Harry Stork, The Man With the Devil in his Fingers

This piece, more of an ad card than a throwout, is an extremely rare piece representing the remarkable, albeit short, magic career of Henry Stork, known on the stage as Harry Stork.  The card, showing a tuxedo-clad Stork holding a small devil, is in noticeably poor condition, having suffered from significant scrapbook damage.  However, the piece is so very unusual, and the subject equally interesting, that I'm proud to have this in my collection.

Stork was born in Rochester, New York in 1864.  He was, by all accounts, a gifted manipulator and magic inventor, building a regional reputation based upon unique stage routines.  His original inventions included an "incomparable flag trick," an invisible two-handed pass with cards and a marketed "Flying Aces" effect, the latter being marketed for more than a decade after Stork's death.    By 1881, he headed to Detroit, where he opened his own magic emporium.  His dealership was frequented by such great luminaries as Alexander Herrmann and Harry Kellar, who often sought his help developing new illusions.  

He travelled the country as a vaudeville performer, and was, according to John Northern Hilliard, "a prince of good fellows."  He befriended many of magic's leading performers, including T. Nelson Downs, Harry Houdini and Howard Thurston.  Most notably, in 1902, he became an advisor to Kellar, traveling with the master magician for several seasons.   Kellar described Stork as the most valuable assistant with whom he had ever worked.  Stork later returned to Rochester and left magic for other business pursuits.   Tragically, Stork contracted spinal meningitis, succumbing to the disease in 1907 at age 43.    

Schulte: Penman of Performers Patter

The subject of this post is one George Frederick Schulte, a magician and author who created more humorous patter and one-liners than anyone of his time. This was long before Robert Orbin started turning out patter books. Schulte was born May 22, 1887 in Athens, Wisconsin. He lived there until 1899 when he moved to Chicago, which became his permanent home.

So popular a performer in the Windy City, Schulte was billed as, "Chicago's Most Popular Magician." His first appearance in the city came in 1900. Our subject had a very nice scaling card featuring his photo on the front, his name printed in red at an angle with "The Magician" printed beneath. It had the Deland back in blue.

In 1912, Schulte was presenting a Vaudeville magic act called "Magic As You Like It." I learned this when searching through my photo files and I came upon what I assumed was a postcard of the performer. Turning it over, however, I discovered it was actually part of an image from a larger photo that someone cut down. You can just see the edge of a table in the lower right and one must wonder what he was gesturing at. This was Schulte in his prime. 

He was best known for his series of soft cover booklets of humorous patter and one-liners. He published "Talks for Tricks" (1916); "Magical Monologues," (1919); "Patter Paragraphs," (1921); and "Words for Wizards," (1924). These booklets are prized by collectors. According to Magicpedia, his favorite trick was the Conradi Coffee and Milk effect which was published in Dorny's book Trix and Chatter.  

An auctioned "Words for Wizards" autographed by Schulte

Speaking of collecting, Schulte gathered an impressive amount of material including letters and scrapbooks and photos, many of which were stamped, "Schulte Collection." A number of these items went up for auction in recent years including on Haversat & Ewing Galleries, Potter & Potter, Swann Galleries, and the Christian Fechner auction. One auction included a letter from Houdini to Schulte thanking him for sending his most recent publication. 

Another letter came from Harlan Tarbell who provided Schulte with a complimentary copy of his Tarbell Course with the admonition not to let anyone know he'd done so or he would be overwhelmed with requests. 

Schulte also sold collectible magic at a time when magic collecting was barely in its infancy. He ran an ad in the May 1928 Linking Ring adverting "Old Programs" for sale. The dozen he offered included Thurston, Houdini, Blackstone, The Great Leon, Dunninger, Thorn and others. A buyer that month could have bought them all for $3.75. Sold today, these programs would be worth thousands of dollars. He even offered copies of old time magic dealer catalogs very cheaply. 

Sphinx ad from 1928. 

Noted historian Henry Ridgely Evans once wrote to Schulte complaining about the lack of interest in magic history. His letter noted that he (Evans) should probably just publish all of the articles that he contributed to The Sphinx in the form of a book, which he did some years later. 

He contributed funny lines and quirky patter to The Sphinx for decades, always under amusing titles like, "Funology ala Magic," "Patter from Merryland," "Magicalities," and many others. These short columns featured insightful philosphies on magic and theater as well as self-effacing comments on magic enthusiasts, many who billed themselves as "Great" but rarely were. 

In the fall of 1926, he was featured on the cover of The Linking Ring, and earlier in June 1917, on the cover of The Magic World, published in Philadelphia. He also appeared on the cover of The Osirian in June 1925. 

In 1910 in Chicago, The World's Master Magicians was formed and met in the showrooms of Halton, Janson & LeRoy. The club had about 25 members at best but most were very famous magicians. Members included: Laurant, Roterberg, Christianer, Ralph Read, Lockman, Gilbert, Tarbell and others. The onslaught of World War I caused the club to disband around 1915. It eventually became The Chicago Magician's Club. 

During World War I, Schulte performed with the famous touring entertainment troupe, the U.S. Navy "Jacks of All Trades." He also performed for troupes during World War II as well. Schulte died March 15, 1967, age 79 and was buried in Port Hudson Cemetery in East Baton Rouge Parish, Louisiana. 

Rodolfo

  

One of the things I enjoy about the study of magicians' playing cards is learning about obscure, even unknown, performers, whose career may be memorialized only by the existence of a card or perhaps a program or handbill.  Then, occasionally, I come across a piece like this one, which bears the image of a performer entirely unknown to me, but who was famous in his or her time. Such was the case for these odd pieces, which, I came to learn, were promotional cards for a performer named Rodolfo.  The cards come from full 52 card decks, available in both black and red, with a special joker featuring an image of Rodolfo.   While I own only a single card from one of these decks, I suspect that the backs are marked based on the elaborate back design.  Two other card designs, shown below, were shared with me by Magic Christian.

A Rudolfo Packet Trick

As I have noted elsewhere on this site, it is often the case that the amount of information on a magician's advertising piece is inversely related to the fame of the performer. Well, these card backs bears no information -- not even the performer's name. As I started to research Rodolfo, I came across a vast amount of information, both in magic periodicals and more general sources. And before I invested too much effort in distilling a post from these various sources, I found a most excellent summary of his life and career, written by none other than fellow co-contributor, Tom Ewing.
So, reprinted below is an article about Rodolfo written by Tom in a feature called "The Nielsen Gallery," written by Tom Ewing for M*U*M in April 2014:

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Magicians everywhere have at some time faced uncertainty and fear when stepping through the curtain to perform magic. How much harder must it have been for Rodolfo, the subject of this month’s column? His was the Iron Curtain.

Rodolfo was the stage name taken by Rezso Gacs, who was born in Budapest, Hungary (home of Houdini), on May 16, 1911. According to brief biographies of him, he was born the son of a typesetter. There is no account of which magic trick lit the spark that ignited a lifetime career in magic, but it happened when he was thirteen and was reportedly performed by a Chinese bead vendor.

Rodolfo mastered that elementary trick and while performing it for his boyhood friends, he was observed by the Hungarian actor Arpad Odry, who also happened to be the president of the Hungarian Magicians Association. He took the young boy on as a pupil and trained him in the art of magic. His magic career began in 1930 when he appeared at the Municipal Grand Circus in Budapest; reports of his talent spread. His performing proceeded without interruption until he was drafted for military service in 1940. Soviet Union forces drove the Nazis out of Hungary at the end of the war and occupied Eastern Europe. In 1956, a spontaneous, month-long nationwide revolt against the People’s Republic of Hungary and its Soviet- imposed policies broke out. After many clashes and deaths and the promised withdrawal of Soviet troops, the Politburo changed its mind and crushed the revolution. Hundreds were killed and many fled the country, but not Rodolfo, who continued to perform both within his country and across Europe. During World War II he performed for injured soldiers in army hospitals. After the war he worked as a teacher and professor in a school for the performing arts.

Behind the so-called “Iron Curtain,” performers were not allowed to individually book themselves. They had to do so through a government representative, who also gave them their dates and pay. Thus any act, whether in a circus or theater, was booked through, and payment made to, a communist government agency. The agency then parceled out to the acts an amount of money they felt was necessary for the performer’s needs. Such was the world in which Rodolfo operated.

Rodolfo never appeared in the United States, but if he had, the Hungarian government would have taxed him ten percent of his earnings. He did entertain audiences in
London, Lausanne, Paris, and Berlin. In 1957 he appeared in the Boxing Day Party on England’s BBC. Assisting him backstage was his most famous pupil and fellow Hungarian, George Kovari, who trained under Rodolfo. His opening effect was the Ribbon Fountain, in which hundreds of feet of colored ribbon cascade down on to the stage from a previously empty container.

According to Kovari, Rodolfo was a hard taskmaster when it came to learning magic. He insisted that Kovari copy his moves exactly saying, “If there was a better way of doing it, he, Rodolfo, would have found it himself!”

Dr. John Henry Grossman, magic historian and long-time columnist for M-U-M, visited with Rodolfo in Hungary during a trip through Europe. He and his wife were feted at the Budapest Association of Hungary Magicians at the Actors Club. Later Rodolfo took the Grossmans to the Jewish Hall of Records, where one of the crumbling books contained the handwritten record of the birth of Erich Weiss in 1874. This was at a time when historians were still trying to disprove Houdini’s claim of being born in Appleton, Wisconsin.
Rodolfo performed mentalism, stage magic, and pickpocketing; he would go through the audience shaking hands and greeting people and then proceed back on stage with the watches, wallets, and jewelry of audience members.

Due to his extensive language abilities he was able to present his program in eight different languages, and so was very popular with audiences throughout Europe. He wrote several books on magic, produced and sold several magic sets for children, including ones featuring trick cards bearing his photo, appeared on various television programs, and in 1962 was elected president of the Hungarian union for performers/artistes. His obituary noted that in a country where magic is considered a second grade art, he achieved every award ever given to any entertainer.

Even at the age of seventy Rodolfo still practiced four hours each day in front of a six-foot mirror, making sure his moves were flawless and invisible. He simply never stopped practicing. His creed was, “The artist who is satisfied with himself is not an artist anymore. He is dead.” Rodolfo died January 26, 1987, at seventy-five years of age. 

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How famous could he really be?  Well, it was not as though they put his image on a postage stamp . . .  oh, wait, there is this:

Ted Colteaux - The "Secret Man"

You may never have heard of Theodore "Ted" Colteaux.  I hadn't before coming across his throwing card.  Yet The Linking Ring noted in 1995 that "his influence in magic was so prevalent that it is impossible to measure."   Thus, I've borrowed the moniker "The Secret Man" from a classified ad run by Colteaux in that same periodical in 1925 -- some seventy years earlier -- as it's a particularly fitting appellation.

Colteaux was born in 1907, and started performing magic while attending elementary school in Bloomington, Il.  By 1924, while still a young teenager, he began contributing pieces to magic magazines, offering workman-like hints, tips and suggestions to fellow practitioners.   He met Houdini and Thurston, and corresponded with legendary magicians including Ted Annemann.  By 1926, he began offering equipment for sale in The Sphinx, and by the 1930s created the Colto Magic Trick Company, which offered standard equipment and original effects.


But was Colteaux any good?  This is a question I sometimes grapple with when writing about lesser-known performers.  Here I found an unusual answer:  Colteaux was a featured performer at the 1932 IBM convention, where he shared the stage with, among others, John Booth, Len O. Gunn, Brush, Harry Cecil and Marquis.  In the months that followed, his presence on that stage (along with these others), created a small controversy in magic magazines as some complained that less skilled performers would be discouraged from participating in Convention contests, when magicians like Gunn, Brush, Booth and Colteaux, described as "tough competitors" were "stealing the cake."  Having been compared to some top names in the field, once can assume that Colteaux was a formidable presence on stage.  

Colteaux touring with his sister, c. 1935.

In 1931, a columnist in The Linking Ring observed that Colteaux "has been on a buying spree, and we think he intends to put on a full evening's show."  Indeed, he soon hit the road, becoming a performer with the Wiere and Wayne Vaudeville Troupe and later performing in Chautauqua.  He became known for scriptwriting, ventriloquism and classic magic pieces, like rag pictures (featured on his throwing card below), nested alarm clocks, card flourishes and billiard ball manipulation.

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He had two throwing cards, both of which are seen here.  Both cards feature "Jimmy," his ventriloquist dummy.   One card has a vintage Bicycle back and is standard size; the second is oversized with a printed text back with period graphics.  Over the years, I've encountered a great deal of Colteaux memorabilia.  

From Billboard, 1948

Eventually, when full-time magic could not support his family, he became a salesman for the Beich Candy Company, a position he would hold for the next 40 years, and used magic to further his sales. And his passion for magic never waned.
He became deeply entrenched in the International Brotherhood of Magicians, holding membership number 365 and was part of the Order of Merlin. Reputed for his "infectious and lovable approach to performing,"

Colteaux continued to practice and teach the art that he so loved until the 1990s. He died in 1995 at age 88, having been active in magic for three quarters of a century.

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J. F. Krayak – “Eminent Illusionist” and “European Mystitics”

This is another one of those posts about a magician who left behind barely a trace of his magical career. There is enough about him however, so that he is not completely forgotten. He had some pretty nice throw-out cards too.

 

The life of Joseph Frank Krayak will have to remain for the most part a mystery. As can be seen on one of the above cards, he lists his address as Ridley Park, Pennsylvania. He proclaimed himself the “Eminent Illusionist”. On another card is the phrase “European Mystitics”. It is the reader’s guess as well as mine, as to what Mystitics means. It sounds magical though, and I am sure it kept a potential audience guessing. The Billboard for January 8, 1921 tells us that he was performing in his home area.

There is very little mention of Krayak in the magic magazines of the past. His greatest moment occurred when he appeared on the cover of The Magic World for November of 1919.  The short bio written inside by C. J. Hagen is very brief and does not tell us much, and Hagen explains why.

Besides performing magic, Krayak was also an escape artist. Like Houdini, he was known for his straitjacket escape while suspended upside down. From what I have discovered, Krayak was one of the few magicians that did the stunt while Houdini was still alive. I guess most others waited until after his death, probably so as not to incur Houdini’s wrath. Below is an article in The Billboard for September 3, 1921 talking about his “strait jacket” stunt.

While he may have billed himself as “Krayak, European Wonder Worker” it would appear that most of his performing career was spent as a magician in various carnival sideshows, mainly on the east coast. The Billboard on November 5, 1927 wrote in its column “Midway Confab”, “Joseph Krayak, magician with some carnival, is requested to write home.”

One of the last references to Krayak that I could find appeared in Hugard’s Magic Monthly for August of 1957. It sort of sums up Krayak’s years as a performing magician.

 

Well, this trick sure sounds like a beauty. But then, beauty is in the “eye” of the beholder. Maybe this story about Krayak is just a load of “beans”! 

The S.A.M. Match

Apologies for my recent absence from the blog but thanks to Jay Hunter and others for keeping the site fresh. I'm back with an interesting posting that falls in the general category of scaling cards although I'm certain that anyone who obtained a set of these cards would not scale them away into the audience. I speak of a special packet trick issued as a gift from Dal Sanders and his wife during his 2014 S.A.M. presidency. The set is shown below.

Shown are extremely well crafted playing cards featuring some of the more famous leaders of the S.A.M. as well as some well-known magicians. Featured are: Harry Kellar, Harry Houdini, Harlan Tarbell, Howard Thurston, Jay Marshall, and David Copperfield. The recipient gets a set in red and matching set in blue. The reverse side features the S.A.M. logo in the middle.

The packets allow the owner to do a trick based on Larry Becker's "Will The Cards Match?" from the award wining book Stunners Plus first published in 1992. Two spectators are given the packets of cards (one red - one blue) and then they will move cards from the top of their stack to the bottom, one for each letter in the sentence, "Great magicians Are in SAM." The order of that movement will be at the pleasure of audience members.

The effect starts with the performer going through the face up cards mentioning who each person is and their association with the SAM. On the membership cards that year (above) was the sentence "Great magicians are in SAM." Audience members are asked to decide which color card (or cards) will be moved from the top to the bottom of the stack, They can decide one red, one blue, two reds, one blue, or whatever alternating colors they wish. After the act of moving the cards is completed the top face down cards of each pile are turned over and they match. The next in line don't, nor do the bottom cards.

Once again the sentence is spelled and cards moved in any order. Again the top cards match. This continues until the last cards match. The effect involves a stack and is self-working. While clearly not scaling cards per se, I like them anyway and I've added them to the collection.

Harry McDaniel – He was in Hot Water!

Many magicians would have advertisements on the back of their throw-out cards that had nothing to do with magic. In many cases, the product being advertised would be well known,  such as soda pop, Cracker Jacks, candy, typewriters, and car tires. Usually these sponsors helped to subsidize, or even completely cover the cost of the card for the performer on the front of the card. Harry McDaniel, a Dallas, Texas based magician decided to go this same route, however in this case he owned the company advertising the hot water heaters on the back of his card!

Harry Henry McDaniel was born in Ellis County, Texas on August 15, 1896. As a child growing up in the town of Venus, Texas, the town marshal showed Harry a trick and the art of magic gained another devotee for life.

McDaniel was a veteran of World War I and performed magic for his comrades using small items such as coins and cards which would fit in his “quicky pack”.  After the war, he returned to Texas, got married, and settled in Dallas. Over the years, he became somewhat of a force on the Dallas magic scene.

From The Linking Ring for June, 1944

McDaniel was a charter member of the Dallas Magic Circle and helped to organize it in 1924, and when it was brought into the Society of American Magicians by Houdini while Houdini was in Texas. McDaniel also served as President of the Dallas Magic Circle at one time. McDaniel also was a member of the I.B.M. and in The Linking Ring for December, 1928 they wrote this about McDaniel.

 

Whether this referred to Harry McDaniel’s throw-out card shown above or a different one, it illustrates that McDaniel had the idea of using a card to advertise himself early on.

McDaniel was also known for inventing some magic and he had “a magical emporium and factory, and announces that he is equipped to take care of anything in this line. At surprisingly reasonable prices, he will repair or rebuild your illusions, or equip a complete show” so said The Linking Ring in 1934. McDaniel ran this ad in The Linking Ring for January of 1929.

 

When speaking of a McDaniel performance in The Sphinx for January 20, 1931 it was said, “Topping off the evening’s entertainment, Harry McDaniel, perhaps Dallas’ best-known magician, kept the audience gaping with The Root of All Evil, The Elusive Ball, Restoring the Napkin, Silver Thimbles Among the Gold, Miser’s Dream, The Hella Fez, and The Hindu Rooster. Mr. McDaniel is a manufacturer of hot water heaters when not otherwise occupied with magic”.

While living in Highland Park, Texas with his family, McDaniel constructed a fifty seat theatre that he called “Mack’s Magic Theatre”. It was built over a two-car garage and was well equipped with a stage, and all the lights and sound equipment anyone could ask for.

From The Linking Ring for June, 1944.

A Who’s Who of known magicians performed in this theatre such as “Blackstone, Dorny, Chas. H, Larson, Max Terhune, John Snyder, Jr., the Thayers, and many others” according to The Linking Ring for June of 1944. Here is a photo of Blackstone and McDaniel from that issue.

 

Harry H. McDaniel passed away on December 19, 1962 at the age of 66 in Dallas. His lifelong interest in magic was so strong that it is commemorated on his family cemetery marker with the word “Magician”, along with emblems of the magic societies he belonged to.

Photo taken by VA CURR for Find A Grave.