Silent Mora - The Great Kellar

The Learned Pig ProjectOnline Repository of Magic Books and DocumentsContact webmaster: [email protected]

The Great KellarBy Silent Mora

ON the last day of my several weeks' visit to the home of The GreatKellar, he walked to the car-line with me. We had spent so manyhappy hours together talking about Bob Ingersol, Clarence Darrow,W. J. Bryan, as well as the magicians, Thurston, Herrmann andMadam, Frank Hewes, the "White Yogi" and a great inventor ofMagical apparatus ("Shooting thru a Woman" is his). He warmlypraised "Blackstone," but I think he had a good word for all theMagicians, except the little trouble he had with "Herrmann" the Great,and that was only friendly rivalry. For business reasons, they kept it upfor both were in the big show business of the time and had to keep upthe public interest.

It was simply "Good Business" principles.

I believe we discussed every magician and Ventriloquist in thebusiness at that time. We would dissect each of them, not with enmityor envy, but as a couple of Doctors discuss a perplexing "case."

Just before the down-town car came into view, Mr. Kellar, putting hisarm about my shoulder, said:

"Mora, I wish I had seen your performance before, instead of takingPaul Valadon's word in praise of it; it might have changed the wholecourse of your life.

"You say you are going back East, but will be back again in sixmonths. If you are, that will be good, but I know you won't be back insix months, and when you come back, I won't be here. Good-bye,Mora."

Those were the last words The Great Kellar spoke to me--then thememory of years took me back to my very first meeting with Kellar asI approached his chair, a bit timidly; for he was the first great man Ihad ever met. I was still a "kid" not out of Grade School, but I wantedto show Kellar what I had accomplished with billiard ball routines, but

The Great Kellar

http://thelearnedpig.com.pa/magos/articles/kellar/kellar.html (1 of 5) [4/23/2002 4:05:15 PM]

mailto:[email protected]

evidently he was used to "kids" trying to talk to him, and I didn't getvery far into conversation with him. He seemed to be a little impatient,so I hurried away, without showing him anything I could do withsleight-of-hand.

That was the first mistake I ever made. I should have remained thereuntil he had a chance to see me at the work I loved, even as a child. Ididn't even tell him I had watched his every show all week.

As he sat in that lobby chair in the Anderson Hotel, 6th and Penn,Pittsburgh, Pa., he seemed to be so aloof and alone, and there wassomething on his mind.

I believe that was why he was impatient with me at that time, but if Ihad told him the entire run, or routine of his show at the time, I thinkhe might have given me a moment or two. These boys and girls thatcall on you at any time, certainly are admirers of you and your work.Never forget that--and really, you can never tell who they may be, orwho they may become. Children have made history, in magic as wellas in many other lines of endeavor. Listen to them.

You may learn something, from a child's viewpoint.

As I had seen his every performance that week at The Alvin Theatre, Iknew the entire "routine" and it was just as interesting to me at the lastshow as it had been at the first performance.

I had spent the savings of several weeks to be able to see the KellarShow, every day and Matinees, and while I was able only to get theseats in the "Gallery of the Gods" at two-bits a throw, and saw theshow from such a distant view, I followed his every move, and by theend of the week, I knew a great deal more than a casual onlooker. Iwas a magician(?) then, or thought I was. Whatever I thought, I wentto my home and got my "Sach's Sleight-of-Hand" and went over that,just as Sach's described the many tricks.

The next day would see me back early at The Alvin so as not to misseven the music "Kellar" used, and always in "The Gallery of theGods." Seeing the show from "up there" did not lessen itsattractiveness to me and no matter how many times I would see it,there was ever an appeal to the entire show and especially to that partof it that had a bit of "hand-work."

Even to this day, I can remember the routine with his silk production,which he introduced in the early part of the show, and aftermanipulating them for some time he made one red one vanish andfound it in the back of a man's collar (coat collar) and pulled it out, butthere were a string of handkerchiefs tied to the red one and enough of

The Great Kellar


them to walk all the way up the "run-way" to the stage. That was onlyone trick.

The Coffee, Milk and Sugar trick was a mystery at the first show, but Igot some books and found just how it was done and looked for thatmethod when Kellar did it. Sometimes I was right. Often wrong.

The "Flower Growth" with the pots and the tapered cones was amasterful piece of magic, the coin catching, using real dollars,sometimes $20 gold pieces, struck me as being the height ofprosperity. At that time I had only seen $20 gold pieces (I haven't seenany lately). I saw the Canary Cage trick for the first time, in the KellarShow, not the Vanishing cage, but the one which Horace Goldin usedin later years.

The effect of this: Take a bird out of the cage, place it in a paper bag.Shoot the bag to pieces. Canary is back in the cage. That was beyondmy comprehension, at that time.

Kellar's "Casadaga Propaganda" was a small light weight cabinet, witha Spirit Manifestation in that small thing. (I didn't know that "Shorty"was on the back of it and the little(?) cabinet had wires up and oversilent pulleys, to weights as counter-balance.)

Kellar carried this Cabinet out alone and set it on a sheet of plate glass(plate glass is easy to get in Pittsburgh) and being so light in weight,nobody ever suspected there might be a man in back of it.

This effect has been described in many books on Magic and Illusion,so I will not go into details.

So, you young magicians-get busy.

Kellar's "Simla Seance" was one of the finest pieces of co-ordinated"timing" I have ever seen). It, too, was a "Seance" but on a largerscale. It was a big cabinet, hauled out in a flat condition and built up inview of the audience. Chairs, canes, tambourines, guitars, etc., wereplaced in the cabinet. and with no one inside (apparently), all theseinstruments played some part.

And finally after a bell had been placed in, you could see it in thecurtained apertures at the top of each door, and it was dropped fromthere onto the stage floor outside. Kellar and assistant, one at eachdoor, opened them both at once and the chairs fell out on the stagefloor. There had been continuous racket up to the time the doorsopened and the chairs fell out.

It was a great seance, nothing like it since then.

It was, I thought, the perfect trick for me to do, but when I saw Kellar

The Great Kellar


come quietly forward and announce his "Levitation of PrincessKarnac," I thought he looked and acted the High Priest, and to this dayI still consider him to be the High Priest of Magic.

The Blue Room Mystery was absolutely beyond me at that time, as Iwatched him do the trick he called, "The Growth of the Orange Tree,"and do you know, he actually grew Oranges on that tree. There hadbeen not a thing but an empty pot as he placed it in the "Blue Room"and then right before your eyes, the greens commenced to come out ofthat pot and grew to 4 feet in height-and then the Oranges started toappear visually. When the tree had fully matured, he stepped in the"Blue Room" and cut the oranges from the tree, throwing them outinto the audience, for them to eat, and proving they were real oranges.What a trick.

I'm telling you kids; you haven't seen anything.

After producing the oranges, he again "Plants" some "Rose seed" inthe pot; the greens came up, the rose bush grew and the roses appearedon the branches.

He cut them off and gave them to the ladies in the audience. Ah, thosewere the kind of tricks we saw.

Then came the grand climax to the show, as "Kellar" sitting in a chairin the "Blue Room" waved his hands and arms about his face andslowly the body of "Kellar" disintegrated and a skeleton remained inthe chair, still waving the arms and hands. The skull left the top of theback-bone and stayed suspended a moment about 4 feet in the air andcame back again, settling down on the back-bone, where it should be.The arms and hands became disjointed and the bones of the legs alsoand separated themselves far from the part of the skeleton that stillremained on the chair. They finally re-assembled and the armscontinued their gyrations.

This went on for a few seconds and suddenly you began to realize thatthe flesh was coming back on the bones and the same Mr. Kellar wassitting in the chair, and he rose from it and walked towards the front ofthe stage. There was absolute quiet as he calmly announced, "That,Ladies and Gentlemen, is how we will all look one hundred yearsfrom now."

All these thoughts came to me as I left "Kellar" waving a lastgood-bye to me, as I rode down to "Los."

We had both been studying Roth's Memory System all that day andmany other days, when suddenly one day "Kellar" said: "Mora, whatis there in my show you might like to use some day?" I replied: "Thereare two things I would like to know more about, Mr. Kellar; they are

The Great Kellar


the "Levitation of Princess Karnac" and the "Blue Room Mystery."

"Alright, said he, come out to the Garage, I have a better Levitationout there than Thurston ever dreamed of. I'll show it to you. That oneThurston has weighs a ton, this one is better and is light in weight."

In the garage, "Kellar" opened a crate that had one part of themechanism in it and worked it for me, I noticed it was as silent as awrist watch (the mechanism was designed entirely by "Kellar"). Therewas a "raising windlass" operated, not by a handle, but by a wheel,resembling a steering wheel of an automobile. There was no"Grinding" to this marvelous bit of machinery. You just turned a"balance wheel" slowly and the "drum" (for the lift) operated withoutnoise. It reminded me of some of Joseffy's finest workmanship.

Opening up a long trunk, specially made, revealed the "Levitation"couch, on which the Princess rests.

He had cut up a beautiful expensive Oriental Rug for a covering forthe couch. The parts which he could not show me, he explained. Therewere, at that time, some parts yet incomplete. it was the finest "Levi"(pet name) I have ever seen.

All of this equipment now belongs to "Blackstone" who purchased itfrom Mrs. Buck (Kellar's niece).

if you ever have a chance, look at the "lift" of this great trick when."Blackstone" comes to your city, and on the front of it (towardaudience, but they never see it) you will find the name "Kellar" about3 feet up on the main casting, which is bolted to the stage floor.

"Now, Mora, that you have seen 'Levi,' I will give you all the 'dope' onthe 'Blue Room Mystery,'" and we went back into that large diningroom, and on the great round oak table, leather-topped and studdededges (several studs being tricked for various purposes), "Kellar" drewrough sketches and wrote descriptions of all I would ever need toknow about "The Blue Room Mystery" and every bit of it on"Kellar's" own stationery.

That valuable bit of paper is amongst my "papers" in my "Scrap Bookof Magic"--even to this day.

The Great Kellar
