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Minority Magicians?

kittynh

Penultimate Amazing
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I just read something about "Norice de la Roche" the Black Houdini.

There weren't that many women magicians, seems to have been a tradition of Asians (both real and fake).

Any other black magicians?
 
I've seen Goldfinger and Dove at the Magic Castle in Hollywood, and they are also one of the featured videotaped "acts" in the "Magic: The Science of Illusion" exhibit.

At the Magic Castle, their act relied heavily on some rather tattered-looking old-school props (the big finale involved making a long scarf appear, and the scarf had something like "Thanks for coming to the show" printed on it. It seemed like the big finale to a kid's party routine from the 1950s), and they did nothing new or interesting. Their routines were timed to some fairly tacky musical soundtracks. It was very much old Vegas lounge-act stuff that didn't get anything but perfunctory applause from an audience of magic fans.

There were many times in the act when it was pretty obvious Goldfinger had included in his timing/choreography time for audience applause which just didn't happen. He would then say "Come on, that's pretty good!!" and the audience would politely applaud.

It was embarrassing.

I was there with a group of hobbyist magicians. To this day, when one of us says or does something which doesn't get the desired response from the others, we say "Come on, that's pretty good!!" in a Goldfinger voice.

By the way, before the show, I waited out front for the rest of the people in my party to arrive, and learned a lesson: it's hard to think of a magician and his assistant as mystical and exotic when you've see them drive up to the venue in a beat-up old Toyota in need of a new muffler.
 
Chinese magic schools turn out dozens of women as magicians, but their performances tend to be mechanical and not all that impressive.

I've seen some female performers who performed stage magic and some close-up. I won't name any names, but I was very disappointed with their presentations. One of them was so bad that she unintentionally gave away three important magical secrets due to her flashing (i.e., inadvertently showing the secret) and awful misdirection.

I've heard it said that there is a distinct advantage in some forms of magic to being white. Perhaps this remark was directed to magical props that are "flesh colored." Or perhaps it was intended to mean that a dark-skinned performer is less visible or recognizable in the low light that is important to some tricks. Or perhaps it was intended to express the preference of many audiences for a white performer. I don't know.

That said, I no of no good reason why there cannot be more superb performers of color, or why there cannot be more superb female performers. (Of course, I say the same thing about electrical engineers. From kindergarden on, I was in classes--except certain gym classes--that had a balance of the sexes and people of different races. But when I started attending electrical engineering classes, that changed. Many of the classes were exclusively male, and except for a few Asians, all white. As best I could tell, there was no good reason for this near uniformity.)
 
Brown said:
One of them was so bad that she unintentionally gave away three important magical secrets due to her flashing (i.e., inadvertently showing the secret) and awful misdirection.
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Reminds me of another magician I saw at The Magic Castle years ago.

He apprently had badly misfigured the lines/angles.

My then-wife and I were sitting in the front row, all the way to the right.

We could see every single item handed to him from behind the upstage curtain before he made it "magically appear."
 
WHen I saw the Pendraggons I was in the top seat of the balcony. Their big signature trick was kind of ruined, but I suspected how it was done. Still, it was the ONLY seating in the house that would have given it away. The only reason I was sitting there was that I wanted to lean against the back wall (I was a little tired). Still fabulous act. And they used their pet CAT. I've never seen an act where they used a CAT. And a big fluffly Chow dog.

Pretty hard "props".
 
One minority - jewish, is very over-represented in magic. There are lots of excellent jewish magicians.
 
One minority - jewish, is very over-represented in magic. There are lots of excellent jewish magicians.
 
I dunno - maybe a tradition of being very creative?

They seem to make pretty good song-writers, film directors and comedians too.

Some kind of show-biz gene?
 
Splossy said:
I dunno - maybe a tradition of being very creative?

They seem to make pretty good song-writers, film directors and comedians too.

Some kind of show-biz gene?
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You know it's still racial discrimination if it's positive?

Anyway, I would imagine certain tricks might be harder with dark skin, which contrasts more with white playing cards, and others would be easier, for similar reasons.
 
I know that women magicians have had a hard time if they wear a more skimpy costume. What impressed me with the Pendraggons was how Charlotte could perform wearing, well, not much.

Michael Shermer has a chapter in one of his books about the days when Jewish people were known for being good basketball players.
 
RSLancastr said:
Any theories as to why this is so?
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well, considering the large number of Jewish performers throughout vaudeville, I'm not surprised. There also seem to be a large number of Jewish comedians, probably for the same reason. This is becoming less so, after the standup boom and bust of the early 90s.

And I do not believe that people of color would have a harder time manipulating cards. If you doubt that, bring an extra $20 with you on your next trip to New York and play some 3 card monte sometime. :D
 
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