Los Angeles County
Biographies
HARRY KELLAR
KELLAR, HARRY, Magician (Retired), Los Angeles, California was born in Erie, Pennsylvania, July 11, 1849, the son of Francis P. Kellar. He married Eva Medley, of Melbourne, Australia, at Kalamazoo, Michigan, November 1, 1887. Mr. Kellar spent his early days in Erie and Ohio, and his education was obtained in both places. He graduated from the Painesville, Ohio, school and immediately went into the theatrical business, for which he had shown remarkable leanings all during his boyhood.
His first engagement was with a magician known as the “Fakir of Ava,” and a year as assistant to this noted illusionist implanted in him an ambition to become a magician himself. From that time until he retired, a few years ago, acknowledged by press and public the greatest living magician, Kellar applied himself to the mastery of his art. His brain and his hand were as one. He mystified, confounded and charmed his auditors, and even today his creations resist solution. In 1867 he became business manager for Davenport Brothers, spirit mediums, and with them made the first of a life of great tours. The company traveled in practically every part of the United States, and during that time the future great Kellar learned a lot of the world. He was with that combination approximately four years, and then joined Fay, under the name of Fay and Kellar. The pair toured Mexico and South America between 1871 and 1873, and during that time Kellar laid the foundation of a fame that was to last for all time in the world of magic.
Upon separating from Fay, Mr. Kellar organized a company consisting of himself and two Oriental magicians under the title of Kellar, Ling Look and Yamadeva, Royal Illusionists. These three played in many foreign lands, their tour taking them through South America, Africa, Australia, India, China, Philippine Islands and Japan. They were a sensation wherever they appeared, but the tour was ended in China, where Ling Look and Yamadeva died, in 1877.
Kellar’s next alliance was with J. H. Cunard, under the name of Kellar and Cunard, and for the next five years they traveled together, showing in many lands where magic was part of the religion and history of the peoples. This tour took them through India, Burmah, Siam, Java, Persia, Asia Minor, Egypt and numerous Mediterranean ports. In 1884 the partners separated and Kellar returned to his native America, a leader in his art and famous in the four corners of the globe.
Kellar’s career on the stage fills a chapter in the realm of magic that is surpassed by none. Endowed with a remarkably original mind, nimble hands and a faculty for magic, he brought his art up to a point in which cleverness and refinement intermingled, while his illusions mystified. For nearly a quarter of a century he was continually before the American public and during that time millions of people saw him. He evolved numerous pieces of magic that defied imitation or solution, and when he retired from the stage only his successor, to whom he turned over his secrets, knew how he had accomplished them.
At various times he had trouble with would-be imitators and often figured in matters that, to his highly sensitive and refined mentality, were distasteful. When he retired, however, it was with the affection of millions of persons who had been charmed and edified by his efforts. Upon leaving the stage Mr. Kellar settled in Los Angeles, and there he lives surrounded by an atmosphere of refinement and pleasant recollections. During his life he accumulated a handsome fortune, and of this he gives liberally in unostentatious philanthropy. He is a man of marked intellectual accomplishments and finds his recreation in those fields which appeal to the scholar.
Transcribed by Joyce Rugeroni.
Source: Press
Reference Library, Western Edition Notables of the West, Vol. I, Page 766,
International News Service, New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles,
Boston, Atlanta. 1913.
© 2011 Joyce
Rugeroni.
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