A Celestial Celebration
GLORIA JEROME
“The Charming Little Fakir”
Once billed as “The Cutest Trick in Magic,” Gloria Jerome was not just a pretty face who learned to work a square circle. She was genuinely talented with cards, billiard balls, cigarettes, ropes, and silk magic. While, of course, she used her appearance to her best advantage, the “Charming Little Faker” flourished on the night club circuit for several years by offering solid and lively entertainment.
Gloria Dolores Jerome was born into a show-biz family in Council Bluffs, Iowa, on August 10, 1922. Her arrival at 12 pounds was announced in The Billboard. Her father Arthur Jerome (1878-1944) had been an acrobat for Ringling Brothers before working for Thurston and then performing as a vaudeville magician. Gloria’s mother Grace was a slack-wire artist and juggler. During the 1930s she assisted her husband in a magic act built around a Wonder Screen, producing all the props from it and ending with a stage full of colorful botanias. Arthur Leroy saw the act—billed as Marco and Jerome—at the 5th Avenue Theatre in New York and admired its thematic nature.
Gloria soon joined the show, having learned to sing and dance at age five. The family eventually moved to Dallas, and at fourteen she danced at the Texas State Centennial and in Billy Rose’s Fort Worth nightclub Casa Manana. By the age of 17 she had her own magic act and toured with the Music Corporation of America, opening at the Park Plaza Hotel in St. Louis right after graduating from high school. Throughout the 1940s, Gloria played the top night clubs and hotels in the US. Gerrie Larsen featured Gloria in her Genii column in October 1940, after which a group of young West Coast magicians started the “Dear Gloria Jerome We All Love You Please Come to California Club of America.”
She had the usual ups and downs in getting started. A Billboard reviewer caught her five-minute act at the Glass Hat in New York City in 1942 and gave this mixed assessment: “Not the ideal place to break in a new set, but the ability is there although it needs polish and a line of gab. Gloria Jerome’s blonde hair and neat gams are an asset and capitalized upon with a neat black costume. Switches scarves, fans cards, does a familiar cigarette routine a la Cardini, which climaxes with a lit pipe, and gets off by palming kerchiefs into an American flag. Best routine has her showing audience how the scarves vanish into the prop egg and then breaking the egg to prove it wasn’t a prop.”
Later that year, when she appeared at the Club Rendezvous in Newport, Kentucky, alongside the legendary Bill Bojangles Robinson, a reviewer described her act this way: “Gloria Jerome, a Betty Grable type of doll, fits nicely in this room with her bag of tricks which she accompanies with a bright line of chatter. Opens with silks and flowers and follows with the venerable egg bag nifty with sucker effect, the card in the ballroom, Symphony in Smoke (her best), and, for the finale, silks to flag. Has swell appearance and personality and sells her magic capably for a femme, but just needs a little more polish that comes with experience.”
Not surprisingly, when Gloria reappeared at the same Kentucky club in 1947, the review was all praise, even if with a heavy dose of the usual sexist jargon: “The show is off with Gloria Jerome, a cute trick showing some cute tricks. Young and shapely miss works like a vet in dispensing her magic, punctuating her nifties with a sly personality and punchy repartee. Works with silks, cards, cigarettes, rope and sundry paraphernalia. A good opener for any smart room. Took a solid hand.”
Whether performing in white tails and top hat or in a short skirt and fishnet stockings, Gloria grew used to such ogling attention and endured countless cheeky comments from reviewers who no doubt felt themselves clever: “If you can manage to take your eyes off her streamlined chassis, she will astonish you with her skill.” Or, “Who cares about the hand being faster than the eye? The eye does all right!” Or, “Personally, we saw her show ten times before we realized there was a rabbit in the act.” Or, “With pretties like this going in for legerdemain, guys like Blackstone will soon be driving trucks.” But Gloria seemed to take such remarks in stride as an occupational hazard of being an attractive woman in the business.
During the war, Gloria made several USO tours. During one trip through military bases in the South in 1943, she and her group had to stay overnight in a Memphis jail, as there was no available hotel space in town. By 1948, she had stopped touring night clubs and returned to Dallas, appearing at occasional club dates or county fairs into the mid- 1950s. At one point she briefly worked the counter at Douglas Magicland. She also did a brief stint as a magician for Chun King, the frozen Chinese food line. Wearing a black wig with chop sticks poking out of it, she appeared as Princess Fu Ling Yu. According to the late Al Sharpe, who profiled Gloria in his journal for collectors in 1984, she revised her act for country club audiences to include lots of comedy and audience participation. She often repeated her father’s two-part motto: “Never drink ‘til the show is over, and get the show over quick!”
She had many friends in magic, including T. Nelson Downs, Richard Himber, and Paul Rosini, who inscribed a photo to “A Really Sweet Girl Magician, Gloria Jerome, a Lover of Magic, from one who makes a living by it also” (Never one to let on her age, Gloria scratched out the year 1939 below Rosini’s signature). Even after she retired from the stage, she remained active in Texas magic associations and made an appearance at the 1959 TAOM convention. Her poem, “Kitchen Prayer for a Magician’s Wife,” is a charming tribute to every woman who has endured her husband’s card tricks at the worst possible times. Here is just the first verse:
Dear Lord, just for today—
Give me the patience to smile and say,
“Sure I’d be glad to take a card:
Just let me brush off this flour and put
Away the lard.”
Gloria Jerome died on May 15, 1994, at the age of 71. She was married at one point to a Joseph Kovacs, though they had been separated for many years at the time of her death. Gloria battled cancer for four years, refusing chemotherapy. Only a few months before, her friend Ralph MarcoM had profiled her in The Linking Ring, writing that she was “destined for success in magic, achieved it early, and has remained at the top of her profession.”
A version of this article originally appeared in the March 2007 issue of The Linking Ring and appears here by permission. Special thanks to my friend Sal Perrotta for sharing material on Gloria from his collection.
Stargazing
As always, any number of women could have been profiled for this article. As usual, dates are given when known. For three decades, Indonesian-born Jade has dazzled magic and lay audiences alike with her elegant style of sorcery. Ann Myrece Schwartz James (b. 1946) comes from a long line of magicians and is an avid collector and historian as well as performer. Jacqueline James hailed from Columbus, Ohio, and was active as a magician in the early 1940s, while Della James manipulated billiard balls in the ‘50s. Cath Jamison was named the Australian Champion of Magic in 1998 for her daring act of magic and swallowing razor blades. Jessica Jane from New Jersey went from being an assistant to Al Belmont at age 12 to headlining her own show in Gatlinburg, Tennessee. Edna Jansen (1885-1966) was, of course, Mrs. Dante and a significant part of her husband’s show. Janie Jarrow (b. 1950) learned from her father in Chicago and won the 1964 IBM Junior prize with her “Bookcase” act.
In the 1980s, Javeen from Bangladesh called herself the “Only Leading Lady Magician of Asia.” Just Jayne and Su Jayne are both British magicians. Jeniska toured with Benevol in the 1930s, while Madame Jewell worked at crystal-gazing with the Lithgow show in the same era. Jo Ann Smith (1925-2002) was a Chavez graduate who did a “Phantasy in Smoke” cigarette act. Karen Johnson (1951-2000) of Galensburg, Illinois, was “The Magic Lady.” Kristen Johnson is an escapist who appeared on the cover of The Linking Ring in 2009, seven years after her magician mother Sunny Johnson (b. 1939) had her own cover story in 2002. Betty Johnstone (1922-2022) and her husband George, who met as assistants to Blackstone, went on to have of the most popular night club acts in the business.
Linda Jonason (b. 1951) worked with Bob Brown in the ‘70s and later performed a solo magic and dance act as “Magical Moods.” Eleanor Jones was one of the earliest English magiciennes, working her magic circa 1733. Jan Jones (b. 1943) wife and professional partner of noted illusionist Chuck Jones, edited the delightful book The Magician’s Assistant. Three women have used the name Josephine: a Houdini imitator circa 1903, a woman who called herself “Florida’s Lady Magician” in 1940, and the most well-known is the English performer active in the ‘70s and ‘80s. Finally, a Joan Joyce of New York City did magic as a teen in the 1940s.