded that the secret of the Olson-Johnson success was that more is better—by giving the audience many different things to chose from, everyone will find some things pleasing. The flaw in Orson's “toyshop" theory is that individual theater goers aren't free to view only what each wants and avoid the rest.

  The large but undistinguished and hence low-paid cast starred Arthur Margetson as Phineas Fogg (Verne's character who'd bet he could circle the globe in a then record 80 days). Although Orson hadn't originally planned to appear on stage, he quickly took over the role of the detective, Dick Fix, and soon wrote in and played two characters of his own invention: Wild West comedy badman Dynamite Gus and the magician Great Foo San. When, during the chaotic rehearsals in Boston, the show's producer-backer, Mike Todd, unbacked (after investing $38,000), Orson picked up the big financial slack with the help of friends: British film producer Sir Alexander Korda (who plowed in $100,000 for the movie rights) and loans from Cole Porter ($2,500 that was paid back at $250 per week), movie producer William Goetz, restauranteur Toots Shor ($5,000), and even chauffeur Shorty ($4,000, his entire savings).

  With begging-cup metaphorically in hand to keep his play running Orson sought out his local friends and acquaintances. One was nightclub and theatrical impresario Billy Rose who called Orson “Old Doubledome”.434 Orson had met him in the late ‘30s when Rose was still married to Orson’s friend, Fanny Brice. And I suspect Orson’s Around the World may have been partly inspired to mimic Rose’s Jumbo, a vaudeville-cum-circus spectacle that had enjoyed a decent Broadway run at the Hippodrome nine years earlier. Now Orson took Bill Herrick along when he approached Rose. Herrick watched with growing disgust as Orson’s rich “friend” turned him down:435

  ... that little bastard whipsawed him for his lack of discipline, his extravagance with other people’s money, revealed his contempt for the man. Rose was so cruel I had a terrible urge to kick his ass. He was sheer power, money power, talking.

  Even grander in scale than his Wonder Show, this two-hour two-act “Musical Extravaganza" employed 56 actors, 18 staff, 55 stage hands, and a 36-piece orchestra. An incredible 34 scenes were presented. This sheer profusion of sets placed a huge demand on the small army of stage hands, requiring the closest coordination, too often beyond their or even Orson's competence.

  432 [Walter Gibson], "Luncheon Club Gets Under Way in New York", The Conjurors' Magazine, Vol.2, No.3 (May 1946), 12.

  433Gordon (1989), 284-285, 289. The first recording was made in October 1946 but with Shaw substituting for OW as the narrator. OW did narrateBernstein’s 1966 recording.

  434Quoted by Fred Braue in Hugard's Magic Monthly (Aug 1946), 243.

  435Herrick (1998), 100.

  The first act ended with the set of Mr. Oka Saka (Brainerd Duffield) and his Oka Saka Circus in Yokohama, Japan, complete with the sensational Slide for Life where a high-wire artist slides above the audience from an upper balcony to the stage, a trapeze act, acrobats, and Orson's magic. In his 7-minute magic skit as the “Great Foo San" Orson copied several of the tricks from his Mercury Wonder Show and the Follow the Boys movie. He even wore his familiar red-and-white stripped silk robe.436 And he added the first use of a man-sized Square Circle, from which he magically produced himself.437

  {SIDEBAR:} The Square Circle

  “A square circle", as another theater director and semi-pro magician said, “is really a miniature

  black-art stage."438 Based on the Black Art principle, it was originally a small piece of table-top apparatus

  that used an invisible black loading-tube inside a square open grille-front box colored black inside. A

  standard prop, it is better known as the Wunda Villa among magicians in Britain where it had been invented

  by Louis S. Histed in 1930 (when he built his first experimental model) and premiered two years later. This

  small-scale production box was, as Histed noted, the “first full use of ‘black art' at close quarters under

  ordinary lighting conditions." Somewhat larger-scale models were later built and performed by Milton

  Woodward and Les Levante (who premiered his version in 1937 in the USA). Histed's invention was

  widely pirated, Abbott's claiming to be the first to commercially market it. Provoked by the pirates, Histed

  chose to publish his device, doing so in 1946. Later it became one of the world's most common types of

  production box and also widely used in the full-sized illusion version since 1946 when Orson produced

  himself, followed ten years later by famous Hindu illusionist Sorcar.439

  {END SIDEBAR}

  Orson was in Boston in the third week of April furiously rehearsing the road opening of Around the World. Even so he took time off to visit the annual convention of lively local Assembly #9 of the Society of American Magicians (SAM), of which he was a member.440
<
br />   Although Orson's big show was scheduled to open at the Boston Metropolitan Opera House on Saturday, April 27th, a one-day delay was caused by the troubled rehearsals and magic apparatus that refused to work. To fix his defective props, Orson sought help that afternoon from the best—Herman Hanson, who managed the large Boston branch of Max Holden's Magic Shop on the fourth floor of the Walker Building at 120 Boylston Street in the theater district. The 63-year old Swedish immigrant was one of the most knowledgeable figures in the world of magic. Hanson had trouped his own stage magic act for 23 years until 1929 when he became Thurston's stage manager and understudy. After Orson described his problem, Hanson replied, “Don't worry, Orson, we'll get Joe up to fix it." So Joe Frustaglia, Hanson's master metal craftsman, maker of magicians' feather flowers, and a semi-pro stage magician in his own right, was fetched from his home workshop in the nearby Italian North End to make emergency repairs.441

  436 Brady (1989), 383, 388. Herrick (1998), 111, writes that this robe had been designed for him by David Cole, the play’s costume designer. However, it appears to me to be the same pattern as the one he wore three and two years earlier in his Wonder Show and Follow the Boys.

  437 Bruce Elliott in The Phoenix, No.110 (9 Aug 1946), 444.

  438Nelms (1969), 171.

  439For the history of the Square Circle see Whaley (1989), 640. The jargon term "Square Circle" was coined at least as early as 1945, probably by Abbott's Magic Novelty Company.

  440Art Emerson telephone interview, 21 Oct 91.

  When the show opened at 8:30 next evening amateur magus Art Emerson, 19, attended. The main curtain opens to disclose a movie screen—Orson has again chosen to break theatrical tradition. A black-and white film is projected. After credits role the audience sees a bank robbery taking place. The screen then “bursts" as the black-and-white filmed scene dissolves into the identical scene in living color with live actors. The play has suddenly begun. Emerson says the effect was quite stunning but the mechanics of this cinematic-like “dissolve" fell short of Orson's ideal. He'd wanted a sectional screen operated by drawstrings but his mechanics couldn't rig it to give as smooth a transition as he'd intended.442

  Scheduled for two hours, the show ran nearly five, due mainly to long waits while the inadequately rehearsed local stage hands changed the many sets. Despite the disasters, Emerson recalls “one of the best nights of theater I've ever seen."443 Two other amateur magi just out of high school who also saw the opening night show together were Parker Swan and Dallas Burrows. Swan, 18, employed at the local Holden's Magic Shop, thought it “great".444 Burrows, 17 and a classmate and friend of Swan's, “loved it", finding it filled with “wonderful stuff". Two years later Burrows would become a pro magician and comedy star under the stage name of “Orson Bean", which the piano player at the night spot he was playing suggested—Bean because, like the Boston bean, it sounded absurd, Orson because it sounded pompous.445

  After its Boston run, the show toured New Haven and Philadelphia where Orson's local magic dealer, Mike Kanter, plugged it as a “great show".446 It then settled into New York City at 152 West 54th Street in the Adelphi Theatre where Orson had triumphed ten years earlier. Rehearsals began for the opening on Friday evening, May 31st. Even the urgency to use the rehearsal to polish the timing of the local stage hands couldn't deter him from taking time out for magicians. Orson's sorceror friend Milbourne Christopher and his wife dropped by during one rehearsal and sat with thirty or so others who were waiting to see Orson about publicity and other matters involved with the opening. Christopher sent his name backstage and, as his widow recalls:447

  In almost no time Welles walked out on the stage in his dressing gown, shouting “Is Milbourne Christopher here?" Chris stood up. Welles came down and they greeted each other like long lost brothers. Chris introduced Welles to me. He was slim, handsome, charming and looked as good as his beautiful voice sounded until the end. Then the two of them went backstage to catch up and I said goodbye and went on to my next appointment.

  Orson took time one evening around the beginning of June to see at least one performance of Britain’s illustrious visiting Old Vic Company during its stunning six-week summer repertory stint at the Century Theater. The play he saw was Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part II, co-starring Sir Ralph Richardson as Falstaff and Sir Laurence Olivier as Justice Shallow. He took his applause backstage to Richardson, telling him, “Thought I’d done all right as Falstaff [in Five Kings] but the thing I must say, Ralph, I never matched you at the end.” By way of explanation, he added, “I could never do that because I haven’t got your blue eyes.” Then, suddenly starring at Richardson’s eyes, Orson declared, “By God, you haven’t got blue eyes.”448

  441 Art Emerson telephone interview, 21 Oct 91. Background on Frustaglia (sometimes misspelled "Frustaglio") and Hanson's shop from Ray Goulet telephone interview, 23 Oct 91; and C. Parker Swan III telephone interview, 17 Oct 92.

  442Emerson telephone interview, 21 Oct 91.

  443Emerson telephone interview, 21 Oct 91.

  444Swan telephone interview, 17 Oct 92.

  445Bean telephone interview, 18 Oct 92.

  446Mike Kantor, "Shop Talk—Philadelphia" column in The Linking Ring, Vol.26, No.5 (July 1946), 68.

  447Mrs. Milbourne Christopher letter to Whaley, 24 Feb 92.

  Richardson remembered this very disorienting sequence of remarks but misinterpreted them (as did his biographer) as proof of Orson’s oddity. Perhaps Richardson was too drained by his performance to notice the clue to the calculated wit that had scripted this double non-sequitur—Orson’s own starring blue eyes.

  Nor had Orson been entirely truthful in praising Richardson. Next morning he privately told Bill Herrick that Richardson was “the greatest Falstaff in the world – except for me.” But Orson kept his harshest judgements for Olivier whom he attacked at length as too soft, too pretty, and homosexual. Orson gave Herrick that Wednesday afternoon off to go see a matinee performance of Henry IV. That evening he reported to Orson that while he did find Richardson “magnificent”, he “couldn’t discern any weakness in Olivier.” Orson didn’t speak to Herrick for the next two days. Herrick presumed he was miffed.449

  Then that Friday, close to midnight, Herrick was phoned by Orson who ordered him to the Stork Club to pick up some manuscript pages that would need to be typed in the morning. Herrick, unwilling to be stuck at the club, arrived deliberately dressed too casually to be admitted. 450 Larry tended to stay in, particularly after tearing his Achilles tendon in a fall during a performance; while Vivien, a night person, was enjoying late partying. This was a circumstance that Orson took unfair advantage of to cuckold his famous rival.451

  Herrick observed on several mornings that Orson’s bed at the Waldorf had seen a succession of women of “great renown”. Vivien Leigh had been succeeded there in late June by, among others, Marie “The Body” McDonald. Having started out (together with Yvonne de Carlo) in the chorus-line at the Florentine Gardens and graduated as the featured singer with the big bands of Tommy Dorsey, Charlie Barnett, and Orson’s friend Richard Himber, Marie had recently become a minor movie star whom her studio PR dubbed “The Body”.452

  One late evening after his show Orson took McDonald and Herrick along to watch Milton Berle’s act at a Manhattan nightclub. Orson blundered by starting to heckle Berle. Herrick took hidden delight that “Berle cut him up pretty badly, to the laughter of a full house.”453

  What with all this carousing and socializing and the burdensome expenses of Around the World, Orson's dwindling budget required that he take on more work. So he added yet a second weekly radio show to his continuing Orson Welles Commentaries show — still 15 minutes every Sunday for ABC for $1,700 per week but now originating from that network's New York studios. The new show is the Mercury Summer Theatre of the Air, a half-hour segment every Friday for CBS. The latter debuted on June 7 with a condensed version of Around the World, a blatant plug for his stage version, which introduced the latte
r's principals to the large radio audience.

  448 Garry O’Connor, Ralph Richardson: An Actor’s Life (New York & London: Applause, 1997), 131.

  449Herrick (1998), 104.

  450Herrick (1998), 104-105. The Oliviers flew back to London on June 19th.

  451If this was the first time Vivien took advantage of her husband’s absence to screw others, it reportedly wasn’t the last. Ken Tynan mentions a night at Notley Abbey around 1955 [pinpoint date] when Vivien got into bed with him and began genital foreplay. When he turned her down she moved over onto Elaine Dundy’s adjoining bed. Tynan/Lahr (2001), 133. Ken’s story is not confirmed in Dundy’s autobio (2001)

  452Herrick (1998), 98.

  453Herrick (1989), 105-106.

  The most direct and enduring beneficiary of the Mercury Summer Theatre was 25-year-old Canadian director-actor Fletcher Markle. Nine or ten years earlier in Vancouver Markle had taken Orson as his teen idol — so much so that he'd wanted to become Orson Welles. Indeed he'd come close to succeeding by almost perfectly imitating Orson's voice, by copying the Wellesian format on a radio series titled Imagine Please, by becoming a skilled writer-director-actor, and in 1939 by blatantly borrowing Orson's Mercury stage productions of the modern-dress Caesar and then of Faustus. So in early summer 1946 Markle was delighted to do the Orsonian star role of "Adam Barneycastle" in Canadian writer Hugh Kemp's radio comedy play Life with Adam, a satire of Welles for the Canadian Broadcasting Company.

  Early in July Markle was in New York. He'd come with several Canadian actors and actresses at the invitation of CBS to present one of his radio dramas as part of one of that network's Columbia Workshop summer replacement series. He was staying in mid-Manhattan at the Algonquin where he was astonished to find himself sharing the elevator with his hero. Markle was too stunned or too polite to speak; but he left a note under Orson's door telling him about the spoof play and promising a set of the acetate disk records, if Orson wished. Receiving no reply, Markle had a mutual acquaintance on Orson's staff engineer a meeting. As Markle recalled: