From the mid-’70s to the early ’80s, Toronto-raised grasp illusionist and escape artist Doug Henning was inescapable. Along with his lengthy, wavy locks, walrus moustache, vibrant outfits, and perky new-age manner, he lower fairly a distinction from the vaguely sinister tuxedo-clad, top-hatted magicians that beforehand dominated the sector.
As one of many first illusionists to include elaborate units, Henning modified the way in which magic was introduced. He walked by a brick wall, made an elephant disappear and switched locations with an individual who was locked inside a trunk. He was additionally the primary to re-attempt Harry Houdini’s harmful 1912 Water Torture Cell, wherein the magician, restrained on the toes, escaped after being lowered right into a glass tank of water.
(Check out the Toronto Magic Company’s work with the city’s budding magicians)
It was 1975, and 50 million viewers tuned in to observe the stunt on stay tv – “unprecedented at this time,” says Henning knowledgeable Neil McNally. “The escape actually made him the world’s most well-known magician (in a single day). Everybody idolized him, and the age of recent tv and stage magic started then. It’s exhausting for folks to grasp this at this time, however he was like a rock star.”
Twenty-two years after his dying – he would have turned 75 this Could – Henning remains to be thought to be one of many greats by his friends, having blazed a path for the likes of Siegfried & Roy, David Copperfield and Penn & Teller.
“He was the face of magic,” McNally says. “He was everywhere in the newspapers, magazines, discuss exhibits, and (had) yearly tv specials. This can be a man who modified an artwork type endlessly.” The Los Angeles-based McNally, who launched the Doug Henning Venture on-line archive in 2017, is at the moment wrapping up a feature-length documentary on Henning’s life and artwork.
“Doug is exclusive in that he didn’t copy anybody earlier than or after him,” he says. “He made a agency impression on audiences of the time, and due to this, he’s a everlasting a part of magic’s DNA.”
Winnipeg-born Henning fell in love with magic as a baby. “In the course of the early days, he practised at residence for hours,” says his sister, Nancy Henning. The household moved to Oakville when Henning was in his early teenagers, and in 1969, he lived in a third-floor house at 94 Winchester St. in Cabbagetown, the place a plaque now commemorates his life as a magician, trainer and politician. Upon graduating with a psychology diploma in McMaster College in 1971, Henning and then-girlfriend Marsden Barrick carried out as Henning and Mars at Yorkville coffeehouses, a navy base close to the North Pole, LA’s famed Magic Citadel, and on a 1972 episode of the CBC’s “Telescope” program.
With Ivan Reitman, a college classmate, Henning conjured “Spellbound,” a musical magic present, written by David Cronenberg and with music by Howard Shore. It was a box-office success throughout its two-week run on the Royal Alexandra Theatre in 1973.
Henning was approached by Broadway producers Edgar Lansbury and Joseph Beruh about bringing a model of the present to New York. “After this, there was no wanting again for Doug,” says McNally. Reworked and retitled “The Magic Present,” it opened in 1974 on the Cort Theatre and loved a four-year-run. The manufacturing, with songs by Stephen Schwartz and e book by Bob Randall, earned Henning a Tony nomination for Finest Featured Actor in a Musical and, says McNally, a status as “a reputable Broadway star.” A model of “The Magic Present” was additionally mounted at Toronto’s Queen Elizabeth Theatre in 1980, the place it was filmed and aired on CBC. Henning returned to Broadway in 1983 for the Tony-nominated musical “Merlin,” and the next yr “Doug Henning and His World of Magic” toured throughout North America. Within the ’80s Henning additionally created illusions for others, together with Michael Jackson, Earth, Wind & Fireplace and the Toronto rock band Lighthouse.
Seven “Doug Henning’s World of Magic” TV specials aired all through the late ’70s and early ’80s, serving to to make Henning a family title. He additionally made visitor appearances on “The Tonight Present” with Johnny Carson and “The Muppet Present.”
Regardless of his huge success within the US, Henning all the time thought-about Canada his residence and was proud to inform folks that he was Canadian, Nancy says. He returned usually to go to household and to do the occasional efficiency. “He was all the time pleasantly stunned by the reception,” Nancy says. When their mom was recognized with most cancers, he spent a number of months caring for her in Toronto.
Henning left the magic enterprise in 1986. “He felt he had achieved his targets in performing and he needed to maneuver alongside to different challenges,” says Nancy. He offered off all his illusions – props, units and secrets and techniques – at public sale to commit his time to Transcendental Meditation. (“A few of Doug’s illusions are nonetheless being utilized by magicians,” says McNally.) TM devotees declare that the silent meditation method promotes relaxed consciousness, stress discount, entry to larger states of consciousness, and reduces coronary heart illness and hypertension. Henning acquired a PhD within the Science of Inventive Intelligence from the Maharishi College within the late Eighties, and together with TM founder Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, deliberate to construct a $1.5 billion-dollar theme park close to Niagara Falls.
He additionally dabbled in politics. Within the 1993 federal election, Henning ran, unsuccessfully, within the using of Rosedale in 1993 as a member of the TM offshoot Pure Legislation Social gathering of Canada. He died in Los Angeles on Feb. 7, 2000, from liver most cancers. He was 52.
A decade later, Henning was awarded a star on Canada’s Stroll of Fame – “a touching epilogue from a rustic that gave him a lot,” says McNally.
Had he lived, Henning would have absolutely develop into an elder statesman of magic, McNally says, “one who would have consulted for different performers, presumably work on results for films and TV exhibits (or) lectured.”
Just like the world of phantasm, Henning’s life had been filled with chance. “He by no means misplaced curiosity within the magic world,” says Nancy. “Magic was Doug’s ardour and his life.”
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