Gene Keeney - "The Keen Genie"

My colleague Jay Hunter's posting on Jack W. Thomas, who appeared as the Frost Sugar Magician brought back pleasant memories of a friend and fellow magician, Gene Keeney - "The Keen Genie." I devoted quite a bit of space to him in my 1999 book, "Conjurors and Cornfields: Magic on the Indianapolis Stage." It chronicles all of the magicians and related artists who lived in Indianapolis, appeared there, or had some connection to the city. This is certainly true of Gene.

Gene was the first live magician I saw. He was performing at a local club, The Atheneum, and he did some great magic. He performed the thumb tie, stretched a glass of milk from a regular size to one two feet tall, did the egg bag, and much more. I was about 14 or 15 and he really sank the hook into me for my interest in magic.

His scaling card is cute and creative. It shows a bunny rabbit as the central image where the rabbit's ears form the "M" in magician and the "G.K" of his name the nose and hind quarters of the bunny. He used the tag line, "Don't Fool Yourself - That's My Business." The reverse side is a blue Foxlake back.

William Eugene Keeney was born August 6, 1915 in Indianapolis. A performer since boyhood, Keeney played state and county fairs around the Midwest, appeared in USO shows during World War II, and sold advertising in programs during the Dance-a-thon and Walk-a-thon crazes of the 1930s. He also printed the programs and made pretty good money.

When that craze faded he tried to interest the automobile stunt driver Earl "Lucky" Teeter into letting him sell advertising in the programs Teeter sold at his state fair appearances but Teeter was not interested. Instead, he wanted Keeney to join his organization and do a stunt involving driving a speeding car headlong into a brick wall. The stunt used two people, the driver and Gene. As the car hurdled toward the wall, the driver would jump out. Gene's job was to keep the car heading toward the brick wall and at the last moment, jump over the front seat and hunker down among some mattresses placed there. Upon collision, the engine would absorb most of the impact but would still come crashing into the front seat area. It worked pretty well in practice. Teeter's big act was shooting up a ramp and jumping his car over parked cars or a full-size bus lengthwise.

The weekend after Keeney's successful dry run of the brick wall crash, Teeter was killed when his engine misfired as it went up the ramp and instead of landing on the opposing ramp, his car crashed headlong into the ramp killing him. Gene took this as an omen and left the company for less dangerous work.

Gene was not done with stunt driving though as he performed blindfold drives around the state. Perhaps his most famous was at the Indianapolis 500 Racetrack in 1950 when he drove around the track blindfolded with track owner Tony Hulman and racing legend Wilbur Shaw in the back seat.

At one time he performed magic as part of a nationwide tour of the Amos n' Andy show. It was during this tour that he met Ed Sullivan at a nightclub and did some magic, picked his pocket, lifted his watch and greatly entertained Sullivan. Sullivan invited him to appear that next Sunday on his TV show but Keeney had to stay on tour.

Bottle and Glass tubes sported Kahn' labels

and used wieners and ketchup bottles instead. 

Keeney was best known as a representative for the Kahn's Meat Company. He traveled the country in a 35-foot trailer pitching Kahn meats using a magic-themed show that incorporated many of their products. He used the well-known boomerang optical illusion to stretch a Kahn's wiener longer than competing brands. He produced strings of wieners from an empty top hat. His finale was a P&L rosebush which first grew wieners and then real roses. The rosebush trick promoted the company's Red Rose line of meats. As each real flower was handed out to audience members, Gene affixed a Kahn's sticker to each stem. For many years throughout Indiana and the Midwest, the magic word for kids was not "Abracadabra" but rather "KAHN'S!!!"  I saw him perform many times at local supermarkets and he not only performed a great product-themed magic show, he also sold a LOT of Kahn products. 

At one time Gene also performed a ghost show when those theatrical production were popular. He did it with his son Robert. For seven or eight years he worked in sales promotion for Philip Morris in a magic show called, "Wonderful World of Fantasy." He put over 176,000 miles on his trailer and car during the tour.

Gene was very involved in the I.B.M. and was one of the founding members of Ring 10 (the first magic club I ever joined), and eventually the club was named in his honor. Traveling the country, as he did, allowed Gene to track down many magic collections and amass a gigantic hoard of interesting memorabilia. He called Bud Tracy's "Directory of Magicians" his "Bible," and used it to find magicians from whom he acquired great collectibles. He was a longtime member of the Magic Collectors' Association and sold magic from the trunk of his car outside of Magic Inc.

He was very kind to me and sold me many interesting items over the years. He was of greatest help by providing me access to his large collection of photos, letters, and other memorabilia relating to James "Harto" Harte and his wife Catherine. It allowed me to write the manuscript, "Two Harte's That Beat as One." He was a good friend, kind to magicians, a real salesman of the first order, and one of magic's biggest boosters.

(Note: If anyone would like a copy of Conjurors and Cornfields, I have a few left. It's 186 pages long with at least as many photographs and represents several lifetimes of collecting information on famous, near-famous and infamous magicians, circus performers, collectors, and others from Indianapolis and surrounding areas. The price is $15 and includes shipping.).