We're about two weeks from the 23rd anniversary of this blog and I'm amazed to find that I have stories I still haven't told here. Here's one of them and before I start it, I'd like to thank Follower-Of-This-Blog Michael Kilgore for digging up the news clipping that acts as the punch line to this story. Now then…
Kuda Bux (born Khudah Bukhsh in 1905) was one of the first celebrity magicians and even briefly starred in his own TV show in 1950. He did many kinds of amazing feats but was famous for two. One was walking across hot coals while barefoot, which he did all across the country before astonished spectators and newsreel cameras.
The other was the one that caused him to be billed as "The Man With X-Ray Eyes." He would be blindfolded…and not just with the simple kind. He would invite people to cover his eyes and often his whole head with coins, bandages, dough, cloths, etc. — you'll see in the video below how extensive this could be — and then he'd drive a car or read a book or do something else that proved he could somehow see. It was a magic trick but such a good one that a lot of people were convinced something mystical was happening there.
One of the places he performed his feats was on a TV show called You Asked For It which aired from 1950 until 1959, returning later in various versions. The premise of the show was simple: People would write in and suggest things they'd like to see on the show — amazing stunts, celebrity reunions, acts they'd heard about and so forth. They had Kuda Bux on many times and the clip below is from one of those times. But first, this story…
The exclusive private club in Hollywood called The Magic Castle proved they weren't that exclusive by admitting me into membership in 1980. It was and still is a great place to go, eat fine food and see some of the world's greatest magicians perform. In fact, I was there last Sunday evening with friends and among the performers we saw were Javi Benitez (proudly displaying his Penn & Teller: Fool Us trophy) and Larry Wilmore — yes, the guy from The Daily Show. But let me tell you about another evening at the Castle.
The date, I believe, was Wednesday, February 4, 1981. I was there with my friend Shary Flenniken, who most of you know from National Lampoon and her strip, "Trots n' Bonnie." Very fine cartoonist. We'd dined and seen some great magic and were just about to depart when a magician I knew saw us heading for the exit and said, "You're not leaving, are you?" We said we were both pretty exhausted. He said, "You're going to miss Kuda Bux?"
I knew who Kuda Bux was. Shary didn't but I did and I knew that he had retired, in part because The Man With X-Ray Eyes was, of all possible ironies in this world, almost blind due to Glaucoma. He had not performed anywhere for a while but he was doing a special one-time performance in the Parlor of Prestidigitation, which is one of the showrooms in the Magic Castle.
It had not been advertised. He'd agreed to do it because a lot of magician members wanted to see him and most of the seats, we were told, had been filled via word-o'-mouth among those members. It was starting in fifteen minutes.
Shary was dead-tired but she was nice enough to indulge me. We made a dash for the Parlor and managed to get the last two open seats. I recognized almost everyone else in the room as a working magician and some of them were pretty danged famous.
Kuda Bux started his show with a new magic trick he'd invented in retirement. He said it was the first time he'd performed it before an audience and probably the last. He had an empty metal frame on a stand. He daubed rubber cement all around the rim, then displayed a piece of brown paper, the kind used to make grocery bags.
He affixed the paper to the frame so the frame was covered with the paper and there was obviously nothing behind it. Then he brought out a faucet, stuck it through the brown paper, turned it on and began filling glasses of wine which he passed out to folks in the front row.
The audience applauded mightily and a few of them — these were mostly very experienced magicians, remember — looked like they weren't sure how he'd done that. Seeing that look is one of the joys sometimes of going to the Magic Castle: Magicians fooling not only the audiences but each other.
Then Kuda Bux did the x-ray eyes trick. The set-up — putting coins and dough over his eyes, then wrapping his head with many bandages — was pretty much the same as in this video, which I've just decided I should embed right here so you can watch it before I finish this story. Here it is from an old episode of You Asked For It…
What Kuda Bux did in the Parlor that night was the same trick except there were no guns, no glasses of acid, no cigarette-lighting. They wrapped his head and he invited members of the audience to come up, write on a blackboard and then he'd replicate what they wrote. That was mystifying enough to evoke more of those uncertain looks from seasoned magicians.
He closed with a brief Q-and-A with the audience with a lot of them telling him how privileged they felt to see him perform. Pointedly, no one asked him anything about how he'd done either trick but I'd bet cash-money that some of them were soon at the Magic Castle Library, reading up on how he'd done the x-ray eyes feat. Most of the great magic tricks of the world are explained in that collection.
Now, here's where the story gets a little chilling…
At the time, I was a writer on the TV show, That's Incredible!, which was kind of a successor-in-interest to You Asked For It. After Kuda Bux concluded his presentation, everyone present gathered around to shake his hand and fawn. I made my way to him and asked if he'd like to do his act on our show.
I didn't really have the authority to make that offer but I knew our producers would go for it. He said he'd love to do it and he gave me his contact info. He seemed pretty happy as did the friends around him who overheard our discussion. The next day, I told the folks at the show about him and everyone who had to approve the booking approved the booking.
I gave his contact info to our Talent Coordinator who attempted to reach him to arrange his appearance on the next episode we taped. She was unable to reach him but she kept trying and trying — and finally, a week or so later, there was an item in the trade paper Variety about him. It was wrong about him appearing frequently at the Castle in recent years but sadly right as to why we hadn't been able to reach him…
