Holding forth at the Magic Cellar (located in the basement of Earthquake McGoon's on Clay Street) in the mid-1960s was an accomplished professional English magician named Martin Lewis, who did both stage and close-up magic nightly. For the same three dollar cover charge one could either stay upstairs in McGoon's and listen to Turk Murphy's band and Clancy Hayes or descend the staircase into the mysteries of the Magic Cellar Saloon, or both. The Magic Cellar Saloon had plush red carpeting; its walls were covered with beautiful color posters of the once-famous magician Carter The Great. Interspersed throughout were several glass cases displaying many of Carter The Great's magic apparatus as well as memorabilia obtained from other famous magicians, such as handcuffs used by Harry Houdini. The various displays, such as Carter's "Spike Cabinet" stage illusion, made the place truly magical. How Carter's fabulous collection of magical paraphernalia found its way to McGoon's is a most unique and fortuitous tale.

Charles Carter's illusion show, which traveled with him throughout the world, originally consisted of fifty heavy red trunks filled with thirty-one tons of magic illusions and apparatus. The basement of his San Francisco home, called "Carter Manor," sheltered the show for many years after Carter died. Eventually the show moved into the basement of son Larry Carter's house, also in San Francisco. After Larry died the entire show was moved into an unreinforced brick warehouse that was owned by his mother, Corinne Carter, who survived him. The warehouse was managed by Corinne's nephew. When Corinne died on December 17, 1963, the City of San Francisco ordered the warehouse demolished. The nephew lamented that getting rid of Uncle Charles' magic show would not be as easy. One hauling company estimated at the time that it would cost $600 to dispose of the trunks.

Co-tenants of the warehouse had included two brothers, Cedric and Peter Clute, and our very own Turk Murphy. You might be surprised to learn that this stalwart trio imported foreign classic automobiles as a sideline. Some of their cars were stored next to fifty old theatrical trunks in the warehouse.

When the warehouse was condemned, Corinne Carter's nephew notified the Clutes and Mr. Murphy that they would have to find another home for their cars. Messrs. Clute and Murphy stopped by to remove their cars and asked what was in the old trunks. They were told that they could look for themselves. Without a background in magic, our trio didn't realize what they had stumbled onto. But they figured that if King Tut had been a magician, this was surely his tomb. The Clutes offered to clean out the warehouse themselves and they offered to pay $200 for the privilege. The parties shook hands, and both sides were convinced that they had received the better end of the deal.

The Turk Murphy Jazz Band was appearing nightly at Earthquake McGoon's at the time. The enterprising Clutes convinced Turk that the unused basement at Earthquake McGoon's was the perfect location for a magic-themed nightclub. The space was duly decorated with antique illusions and dozens of battered trunks from the Carter collection. During the summer of 1964 the Magic Cellar Saloon opened for business. Throughout the '70s the Cellar showcased accomplished and well-known close-up and stand-up magicians. The Cellar served plenty of drinks and sold a seemingly endless supply of Carter window cards for five dollars each.

When the Cellar finally closed at the end of 1977, the Carter illusions were once again packed into their respective trunks and moved into a vacant brewery building. The next few years were not good ones for the Carter show. A parade of unsavory characters absconded with costumes, small props and whatever else could easily be carried away. The exquisite Chinese robes that Carter had purchased during his tours of the Orient were now fetching up to $1000 each in local flea markets.

The next stop for the show was an enormous warehouse located in Morgan Hill. Additional years elapsed. Then the show was moved to San Rafael. For a theatrical enterprise that was accustomed to traveling non-stop around the world, these innocuous and unprofitable little jumps must have been humiliating. With each move, more and more of the smaller pieces of apparatus disappeared.

Following a series of divorces and deaths among the parties involved, lawyers stepped in from every direction. The issue of ownership became a legal quagmire. The show languished in this miserable condition until 1990.

After our hero Turk Murphy passed away in 1986, the brothers Clute decided it was time for the Carter show to once again move on. Pete Clute, who is better known to jazz fans as Turk's piano player from the 1950s until 1982, had recalled that one of the magicians who had cut his performing teeth at the Magic Cellar had later achieved a measure of success in Hollywood. Perhaps this gentleman would be interested in buying the entire contents of his old stomping ground. As Judge Harry Stone on the long running series Night Court, Harry Anderson was at the time nearing the end of the ninth and final season of his first hit television series.

The Carter inventory list arrived at Harry's office along with the usual stack of autograph requests and scripts. Although Harry showed no interest in buying Carter The Great's magic show, his secretary passed the list on to a fellow magician and friend of the author named Mike Caveney, who is a well-known professional magician, magic author and historian from Pasadena, California. Mike's heart skipped a beat as a detailed list of Charles Carter's lifetime accumulation in magic slowly crept out of his fax machine. He could already smell the tantalizing aroma of rotting wood and moth-eaten fabric. Together with a Las Vegas magician named Bill Smith, Caveney purchased the entire show, including Carter's extensive archives.

Although it had safely circled the globe seven times during its long career, the Carter show almost did not survive its final trip to Los Angeles. With the illusions packed into a rented truck and twenty-five boxes of memorabilia packed into a van, a tiny caravan began a 400-mile journey to Los Angeles. As the truck started down a hill towards the Golden Gate Bridge, the combination of strong winds, a steep grade and excessive weight succeeded in flipping the truck over on its side. Cars swerved in every direction in an attempt to avoid the giant spinning truck as it skidded down the pavement. All south bound traffic on the Golden Gate Bridge was stopped for ninety minutes as the fire department covered the truck with fire retardant foam.

The story of the crippled magic show that stopped all noontime traffic on the Golden Gate Bridge quickly became big news. Camera-toting helicopters circled overhead. The San Francisco newspapers carried the story. All of this free publicity would have delighted Carter, but to Caveney and Smith it was a most terrifying experience. Miraculously-and yes, like magic-the driver emerged through the door now opened towards the sky without a scratch. All other drivers unlucky enough to be in the truck's path somehow avoided being hit. The illusion truck had been packed so tightly that it was virtually impossible for anything to move. Once the truck had been towed out of harm's way, a cursory inspection revealed that the rental truck had been totaled but the show was safe.

Upon the show's arrival in Los Angeles, Mr. Caveney realized that a tremendous amount of floor space would be needed to effectively display it in its entirety. He found a huge warehouse. The entire show consisting of some fifty-odd trunks created an imposing sight. Each illusion was re-assembled so it could be carefully studied and photographed. Some of the apparatus was remarkably well preserved. Other pieces required considerable work to bring them back into a condition that would have pleased Charles Carter. "Cheating the Gallows" had survived very well, as a thorough cleaning revealed an elaborate Chinese-styled paint scheme. Another gem was Carter's improved "Sawing A Lady" (in half). The concept of making two girls look like one by using costumed metal flaps that unfold from the front doors allowing living hands, head and feet to protrude from the boxes even when the doors are open and the boxes are sitting on widely separated tables, is still an amazing illusion by today's standards. Other illusions that Messrs. Caveney and Smith lovingly restored had such mysterious titles as "Million Dollar Mystery," "The Spirit Cabinet," "The Levitation" (pictured above) and the above-mentioned "Spike Cabinet."

After displaying the show at the second Los Angeles Conference on Magic History in 1991 and astounding a select group of magic historians from around the world by performing some of Carter's masterpieces for the first time in sixty years, Messrs. Caveney and Smith realized that, practically speaking, keeping the entire show together would be a near impossibility. They decided that some of the individual illusions would be better off in the hands of a few serious magic collectors. Accordingly, today many of Carter's most famous illusions reside in private collections of magicians such as David Copperfield. Mike Caveney, nobody's fool and a most respected present-day magician and collector, deservedly kept some of the better items himself.

Credit for much of the information in this article goes to "Carter The Great", a well-referenced 375-page work written by Mike Caveney, copyrighted and published in 1995 by Mike Caveney's Magic Words, Pasadena, California, being Library of Congress Catalog Card No. 95-92490.

Author John R. Browne III is a nephew of Charlie Davis, the Indiana bandleader and composer (Copenhagen et al). He is also a member of the Board of Directors of the San Francisco Traditional Jazz Foundation.

"Jack" first encountered San Francisco jazz when matriculating at the University of Wisconsin in the late 1950s, hearing Bob Scobey and Clancy Hayes at the Bourbon Street Club in downtown Madison.

Soon after arriving in San Francisco in the mid-1960s he found Earthquake McGoon's on Clay Street and quickly became a fan of Turk Murphy and his band.

He also spent time in the Magic Cellar and got hooked on magic as a hobby. Over the years he has been very active in the organized magic fraternity, including a recent stint as President of the International Brotherhood of Magicians.

Jack is a lawyer by profession, but says he tries to "put the briefcase down whenever possible to escape into my avocational worlds of magic and music."