Harry Opel

Harry Opel
Born	John Henry Opel January 28, 1883 Limestone, New York
Died	March 11, 1955 (age 72)
Categories	Books by Harry Opel

Harry Opel (1883 - 1955) was a professional stage magician, juggler and amateur poet.

Biography

Opel became a professional stage magician around 1900 and toured the United States in vaudeville, fairs, and theaters. Later he gave mainly full-evening shows.

Although he originally toured year round, his wife's health suffered in cold weather, so in 1911 he starred working in the fresh fruit department of Tiedrke's, a Toledo, Ohio meat and produce market, during the winters to stay home with his wife who health suffered in cold weather. He would leave each April to go on tour with the Opel Novelty Company to play small towns with magic and juggling to return to the store each November.

In the 1930s he started confining his performing to the Toledo area. He worked at Tiedtke's into his seventies and was an attraction at the store with his produce juggling.

He was also a poet and contributed numerous poems to various periodicals including Tops, The Linking Ring, and Vernon Lux's junior magicians' magazine, The Dragon.

He edited two hand-written unique periodicals, The Voice from the Attic (1929-1952) and Fax (1939). He only created one copy of each issue which he would send to a friend.

Books

• Magical Moments (1938)

References

• Jinx No. 30
• Bart Whaley's Who's Who in Magic
• Magicol, No. 172, August, 2009