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John Calvert
| John Calvert | |
 Cover Genii 1982 March | |
| Born | Elbern Madren Calvert August 5, 1911 New Trenton, Indiana |
|---|---|
| Died | September 27, 2013 (age 102) Lancaster, California |
John Calvert (1911-2013) was an American magician who has performed on stage (including Broadway) for eight decades and a film actor who appeared in numerous movies.[1]
Early years
Calvert became fascinated with magic at age eight when his father took him to see the magician Howard Thurston perform in Cincinnati, Ohio. Shortly afterward, he performed his first trick for his Sunday school class - he made an egg appear from under another boy’s coat.
He made his initial magic tour when he was eighteen, performing in town halls in Kentucky back-road towns. His small troupe consisted of one assistant and “Gyp the Wonder Dog”. He returned home with a $2.65 profit.
Depression era
Through the depression years and into the 1940s, he continually increased the size of his magic show, adding illusions and personnel, and he gained notoriety by performing daredevil stunts for publicity. He transported his show’s equipment and personnel worldwide in a Douglas DC-3 airliner, and in later years on yachts.
Acting career
From the mid-1940s through the late 1950s, he performed in approximately forty films, including starring roles in three Film Classic releases, in which he portrayed a debonair detective known as “The Falcon”.[2]
Later years
Calvert continued performing magic during his Hollywood days.
Calvert married his wife Tammy in 1982.
Calvert remained active well into his later years, traveling the country with his magic acts and entertaining audiences with a mixture of charm and storytelling panache. At 100 he appeared at the London Palladium.
His biographer, William V. Rauscher, has called Calvert a "real-life Indiana Jones" because of his reputation for surviving dangerous circumstances in his travels. He was the subject of a biographical documentary entitled John Calvert – His Magic and Adventures.[3]
References
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This page incorporated content from John Calvert (magician),
a page hosted on Wikipedia. Please consult the history of the original page to see a list of its authors. Therefor, this article is also available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License |
- John Calvert: Magic and Adventures around the World written by William Rauscher (1987).
- Cover of Genii 1959 October (Vol. 24, No. 2)
- http://www.johncalvertmagic.com/trailer.html
- http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0130813/