Maurice Fogel. The master showman dodges the bullet!

•March 2, 2013 • 1 Comment

The Amazing FogelI think that the greatest showman that I have witnessed performing magic was Maurice Fogel. Maurice or to give him his correct name ‘The Amazing Fogel’ was a giant in the world of mentalism and magic. Maybe not in stature, but definitely as a performer, Fogel towered above all but a handful of magicians.

I first saw Maurice perform in England at the Conway Hall. Later on I got to meet him, work with him and enjoy his lively company as a houseguest. One day I suddenly realized we had become friends and I felt very proud. He taught me a great deal. If I had to pick the one piece of magic that Maurice performed that displayed his formidable powers as a showman it would be his bullet catch routine. He turned it into an exercise in showmanship.

In typical Fogel style, Maurice didn’t perform the bullet catch like any other performer. To begin with he didn’t actually catch the bullet between his teeth or in a plate. He very astutely came up with a plan to take a dramatic effect and make it even more theatrical. Fogel realized that the key to the trick was the danger involved in watching a performer risk his life by having a gun aimed at him and then fired. Maurice upped the odds by using six rifles in his routine. Five rifles contained genuine bullets and one had no bullet in it.

The rifles were mixed up and one of them was chosen at random (Yeah, in a magic act!) and this rifle was to be fired directly at Fogel’s Maurice Fogelheart. The remaining rifles were aimed at plates on a rack behind Maurice. Catch the subtlety there because the finale (Or should I say Prestige–lol) of the effect consisted of an earsplitting volley of rifle fire and the destruction of 5 plates clattering onto the stage.

Best of all was the way Maurice sold the trick to his audience. Once the effect was set up and the audience was ready to see whether he would survive the ordeal was when the genius of Fogel the showman took over. Just as the rifles were aimed at Fogel and the tension was mounting to a high pitch, he would abruptly stop the action and step forward to address the audience. “Ladies and gentlemen” he would say, “It occurs to me that in a few moments I may be lying dead or dying on the floor, unable to hear your reaction. Would it be presumptuous of me to ask to hear your applause now?”

Needless to say the audience responded with a wild round of applause. “Thank You” said Fogel, “Then if that was your applause for a brave and gallant looser, may I assume that if I should succeed then the applause would be twice as loud!”

Maurice

 

 

No sooner had the applause and laughter died down before Fogel returned to the original drama and the firearms were re-aimed at him. After a short countdown the rifles roared into life, plates crashed to the ground and Fogel staggered! He just staggered just long enough to cause the more sensitive spectators to gasp before Maurice recovered and took his applause.

Needless to say when the audience realized that Fogel was unharmed their applause raised the roof. That was the kind of brilliant showmanship that put Maurice in a league of his own. No wonder he was known as the Amazing Fogel!

Here is some Pathé News footage of Maurice performing the bullet catch.

 

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The (delightful) Ghosts of Hosts past at the Magic Castle.

•February 27, 2013 • Leave a Comment

Castle GhostOne of the greatest joys of visiting the Magic Castle in the 70s were the fabulous bunch of eccentric characters who acted as hosts and introduced the acts. They added an enormous amount of charm and authenticity to your evening. I’m not saying that our current crop of hosts aren’t nice guys but they seem a little faceless compared with some of the ghosts of hosts past.

The very first person I met at the Castle was Don Lawton. Don was as charming as he was funny. Over the years that I watched Don performing and introducing performers he always made me laugh. He would lean in through the curtain in the Close Up Gallery with a slightly bemused expression and say; “Oh, Porter…..” and even though I had never been a passenger onboard a Pullman train I would be in stitches. In the old Palace of Mysteries, Don would produce a six-foot straw and try to get a taste of a drink from a lady in the back row. In the Parlour we were treated to his hysterical memorizing of an entire deck in a routine that never got old.

It was at the Castle where I first met Senator Clarke Crandall, in his capacity of host. No sooner had we met than he began to recite a quasi-Senator Crandallbiblical story about God instructing mankind on how to make a profit on the selling of polo shirts by sewing an alligator on the front of them. When Crandall finished his recitation I mentioned how much I enjoyed the writings of Woody Allen. The piece was word for word from Woody’s first book and all the better for being spoken. After I said this, the Senator gave me a sideways glance and said, “A magician who reads actual books. I will have to keep an eye on you.”

You couldn’t start to describe these weird and wonderful folks without a very special nod to Mickey O’Malley. To say that Mickey was an eccentric is to vastly understate the case. When the evening was winding down at the Castle, Mickey would produce his rather battered trumpet and play various jazz classics.

Years later after Mickey had died I was attending a swap meet at the Castle and bought a spring rat that had belonged to him. It is without doubt the most disgusting looking prop I have ever seen. I love it. I picked it up from the table and held out a handful of dollars just seconds before Harry Anderson was able to do the same. Timing.

Another key player in those fun filled days was Jack Hurlbut. Jack was a master of Ring Flight and had a huge collection of different versions. One month the 80 dollars that was our share of the rent on the ramshackle house we lived in looked like it would not arrive. I sold Jack my Jim Hooper Nemo Ring Flight—the one that could be examined.

I regretted the sale later, but in this business you lose a key case here and find a spring rat somewhere else. Of course you can’t really examine a spring rat (with Mickey O’Malley’s no one would want to—my wife is still scared of it) but then again there is really no need to ever have your Ring Flight key case examined either!

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Side Effects. A review.

•February 15, 2013 • 1 Comment

Side Effects.One of the side effects of making a lot of movies without seeming to focus too much on them is that they loose impact. There is a really good story lurking around inside this movie, but it never really seemed to escape to my mind. If this is going to be Soderbergh’s last movie, as he suggests, it is ending his career with rather a whimper than a bang.

 

It was very hard to get over excited by the arc of the movie or by any of its four stars, Rooney Mara, Channing Tatum, Jude Law or Catherine Zita-Jones. Everything was a muted as the color palette. There was little to dislike but no synergistic benefits from any of the elements and no individual stand outs.

 

The basic idea of ‘Side effects may include murder’ for a depression med is a nice one. However this is a very convoluted path, to it’s final and none to surprising ending. In fact, a few surprises would have been very welcome along the entire journey. There were no ‘gotcha’ visual moments and not really any great ‘gotcha’ moments in the storytelling. I won’t say that the movie was on thorozine, but it kinda seemed that way….

 

I hope Soderbergh does decide to remake his own early ‘flop’ Kafka— it was an interesting story that never quite made it out of the directors mind. Of course, we could all just stream Soderbergh’s ‘Sex, Lies and Videotape’ &’Traffic’ and it might well prove to still be the highlights of his career. While ‘Magic Mike’ had is fans the only remaining bullet in Soderbergh’s directorial gun that might hit a bullseye for me is ‘Behind the Candelabra.’ Which looks like surprisingly good and committed fun.

 

 

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The Journey Not the Destination. Part Two.

•February 15, 2013 • Leave a Comment

nickIn a recent blog I discussed ways to improve the journey to the destination that is the reveals in your show, and the finale of your entire performance. My emphasis was on ways to keep the show of maximum interest to your audience while navigating the natural action points provided by the magical highlights.

Ken Brooke was a great believer in interjecting visual stunts and ‘linkage’ into his show in order to help maintain a steady pace; his style was not particularly driven by spoken jokes. Billy McComb of course used his verbal wit as a highly effective way to streamline the proceedings. I learned a lot from both of these two mentors and have combined their respective styles as much as possible, while adding much of my own.

One thing that both these performers, and most other top professionals, share is a show that doesn’t seem to have any awkward transitions where the audience notices when the performer finishes one trick and begins another. A seamless show is a strong one when it comes to retaining an audience’s attention.

I understand the notion of the ‘storytelling’ approach to magic, but it can seem extremely dated to a contemporary audience unless it is very expertly handled. I see a lot of performers treat each item as a separate gem and spending a great deal of time ‘setting things up’ instead of moving ahead in a speedier manner. You really can add to many details and too much color. The yarn you spin may actually be of much less interest to the audience than you think.

One of the most quoted phrases in magic is Robert Houdin’s statement that, ‘A magician is an actor playing the part of a magician.” Robert HoudinDefinitely true, but no longer a radical thought and maybe it is time to just accept it and take a deeper look. What this concept does not do, is give a magician a reason to pontificate, be precious or worse still become self-important.

It bears reflection that an actor enters the arena with a good script, a director and usually an additional cast in order to help create the play. As William Shakespeare stated, “The play is the thing,” and not the player. With a magic show it is the act that is the thing and not just the performer. Sure the personality of the performer is a key ingredient in making the show enjoyable but it is not the only element.

A good show is like a good play and the construction of both has a huge amount to do with finishing a successful journey and arriving at a mutually enjoyable destination. Enjoy every sight and sound that you can include on your travel, share them with your audience and make sure they enhance the experience as you do so. Then you are traveling on a first class ticket!

Advice that I never tire of sharing with fellow magicians is to write down your show and study the way it looks on paper. It is much easier to judge what your product is and then to improve it, if you write it down. You really can’t successfully edit something until you solidify it, you may be dealing with what you think is going on/being said onstage rather than what is actually happening.

Willie The Shake

In your show you must know where you are going and how you are going to get there. When you have a clear picture of these two vital details then you can get to work on ways to make it as enjoyable as possible for your audience to take the journey with you. To paraphrase Elmore Leonard’s ‘Writing Rule’ that I quoted in part one, it probably wouldn’t do any harm to analyze the bits in your show that the audience find least interesting—and then skip them. A poor performer works for himself and a good performers works for his audience.

 

I have some great products and videos online. Check them out on my web site. www.nicklewin.com

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Sharing the stage (and dressing room) with the Shimadas in Las Vegas.

•February 8, 2013 • Leave a Comment

The ShimadasI was off and away on another magical mystery tour courteously of Jean Cantor from the Magic Castle. Let me tell you about this particular show. Jean had booked me to perform on a Japanese television special to be filmed in Las Vegas. The star of the show was a widely popular comedy performer from Japan.

The special was to be taped live at the Aladdin Hotel in Las Vegas to give it a more international feeling and the producers had hired two acts to entertain the live audience during breaks and downtime while the special was being taped. In keeping with the International theme they hired me to perform two ten-minute comedy sets and Shimada & Deanne to present their classic dove and parasol show.

I had met Shimada and Deanne before and was a huge fan of their dynamic onstage synergy. What I didn’t realize was how much fun they would be to work with. We all flew from L.A. to Las Vegas on the same early morning flight and there didn’t seem to be much energy between the three of us. However, any lack of energy disappeared instantly when Shimada stepped inside the Vegas terminal and within seconds was stuffing money into a slot machine at an impressive speed. I was impressed.

We were picked up at the airport and delivered to an enormous dressing room next to the Aladdin showroom.  The dressing room was Vegas in the 70sdivided equally—not! Shimada and Deanne, along with their mountains of costumes, doves, parasols and dragon parts filled four fifths of the room and my working case was sitting on a chair in another corner of the room. We got our props together and sat gossiping in the dressing room wondering when we would be called upon to work.

We didn’t have to wait long. The live audience had been attracted to the filming by the offer of a free show and special surprises. The real problem was that not one person in the audience spoke Japanese. It really creates a hitch in comedy when you don’t understand the language. The visuals didn’t help the situation much either. I remember one sketch where a samurai warrior sliced open the gut of a fellow performer resulting in oceans of blood and guts washing out over the stage. The audience hated everything they were seeing and were leaving the showroom in droves!

The Shimadas 1980The producer sent me onstage to see if they might react better to American style comedy. They did. I also introduced the ‘surprises’ that the audience had been promised; these surprises were a large collection of electronic goods such as TV’s and Stereo Systems that were to be given away on a regular basis. The dispersal of these goodies was very popular with the crowd and allowed us to keep an audience for the ten hours it would take to film the special. After finishing my ten-minute set, I came offstage and was greeted by an excited Haruo who said, “Nick, you did very well and I made a new deal for you with the producer.”

The deal he had made was that the production team wanted me to act as Host and MC and perform my comedy and magic during the remainder of the shoot. “What are they paying me I asked?”  Shimada smiled and explained that the producer had agreed to give all three of us free drink in the dressing room for the remainder of the taping. They certainly fulfilled their end of the deal and for the next eight hours Wine, Spirits, Beer and Brandy arrived in the dressing room in copious amounts!  They also disappeared in copious amounts!

The only downside to my new contract was that by the end of the day I had been onstage doing ‘time’ for nearly three hours! I did my jokes, old jokes, new jokes, jokes I had heard on the Carson show the night before!  If in doubt I gave away another TV and that always worked!

I was a very exhausted, rather drunk and somewhat dazed comedy magician when I returned to L.A. with my new friends Shimada & Deanne!

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Not the Destination but the Journey….Part One.

•February 8, 2013 • Leave a Comment

Ken Brooke

One of the things that my first magical mentor, Ken Brooke, used to repeat to me on a regular basis was, “It isn’t the journey it’s the destination.” I’m not sure he ever used those words but they certainly express the sentiment. Roy Johnson certainly did use the words in one of his early books, and in more philosophical ways it has been featured in many great metaphysical texts.

There is a very real problem with the performance of magic if you don’t heed these words and accept them as a warning. The nature of most tricks is to have a set-up and then action that leads to a finale. I actually prefer to use the term reveal rather than finale. Usually that reveal is very fast and functions as an applause cue.

There is often a tendency for an effect that has a five-minute build up to result in a five-second reveal. If this is the case then you really need to pace those first five minutes and make sure they contain enough entertainment ‘meat’ that your audience don’t lose to much critical interest in what is happening prior to your reveal. Turning a reveal into a double punch finale is another useful way to add impact to any show.

Much of magic is proudly based in the past, and very little new stuff is really going on. Think about how many magic props look like Billythey are sloppy reproductions of Victorian props. The more expensive props often look like good reproductions of Victoriana. A great deal of nostalgia is involved in a love of magic. For a lay audience nostalgia about magic usually doesn’t stretch any further than memories of what they saw as kids.

One of the things to be greatly affected since TV became the standard entertainment medium is pacing. You have to keep things moving at a fairish pace for a contemporary audience. You don’t have to rush things, but you need to add interest points throughout your routine.One thing you can do is to ruthlessly strip away unnecessary wasted space or as it is known in radio ‘dead air.’ One of the writing rules of the great Elmore Leonard is, “I try and cut out all the writing that people will tend to skip when they read the book.” Ah, words of sublime simplicity and wisdom from a master.

royjohnson3As a spoken/visual art form the audience are held hostage to your pacing and can’t skip the bits they find dull. What they can do is loose interest/attention in what you are doing, and that is bad, very bad. Sometimes as performers we are very attached to things that we do/say that really don’t move the action forward or contribute to the audience’s enjoyment.

Sadly we magicians are seldom able to enjoy the benefits of a good and impartial outside director. We are primarily self- directed and that leads to us failing to be edited by an outsider with theatrical knowledge and a fresh pair of eyes. It is a problem to step out of ourselves and prune the rosebush to improve the blooms.

Illusionists have a separate problem because they often miss the critical aspect of a director. is replaced by someone adding Elmore Leonardchoreography and lighting. Both of these elements certainly have a real role in improving a performance but not if they clutter the action and slow down the action. Performers who speak are probably using to many words to say what they mean, and are therefore confusing/delaying the action.

With the instant access to movies and television afforded to the general public they have become, sometimes unknowingly, used to a directors touch in shaping a performance. We need to self-direct and make our work as commercial and accessible as possible. I will finish my thoughts on this topic in a future blog….

I have some great products and videos online. Check them out on my web site.  www.nicklewin.com

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Holly Williams at the Hotel Cafe in Hollywood.

•February 7, 2013 • 1 Comment

Holly & the BandHaving a grandfather as iconically famous as Hank Williams Sr, and Hank Williams Jr as a dad probably isn’t any real handicap to a young singer songwriter. However having some doors opened for you doesn’t necessarily mean anyone will be kicking them down to accord you the same kind of fame. Unless you can deliver the goods on your own behalf you might well find the weight of your relatives makes success even tougher in show biz. Make up your own list of examples.

Holly Williams is a very accessible and talented performer and painter who looks very likely to achieve a great deal of success neither because of, or in spite of her hereditary status. She is a fine singer and songwriter whose current album ‘The Highway’  might well contain a breakout song, and her next album could contain five or six number one hits. You can never tell in the music industry, but Williams certainly looks determined enough to make it happen.

On Wednesday, 6th of February she came to Los Angeles to play her 4th gig with her new band, at the Hotel Cafe in Hollywood. The Hotel Cafeoccasion had a double goal, to promote her new album and to get some road time with her new band before some high profile opening gigs later this year with Loretta Lynn and Jewel. The intimate showcase venue was filled with about 1oo people and was a great spot to expose her talents without risking a higher profile chance of exposing any teething problems with her already impressive four piece combo.

Last week Williams appeared on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, and this week her new album was released which features star back up including Jackson Browne, Dierks Bentley and Jakob Dylan. I suspect her modest choice of venues for Wenesday’s gig was a excellent sideways shuffle around the spotlight. The Hotel Cafe is a warm and friendly showroom that featured four artistes performing on this particular evening, each with a separate show, Tickets were a delightfully low $10 and the forty minute set that Holly performed was a perfect introduction to her talents.

Holly WilliamsWilliams has already got a winning way with marketing as her successful career in consumer retail has to show. Check out her website www.hollywilliams.com and you can get a feel for her focus and vision. I suspect she is determined and smart enough to make a success of anything she sets her mind to. I absolutely believe she will be another generational element in the ongoing legacy that began with her Grandfather.

The further down the road we travel from the Hank Williams story, the more apparent it is that this troubled genius was not only one of America’s finest songwriters but also one of its first Rock and Roll Superstars, disguised as a Hillbilly Singer. If you do not regard Hank Williams as a songwriter in the league of Cole Porter then you may be suffering from a certain cultural myopia.

Holly William’s new album ‘The Highway’ is released on her own Georgiana Records label and it is available (you guessed it) on iTunes. It is definitely worth listening to and exploring.

If you are a music fan who isn’t familiar with Noise Trade then you have a revelatory treat in

The Highway

The Highway

store. The exact same can be said of Holly Williams and this speaks highly of the current direction of music in the Internet era.  If you have a chance to catch Williams in her current tour or opening for a more established

performer then grasp the opportunity. This is a highly talented performer who is going to be around for a long time and achieving some major goals.

The Highway is well worth downloading. While she has released two previous albums, I suspect this album is the start of a career that will explode in a controlled manner under her careful guidelines. For a concise (and free) tour of her recorded work then you should download her showcase sampler from the wonderful www.noisetrade.com

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‘Stand Up Guys’. A fun and quirky journey with some great actors.

•February 3, 2013 • 2 Comments

Stand Up GuysStand Up Guys is a gangster movie—what a surprise! A rather good and modest one, that offers great performances, some good laughs and very few surprises. When you team up three actors like Al Pacino, Christopher Walken and Alan Arkin it probably comes as no shock to hear that it is also quirky and more than slightly eccentric. The movie is directed by actor Fisher Stevens and above all it is a movie that is all about the performances.

I would watch Al Pacino in a movie no matter how bad it is— in fact I have! In ‘Stand Up Guys,’ Pacino plays the part of Val and is a delight as a harder than nails criminal who has just been released from a 28 year prison sentence. From the moment he is greeted at the prison gate by his former colleague you know it is not going to be smooth sailing in the relationship between him and Doc, played in his inimitable style by Walken. No spoiler alert here. Actually there are no great surprises anywhere in Noah Haidle’s screenplay, but some great chances to explore the fully formed personalities that the movie’s stars bring to the table. The movie goes pretty much where you think it is going and enjoys the journey getting there.

Pacino has two modes of acting, full on and over the top, and even fuller on and more over the top. In this movie he gives us a welcome opportunity to catch a glimpse of what some of his earlier screen creations might have been like if they had made it to become senior citizens. Not mellow and definitely still ‘full on and over the top.’ You get to watch Walken and Pacino come to terms with the fact that after 28 years  separated, they are each others only real friends. They are predictably unexcited and embarrassed by the hint of emotion that this causes them. 

Just when you are getting comfortable with the interaction between Val and Doc the movie gets a fresh wave of Pacino, Walken & Arkinexcitement when they are united with Hirsch, a former mob driver. Hirsch is brought to life impressively by Alan Arkin who adds a synergistic blast of energy to the proceedings. None of the actors let you forget the fact that these are tough and violent men. We just get the benefit of enjoying some of the lighter moments that their relationship offers. I’m not sure we ever needed to know quite so much about aging mobsters sex lives but what the heck.

I suppose there are other actors in the movie, but when all is said and done, it is really only the relationship between the three leads that fuels the story. All the other actors are certainly strong enough for the fairly basic roles that they fill in the storyline but their parts are purposely underwritten. The whole movie is a low key and enjoyable meditation on some very basic After Hourselements of the gangster genre. There is more than a little of ‘The Expendables Go Mobster’ in this production, however spending 90 minutes in the company of these three stand up guys is a lesson in acting that I found really enjoyed. I can’t summon up the same enthusiasm for ‘The Expendibles,’ and can’t help feeling that some of them shouldn’t ‘Have Been Baaaack!’

This movie has received some fairly scathing reviews and I am a little lost to know why. From the moment it begins you understand the territory you are entering and what to expect from your tour guides. Three great performances, and 90 minutes that was never less than enjoyable— this was just fine by me! The movie pleasantly reminded me of Scorsese’s highly underrated 1985 movie ‘After Hours,’ as it chronicles an odyssey through an absurdly never ending urban night. In fact if you haven’t seen it recently you should screen Scorsese’s minor gem as part of a double bill with ‘Stand Up Guys,’ they won’t change your life but they should entertain the heck out of you.

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The ‘H’ word and dealing with it. Heckling 101.

•February 1, 2013 • 4 Comments

Muppet HecklersThe reason I am referring to the topic of this blog by an initial is for the same reason most words are handled in this manner. It is considered by many to be a dirty word, not by everyone but certainly by many. Brace yourself—the word is heckling. There I said it.

There has recently been a long flare on the Magic Castle Facebook page about how terrible the heckling has become at the Castle and how to deal with it. Some of the solutions range from thoughtful to downright stupid. I don’t want to get into a discussion of that particular situation because it is incredibly location specific.

The Magic Castle is a unique venue that seems to be suffering some audience problems as it has been transforming from an intimate private club into a mega busy niche entertainment centre that marches to a cash beat. Of course, to remain viable as our clubhouse that cash needs to flow in on a very regular basis. However no member should be surprised if the magicians areHeckle cartoon treated less with respectful awe and more as a commodity. This is the trade off.

If you perform for any length of time you will eventually get heckled. It is like that hard drive failure— not a case of if but when. Magic is a particularly delicate area when it comes to heckling. Sometimes a heckler is just saying something that is obvious to everyone—like the outcome of a trick. It can be disconcerting when after burning a dollar bill, the moment you pull out a lemon; someone says, “I’ll bet the dollar is in it!”   If you experience a decrease in interest and a loss of authority then consider yourself heckled—but not necessarily in a negative way.

If this happens more than once, you should try and add a few curve balls and re-construct your repertoire so that you turn the tables on your audience’s expectations. I do this in many routines as a matter of course, and it pays big dividends in reaction. Very often an audience is way ahead of the pace and direction you are operating at and it behooves you to add a couple of twists. You have to do it, while they only have to think it, and thoughts are infinitely faster than actions.

If on the other hand, someone drunkenly shouts out something incoherently during your show then you have received the most classic and toughest to handle heckle. If it is a woman heckling it is infinitely worse. Your job number 1 is silencing the person and keeping them from getting out of control and spoiling the show for everyone else. The strongest tool you have at your disposal is to unite the audience behind you and let the heckler know that they are not appreciated by anyone present and are making a fool of themselves.

hecklingThe easiest kind of heckling to handle, and yet one that I see the most consistently mishandled, is when someone makes a genuinely witty or salient comment during your show.  A simple technique under these circumstances is to register the remark, smile at the person who made it and say, “That’s funny—I must remember to say that next time.” Another approach is to give a rueful smile and say, “I hate it when the audience is funnier than I am!” Don’t treat this kind of heckler as the enemy or they may become one.

What I haven’t discussed is that ever-popular mythical beast of magical booklets, ‘The Put Down,’ ‘Zingers’ or ‘The Zaps.’ Leave them in the outdated ‘gag book’ you find them in, as they can often open a can of worms you don’t want opened. The real danger with hecklers is that they are often totally genuine in their belief that they are helping you out.

As you perform you will develop some genuinely funny and relevant lines that you can use to stop a heckler.  Not to put down, zap or zing him—but to STOP him. These lines are generally ad-libs that are contextually effective, and your job is to make a mental note of the effective ones for future occasions when similar circumstances.

My personal technique when I want to use humor to silence someone is to do three short, scathing and really funny lines in a row directed straight at the heckler and then gazing directly (and pointedly) into his eyes say, “The LAST thing you want is my total attention.” This usually gets a strong reaction from the audience and usually convinces the heckler that I have a very good point.  Never attempt this, or any comedic anti-heckling approaches unless you are armed with a microphone, and never let your microphone into the hands of a heckler. Amen.

I’ve been getting a great reaction to my book ‘Cruise Magic 101’. Check it out on my web site.

www.nicklewin.com

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My Brush with Alfred Hitchcock and Harry Houdini.

•January 27, 2013 • 4 Comments

Michael Melissa and NickSince the early 80s one of my closest friends has been the incredibly talented writer and producer Michael Sloan. Though Michael has written and produced movies and West End stage shows, he is probably most famous for his contribution to the medium of television. He is one of television’s classiest talents and finest gentlemen.

Sloan has nearly 300 hours of network television to his credit including the creation of iconic series ‘The Equalizer.’ This year will see the return of the Equalizer as a major motion picture starring Denzel Washington in the title role. The TV series starred the great English actor Edward Woodward, and Michael’s beautiful and talented wife Melissa Anderson as his daughter.

My favorite holiday will always be Halloween 1987 when Michael gave me the best Halloween ‘treat’ I ever received. I had been presenting a special event at ‘Carlos & Charlie’s’ nightclub on the Sunset Strip in Los Angeles, and just after I finished the show, Michael casually handed me a manila envelope containing a script.

The script was for an episode of ‘Alfred Hitchcock Presents,’ Universal Studios revival of the classic television series. The episode was called ‘Houdini on Channel 4’ and it was written for, and about, me. In fact my character practically never left the screen. He got to solve a kidnapping case, channel Houdini, die and come back from the dead bringing Houdini with him. I also got to perform some really neat magic while doing all of the above!

To say I was excited is a gigantic understatement. I had been featured in quite a few TV shows before, but never in a serious starring Alfred Hitchcock Presentsrole. Had I realized what an intense experience it would be, and the extent to which it would stretch my ‘drama school acting skills’ I would probably have been more nervous than excited. Fortunately Michael was on hand to guide me through the shooting of his script.

Sloan added a couple of special treats to the episode especially for magic buffs and they hugely benefited the impact of the episode. The production licensed some rarely seen Houdini footage from the Manny Weltman archives which was featured to fine effect in the production. It was really great to find myself onscreen working side by side with my childhood hero.

The second surprise that Michael included in the episode was in regard to the secret Houdini shrine/séance room created by my character in the storyline. With a lavish touch of authenticity, all the Houdini memorabilia that festooned my séance room actually belonged to Houdini himself. It had been shipped to Toronto from Abb Dickson’s collection in Atlanta, under the supervision of Mike Russo.

It was a blast to participate in such a beautifully mounted production and truly a career highlight. Michael featured two of my favorite routines into the show and shot them with a care that is seldom seen in these circumstances. The show opens with the levitation that I featured in my illusion show and also includes highlights from a close-up routine that I created for my Magic Castle show. I even got to talk a little speculative quantum mechanics, which was a feature in ‘Quantum Magic’ show. All these interludes were near and dear to my heart.

I will always be grateful to Michael Sloan for his kindness and consideration in creating and ensuring that this show took place in the manner in which it did. Michael and I would go on to work together on ‘Kung Fu—the Legend Continues,’ but this will always be one of the most special moments in my magical journey.

If you would like to watch the episode I have just placed it on my website and you can find it at

http://www.nicklewin.com/alfred-hitchcock-presents.html

I’ve been getting some great reactions since the release of my ‘Ultimate Linking Finger Ring Routine’ and would love you to read about them. Check out my blog and web sites.

www.remarkablemagic.com

www.nicklewin.com

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