THE KING OF MAGIC

Opunake Times, 17 July 1934, Page 3

THE KING OF MAGIC

STILL INVENTING TRICKS NURSE BECOMES A WIZARD

David Devant, creator of illusions that have baffled the world for 59 years, remains the master magician of the day—although he is crippled by an incurable form of paralysis, which makes it impossible for him to appear in public, or even to perform the simplest conjuring tricks himself.

Mr Devant is now 66 years old and lives at Hove, Sussex. He had to retire from the stage in 1920 because his affliction made it impossible for him to carry on. But magic is still his lifeblood : he thinks only of tricks and illusions. He works them out in his mind, and then has them created by his male nurse. Magicians from all over the world come to Mr Devant for tuition. Thousands of tricks that one sees on the stage have been “polished up” by him; many others have been thought of by him, and translated into fact through hfa nurse.

A visitor sat talking to the master magician recently in his house, which stands just off the Hove seafront, and he stated that only two days previously he invented v. new trick which wall be seen in theatres everywhere.

Mr Devant’s nurse is Mr W. F. Curtis, who until’six years ago was a missionary in West Africa. “I was invalided home six years ago,” Mr Curtis said, “and became Mr Devant’s nurse. At the time I did not know a single thing about magic or conjuring and I was not really interested in it. Now I am a conjurer. If you don’t believe me, watch this . .” Mr Curtis took a sheet of paper, tore it into tiny pieces, put them in an ash-tray on the table six inches away from the visitor, and then lighted them with a match. The paper was burned to ashes—or so the visitor thought for a few seconds. Then Mr Curtis touched the ashes with his little finger and he produced the piece of paper intact.

“That was the first trick I taught Curtis,” said Mr Devant. “Anyone of ordinary intelligence can become a magician, so long as he applies himself and has proper tuition.”

Mr Curtis said that Mr Devant spent most of his time thinking out new illusions. “He works them out in his mind, and then describes them to me,” he said. “Then he sits in his easy chair and. following his instructions, I do the tricks that he had evolved. He watches me. . . corrects me . . .makes additions and alterations as I go on. Then in a day or two the trick is perfected and we sell it to some magician who performs it in public.”