Leon Mandrake - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Leon Giglio better known by his stage name Leon Mandrake, was an Italian-American magician, mentalist, illusionist, escapologist, ventriloquist and stunt performer

Stunt performer

A stuntman, or daredevil is someone who performs dangerous stunts, often as a career.These stunts are sometimes rigged so that they look dangerous while still having safety mechanisms, but often they are as dangerous as they appear to be...

known worldwide as Mandrake the Magician.

Early life

Born April 11, 1911 in Washington state, Mandrake was very young when his mother brought him to New Westminster, British Columbia on the West Coast of Canada to live with his aunt Mildred. As a child, he watched magicians at the local Edison Theatre and attended circus shows at the Pacific National Exhibition

Pacific National Exhibition

The Pacific National Exhibition is a non profit organization which hosts an annual 17-day summer fair, seasonal amusement park, and arena in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. It usually begins in mid-to-late August, and ends in early September, usually Labour Day.-History:The exhibition has been...

. He studied the great vaudeville

Vaudeville

Vaudeville was a theatrical genre of variety entertainment in the United States and Canada from the early 1880s until the early 1930s. Each performance was made up of a series of separate, unrelated acts grouped together on a common bill...

magicians when they came to town. One year he was given the props and costumes of a magician who had left the show. He soon learned to perform magic acts from some of the greats of that time, such as Howard Thurston

Howard Thurston

Howard Thurston was a stage magician from Columbus, Ohio.-Life:Thurston had the largest traveling magic show for the time, requiring more than eight entire train cars to transport his props across the country...

, Alexander (The Man Who Knows), Chefalo, Doc Verge, Ralph Richards (The Wizard) and Bannister. In 1922, at 11 years old, he began his magic career giving vaudeville performances in New Westminster, British Columbia. He took the stage as one of the vaudeville acts of the Edison Theater in New Westminster. In 1925, at 14 years old, he performed at the Moyer's Carnival for the Pacific National Exhibition. By this time, he learned fire-eating, mind-reading and ventriloquism. In 1927, at 16 years old, he joined the Ralph Richards touring magic show for 6 months, traveling across North America until the tour ended in Winnipeg, Manitoba. By the 1930s, he traveled with his own magic show.

Comic strip

Mandrake, the stage magician, known for his black top hat, black cape, and thin handlebar mustache, bears a strong resemblance to the central character in the Mandrake the Magician
Mandrake the Magician
Mandrake the Magician is a syndicated newspaper comic strip, created by Lee Falk , which began June 11, 1934. Phil Davis soon took over as the strip's illustrator, while Falk continued to script. The strip was distributed by King Features Syndicate.Davis worked on the strip until his death in 1964,...

comic strip. In fact, Leon Mandrake had been performing well over ten years before creator Lee Falk

Lee Falk

Lee Falk, born Leon Harrison Gross , was an American writer, theater director, and producer, best known as the creator of the popular comic strip superheroes The Phantom and Mandrake the Magician, who at the height of their popularity attracted over a hundred million readers every day...

introduced the comic strip character, and today, most people acknowledge the striking physical resemblance between them. Many sources assert that the comic strip character was drawn to resemble Leon. Phil Davis

Phil Davis (cartoonist)

Philip Davis , better known as Phil Davis, was an American artist who illustrated Mandrake the Magician, written by Lee Falk. Davis was born in St. Louis, Missouri....

, the strip's artist, did meet Leon Mandrake and they became good friends and corresponded for years. Falk was said to have invented the name Mandrake the Magician coincidentally. Though there is no written contract, both parties verbally agreed to cross-promote each other with the result that Mandrake the Magician became recognized throughout North America.

Personal life

Mandrake was married twice, both times to his chief on-stage assistants. In 1939, he married Narda ("Princess Narda"). Princess Narda also appeared in the Mandrake the Magician comics of the time. When his first marriage ended in 1946, Leon also lost his main assistant. In December 1946, Leon Mandrake's manager, Bernard Abrams, paired him with Louise Salerno, who was an actress, line-dancer and former assistant to well-known magician Blackstone. Leon gave her the stage name Velvet and she became his new assistant. Having grown up on the road with her parents, Vaudeville musicians Betty and Frank Salerno, this was a lifestyle familiar to Leon's new 20-year old assistant. After two weeks on the road together, Velvet and Leon were married. It was a small marital ceremony, and only two hours later, they were again on stage performing the first of two acts for the evening. They later honed a two-hour magic show for nightclubs during the 1940s and into the 1950s. Their four children, Lon, Ron, Kimball and Geelia were all born on the road. Lon in Illinois, Ron in Florida, Kimball in Ohio, and Geelia in Oregon. In 1958, after Geelia was born, they brought the children to Vancouver B.C., Canada to go to school. The children often stayed with a nanny as Leon and Velvet continued to travel.

Nightclubs

In the 1940s, movies became so popular that many theater performers turned to the nightclubs. The transition was a challenge for most stage magicians as they were accustomed to being in theaters with audiences seated directly in front of the stage and the appropriate stage lighting. In nightclubs, audiences were often sitting on three sides of the performers with less than ideal lighting situations. Also, there was the distraction of alcohol being served and occasional rowdy audience members. Mandrake the Magician was among the very few who were able to make the transition. With his original ideas and devotion to his craft, Mandrake invented new magic acts and innovative ways to perform illusions for nightclubs. Among these performances was his famous "Spook in a Bottle" (aka the Dancing Hankerchief) act.

Publicity stunts

Mandrake kept his persona fresh with crowd-pleasing publicity stunts. He was known for driving a car while blindfolded, hypnotizing people to fall asleep in department store windows, making great escapes from boxes and doing mind reading on city streets. This kept him and the show on the road.

Television

When television rose in popularity in the 1950s, it became increasingly difficult to keep the live performances going as most people were inclined to stay home and watch TV. Live shows were getting canceled more and more frequently. In 1951, Mandrake bought the rights to former magician Alexander's material and reinvented his image. He started a television show as mentalist "Alexander." He had a series of programs entitled "Alexander the Great" which performed out of Portland, Oregon for 36 weeks and Richland, Washington for 20 weeks in 1955 - 1956. In the 1963, Mandrake made another attempt at TV. This time as himself, performing with Velvet before a live audience on CBC's "Mandrake Special." In 1970, Mandrake was on CBC television series "The Manipulators" and in 1977, he played himself on an episode of "The Beachcombers

The Beachcombers

The Beachcombers is a Canadian comedy-drama television series that ran from October 1, 1972 to December 12, 1990 and is the longest-running dramatic series ever made for English-language Canadian television...

On the road

Mandrake the Magician often went back out on the road with wife and assistant Velvet. As the nightclub shows became less and less popular, they brought back old carnival acts such as fire-eating, palm reading, balloon tricks, and ventriloquism to street fairs in the summers, home shows, conventions.

Lectures

Between road shows in the 1970s, he gave lectures on the occult, mysticism and Eastern philosophy at different Universities in British Columbia, Canada.

Awards

On March 11, 1978, Leon Mandrake was honored by his peers for his life-long service to the profession. He was awarded the Performing Fellowship at the Academy of the Magical Arts (The World Famous Hollywood The Magic Castle

The Magic Castle

The Magic Castle, located at 7001 Franklin Avenue in the Hollywood district of Los Angeles, California, is a nightclub for magicians and magic enthusiasts, as well as the clubhouse for the Academy of Magical Arts. It bills itself as "the most unusual private club in the world."-Nightclub:The Magic...

). The award acknowledged the contribution to the dignity and stature of magic made by Leon and Velvet Mandrake over their lifetime in magic.

Last show

Mandrake performed his last magic show in 1985 for the Chocolate Festival in Victoria, B.C. Canada, ending a 62-year career in show business. He died at Surrey Hospital on January 27, 1993. A wake was held at the old Edison Theater in New Westminster, now the Paramount Theater, the first place Mandrake worked as a child magician.

Biography and documentary

Mandrake Incomparable (Hades Publications Inc.) is a biography written by Sheldon O’Connell in 1998. Mandrake, A Magical Life (Make Believe Media, Inc.) is a 2001 documentary.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.