Ru Xian: the Mysterious Card Thrower

Bill  Mullins provided me with this magnificent throwing card, along with a mystery.  Exactly who is this woman - a mysterious propeller of pasteboards?  The card presents an unusual problem: other than the tiny words "Happy Kingdom" on the reverse,  it contains information written solely in Chinese.  Without the help of some friends, this would have been a dead end.  And yet, I have a story for you.

We begin with Mr. Mullins, who advised that the magician featured is named Ruxian - sometimes transliterated as Ru Xian or Ru Xian Guli.   Bill saw her perform just once, in 2010, at the "Gathering for Gardner" in Atlanta.  At that event, she performed a silent card scaling act, where Bill collected this rare specimen.  Bill advised that Ru Xian performed illusions at the Happy Valley Amusement Park in ShenZhen.  He notes that although Ru Xian lives in China, she is ethnically Uyghur, a group whose sad plight has been featured in news reports in recent years.

Though a relentless magic researcher, Bill was not able to give any further information about her, noting that Google and AskAlexander produced little.  One website discusses Ruxian's involvement  in the 2018 Shenzhen International Magic Festival, and lists her as "vice director of China Magic Committee and part-time vice-president of the Shenzhen Federation of Literary and Art Circles."  But Bill was able to give me another lead: he advised that magic inventor Mark Setteducati might be able to help.  And indeed, Mark did!

A quick email to Mark -- who has been quite generous with his help with other research projects -- once again produced a rapid and thorough response.  He wrote:  

I first met Ruxian in Shenzhen China at an amusement park at which she was performing, probably about 15 years ago. I was with Eddy Au, who owned a magic shop there and also own Eddy's Magic Company.  Eddy is from Hong Kong. 

Ruxian does not speak any English and I don't speak Mandarin, so although we both know each other and have been together several times, communication has been limited. She attended and performed at a "Gathering For Gardner" along with another Chinese female magician.  They were a smash hit as both acts are very beautiful.

 I last saw her about 3 years ago in Shenzhen, but hadn't heard anything since.

Mark provided this photograph in which he appears with Ru Xian and magicians Mark Mitton, Lennart Green and John Horton Conway, among others:  

A rare photo of Ru Xian (on left) at the Happy Valley Amusement Park.
Back row: Mitton, Conroy, Green & Setteducati (courtesy Mark Setteducati)

The throwing card, featured above, is a a beautiful full color piece, printed on hard plastic. Like many of my favorite throwouts, Bill advises, this one was scaled before being collected.  Tiny corner pieces are broken, which may have shattered after being forcefully scaled by this talented performer. 

And that brings us to one last interesting fact.  Sterling Lee, vice president of the SAM's Parent Assembly in New York City, took a copy of Ru Xian's throwout card and had someone translate the text on the card.  Turns out that, not surprisingly, the side with her picture bills her as  "leading magician of the Happy Valley Amusement Park in South China."  The reverse, though, the side with the large characters and the Eiffel Tower, is an ad for a travel agency.  It turns out, then, like so many of the items we've featured on this site, Ru Xian's card has a cosponsor.   

I have not had the pleasure of seeing Ru Xian in action, and a search of the Internet yielded no videos, but based on the descriptions by Bill and Mark, hers is an act not to be missed. Many thanks to Messrs. Mullins, Setteducati and Lee for their kind assistance, without which this post would not have been possible.  

Dell O'Dell: Queen of Magic and Empress of Ephemera

While working on The Coney Island Fakir: The Magical Life of Al Flosso, I came across scads of photos of magicians' conventions and banquets in which Flosso appeared along with dozens of other tuxedo-clad tricksters.  In many of them, though, appeared a tall, spectacularly dressed woman, who invariably caught the viewer's eye: Dell O'Dell, born Odella Newton (1897-1962).  I also acquired lots of material - show bills, puzzles, giveaways and even a Dancing Dell Doll (with cutout holes that allowed you to use your fingers as her dancing legs) - featuring this stylish performer.  And I even had the pleasure of interviewing a number of magicians who had seen O’Dell (who once worked as a circus strongwoman and was among the first magicians to have a regular television show) weave her magic spell, regaling her audiences with clever banter, strong nightclub-style magic and rhyming patter.   I had long thought that someone should write a biography about her and was pleased when my friend, magic historian Michael Claxton, did just that.  Don't Fool Yourself: The Magical Life of Dell O'Dell, which consistently receives five-star ratings, is a beautiful hardcover that's becoming increasingly hard to find.  (Michael advises that you can still get copies from Gabe Fajuri, the publisher, at www.squashpublishing.com).

O’Dell should appeal to readers of this blog, as she is of particular interest to magic collectors.  Claxton has a scholarly paper online entitled "Collecting Dell O'Dell," which you can find online here.   In it, he discusses the vast array of ephemera commissioned by "The Queen of Magic":

It would be pretty cheeky to rank Dell O’Dell alongside John Henry Anderson, Houdini, Thurston, Blackstone, and Sorcar—that is, unless we’re listing the great masters of publicity among magicians. I’ve always known that the Queen of Magic could sell herself with style, but while writing her biography, Don’t Fool Yourself, I came to appreciate just how savvy Dell was at promotion, and just how well that talent paid off. She worked virtually non-stop for nearly three decades, even during the 1950s, when opportunities for magicians tapered off. In one week alone she once did 47 shows. Dell’s success rested on a potent combination: her ability to deliver lively entertainment to just about any conceivable audience, her love of socializing with patrons to build rapport, and her tireless marketing machine. She was a driven, determined woman who thrived on applause, and her career in magic was nothing short of a whirlwind.

Fortunately for collectors, that whirlwind left behind quite a bit of tangible debris. Knowing full well that her quirky giveaways would be saved and remembered long after the show was over, Dell handed out pitch-books, loop pencils, paper dolls, puzzles, and other novelties by the tens of thousands. Her circle of creative magician friends included printers, writers, and artists, who all kept the advertising ideas coming. Together, their output was impressive. Even after twenty years of seeking mementoes of Dell’s career, I still come across swag I’ve never seen before. For instance, I didn’t know there was such a thing as “Dell O’Dell’s Solitare Peg Game” in the 1950s until I discovered one last year. And at the last LA Magic History Conference, my publisher gave me a small matchbox that rattles when shaken. Its label reads, “Presented with the compliments of Dell O’Dell, World’s Leading Lady Magician.” But the sliding box has a hole in the bottom, so when an unsuspecting person slides it open, dried beans spill everywhere. There may still be some beans in the carpet at the Beverly Garland Hotel, where I fell for this gag myself.

Martin Gardner, famed for his monumental contributions to both magic and recreational mathematics, made similar observations, noting that "Dell O'Dell found . . . small, inexpensive items of a trick nature which can be given away as souvenirs . .  .  a novel and profitable form of advertising."  

 

I’ve yet to find a throwing card featuring O’Dell, nor has Mr. Claxton seen one, but would not be surprised if one exists somewhere out there among the vast quantum of material she employed. But what I’ve featured here is a piece that is quite nifty, a membership card for “Dell O’Dell’s Friends of Magic Club,” which was, at one time, the largest fan club for any magician in the world. It sports a lovely image of the performer clutching a pair of rabbits on the reverse, while the face contains the membership data. Based on Claxton’s work, it seems that the signature is likely hers, making the piece an autographed keepsake. A notable memento of a notable career in magic.

 Lastly, when I asked him to help with this post, Michael was kind enough to share this unusual piece.  It's a rare card featuring O'Dell, one of several variants that were affixed to tiny bottles of Coca-Cola, given away during a meet and greet sponsored by the soft drink giant.   Dell O'Dell had quite the knack for promotion!