period in American history when institutions like Chau- tauqua and Lyceum kept thousands and thousands of en- tertainers, especially magicians, fully employed in a na- tionwide network of theaters and performance venues.
TE: We should remind readers that his actual name was Louis J. McCord. How did he first become interested in magic?
WVR: He didn’t start out with magic, but rather with Punch and Judy. As a twelve-year-old he sat enthralled while watching two men perform at the German Hall on East Street on the north side of Pittsburgh. Earlier, cards announcing the show had been passed out at his school and he discovered that for ten cents he could gain entry into a world of wonder. The experience never left his mind and led him in a direction from which he never wavered. After the Punch and Judy there was a magician, John Lawrence McKissock, and that got it started. McKissock witnessed performances by Kellar, Herrmann, Thurston, and even met Houdini at Huber’s Theater in New York. He was a magician of the old school and became Mora’s mentor and teacher. The first trick he taught Mora was the four balls under two hats effect, an impromptu version of the Cups and Balls.
TE: Why did he call himself “Silent,” and where did the “Mora” come from?
WVR: The “Silent” was a reference to his performanc- es of magic in pantomime, and the “Mora” was “Maro” with two letters transposed. Early in his career, McCord was impressed with the performances of Walter Truman Best, who adopted the stage name “Maro.” He always felt bad about creating a stage name so close to Maro’s; after that magician’s death in 1908, he wrote a piteous letter to Maro’s widow begging forgiveness for having pirated her husband’s name.
TE: So how popular was Mora back in the day? WVR: One of the largest Chautauqua circuits in the U.S. was the Redpath Bureau; Mora was a headliner from 1917 through 1929 and received glowing reviews on his performances. He wasn’t what you might describe as a vaudeville headliner who only played the big time. However, he was very successful. He worked the Keith Time and the United Time. He played theaters in Chicago, Detroit, New York, and across the country. In my opinion, anyone working vaudeville theaters in major cities like that is not exactly playing “the sticks.” In 1913, Mora played Proctor’s Theater in Newark with Mae West headlining the bill. He played coast to coast and north to south. Prior to the end of his career in Chautauqua, he moved his base of operations to Boston, where he continued to seek bookings and performed in clubs and other venues. He still considered Pitts- burgh his home, though, and often visited his family.
TE: Tell us about the Ziegfield show and the incident with the goose.
WVR: In his book, Magic: A Pictorial History of Conjurers
in the Theater, David Price recounts that in 1930 Mora was
employed to design some magical effects for Florence Ziegfield’s show Simple Simon; Ed Wynn was the headliner. One Mora bit in the show involved the production of a goose. Price wrote, “One night, the goose popped out from its hiding place before the time for its entrance and landed unceremoniously on its backside. Ap- parently thinking that Wynn was responsible for the mishap, the
goose headed toward him in anger. Ed saw the mood of the goose and led it on a ‘goose chase’ around and around the stage. Finally, Ed ran into the wings with the goose in hot pursuit, and the goose was captured by the stage crew. The audience was hysterical with laughter. Some thought it was part of the show; it was suggested to Ed Wynn that the bit be kept in the show. Ed hurriedly vetoed that suggestion.”
TE: What were some of the main features of Mora’s act? WVR: His act was developed over the years, tried and perfected in every possible performing venue. It almost always included a vanishing lamp of his own design, appearing bowl of water and its vanish, a masterful performance of billiard balls, the floating ball, Linking Rings, and his most famous creation, Four Balls and a Net.
TE: Some of his early sleight of hand inspired future greats of magic, didn’t it?
WVR: Yes, especially Dai Vernon. Mora created the Four Balls and a Net effect wherein small rubber balls placed in one hand magically travelled to the other hand. Among other things, it involves placing a ball on top of your closed fist and appar- ently removing it. Actually, the ball drops into the closed fist as
the other hand supposedly carries it away. Vernon used Mora’s move for many years in his Cups and Balls routines. More sig- nificantly, Vernon heard about Mora’s Wand Twirl, a move Mora used beginning in 1904. Mora noted that drum majors or band members often twirl their drum sticks. Mora used it as a flourish to vanish an object in his hand. Mora used it at Tony Pastor’s Theater in New York in 1905 to vanish a ball during his act, but he also used it over the years to vanish other small items.
Speaking of Mora, Vernon said, “Mora was one of the finest handlers of billiard balls I ever knew. His wand spin vanish of a ball is well known by magicians. It was part of my lecture and I always gave him credit for the move. Mora saw me do this in Boston one time and said that it was a little different from his method and he liked the way I did it. This remark coming from the master was very flattering to me.”
TE: You write that he was an inventor of magic effects. Can you give us some examples?
WVR: During my research I discovered a handwritten card by Mora in his scrapbook that lists a number of tricks he created. They include:
• Floral Cabinet as presented by Kalmar & Co. on the Keith and Orpheum Circuits
• The Vanishing Chinese Wind Bell • Vanishing Lamp
• Houdini’s Ten Alarm Clock Vanish and Reappearance • Single Kerchief Color Change
• All sleights with Ball and Silk • Twirling Wand and Vanishing Ball • Black Art Table with no front cover • Vanishing Giant Brass Water Bowl • Table Top Changes to Chinese Fan
Reference to the Alarm Clock Vanish is interesting because Houdini always claimed he invented it. If, in fact, Mora gave the idea to Houdini for what came to be known as The Flight of Time, it contradicts Houdini’s publicity that reads, “The Last Illusion Invented by Houdini.” I am inclined to believe Mora. Collectors know that the alarm clock trick was built by craftsman Rudy Schlosser, but the revelation of Mora originating the illusion is interesting. He also originated Chinese Wands constructed out of bamboo, sets of which today are highly collectible.
TE: Was Mora close friends with Thurston?
WVR: Yes, they corresponded over the years, including on February 28, 1917, as World War I raged in Europe, when Mora helped Thurston out of a jam. Thurston was having trouble finding the right kind of wire to use in his Levitation of the Princess Karnac. Knowing of Mora’s connections in magic, he wrote to him asking him to obtain several one-pound spools of wire. Mora found the wire and sent it to Thurston’s agent in New York City. Mora saw to having the wire chemically colored to remove the bright steel finish.
TE: Vernon admired him but what did other magicians say about him?
WVR: George Corregan Jr. wrote in the November 1962 issue of The New Tops:
“They tell about a baseball player’s ballplayer, about an actor’s actor, and a musician’s musician; but ‘Silent’ Mora is more than a magician’s magician. He is everybody’s magician. He has thrilled an audience of fifteen hundred in a theater with his pantomime magic act. He has delighted hundreds of children at a Christmas
party with his handkerchief knots and Chinese Rings. He has amazed a group of spectators with his net and white rubber balls. He has entertained laymen with his close-up effects. And he has been admired and idolized by magicians for all these talents. ‘Silent’ Mora is truly everybody’s magician.”
There was also an undated statement in Mora’s scrapbook written by Mr. Otto Harbach, the American lyricist and composer for some fifty musical comedies. He was Oscar Hammerstein’s mentor and believed that songs should be woven into a show, not just placed there. Writing of Mora he said:
“I saw you do your act at the Alvin Theater (NYC) tonight and as I watched you, I was wondering who it was you reminded me of and now I can tell you – Your timing as you worked with the Palace Theater Orchestra was so perfect, it reminded me of the Great Nijinsky when he was dancing with Pavlova.”
Then there was a reviewer in the March 1930 issue of The
Sphinx who wrote:
“His Chinese costume and settings furnished a different and attractive atmosphere. Billiard balls, which Mora handles at least as beautifully as the best; candles, the Chinese Sticks, fire-eating, the Linking Rings, the ball on the fan, and many other interesting
and skillful demonstrations made this act one of the outstanding successes of the evening. Silent Mora spoke to the Chinese Sticks with bewildering effect and they responded to his suggestions like things alive.”
TE: Obviously, Mora was an active and incessant letter writer. In fact, you describe his closing years as a time when illness kept him from performing and writing letters was his only means of communication. Were his letters interesting?
WVR: Yes, they are filled with his reminiscences of magicians he knew and worked with, his opinions on what constituted great magic, and the importance of showmanship and practice. But what comes through most clearly is how depressed he was when vaudeville ended. Here with his own punctuation and capitaliza- tion is what he wrote one time:
“I am speaking of those days of vaudeville, at one time the happiest profession in the whole world. We don’t have that privilege anymore and it seems to me that we are losing one freedom after another. As I dislike getting old, I also dislike losing so many things that were so beautiful and beneficial to all the people. I dislike seeing great, really great artistes working under ‘canned sardine’ conditions and I hate to see magic relegated to the unfair and cramped atmosphere of the Night Clubs and what is just as bad…to see a great profession like magic confined to the classification of parlor entertainments.
“At least, we of an older generation have seen a marvelous period in the theater, to have seen such wonderful shows and to have taken part in so many of them. Vaudeville was killed, long live vaudeville. Those were happy days and theaters were all playing vaudeville and Drama and many thousands of acts and actors came to tour in all America bringing the greatest personali- ties of the theater to these shores. There were many magicians and kindred novelties playing the theaters all over this broad land of ours, spending their money in every town and no one can say they were not all good spenders, leaving money in every town, and magicians were only one branch of entertainment.
“This was in the days when great horse-drawn trucks laden with trunks and scenery brought the baggage from the Railroad Stations to the Theaters and Hotels and many of the shows had to carry great loads of paraphernalia for the proper presentation of the shows, while the vaudeville actors used to carry from two to twenty trunks just to be able to use the right apparatus for a single vaudeville act.
“There were few automobiles in those days, for you had to pay
cash for them, and there were strict clauses in theatrical contracts
that forbid anyone from travelling to the towns and cities in auto- mobiles. They were a little uncertain about getting to the towns and there were many break-downs with many of the better paid acts missing their shows. You travelled by train each Saturday night and Monday morning the great Railroad terminals were filled with actors, buying tickets to distant points and others coming in from far flung cities.
“At a recent actors meeting lasting from 2 a.m. until 5 a.m., I did not hear the name vaudeville mentioned once and many of those gathered there would hardly have believed it possible there were great shows presented at the Hippodrome in N.Y. City, often employing hundreds of people. These shows were the means of bringing many thousands of out-of-towners into the city where they spent money far in excess of the theater admission, for they made this visit to the theater also the occasion for buying from the
stores in N.Y. City. This principle also holds good for thousands
of other cities all over America – the people came to see a show and buy in the city.
“This was the time when Movies were Movies and not Talkies
and there were no double features and independent Movie Exhibi- tors were privileged to buy exactly what they wanted and nothing else, and sometimes you could buy reels from $1.00 to $3.00 per reel, and in relation to that I would say that time when the old ‘White Rats’ Actors Union was in existence, I told the several hundred actors assembled there would be a day when these Movies would sell for $1,000 a day, and at this remark there was a ‘belly laugh.’
“This was a time before it was possible for any single group of people to gain control of the theater and where there was much more freedom in the entertainment fields than there is at the present time in 1939.
“The European War started, involving England, France, Germany, Russia, and Belgium, and as at that time the vaude- ville artists were really Internationalists and travelled in all those countries, and suddenly found they were no longer Internation- al travelers, but their Nationality was either for them or against
them. Germans who were in England were not allowed to return to Germany – so came to America. English artists who were working in Italy, Germany, or Austria were not permitted to go to England, so came to the U.S. So it was, that great personalities, great vaudeville acts that formerly found continuous work in all those countries found a haven only in America.
“With all this influx of the greatest talent in the world into these United States brought the salaries of all talent down, with special favoritism shown the foreign acts, and at a price that in other times would have been laughed at by these vaudevillians. They were glad to be able to work here even at the lowest figure they had ever worked for.
“As a result of this opportunity, which was appreciated by the managers of theaters, the American Public was treated to some of the very finest talent ever to appear on the American stage, but that same condition brought great hardship on the American Actor and there were many times that some of our greatest entertainers went hungry, believe it or not.
“This condition was rendered doubly hard because commodity prices were high, and rents began to rise. That period was a dis- tressing one for everybody, whether they were actors or preachers or plumbers. Then came the entry of the United States into the War, with everyone acting as a spy on the other fellow. The theater started to pick up a bit for the American vaudeville actors for the reason that many of the Foreign Acts were recalled to serve their own country, so the American born actor was once more in demand. But even at that time the theaters were starting to run a double feature (silent picture) and fewer and fewer acts were required.
“There was not any quarter shown when this move was made and thousands of people found their living taken away from them. Not only actors, but people in the tent shows; on the Lyceum and Chau- tauqua’s; Musicians, Stage Hands, Railroad employees, Transfer workers, Wig makers, Stage shoe makers, Property builders, photog- raphers, lithographers, printers, Theater cleaners (theaters used to be scrubbed clean every week). These are only a few of the many indus- tries affected by the change from lighted theaters to dark ones.
“Today, that is all changed and no longer do the actors come to town and no longer do the people from out of town come into the big cities to see a show and do some shopping. No longer do the Railroads have the great passenger traffic, nor are their baggage cars filled with trunks. No longer do the actors spend their money (they have not any money now). No longer do the great Circuses parade for the school children and pack the tents.”
TE: What were Mora’s last days like?
WVR: Mora continued club work and appearances at magic conventions in the Boston area until sometime in the 1960s, when his health forced him into the Long Island Hospital in Boston. He remained hospitalized for many years. By that time B.F. Keith’s vaudeville theater in Boston was a distant memory, but not for Mora. Before it was torn down, he obtained large swatches of the front curtain and for years afterward sent small souvenirs of the material to friends and admirers. It was a gentle reminder of those magical days when everyone worked and live theater ruled. After his death on August 5, 1972, his body was returned to Pittsburgh for burial.
Silent Mora: The Story of Louis J. McCord contains most of Mora’s
published magic effects, his personal hand-colored scrapbook, and over two hundred never-before-seen photographs from his infancy to his closing years. It is available directly from 1878 Press Company, a division of Zanadu LLC ([email protected]) or through magic dealers.