Ovette and the Art of Reinvention

Joseph Ovette (1885-1946), an Italian immigrant from Naples, was first inspired by seeing a performance by Alexander Hermann, and purchased his first trick from Otto Maurer.  He began his career as a medicine show performer with the famed Kickapoo Medicine Show, eventually becoming a fixture of vaudeville.  Billed as "The Great Ovette" in his stage show, he also offered Asian-themed show under the name Lung Chang Yuen and performed mentalism as Mar-Jah.  Ovette wrote approximately 16 books on magic, several of which are seen below.

First showcased on our scrapbook damage page, Ovette's "Magic Wand" card remains one of the most inappropriate I've encountered. The cover of his book, Advanced Magic, seen below, demonstrates a similar sensibility. In 1927, Ovette was credited as the originator of the "Ovette Master Move," also known as the "Kelly Bottom Placement,"  a card sleight used to secretly place a chosen card on the bottom of the deck.

Some of Ovette's books were poorly-produced typescript jobs with awful diagrams.  And, at times, he was accused of failing to adequately credit original inventors.  But these issues should not necessarily dissuade practitioners from the contents.  After his death, the Conjurer's Magazine observed:

Joe Ovette not only invented hundreds of tricks and illusions but he performed his inventions as well, and successfully. Not all of Ovette's effects were original in their entirety. But he did have a keen sense for doping out new angles for old tricks and his imagination was limitless. Many of his best effects were "rebuilt" tricks which, because of the expert Ovette touch, turned out to be more effective and entertaining than the originals.

That was written by an author identifying himself as "Hokus Pokus Jr.," whose actually identity is a mystery to this writer, but who reported being a good friend of Ovette's.

A 1948 ad in Billboard shows the sad demise of his magic repertoire:

Frank Ducrot

Ducrot's card sports National Playing Card Company's Rambler no. 23 Blue Hindoo Back

Frank Ducrot was born Theodore Francis Fritz on May 7, 1872 in Brooklyn, New York. His interest in magic started as a lad growing up just a ferry ride away from Manhattan where the famed Palace of Magic where Francis J. Martinka’s magic shop was just waiting to entice him. As a performer, he toured the Chautauqua and Vaudeville circuits. His billing as “The Boy Magician” lasted into his 50’s.

Otto Maurer, Jr. - Like Father, Like Son

This post concerns the not-so-well-known, but still famous 19^th century New York magician and magic shop owner Otto Maurer and his son. There is not a lot of biographic material on Maurer, but thanks to the tireless research of historian Tom Klem, we know quite a bit more about this father and son team. And, thanks to some unidentified magic collector who assembled many of the cards in my collection, we also know that Maurer’s son had a scaling card, it exists (below), and is offered here for your pleasure.

Otto Maurer Jr. 

Much of Maurer’s life is detailed in Klem’s article “Otto Maurer’s Magical Bazaar,” in The Yankee Magic Collector, Vol. 17, 2016, published by the New England Magic Collectors’ Association. Mr. Klem has graciously allowed me to draw from his article for the purposes of this post. Thanks. 

Maurer was born Oct. 28, 1846, in the village of Gemeisheim, Germany. When only 16 years old he immigrated to the United States and arrived in New York City where he quickly became part of a burgeoning German community located in the Bowery.  Census records have him employed as a tinsmith and in that capacity, he apparently also sometimes repaired the apparatus of local magicians. In 1872, he opened a magic shop in the basement of a five-story tenement building at 321 Bowery Street near Second Street.

A stylized portrayal of Maurer's Magical Bazaar.
It was actually in the basement of the building.

As Klem points out, in the nineteenth century, the Bowery had a thriving theatrical district with many first- and second-class theaters, dime museums and other sources of entertainment. There were also great restaurants and shops and it was a popular destination for those seeking entertainment. John Henry Anderson, The Wizard of the North, appeared at the Astor Place Opera House in 1851. Among Maurer’s regular customers were Imro Fox, Horace Goldin, Arnold De Biere, Frank Ducrot, Alexander Herrmann, Harry Houdini, Howard Thurston and many others.

Apparently, Maurer’s shop was also the first place that the back-hand palm was shown to magicians. According to the stories, Maurer was shown the move of effortlessly shifting a playing card from the tips of the fingers to the back of the hand by a traveling Mexican gambler. This would have been around 1887. Maurer taught the sleight to other performers including Houdini who was performing at the Globe Dime Museum in 1894, almost directly across the street from Maurer’s shop.

Within a short time, Houdini had added this sleight to his repertoire, proclaimed himself the “King of Cards” and had a lithograph printed to publicize the fact. 

T. Nelson Downs also learned the sleight as did Thurston, who utilized it in his very successful card manipulations.

Maurer married Emma Brichard in 1877, and they had three children, one of whom was Otto Jr., who played piano during his father’s performances (mostly in parlors) and who later went go on to operate the shop after his father’s death as well as performing musically and magically.

In the late 1890s, the magic magazine Mahatma started reporting on Maurer’s declining health due to cancer. After many hospital visits, Maurer passed away May 15, 1900. The New York Times ran an extensive obituary which read;

“King of Magic” Dead

A Master of Legerdemain on the Bowery Passes Away

The Bowery “King of Magic” is dead and the “Magical Bazaar” at 321, which for twenty-eight years has been a storehouse of implements for mystifying, has at last been visited by the mysterious hand of death. “Professor” Otto Maurer, one of the quaintest characters of the thoroughfare, succumbed to cancer last Tuesday in the Post-Graduate Hospital.

He came from Germany when a young man and established the shop, bringing with him many of his inventions for tricks. Incidentally he gave lessons in the art of mystifying the public.

As the years went on he accumulated a fortune and married. He could not mystify his better half, however, and they separated. Their son remained with his father, who instructed him in the tricks he know so much about.

The old “King of Magic” knew what good living was and his money finally disappeared. He died a comparatively poor man. The funeral will be held to-day, and many of the “professors” old friends on the Bowery will follow the body to the grave.

It is more likely that rather than living the high life, Maurer’s monetary resources were depleted unsuccessfully battling cancer. The New York Herald also covered the story with the headline, “Wizard of the Bowery is Dead.” Houdini was reportedly the last person to see Maurer alive. 

After Maurer’s death, his son, Otto Jr., continued to operate the business out of the address at 321, but eventually moved the shop to 105 E. 14^th Street. It only operated there for a short time and then the shop and its contents were absorbed into the New York Magical Company on Broadway in Brooklyn.

The scaling card featured here bears the 105 East 14^th Street address, probably written in Otto Jr.’s hand. It seems likely he continued to use the original cards after his father's death but then manually added the new address. According to Houdini, writing in his Conjurors Monthly, Maurer Jr. ended up working in the musical department of a store in Newark, NJ. As late as 1920, the Census showed him living with his mother. It is uncertain when he passed away. 

Tom