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Show I WHO'S NEWS I THIS WEEK... By Lemuel F. Parton NEW YORK. American magicians magi-cians aren't doing so well. There are leaks, lawsuits and lamentations. lam-entations. In California, there is a drive to oust Juli-Leakl Juli-Leakl Are en J. Proskauer, Plaguing New York head of Magicians the Society of American Magicians, Magi-cians, for spilling trade secrets. Mr. Proskauer enters a vehement and vigorous denial. In the New York federal court, Horace Goldin charges that a tobacco tobac-co company has let everybody In on his patented technique of sawing a woman in two and therefore made worthless the illusion out of which he used to get $2,000 a week. He brought the same suit for the same amount against Victor A. Per-ey Per-ey in 1923 and against a tobacco company in 1933. There is war on several fronts as the magicians fight to safeguard non-illusory dollars. "Sacrifices wealth to marry pretty pret-ty proofreader" was a headline when Julien J. Proskauer married Miss Cornelia Grant in 1915. The "wealth" was a big family printing plant In New York city, but he didn't sacrifice it and is today vice president presi-dent of the company. He was elected president of the magicians in 1935, as an amateur, and he still keeps Proskauer his amateur stand- Leads Fight ing. a leader in on Fakers the fi8ht aSainst frauds and fakers. "We don't want to deceive the public; we only want to fool them," he said when he was elected. He was the only amateur ever to do Houdini's underwater milk can escape. es-cape. He broke a brace of ribs doing do-ing it, something which Messrs. Eden, Delbos and Ribbentrop will never do, and seems to think the price was well paid. A solid, stocky man of average stature, running a big business behind be-hind hexaffonal classes which eive a keen glint to his eyes, Mr. Proskauer Pros-kauer is apt to slip a visitor a couple of red sponges to hold tight in each hand and then make them jump from one hand to the other or disappear altogether, with the fists tightly clenched. Meeting the depression, he got up "Stunts, Inc.," rigging magical advertising ad-vertising tricks, Money Rolls and this year his ln From turnover is some- "Sfunfs, Inc." where around $1,-000,000. $1,-000,000. He installed in-stalled in the firm Dexter Sinsa-bough, Sinsa-bough, who doubles in psychology and philosophy. Mr. Sinsabough gives a proposed new trick the psychological psy-chological once-over and gauges the popular reaction with astonishing accuracy. The money rolls in. "Stunts, Inc." seems to have started the trouble. Mr. Proskauer insisted that he has spilled nothing but "kid tricks," and never under any circumstance has or would release re-lease a professional secret. He doesn't like the word "tricks," as applied to real magic. He says the illusions are rather "experiments in magic" He has a passion for such illusions, illu-sions, which, he says have been "art and not trickery," ever since Moses threw the canes on the ground and turned them into serpents. ser-pents. That, by the way, still seems to be tops in magic. WHAT the well-dressed iron man will wear: black knee pants, green flannel shirt, yellow belt, and a white arm band with a green swastika. Such is Iron Guard the latest fashion Plans Coup note on the eos' in Rumania tume of Corneliu Zelea Codreanu's Iron Guard, which threatens to seize Rumania. . M. Codreanu, 'most virulent anti-Semite anti-Semite in Europe, has made a puzzling puz-zling alliance with the democratically democrati-cally inclined Dr. Julius Maniu. He is frank about his desire to help clear the way for Germany's march to Mosul oil and the Ukraine. "Within 48 hours of my party's achieving victory, Rumania will have concluded an alliance with Berlin and Rome," he says. He is thirty-seven years old. In 1924, when he was a student in Jassy university, he shot and killed the prefect of police who suppressed anti-Semitic riots. He was acquitted, acquit-ted, and later was tried and freed for alleged complicity in another assassination. as-sassination. For years he has been gunning for the Little Entente and has power pow-er enough to force a cabinet shake-up shake-up every once in a while. There's nothing trivial about his hatred of Magda Lupescu, King Carol's friend. Dressed as above, with a revolver in his belt, he leads his followers on a white horse. They ride the countryside, coun-tryside, each with a little bag of the "sacred soil of Rumania" tucked in his shirt, fanning up the peasants peas-ants and spoiling for a fight His following has been mainly made up of university students, but they say his Iron Guard is now recruiting some powerful adult interests which , may declare him in in a big way. Q Consolidated News Features. WNU Service. |