This unique biography details the life of magician Marshall Brodien, most remembered for his long-running career as television's Wizzo the Wizard on WGN-TV's Bozo's Circus and The Bozo Show. Coverage begins in the late 1940s, when Brodien was a young magician in his first job as a Chicago magic shop demonstrator, then recounts Brodien's steady rise to show-business success, including details of his work as a performer at the Magic Lounge in Cicero and, as a nightclub hypnotist in Chicago's posh Cairo Supper Club. The work concludes with an examination of Brodien's current career as one of the most successful marketers of magic sets in the U.S.
By the end of America's "Golden Age of Magic," Chicago had taken center stage in front of an American audience drawn to the craft by the likes of Harry Houdini and Howard Thurston. Cashing in on a craze that rivaled big-band mania, magic shops and clubs sprang up everywhere across the Windy City, packed in customers and put down roots. Over the last century, for example, Magic, Inc. has outfitted magicians from Harry Blackstone Sr. to Penn and Teller to David Copperfield. Magic was an integral part of Chicago's culture, from its earliest venture into live television to the card sharps and hucksters lurking in its amusement parks and pool halls. David Witter keeps track of the shell game of Chicago's fascinating magic history from its vaudeville circuit to its contemporary resurgence.
The entertainment world lost many notable talents in 2019, including television icon Doris Day, iconic novelist Toni Morrison, groundbreaking director John Singleton, Broadway starlet Carol Channing and lovable Star Wars actor Peter Mayhew. Obituaries of actors, filmmakers, musicians, producers, dancers, composers, writers, animals and others associated with the performing arts who died in 2019 are included in this edition. Date, place and cause of death are provided for each, along with a career recap and a photograph. Filmographies are given for film and television performers.
The history of television in Chicago begins with the birth of the medium and is defined by the city's pioneering stations. WBKB (now WLS-TV) was the principal innovator of the Chicago School of Television, an improvisational production style that combined small budgets, personable talent, and the creative use of scenery and props. WNBQ (now WMAQ-TV) expanded the innovative concept to a wider audience via the NBC network. WGN-TV scored with sports and kids. Strong personalities drove the success of WBBM-TV. A noncommercial educational station, WTTW, and the city's first UHF station, WCIU, added diversity and ethnic programming. The airwaves in Chicago have been home to a wealth of talented performers and iconic programs that have made the city one of the country's greatest television towns. Chicago Television, featuring photographs from the archives of the Museum of Broadcast Communications (MBC) and the collections of local stations and historians, gives readers a front-row seat on a journey through the fi rst 50 years of Chicago television, 1940-1990. Founded in 1982 by broadcaster Bruce DuMont, the MBC Web site offers over 10,000 digital assets.
LIGHTNING ROD THAT STRIKES FASTER THAN LIGHTNING ITSELF is a book dedicated to the study of the phenomenal legend in the world of boxing - Cus D’Amato. This work is a collection of scientific research on the origin of Cus’ unique style that allowed the legend of South Italian descent to nurture three world boxing champions (Mike Tyson, Floyd Patterson, José Torres) and train a number of individuals in and out of the boxing ring. The origin of Cus’ style was decoded by a voluminous twenty-year scientific study us- ing interdisciplinary research from the fields of history, archetypology, fate psychol- ogy, sociology, and anthropology. The research group, part of the Memory Research Institute - Expeditionary Corps, conducted repeated scientific expeditions to Italy, Ger- many, the US, and Spain. However, the conclusive milestone of this study was the Apu- lian-Calabrian expedition - the course and results of which are outlined in this book. “Lightning rod that strikes faster than lightning itself ” is based on a heuristic research model, which includes eight separate analyses (psychological, criminalistic, journalis- tic, etc). This method was chosen by the author so that every reader, no matter if he is a boxer or a coach, historian or psychologist, or simply an individual who is interested in the legendary boxing style of D’Amato, would be able to verify the results of academic research on his own and ascertain the quality of the facts and conclusions provided.
One of the areas of magic history is in the advertising coins, or magic tokens, used by magicians. From long ago to the present day, magicians have been using these in their shows, and to advertise their performances. The book that you will now read will help document these tokens. The documentation of Magic Tokens was begun in the United States by John Mulholland, and Edgar Heyl, and then formalized in 1978 by F. William Kuethe, Jr., when the Token and Medal Society published his Magic Tokens and Related Items. The documentation now continues, based on the work of Kuethe. It continues here.
Truth and lies are two sides of the same coin. But who's flipping it? A thought-provoking and brilliantly entertaining work of nonfiction from one of the world's leading deceivers, the creator and star of the astonishing theater show and forthcoming film In & Of Itself. Derek DelGaudio believed he was a decent, honest man. But when irrefutable evidence to the contrary is found in an old journal, his memories are reawakened and Derek is forced to confront--and try to understand--his role in a significant act of deception from his past. Using his youthful notebook entries as a road map, Derek embarks on a soulful, often funny, sometimes dark journey, retracing the path that led him to a world populated by charlatans, card cheats, and con artists. As stories are peeled away and artifices are revealed, Derek examines the mystery behind his father's vanishing act, the secret he inherited from his mother, the obsession he developed with sleight-of-hand that shaped his future, and the affinity he felt for the professional swindlers who taught him how to deceive others. And once he finds himself working as a crooked dealer in a big-money Hollywood card game, Derek begins to question his own sense of morality, and discovers that even a master of deception can find himself trapped inside an illusion. A M O R A L M A N is a wildly engaging exploration of the fictions we live as truths. It is ultimately a book about the lies we tell ourselves and the realities we manufacture in others.
In this examination of the FEPC's work, focusing on the pivotal Midwest, Andrew Edmund Kersten shows how this tiny government agency influenced the course of civil rights reform and moved the United States closer to a national fair employment policy.".
