Jay Marshall was an internationally renowned magician who has performed professionally for over fifty years. He has appeared in 49 states (he missed Oregon), Australia, and Europe with extended engagements in New York, London, Paris, Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Hollywood, Miami, and Las Vegas.

On Broadway, Mr. Marshall portrayed the magician in the Alan Lerner/Kurt Weill’s musical Love Life (1949); and Crumleigh in Vinton Freedley’s Great To Be Alive (1951)in Melbourne Australia.

Editor from 1953-58 of The New Phoenix a magician’s trick and idea sheet, Mr. Marshall is co-author and publisher of the Success Book, (1973) a textbook of information for magicians. Jay was the author-compiler several magic books that he printed through his magic shop Magic Inc. with his second wife Frances Ireland-Marshall.

Frances whom he married in 1954 died on May 26th, 2002 in a nursing home. On October 31, 2001 Jay had his right eye removed due to cancer. He joked about going as a pirate for Halloween with his eye patch.

He appeared fourteen times on the Ed Sullivan TV Show and has done the Paul Daniels Show, in London; Sunday Night at the London Palladium; BBC TV in London and was featured on GTV9. In 1984 he did “semi instructive video tape of magical nonsense” and appears in a ventriloquism video put out in 2004.

He was a fifty year member of the Society of American Magicians, and a member of the S.A.M. Magical Hall of Fame. He was Honorary Vice President of the Magic Circle of London and Member of the Inner Magic Circle. He was honorary vice president of both the British Magical Society and the Scottish Conjurer’s Association. He was a member of the Caxton Club, and the Three Sheeters. He participated in and performed a specialty magic monologue in the Golden Jubilee edition of Ziegfeld Follies (1957). He appeared on the Jackie Gleason Show, the Sid Ceasar show, the Paul Winchell show and on Pen and Teller’s Sin City Spectacular.

In 1982 he was awarded a Master Fellowship by the Academy of Magical Arts, and an honorary life membership in the Magic Castle, Hollywood. In 1991 he won the Norman Douglas Lecturer Award at the annual meeting of the Society of the Fifth Line. In May 1996 he was awarded the Duchess Cup. In October of 1991 he was named a Wizard of the Cincinnati Academy of Magic and Allied Sciences. In February 1992 he was appointed Dean of the Society of American Magicians.

Mr. Marshall had amassed a large collection of magic books was considered the Library of Congress of magic books by his fellow magicians. Other clubs he belonged to include the Mazda Mystic Ring, The Wizards Club of Chicago, Puppeteers of America, the Ventriloquists Guild, the Punch & Judy Fellowship, the Hocus Pocus Society, the Secret Six, and served on the Board of Governors of the Showmen’s League.

His ventriloquist gloves “Lefty” is in the permanent collection of the Smithsonian Institution. He was the president of Magic, Inc., a Chicago firm selling magic books and tricks throughout the world.

He owned one of the largest collections of magical posters, until in 1993 he sold 450 posters to Norm Nielsen and David Copperfield.

He was born in Abington, MA. on August 29, 1919 attended public schools in Melrose, MA., Andover, MA., Norwich, CT. and graduated High school in Chicopee, MA. in 1938. He went one year to Bluefield College, Bluefield, VA and worked briefly as an announcer on WHIS in Bluefield, WV. He worked nightclubs and U.S.O. shows until he was drafted for World War II. He wound up in the Pacific and was honorably discharged at Fort Dix NJ with the rank of sergeant (1946). He played in vaudeville at the famed Palace Theatre, NY; at the Roxy in NY; at the Capitol, NY; Chicago Theatre in Chicago; and at the Palladium in London. He has two sons, James (1941) and Alexander “Sandy” (1946) by a former marriage. There are four grandsons, four great grandsons, and one great grand daughter.

He was loved by everyone who knew him and will be missed by all.

Chicago Sun-Times Article

Magician's last trick leaves 'em laughing

May 17, 2005

BY MARK BROWN SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST

It was the promise of a magician's funeral, in particular the "broken wand ceremony," that lured me Monday morning to Drake & Sons Funeral Home on the North Side. I couldn't place the name of the deceased, had never heard of a magician's funeral and knew nothing of the broken wand ceremony, but the mind boggled at the possibilities.

Would they saw the casket in half? Skewer it with swords? Perhaps make the corpse disappear? Replace him with a pretty girl in a sequined costume?

As it turned out, nothing more flashy than a card trick was performed, but I hardly left disappointed. That was apparently often the case where Jay Marshall was involved.

Marshall, 85 and by his own estimation "one of the better cheaper acts" in show business, was the man in the casket, and the sign on its lid was enough to let you know his would be no ordinary funeral.

"Not the first time I've died," it read, a reference not to any powers of rebirth but to the tribulations of a stage performer.

The funeral parlor was full of people who know what it is like to have died -- on stage -- and to go back for more.

They were magicians, ventriloquists, comedians and carnies, and they were eager to share their stories about Marshall, who come to find out, was all those things and then some.

I felt better when one of Marshall's friends described him as "the most famous celebrity that nobody knew."

Early television performer

Photos of Marshall in the back of the room and an obituary from Friday's New York Times stirred my memory banks.

The photos showed a David Niven look-alike in evening clothes with a white sock puppet with rabbit ears on his left hand. "Lefty," as the puppet was known, made 14 appearances with Marshall on the Ed Sullivan television show. They opened for Frank Sinatra during his earliest days in Las Vegas and did the Jackie Gleason Show.

Their act combined magic and ventriloquism with a comedy born of his days in Vaudeville.

Another photo of Lefty atop the casket carried the caption, "I'm Speechless." Marshall previously donated the hand puppet to the Smithsonian.

But Marshall may be just as well known for the Magic Inc. shop he and wife Frances moved to Lincoln Avenue in 1962, where Marshall assisted and befriended generations of magicians. Several speakers said it was Marshall's willingness to treat every magician as a peer -- from the biggest international stars to 12-year-old kids -- that made him a beloved figure in his field.

Marshall allowed groups such as the Wizards Club to hold their meetings in the store, often punctuating downtime with his jokes.

"The jokes weren't always appropriate. But they were always, always funny!" said club member Keith Cobb.

Marshall's eulogy was performed by his youngest son, Alexander "Sandy" Marshall, who seemed to have inherited his father's showmanship and sense of humor.

Noting he was born within months of his father's discharge from military service, Sandy said: "For the first 15 years of my life, he referred to me as that god damned weekend pass."

Sandy said his father often observed that he had no problem with his own death.

"I just don't want to be there when it happens," he would say.

The breaking of the wand

Marshall was named dean of the Society of American Magicians in 1992 and was presented a wand, ancient emblem of mystery, to mark the occasion.

A fellow performer who goes by Aye Jaye was called upon to perform the broken wand ceremony Monday, officially marking the end of Marshall's tenure as dean. Breaking the wand was meant to be symbolic of the fact that without the magician it was nothing but a mere stick.

But first Aye Jaye did a card trick, using an audiotape with Marshall's voice that was one of the many magic teaching aids Marshall developed. The routine came complete with punch lines that produced the sought-after laughs.

Then Aye Jaye acted as if he was swallowing the wand, before pulling it out to reveal it was a trick wand that retracted as he appeared to put it down his throat.

Aye Jaye waxed philosophic, noting, "You've all died."

"Why the hell do we do this?" he said. ''For that one time we make it over. For that one great laugh. For that one great trick."

Aye Jaye got a pretty good laugh with this joke:

"Do you know what they call a magician who breaks up with his girlfriend?"

"Homeless."

Aye Jaye then told the story of the man who goes to see his doctor, and the doctor asks what's wrong.

"I can't pee," says the man.

"How old are you?" ask the doc.

"85," says the man.

"85? You've peed enough."

"Jay, you have peed enough," said Aye Jaye.

With that, he broke the wand.

<Correction, Aye Jay said, “Jay, you haven’t peed enough!”>

OBITUARIES

Chicago Sun-Times

Jay Marshall, magician, ventriloquist

May 13, 2005

Magician-ventriloquist Jay Marshall, dean of the Society of American Magicians, a 14-appearance veteran of the Ed Sullivan television show and the first entertainer to open for Frank Sinatra in Las Vegas, has died at the age of 85.

Mr. Marshall, who had suffered a series of heart attacks, died late Tuesday at Swedish Covenant Hospital, surrounded by family members and his cat, Alley Bongo, who had been smuggled in by a nephew at Mr. Marshall's request.

The dying request was typical of Mr. Marshall's childlike spirit, said one of his sons, New York writer-director Alexander Marshall.

''A little boy once approached my father after one of his shows and said, 'Mr. Marshall, I want to be a magician, too, when I grow up,'" the son recalled. ''My father replied, 'Son, you can't do both.'"

Although Mr. Marshall was a noted historian of stage magic and wrote several books on the subject, his act did not incorporate the spectacular illusions and escape stunts that were popular when he was a young vaudevillian. Instead, he concentrated on card tricks and sleight-of-hand, combining them with ventriloquism and often self-deprecating patter. He liked to bill himself as ''one of the better of the cheap acts.''

His usual stage partner was ''Lefty,'' his left hand dressed in a white glove and wearing rabbit ears. Occasionally, ''Righty,'' Marshall's other hand, would join them to sing trios.

A native of Abington, Mass., Mr. Marshall studied magic and ventriloquism as a boy. He proved so popular an entertainer at Bluefield College in West Virginia that he failed to graduate and went into professional magic instead.

For many years, Mr. Marshall and his wife, Frances Ireland Marshall, ran Magic Inc., a shop for professional magicians on the North Side. Mrs. Marshall, the widow of magician L.L. Ireland, was a professional magician in her own right. She died in 2002.

Mr. Marshall is survived by his two sons, five grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.

<Correction, it was Jay’s Grandson Chris who smuggled in the cat. >

The New York Times

Jay Marshall, 85, the Dean of Magic, Is Dead

By DOUGLAS MARTIN

Published: May 13, 2005

Jay Marshall, a magician whose accomplishments - from appearing 14 times on "The Ed Sullivan Show" to playing New York's Palace and London's Palladium - persuaded America's conjurers to elect him their dean, died Tuesday in Chicago. He was 85.

Jay Marshall in 1992 with the persnickety Lefty, an Ed Sullivan regular.

The cause was a heart attack, his son Alexander said.

In 1992, Mr. Marshall became dean of the Society of American Magicians. He will keep the title until his wand is broken at his gravesite in a magicians' ritual. He was only the eighth dean in the history of the organization, and his picture was on the commemorative coin issued upon its centennial three years ago.

He was an enduring hit from vaudeville to Broadway to Las Vegas, where he opened for Frank Sinatra in one of his early appearances there.

Todd Karr, a publisher of magic books, said the deanship meant Mr. Marshall was the elder of legerdemain, "sort of the griot of the global magic village."

Siegfried Fischbacher of Siegfried & Roy said: "Jay Marshall was a name synonymous with magic. He was one of magic's most beloved figures."

A writer, editor and collector of all things magic, as well as owner of one of the nation's leading stores in the business, Magic Inc. in Chicago, Mr. Marshall was valued by students for his immense knowledge going back to the glory years of vaudeville. In 1957, as part of the last variety bill to play vaudeville's legendary Palace Theater, he occupied the most prestigious place on the bill: the spot next to the closing act.

"He was the primary source on so many things," Teller of Penn & Teller said, calling Mr. Marshall "the British Library and the Library of Congress combined" in matters magical.

Mr. Marshall sawed Nanette Fabray in half in the Broadway show "Love Life" in 1949 and appeared with countless celebrities, including Paul Robeson, Sid Caesar and Walter Cronkite.

For five years in the 1950's, he edited New Phoenix, then the largest magic magazine. He sold his huge collection of magic posters to David Copperfield for his museum, and the store became one of the three biggest mail-order magic businesses in the country.

As a performer, Mr. Marshall could move from mismatched plaids to well-cut evening clothes. He was also a superb ventriloquist, and his persnickety hand puppet, Lefty, a rabbit, was an early regular on the Sullivan show. (Lefty is now in the Smithsonian Institution with Charlie McCarthy and Kermit the Frog.)

He was an indefatigable performer. When he appeared in "Love Life," the producer gave him permission to skip the closing bows to dart off by bicycle to play nightclubs, sometimes several in an evening.

In another Broadway show, he played the ghost of a bagpipe-playing British butler, having feverishly learned the instrument after lying that "of course" he knew how.

In 1973, he and his wife, Frances, wrote a three-volume book advising magicians on how to be successful; another of his books helped magicians master television. He originated a trick known as the Jaspernese Thumb Tie, which is still a staple of prestidigitators, and Teller calls Mr. Marshall's appearing to bounce a dinner roll off the floor a virtually perfect trick.

Out of modesty or canniness, Mr. Marshall always said he was "one of the better cheaper acts."

James Ward Marshall was born on Aug. 29, 1919, in Abington, Mass. At 7, he saw Houdini perform but fell asleep, according to a 1996 interview in Genii, a conjurers' magazine. But he watched other magicians, including Howard Thurston, an earlier dean, with increasing interest. He traded away his bicycle to buy a mail-order magic course.

He spent a year at Bluefield College in Virginia, but the siren of show business called. At a magic society convention in New York, he met Naomi Baker, whose father, Al, was a dean of magic. They were married and settled in New York, and Mr. Marshall began developing routines, partly through research at the New York Public Library.

He served in the Army in the South Pacific and developed his first puppet when he found it was impossible to take along a ventriloquist's dummy. He made the puppet from a sock and the ears from its mate.

His first marriage ended in divorce, and he married the former Frances Ireland, whose husband owned a Chicago magic store until he died in the 1950's. Frances, widely respected as a magic writer, merchant and performer, died in 2002, after 48 years of marriage.

In addition to Alexander, who lives in Manhattan, Mr. Marshall is survived by another son, James, of Port Townsend, Wash.; a sister, Marjorie Bamman, of Huntington, N.Y.; five grandchildren; and five great-grandchildren.

Mr. Marshall won many awards in the United States, Britain and elsewhere. But in the Genii interview, he told the writer Max Maven how he came to be dean of magic.

"What do the dean do?" he remembered immediately demanding.

"As far as I know the dean don't do nothin'," the president of the magicians' society answered.

"That's the job for me!"

Jay Marshall, 85, a magician-ventriloquist who was dean of the Society of American Magicians, died of a heart attack Tuesday at a Chicago hospital.

Often referring to himself as "one of the better cheaper acts," Marshall combined card tricks and sleight of hand with ventriloquism and self-deprecating patter.

He made 14 appearances on "The Ed Sullivan Show," and was an opening act for Milton Berle, Liberace, Frank Sinatra and other entertainers.

Marshall often shared the stage with "Lefty," his left hand in a white glove with rabbit ears and eyes; the glove is now in the Smithsonian Institution.

Marshall, who sawed Nannette Fabray in half in the 1949 Broadway show "Love Life," became a noted historian of stage magic.

In the 1950s, he edited New Phoenix, the largest magic magazine at the time.

Marshall also co-wrote books on magic with his second wife, Frances, with whom he owned Magic Inc., a shop for professional magicians in Chicago.

The Boston Globe

Jay Marshall, 85, magician

Jay Marshall, 85, a wise-cracking magician who appeared many times on ''The Ed Sullivan Show" with his quick-witted hand puppet Lefty, died, apparently of a heart attack, Tuesday in Swedish Covenant Hospital in Chicago surrounded by his family and his cat Alley Bongo, who had been smuggled in by a grandson at his request.

During a long career, which began at Sunday socials in his hometown of Abington, Mr. Marshall performed throughout the world. He appeared many times at Radio City Music Hall in New York and at the Palladium in London. He opened for Frank Sinatra at the Desert Inn in Las Vegas and appeared in at least three Broadway shows.

He was dean of the Society of American Magicians, an honorary title awarded in 1992, and was the eighth magician to receive the honor.

''He was one of the top magicians in the country and a mentor to many young performers," George Schindler, former president of the Society of American Magicians, said yesterday.

Customarily clad in a tuxedo -- though later in life he wore a plaid jacket and bow tie -- Mr. Marshall appeared at the microphone with his left hand covered with a white glove with two black buttons sewn on for eyes. It was to create the illusion of his alter ego, a sharp-witted rabbit named Lefty.

''Shall we sing?" Mr. Marshall asked the loquacious rabbit in one memorable routine.

''He was a well-known wit," his grandson Chris Marshall of Chicago said yesterday. ''Ed Sullivan called him one of his favorite crazies."

Mr. Marshall, who also performed on the television shows of Jackie Gleason, Sid Caesar, and Paul Winchell, often billed himself as ''one of the better cheap acts."

He said he saw the Great Houdini when he was 7 years old but said he had fallen asleep during the show. In a story published last year in the Chicago Tribune, he said he became a magician because he was too nervous to steal.

When he performed at Sunday socials and church gatherings, Mr. Marshall said, he knew when he was doing well if he was given a second helping of ice cream.

He soon learned ventriloquism. Armed with a dummy he made himself and a fake birth certificate indicating that he was old enough to work, he began appearing in Boston nightclubs.

During World War II, he served in the Army and entertained troops in the Pacific. Lefty was born when he grew tired of lugging a dummy from island to island.

In 1948, after moving to New York, he was hired to train an actor to do magic tricks in the new Kurt Weill musical ''Love Life." When the producers saw his act, he was hired for the role. Because his appearance in the show only took four or five minutes at the beginning -- his job was to saw Nanette Fabray in half -- he got permission from the producers to leave before the final curtain, so he could perform in local nightclubs. He appeared in as many as three shows a night and rode a bicycle from show to show.

Mr. Marshall also appeared in the Ziegfeld Follies and as the bagpipe-playing ghost of a butler in the 1951 Broadway play ''Great to Be Alive." ''He was a fast talker," Schindler said. ''The producer asked him if he played the bagpipe, and said he did. But, of course, he didn't. He had to learn before the show opened."

For many years, Mr. Marshall owned and operated Magic Inc., a Chicago shop where he sold magic tricks and taught youngsters the tricks of the trade. He lived in back of the shop. ''Magic was his entire life," said his grandson, who lived with him and helps run the shop.

Mr. Marshall was a mentor to a generation of young magicians. ''It didn't matter if you were a beginner or a professional, he treated everybody like a peer," his grandson said. He was often approached by young people who informed him that they wanted to be magicians when they grew up. ''You can't do both," was Mr. Marshall's standard reply.

He leaves two sons, Alexander of New York and James of Port Townsend, Wash.; a sister, Marjorie Bamman of Huntington, N.Y.; five grandchildren, and five great-grandchildren.

A funeral service will be held at 11 a.m. Monday in Drake & Son Funeral Home in Chicago. A traditional broken-wand ceremony, first held for Harry Houdini in 1926, will be conducted by members of the Society of American Magicians. ''The idea is that when the magician dies, their wand loses its magic, " Schindler said.

Lefty the puppet was donated to the Smithsonian Institution, where he resides with Edgar Bergen's dummy, Charlie McCarthy, and Kermit the Frog.

Jay Marshall's passing has been noted affectionately by magicians and magic-lovers all over the world.

His impact on our art was so much greater than the link he provided to Chicago's rich magic history. Chicago is our hometown and the place of our physical birth as well as our delivery into the wonderful world of magic. Chicago magic was Jay Marshall to us.

Magic Inc. was every bit the Mecca that Colon's Abbott’s was and perhaps even more so.

He was at the age where he no longer had to fake an interest in the art form upon which his career was based and yet he remained one of its biggest supporters.

With his cat, Ali Bongo at the foot of his bed, he passed on to the loving embrace of those who had gone to make a place for him.

Magician-ventriloquist Jay Marshall dead at 85

CHICAGO - Magician-ventriloquist Jay Marshall, dean of the Society of American Magicians, a 14-appearance veteran of the Ed Sullivan television show and the first entertainer to open for Frank Sinatra in Las Vegas, has died at the age of 85.

Marshall, who had suffered a series of heart attacks, died late Tuesday at Swedish Covenant Hospital in Chicago, surrounded by family members and his cat, Alley Bongo, who had been smuggled in by a nephew at Marshall's request.

The dying request was typical of Marshall's childlike spirit, said one of his sons, New York writer-director Alexander Marshall.

"A little boy once approached my father after one of his shows and said, `Mr. Marshall, I want to be a magician, too, when I grow up," the son recalled. "My father replied, `Son, you can't do both.'"

Although Jay Marshall was a noted historian of stage magic and wrote several books on the subject, his own act did not incorporate the spectacular illusions and escape stunts that were popular when he was a young vaudevillian. Instead, he concentrated on the magic of card tricks and sleight of hand, combining it with ventriloquism and often self-deprecating patter. He liked to bill himself as "one of the better of the cheap acts."

His usual stage partner was "Lefty," his left hand dressed in a white glove and wearing rabbit ears. Occasionally, "Righty," Marshall's other hand, would join them to sing trios.

A native of Abington, Mass., Jay Marshall studied magic and ventriloquism as a boy, and proved so popular an entertainer at Bluefield College in West Virginia that he failed to graduate and went on into professional magic instead.

"Lefty" was born while Marshall was entertaining in USO shows in the Pacific during World War II.

"My father had an elaborate ventriloquist's dummy named `Henry," who was made by the man who created `Charlie McCarthy' for Edgar Bergen, but he got tired of schlepping `Henry' around from island to island," said Alexander Marshall. "One night he simply pulled on this glove, and it became Lefty."

"I saw him do Lefty more than 1,000 times over the years, and there was always something new in the act," the son said.

For many years, Marshall and his wife, Frances Ireland Marshall, ran Magic Inc., a shop for professional magicians on Chicago's North Side. Mrs. Marshall, the widow of magician L.L. Ireland, was a professional magician in her own right. She died in 2002.

Marshall is survived by his two sons, five grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.

The Magic Times

Jay Marshall (August 29, 1919-May 10, 2005) died on Tuesday at the age of 85. Marshall was one of the most loved magicians, ventriloquists, collectors, historians and characters in our field. He is best remembered for the act with his gloved hand puppet Lefty that often received standing ovations. It is impossible to list all or even most of his accomplishments as he lived a very rich and fulfilling life. He has won just about every honor and lifetime achievement award given in our profession. He was a regular on the Ed Sullivan show and was instrumental in supplying the show the many magicians it featured. On Marshall's 80th birthday "Jay Marshall Day" was proclaimed in the City of Chicago. At his passing he held the lifetime position of Dean of the Society of American Magicians and was the owner of the once premier magic company, Magic Inc. He will surely leave a void in our profession. (5/10)
--Funeral arrangements for Jay Marshall have been set for Monday May 16 at 11am the Drake & Son Funeral Home (5303 North Western Avenue) in Chicago, Illinois (773-561-6874). Visitations will take place on May 15 at 6pm-9pm and May 16 at 10am-11am. (5/11)