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Sometimes it takes the perspective gained by the passage of time to realize the greatness of an event.

On that Saturday evening of May 31, 1958, I had not the slightest inkling that the full-evening show of Willard the Wizard would become...

The Best Show...
I Ever Saw
By John Moehring

The houselights of Houston’s San Jacinto High School auditorium slowly dimmed to a comfortable half-brightness, as an organist began a spirited overture. A lilting waltz segued to stirring Sousa marches, and the crowd of around 800 was abuzz with anticipation. A knowledgeable-sounding gentleman seated behind me advised his family of five: “Harry always started on time.” The houselights completed their dim. There was an trumpeting fanfare. An offstage voice simply announced: “Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, welcome the world’s greatest magician, Willard the Wizard.”

At age 62, with a flowing mane of silver-streaked hair, an elegant waxed mustache, and a mischievous twinkle in his eyes, the immaculately dressed magician stood centerstage as the epitome of the masters of the old school — Alexander Herrmann, Harry Kellar, and Harry Willard’s idol, Frederick Eugene Powell.

The opening wizardry of Willard was like stepping into the pages of Professor Hoffmann’s Modern Magic or More Magic  — “Flowers from the Cone,” “Decanters and Flying Handkerchiefs,” “Hot Coffee and Milk Served,” and the “Cones and Beans “ — conjuring of a bygone era that today is relegated to the colorful volumes of Dr. Albo. Yet, when Willard spoke, he convinced all that the anachnonistic apparatus was “absolutely free of guile.” Each mystery was presented as “a magical experiment.”

A small metal tub placed on a frame stand was splash-filled with water. Suddenly a pair of white ducks materialized. Willard then performed “Where Do the Ducks Go?” with a tailfeather-duster sucker-ending.

Blue footlights flooded the stage. The music became dark and haunting. An open-front trunk was wheeled onstage. Glass plates were used to line the bottom and side walls of the trunk. The lid was equipped with rows of bright incandescent bulbs, which rendered the interior clearly empty. Willard whisked a sheer scarf across the front glass. Instantly, a beautiful lady waved to the audience from the confines of the trunk. The lid was raised and Frances, Harry’s 17-year-old daughter emerged, flourishing silken wings of an iridescent butterfly costume. In addition to Frances, Ann Mahendra, wife of famed mentalist M.S. “Doc” Mahendra, assisted Willard that evening.

The program listed the next effect as “Birds in Flight.” Frances brought forward a cage containing three canaries. Willard gently placed them into a paper sack. He assured the audience that the little birds were all right, as small air-holes were torn into the bag. Then in the very next breath, a pistol was used to shoot out the bottom of the bag. The canaries were chirping and fluttering about, back in their cage.

The house curtain closed and Willard stepped down to the stage apron holding a yard-length of hemp cord. He invited two gentlemen from the audience to tie his thumbs together. The men were challenged to pull with all their might to prevent any slack before each knot was added. A second piece of rope was used to further bind his thumbs, which had become blue due to circulation being cut-off. With his hands tightly secured in this praying position, Willard rapidly and repeatedly penetrated a length of iron pipe held by the spectators. Despite the constant examination of the knots, he continued to pass his tied-hands through steel rings tossed toward him. He walked into the aisles, placing his arms over spectators’ heads, pulling his bound-hands through their necks. There was a tremendous ovation when his thumbs were finally cut free. I would later learn this was the Ten Itchi “Thumb Tie,” a guarded secret that Willard had elevated to become his masterpiece.

Still in front of the house curtain, Willard performed the “Miser’s Dream,” catching handfuls of silver half-dollars from the air. A young man from the audience assisted, and Willard started producing as many laughs as coins, as the boy discovered and removed half-dollars from just about every pocket of his clothing.

Willard promised his young assistant a souvenir, but first made him promise that he would take good care of it. The curtain parted to the reveal the “Doll House.” After the boy helped empty the toy furniture from the house, Willard reached through the door and produced several white doves. Then came a duck, a rooster, a rabbit, and the big surprise — the rooftop split apart — out came Frances, wearing a formal dress that literally covered the tiny house. She took the boy by the hand and both returned to his seat in the auditorium.

Willard then performed the “Torn and Restored Newspaper” with the patter story something like, “It only seems that I am tearing up this newspaper; it only appears that I am putting the pieces back together — it’s only an illusion.” Very similar to a presentation later heard in the ’70s in The Magic Show on Broadway. During the paper tear, I realized that the stage was equipped with a microphone and stand, but Willard never used it. Before the intermission, Willard presented the “Canary in the Electric Light Bulb.” The program stated that Willard actually used the apparatus once owned by Horace Goldin.

After the ten-minute break, calliope sounds filled the auditorium. The house curtain parted, revealing that the traveler curtain was paged back and pinned up, to form a smaller proscenium of sorts. It was time for the “Little People” — Harry Willard’s marionettes. The puppets were manipulated in front of a paisley drop, making it virtually impossible to see any strings. Willard not only operated all the marionettes — a dancing donkey, juggling clown, hula dancer, spooky skeleton, and others — he provided voices for the different characters, some of whom sang.

The “Vanishing Bird Cage” was done with a live bird. For the repeat vanish — “of another cage and another bird” — two girls were invited from the audience to hold the cage. “Linking Rings” were performed with an rather unusual climax. Willard worked centerstage delicately linking and unlinking sets of two, three, and four rings. As the routine ended, Frances helped display a chain of eight linked-rings. Willard then gathered the chain. Frances moved to the opposite side of the stage, about 20 feet from Willard. He proceeded to toss each single ring to her, one at a time. Finishing out this lengthy and entertaining segment of smaller magic was a funny routine with the “Sun & Moon Handkerchiefs.”

The traveler opened to reveal another setting of stage magic. From the “Valadon Drum,” yards of colorful silks appeared. Frances and Ann Mahendra pulled two seemingly endless streamers from the drumhead to all corners of the auditorium. A net was used to catch a cagefull of doves from mid-air. A stack of checkers, a vase full of rice, and an orange magically moved about the stage during the “Chinese Checkers Cabinet” mystery.

Five cards taken by different members of the audience were dramatically discovered using the “Card Sword.” Because I had moved to the aisle of the front row to take photographs, I received a valued lesson in the forcing of multiple cards. As Willard passed among the five spectators, he requested that each “take a lucky card.” He never said “choose” or “pick” a card; instead, he just indicated, “He shall take this lucky one” or “The lady has taken her card of good fortune.” (Five front row spectators were simply handed the five force cards from the top of the deck.) Then while still standing in the aisle, the cards were removed from the sword, verified, and mixed with other cards gathered from the floor. The packet was hurled toward the stage, and the five cards were found again using a “Card Star.”

The “Rod Through Body” was presented as “a feat that is considered to be scientifically and physically impossible.” But first, the lady had to be “completely mesmerized.” After the solid steel rod had penetrated Frances’ torso, a red ribbon was threaded through, then pulled back and forth through her midriff.

The grand finale of the two-hour show was the “Great Trunk Mystery.” A committee was brought onstage for a convincing lock-up of Frances. This was the first time I witnessed a female assistant, instead of the magician, being secured in the bag. As the canvas sack containing Frances was lifted into the trunk, Willard secretly cued one of the committee: “When I turn my back, crawl in the trunk with the girl.” When Willard turned around, appearing dismayed, there was much laughter from the audience. The actual switch for the “Sub Trunk” was totally unexpected — on the offbeat — without the “One, two... It’s me!” countdown/exchange. Willard merely stepped inside the pipe-framed cloth cabinet to remove his tail coat, and out popped Frances holding the coat. When Willard ultimately stepped from the bag, he was nonchalantly smoking a cigarette. There was a standing ovation from the crowd, as well as two prolonged curtain calls.

Standing in line after the show to have my program autographed, I repeatedly read the last line on a page of Facts About Willard: “Tonight you are seeing perhaps for the first — and we hope not the last time — the great magic your fathers saw, which many believe is still greater than the sophisticated magic of today.”

At that time, I was already seeing much of the so-called “sophisticated magic of today.” By age 16, I had traveled to a combined IBM-SAM convention in Chicago, and was dazzled by three evening shows. Line-ups that included Fred Kaps, Cardini, Neil Foster, Ballantine, Senor Mardo, Charlie Miller, Ade Duval, Slydini, Al Koran, Percy Abbott, Kodell, Okito, Alex Elmsley, and Mark Wilson. And over the next two or three decades, the shows of magic that I witnessed — which of course included those of Richiardi Jr., Henning, Blackstone Jr., Siegfried & Roy, and Copperfield — became countless.

However, it seemed that the more of the “magic of today” that I saw, the more I grew to appreciate and admire the magic of the old school — specifically, that performed by Willard the Wizard on that one evening in 1958. Harry Willard died in 1970. Shortly thereafter, I re-read the show program I had saved. That Facts About Willard statement was just partially right. Harry Willard’s magic was more than “greater”... it was the greatest. ©

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