The sophomores like Gold-finger & Dove, Shimada
& Deanna, Ricky Jay, Judy Carter, Nick Lewin, Larry Wilson, Mike Skinner, Bruce Cervon, Larry Jennings, Max Maven, Martin Lewis, Paul Green, Jason Randal, Dean Stern, Jeff Altman, Steve Freeman…
I was so blessed to have watched this cast of char-acters. It was an incredible time. I craved their attention and absorbed by osmosis their lessons. Each one had his own trick, a nuance, a personal way of doing things, a lesson, a gesture, a story, a philosophy, an attitude. I took something from each of them.
And then there was my peer group. The not quite up-and-coming freshman, more like brat-packers, who found their way before there was such a thing as a Castle Junior Society. James Lewis, Abe Carnow, Nate Derman, Alan Bursky, Paul Harris, Michael Albright, Randy Holt…
These categories and names, for the most part, are in the order they popped into my head. It was a way for my disorganized mind to end up with something that appears organized. I’m sure I left out many great Castle magicians from what I call my golden age - the mid-six-ties to early-sevenmid-six-ties – who deserved to be mentioned, and I assume you’re adding them to my list right now.
This era also had its share of celebrity regulars, you might call them cheerlead-ers. It was always a thrill to have a brief chat or show a trick to folks like Cary Grant, Edgar Bergen, Robert Lan-sing, Buddy Ebsen...
I have immense gratitude and love for founders Milt Larsen, Bill Larsen, Irene Larsen; and a Larsen I never met - William Larsen Sr. - a lawyer by profession but a devotee of magic, who Milt told me often talked of starting a private club for magicians like the Castle. I remember a backyard bar-beque at Brookledge where Bill was fondly reminiscing about shows he and Milt did with their mom and dad at some resorts way back when. And how that after-noon’s barbeque was part of a Larsen family tradition of hosting the magic com-munity at their home.
There are certain memories
I have from those early days and some pleasant ones that seem to bubble up often took place in the Irma Room. Milt once told me he adapted the invisible piano player Irma idea from an in-visible harp player outlined in one of his favorite books – “Magic, Stage Illusions and Scientific Diversions” by Professor Albert A Hopkins.
Both the harp and the piano require a hidden musician.
The Castle’s secret pianist was, and I think occasionally still is, a talented ivory tickler named Dave Bourne. From Dave’s tiny secret workspace, he could see into the Irma Room through a two way mirror, and hear what songs folks requested through hidden microphones. So could I.
I spent some very special evenings in the little room with Dave. Sometimes there were as many as two dozen people jabbering away, drinking cocktails, and requesting songs. Other times, there was no one at all, or a couple of folks con-fiding secrets to each other, maybe flirting with some new acquaintance, whisper-ing arrangements for a love tryst, or committing treason, unaware we were spying on them.
During the day, I spent time on the other side of the two way mirror. A great deal of the Wednesdays between 1969 and 1972 I ditched school and hitchhiked to the Magic Castle. The Castle wasn’t open in the day, but I’d sneak in through the kitchen and go straight to the Irma Room.
I nearly always arrived in time to meet a dapper man
with silver hair, a thin mustache, and eyes that sparkled with an imperial confidence. Everyone’s favorite guru, Dai Vernon, who would be finishing up his piano lesson - given to him by Ray Grismer - a retired teacher and expert magi-cian himself, who traded piano lessons for sleight-of-hand instruction. I was there for the same reason, lessons in sleight-of-hand.
Vernon helped me become a dedicated craftsman, and en-couraged me to experiment and explore and try to find my way with trial and error. And no matter how foolish I might have looked trying to do a trick or how poorly I might have performed some sleight, he would push me on the next attempt to be more focused, more confident, more relaxed.
Vernon liked to sip brandy, puff on cigars, discuss yester-days, usually with a little grin on his face, the sort of half smile that seemed to say “I know something you don’t know,” which was always true. They called him The Professor and in the Irma Room, The Professor gave me a nickname,
“Spill,” short for my real last name, Spillman. He affection-ately said he dropped the “man” because I was a “boy.” The nickname stuck and eventually became my legal name.
There are people who believe one’s fate might be super-naturally induced by some unknown cosmic force. I don’t believe in things being orchestrated by a divine intervener,
and I firmly believe that a coincidence is a coincidence is a coincidence. But I do appreciate the strange idea that long before the Magic Castle was created it seems that’s where I was destined to grow up.
My grandfather, Morris Spillman, was a tailor. Around 1910 he sewed some secret pockets in a magician’s tuxedo. That magician taught my grandfather a simple trick with a piece of string. He loved that trick and showed it to everyone.
He passed that love onto my father, who passed that love onto me.
All the good things that have happened to me in my life I can trace to my father teaching me that simple string trick that his father had taught him. That love took my dad and I to the Magic Castle. And were it not for the Magic Castle, I might very well be writing anecdotes about my life as a machinist or, more likely, not be writing anything about anything.
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