Channing Pollock

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Channing Pollock, 79, Innovative Magician
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New York Sun, The (NY)-March 24, 2006
Author: STEPHEN MILLER Staff Reporter of the Sun
Channing Pollock, who died Sunday at 79, was one of the previous century's finest and most influential magicians.

Before he abruptly vanished from the stage in 1970, Pollock was seen on television and at premier venues across the country, as well as in Europe, where he performed before crowned heads. His suave good looks and tall stature, and studied elegance - he never appeared on stage without a tuxedo - also garnered him a parallel if somewhat less impressive career in European film, as well as in American TV shows, where he filled guest roles on "The Beverly Hillbillies" and "Bonanza."

Pollock was a widely acknowledged master of both card magic and of magic featuring doves, which he almost single-handedly invented. Magician David Copperfield, a wunderkind in hot pursuit of Doug Henning's stage success, in 1974 cited Pollock as the magician he most wished to emulate. Ricky Jay and Lance Burton have both called his influence critical.

Yet after less than two decades at the pinnacle of his profession, Pollock dropped out, and spent the rest of his life in quieter pursuits - organic gardening, dowsing for oil and water, and vermiculture. The ethereal but illusory joy of creating a dove out of sheer silk was replaced by more earthy pursuits. Meanwhile, he partook deeply of literature on spirituality and the occult, always favorites among the prestidigitators.

Pollock grew up in Sacramento, and received his unusual name after his mother, pregnant with Pollock, met the famed Broadway playwright and essayist Channing Pollock, whom she admired greatly. As Pollock told the story, it was the playwright himself who suggested naming the new baby "Channing."

Fresh out of the Navy, Pollock used his G.I. Bill scholarship creatively, to pay for classes at the Chavez College of Manual Dexterity and Prestidigitation, in Laverne, Calif. He graduated in 1952, after studying with the magician Neil Foster, famed for his presentation of the "zombie ball," in which a silver sphere floats around in a ghostly manner.

It was at Chavez College that Pollock developed his dove tricks, inspired perhaps by the magician Cantu, who produced doves from beneath a Mexican serape. After an initial failed foray with pigeons, which are much larger and harder to hide, he settled on doves, and eventually developed a technique by which he seemed to be plucking them out of thin air. Just as suddenly, the dove would disappear, a scrap of silk wafting where it had been. The effect was stunning, even, or perhaps especially, to other magicians.

After graduating from Chavez College, Pollock stayed on to teach for a year, and then embarked on a career touring nightclubs across the country. His act was an immediate success, and in 1954,he appeared on Ed Sullivan's "Talk of the Town." He began appearing with Jack Benny and Sammy Davis Jr., and toured the Caribbean.

In 1955, Pollock performed for President Eisenhower at the annual White House Correspondent's dinner, a scene of merriment and skits. Later that year, he traveled to London, where he played the Palladium and gave a command performance for the queen. He performed at the wedding of Grace Kelly and Prince Rainier. After returning to America, he played the Stardust in Las Vegas and the Latin Quarter in New York. In later years, he toured with Liberace.

Pollock's first film appearance was in "European Nights" (1959), a documentary-style revue of nightclub acts. On the strength of that performance, he was cast alongside Robert Alda and Aldo Ray in "Moschettieri del Mare" (Musketeers of the Sea, 1960), the first of several forgettable European films Pollock starred in. In the French film "Judex" (1963), he played a costumed detective with magical skills.

Record Number: NYSUN24032006-00602
Copyright, 2006, The New York Sun