magician

It has emerged over the years that staff members from “The Tonight Show” consulted with a magician, James Randi, who advised them on how to prepare the props to stymie him.

Under him, Ireland played with more cunning, deception and trick set-pieces than a street magician.

In Zehme’s depiction, Carson’s public persona was a deception, a sleight of hand befitting a man who started as a magician and never lost his love for it.

We see their hands, like those of a magician doing close-up magic, but rarely more.

Born in Philadelphia in 1840, Donaldson was a gymnast, ventriloquist, a tightrope performer and – like the Wonderful Wizard himself – a magician.