A Celestial Celebration
VELVET MANDRAKE
“Assistant Incomparable”
“I am the magician’s girl who does not flinch.” —Sylvia Plath
Much of this series focuses on female magicians who are the stars of their own shows, but I certainly won’t be the first to pay tribute to the assistants, partners, showgirls, and supportive wives who either share a spotlight or work behind the scenes with magicians—or both. Such recognition needs to be given often, and every male professional magician knows why. From the glamorous dancers who dazzle Vegas audiences to the smiling matrons who bring out the props for a husband’s school assembly show, assistants are crucial to the magic. They tirelessly submit to all kinds of abuse onstage—just how often can a gal stand being sawn in half?—and do a thousand jobs on the other side of the curtain. I remember going backstage several years ago after watching Kevin and Cindy Spencer give a terrific performance in Durham, North Carolina. I had been impressed with Cindy’s work in the show, but I watched in amazement as she did the magic the audience never sees – coordinating the load-out of crated illusions. The break-down ran like clockwork due to her experienced oversight. No doubt her gifts are shared by many others.
I could feature thousands of performers who have assisted magicians, and each one would have a separate story to tell. But to stand in for them all, I’ve selected Velvet Mandrake, who for nearly forty years worked alongside one of our most celebrated illusionists, Mandrake the Magician. Velvet was born Louise Salerno on October 6, 1924, in Chicago to vaudeville parents, Frank and Elizabeth Salerno. Her father was an immigrant from Italy who played the accordion. Louise trained as a dancer and worked in touring plays and with Nat King Cole before joining the Harry Blackstone Senior show in 1946. During the tour she met Harry Blackstone Jr., who at age twelve loved getting candy from the girls in the show. She stayed for only one season and returned to Chicago to continue her acting career. Her agent recommended her to Leon Mandrake.
The dashing magician had recently divorced his wife and stage partner Narda, a former exotic dancer who later briefly married Roy Benson. Mandrake was looking for a new assistant who was tall and blonde. Velvet was neither—she was only five feet tall and a brunette—and wanted to pursue acting rather than magic, but Mandrake offered to hire her anyway, for a two-week trial. She joined his company on a tour for the Music Corporation of America that included Oklahoma City, Louisiana, and Kansas City. In that last place they were married in 1947, three months after being introduced. She was later asked if the couple were married in an elaborate ceremony. No, she said, “We were married at six o’clock, and by eight we were doing the show.” The partnership lasted 46 years.
When asked why he chose the stage name Velvet, Mandrake explained to his biographer that the word velvet meant “soft, delicate, beautiful, elegant.” “It describes her exactly,” he said. Velvet added immeasurably to his act. “She cannot look bad in a photo,” Mandrake boasted, though her stunning looks were only part of her gifts. As Sheldon O’Connell puts it in his book Mandrake Incomparable, “She was always up and ready for the most demanding illusions and effects, and as a beautiful and inspiring trouper she was a great audience favorite.” Velvet was cut in half with a buzz saw, beheaded with a guillotine, shot through the middle with a bullet, speared with swords in a Pagoda, and floated in the air. She did carnival stunts like the Headless Woman (with tubes coming out of her neck) and remembers audiences walking by in hushed tones, thinking her body was really being kept alive sans head. Later Velvet was the “Girl in the Goldfish Bowl,” creating the illusion of a tiny mermaid swimming and waving in a bowl. She was once even a disembodied head in an illusion at a hairdresser’s convention.
Velvet performed even while expecting. Here is what she recalled for the book The Real Mandrake the Magician: “Our schedule was really hectic, especially in the years between 1948 and 1955. We hardly had a day off. I was petite and didn’t show that I was pregnant until about six months. I wore costumes with draping sleeves and learned how to fit into illusions without hurting my tummy. Then, one of the girls would replace me on stage for the last three months. I remember I was back at work three weeks after Ronny was born.”
The Mandrakes had four children (Lon, Ron, Kimball, and Geelia), and the couple decided to keep their family on tour with them as long as possible. This meant enrolling the kids in several different schools in several different cities and frequently living out of hotels. Even though he attended nine schools in the first four grades, Lon fondly recalls that his mother “was in charge of us most of the time, and the days seemed to fly by.” Even with such nontraditional schooling, Velvet was proud that all four of her children graduated from high school, and two also attained University degrees. Lon notes that Velvet was seldom negative. “She just seemed to laugh and play along with us . . . Bright, sunny attitude no matter what.” Fitting for a woman whose husband based his image on a famous comic strip character.
The contrast between the glamour of show business and the reality of daily life could be amusing. As she told her son, “One night, I remember we had a big show, with full orchestra and a packed house. At the end, the audience really liked us and they came up on the stage and presented me with a bouquet of red roses. We took our bows and we felt like the toast of the town. Then heading back to the hotel room, I went to relieve the sitter while Leon organized back stage. I rolled up my sleeves and thought, what a contrast, as I spent the rest of the evening washing out diapers in the bathroom sink.”
Not that there weren’t difficult or frightening times. On their first tour their car and trailer went rolling down a ravine: miraculously no one was hurt. In Silver Springs, Florida, Mandrake had trouble with an underwater trunk escape while his wife—eight months pregnant at the time—looked on. In Anchorage in 1955, they were performing at the Idle Hour Club when a fire broke out. Leon and Velvet got separated in the fire, and he suffered minor burns. While they lost the complete show and over a dozen costumes, the most horrifying part was the brief time when neither knew if the other had survived. At one point Velvet even tried to run thought the flames to be with him, but someone pulled her back. They were soon joyfully reunited, and the magic club of Anchorage loaned them enough props to perform for the next few weeks at another venue.
They were one of few illusion shows still working clubs in the ‘50s and ‘60s, and Mandrake had two TV shows during this period as well as a mentalist act, using equipment that had once belonged to Alexander, “the Man Who Knows.” In addition to magic and illusions, the couple featured balloon sculpting in the show. Their club work slowed down in the ‘60s, but they did a tour in the Orient in 1967, performing in Japan, Taiwan, Singapore, Thailand, and the Philippines. In the 1970s they started on the college circuit, with Mandrake performing and lecturing at campuses throughout Canada. The couple did their last show in 1985, and Leon Mandrake passed away from emphysema in 1993 at 81. He had been involved in magic since the 1920s and had been awarded a Performing Fellowship by the Academy of Magical Arts in 1978.
Lon and Ron Mandrake have both pursued magic as an important part of their lives (Ron passed away in 2006). Velvet came out of retirement once to assist Lon for a show in Vancouver in 1988, while his wife and partner Linda was expecting a child. With seven grandchildren and six great-grandchildren, she had a lifetime of family and showbiz memories to reflect upon. She died on February 28, 2019, at the age of 94. It is my privilege to salute Velvet Mandrake and all the countless unsung partners who make the magic happen. For all of us, we say, “Thank you.”
This article first appeared in the June 2007 issue of The Linking Ring and appears here with permission. My thanks to Lon and Velvet Mandrake for sharing her story, which has appeared in two books: Mandrake Incomparable (1998) by Sheldon O’Connell and The Real Mandrake the Magician (2018) by Lon and Linda Mandrake. Lon profiled his mother in the September 1992 issue of Genii.
Stargazing
I usually end this column with a list of other performers who could have been featured, but since the “M” list is impossibly long, I will have to be selective. Some noted international ladies, past and present, in this list include Nataly Machado of Spain, Miss Madge of Budapest, Magdola of France, Magic Elixir and the Magic Twins, Mara and Maya (all four from Germany), Marimar of Spain, Marjean of Canada, Circe Martinez of Cuba, Caroline Marx of France, Kate Medvedeva of Russia, Keiko Muto of Japan, Mery Marvel of Argentina, June Merlin (1919-2007) of Ireland, and Mystic Marie (1885-1906) and Margaret MacLean (1938-2022) of Scotland.
Among well-known American and English magiciennes, I’d first like to mention names from the past: The Mysterious Lady (Julia Anne Hanington ca 1800-1892) was a sensation with her second-sight act in the 1840s. There is also the early performer Madame Macallister, Houdini’s undercover agent Rose Mackenberg (1892-1968), Arie McChesney (1916-2005), Alice McLay (1898-1989), Madge-E-Kwand (1908-1983), Ruth Ann Magee (b. 1938), Claire Manley (1922-1998), Gloria Marcom (1927-2002), Mademoiselle Margo (1889?-1936), Mars and Maya, Frances Ireland Marshall (1910-2002), Martene, Mignon (1920-2003), Miss A. R. Mills (an early American magician active circa 1839-1841), the escape artist Minerva (1877-1955), golfer and magician Gloria Minoprio (1907-1958), and Morine. I should also mention Mrs. Minnie Mead (d. 1942), who, as J. N. Maskelyne’s daughter, wrote scripts and made costumes for several sketches at the Egyptian Hall in London.
Then, in the last 40 years or so, you have these performers: Catherine Marks, Vegas headliner Melinda, magician and humanitarian Lisa Menna, Monique Monros, Alison Morgan (the first female member of The Magic Circle, I believe), escapist Cindini Morrison, comedy magician Mandy Muden, the UK TV celebrity Katherine Mills, and Mystina. Diane Matthews famously protested The Magic Circle’s refusal to admit women members by burning her bra outside the club headquarters in 1972.
Famous partners and assistants would include Mrs. Paul Daniels (Debbie McGee), Ann Mahendra (1905-1999), Burling Hull’s assistant Marcelline (1897-1988), Horace Marshall’s wife and partner Marie Marshall (1900-1988), Mary Maskelyne (1905-2000), Mia Petrick, Bob Nelson’s wife Betty Michaels (1917-1991), Dante’s partner Moi-Yo Miller (1914-2018), Mohala (Mrs. Walter Floyd, 1868-1953), Helga Moretti (1935-2002) and daughter Nicole Moretti (who is herself a successful escape artist), and Virgil’s wife and partner Julie Mulkey (1914-2000). Finally, credit should be given to Lynn Miller, who coined the term “Magigals” in 1939 as a founding member.
Dates of birth and death are noted when I have them.