C’est magique

The lights went up. "Uh-oh, I hope he doesn’t choose me," I whispered. He did. Before I could wriggle a word of protest, he winked and beckoned me to go up on stage. "What am I doing here?" I asked.

He twirled a pack of playing cards and flashed them like a Spanish fan before my gaping, astonished eyes. "I want you to pick a card, any card," he replied. Daintily, I picked one.

"Look at the card, memorize it, and insert it back into the deck of cards," he said. He hastened, "Don’t, absolutely do not…."

Before he could finish his sentence, I blurted, "It’s the queen of hearts!"

He turned glumly to the audience, by now cracking with laughter, before he finished his sentence in a crushed tone, "Do not tell me what card you picked…."

Too late. I turned to the audience and shrugged my shoulders. They laughed harder. He led me back to the middle of the stage. With a look that was halfway between a smile and a mischievous giggle, he repeated the instruction. This time, I zipped my mouth and, voila, the magic unfolded. Cheers and thunderous applause followed.

He moved fast and enthralled the audience with succeeding feats of wonder. Above all, he was outrageously funny. He switched from English to Spanish to French to four other languages. What was his native tongue? He was clearly not American. Definitely, he’s a European. Who was he?

Paul Potassy.

"Who?" I laughed as I repeated his name.

"Be careful," cautioned my friend. "The emphasis is on the first syllable and it’s a letter "o," not "u."

"Oh, of course," I replied. I left the ballroom, charged high with good humor. The man was amazing.

Paul Potassy was the top act at the Top of the Hilton of the Manila Hilton Hotel in 1968. Guests and clients converged at the hotel because of its service and world-class entertainers who were masters in their respective crafts. They were the crème de la crème and the pick of society.

His show was billed as a magical journey beyond anything that was ever seen or performed before in the Philippines. He didn’t disappoint. He baffled and mesmerized.

Manila Hilton had him back for nine more performances, making him like family to the small but tightly-knit Hilton gang. He was the "Uncle" who made us laugh hysterically. Whenever he dropped by the front desk, he would perform tricks to release office tension like changing P20 bills into P100 bills out of thin air. One young guest saw him and exclaimed, "Mr. Potassy, won’t you come home with me and make my parents shamefully rich?"

Paul was a gifted showman. He kept a pulse on his audience. Based on their prevailing mood, Paul would modify his dialogue, his tricks and his jokes. He wore many hats. He was a performer, a comedian, a psychic, a linguist, an illusionist, and a keeper of secrets.

One time at a posh club in Paris, Paul picked this fine-looking gentleman from the audience to show his sleight-of-hand routine. The gentleman agreed.

Paul recalled, "I reached into his pocket and started to empty it of everything bulging inside." Reaching down, I felt something rough, cold and jagged. ‘What could this be?’ I thought."

Paul moved at such a dizzying pace that the man did not have any time to focus on the objects unfolding before his eyes, much less recognize that they all came from his pocket. There was his comb, his wallet, his hanky, his chewing gum, his fountain pen, credit cards, his watch and the mystery object. When it was time to wind up the act, Paul turned his back on the audience and whispered, "Sir, your secret is safe with me." Discreetly, Paul handed the mystery object back to the gentleman. When the man realized what it was, his face fell, his jaw dropped, and his eyes popped. He turned to Paul and asked, "How did you do that?" In his excitement, the man dropped the mystery object in full view of the packed ballroom. It was his dentures.

Paul was a great storyteller – not fiction – but of true-to-life adventures drawn from his own experience. Everyone in his family expected him to become an ingénieur (engineer) like his father and relations. But Paul saw no challenge in blueprints and hardhats. Paul explained, "As a boy, I loved to play with cards and it wasn’t long before I made up my mind that if I were to work with my hands, it would be as a magician."

One of his original ideas was to substitute a saltshaker for the traditional black wand. For this he earned the title of "Paul and His Magic Salt." Magic became his livelihood and little did he know that it would someday save his life.

During the war, he was drafted in Austria just at the time that his career was picking up. In one skirmish, the Russians began their offensive, overwhelming the entire city with their armory and manpower. Paul realized that there was no way he could escape the Russians. He threw his gun and played dead. Two Russian soldiers were patrolling the area poking their bayonets in the bodies searching for valuables and identification. When they came too close to where Paul was sprawled, he was forced to open his eyes.

The soldiers were startled to see him alive. Immediately, they placed the gun’s barrel on Potassy’s temple ready to shoot when Paul stammered the single word "Artist." He pointed with shaking fingers to his upper breast pocket where he kept his playing cards. The Russian, still prepared at any moment to pull the trigger, watched suspiciously as Paul unbuttoned his pocket, removed the deck of cards and began to manipulate them in the minus-30 degree air. As he produced cards from the most unlikely parts of his uniform, the two Russians began to laugh and the gun was lowered from his head – his life was spared by magic. Subsequently, he was sent to the POW camp in Moscow where he performed as an artist until the end of the war.

Many years later, in one of his SRO performances, a group of prisoners who survived the war personally went to see him in his dressing room to thank him for making the tough life in the prison camps "bearable."

In the pecking order of the performing arts, magic is not among the top ones, especially in Asia. We never suspected that outside Manila, this art was highly practiced and held in tremendous regard. When Paul was thrilling crowds at the Manila Hilton, he was already a respected name in the fine circle of magicians.

From press clippings, media coverage, publications and interviews, we learned that his shows were crowd drawers whether held in supper clubs, luxury hotels, resorts and casinos. Multinational companies booked him for their gala events to entertain top accounts, not to mention exclusive gatherings for heads of state and royalty. (King Abd al-Aziz Al Saud of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia was so pleased with his performance that he personally gave him two solid gold sovereign coins that Paul converted to cuff links).

Not content with his impressive repertoire, Paul continued to upgrade his acts to keep up with modern inventions and gadgets. He even had one featuring the ubiquitous cell phone that was witty and mind-boggling.

Paul devoted 55 years of his life to the stage, clearly a golden era by any measure. When he turned 80 in 2003, his gracious wife and staunch promoter, Lita Bueno, prepared a surprise party for him in their hometown in Palma de Mallorca, Spain. Instead of gifts, Lita organized to send financial subsidy to impoverished children in the Philippines to which their European friends contributed generously.

Recently, I met up with Paul and Lita in their hotel suite where we spent a pleasant afternoon reminiscing and discussing various times in their lives.

Philippine STAR: What is the secret behind a good performance?

PAUL POTASSY: Treat your audience with courtesy and respect. Go gently, always gently. I make them an essential part of the show and when the acts are done in a polite, delightful manner, it produces hundreds of smiles.

What awards and citations do you consider special?

The Magicana Award (equivalent to the Oscars in the world of magic) from the biggest club of magicians (with over 2,800 members), the German Magic Circle. In May 2004, the Austrian Magic Circle invited me to give a one-hour interview cum demonstration of my six-hanky magic act, which ended in a standing ovation. The Finnish magic magazine called Jokker also featured me in an eight-page spread and America’s best known and largest circulated magic magazine called Magic, in its October 2004 issue, devoted six pages on my life and achievements.

In the august hall of magicians, who do you think are exceptionally talented?

Silvan from Italy. Silvan is so revered by the Italians that the mere mention of his name automatically connotes magic; Paul Daniels from England who made a distinguished career with his long-running "magic on television" show in England; Leo Ferre from France who won the first prize in the World Gala Convention, considered the "Olympics" for magic; Irene Larsen from the United States who is famous in Hollywood for her Magic Castle act; and lastly, the "living legends of magic" made up of ace comedian Ali Bongo and Edernac from France, the master of rope magic.

Would you teach your techniques to aspiring magicians?

Certainly. In 1997, I collaborated on a book in German entitled The Paul Potassy Show where I explained in detail all the tricks I used in my performance. I wanted to share these with my fellow magicians. I called it my "Legacy to the Magic World." (Paul’s book was an instant hit. It is now being translated into English with the help of Lita, so that it will be ready for the big International Magic Convention in London in July 2005. Paul was asked to give a command performance in this convention of magicians).

Do magicians follow a strict code of ethics?

Yes. Like in any profession, magicians exchange and compare magic tricks but it never leaves our circle. Even my wife cannot be persuaded by her friends to reveal them.

What magic routines are you closely identified with?

I seemed to have earned my spurs with the knotting/unknotting of six giant Hermes scarves and my swallowing of razor blades. Other favorites include a prediction of a word chosen from six books and a P100 bill that shows up inside an unpeeled potato.

What are your plans for the next 10 years?

Holy smoke! Keep up with my various hobbies like photography (improve my images and print photos myself), bridge (learn more moves), painting (his beautiful painting of the "Red Sail" was done in Spain and his Filipina wife, Lita Bueno, served as his muse and inspiration), fishing (catch a whale of a catch), information technology (be computer savvy), and the project closest to his heart, the Poor Urban Child Program (POUCH) in Southville, Parañaque." (At last count, the Potassys were the sole sponsors of over 142 children for their education and basic needs.)

* * *

Paul may have put away his magic salt but he hasn’t shown any signs of vanishing. The good news is that this affable husband- and-wife team has decided to retire in Manila.

"Whose decision was that?" I asked.

I turned to Paul, and he smiled. I turned to Lita and she smiled, too. Facing them both, I caught them winking back at me while an old standard played in the background, "You sigh, the song begins, you speak and I hear violins, its magic…."

Our very own "Uncle," magicien extraordinaire, is finally here to stay?

C’est magique.