Frank Chapman - A Brief Biography of Frank Chapman

A Brief Biography of Frank Chapman Todd Karr An early inventor of modern close-up magic, classy promoter of the clever pocket trick, pioneer broadcast performer, and master of the stylish layout, Frank M. Chapman made his name during the 1930s and ’40s with his charming hand-typed, self-illustrated magazine Chap’s Scrapbook and a series of booklets on close-up. When Genii magazine featured Chapman on its cover in 1939, editor William W. Larsen Sr. complimented both his precision and showmanship: “Magic lost one of the finest magicians of the ages when Frank did not follow the art professionally. He will not attempt a trick which he cannot do well. No detail is too small to be overlooked. Hence, his is a perfect performance. “The broken and restored watch, always one of my favorites, is never so good as when Frank does it. He has been the outstanding hit of more than one magicians’ show. He can get more mystery — and humor — out of a volunteer assistant and a trick funnel than can most conjurers with a stage full of illusions.” Larsen later wrote: “Chapman is a modern prototype of Alexander Herrmann. I would rather watch his humor with two boys from the audience than the best of modern sleight-of-hand. Caryl Fleming, who knows magic and magicians, has repeatedly told me that he regards Chapman as being one of the outstanding magicians in the country.” Franklin Montgomery Chapman was born in Baltimore, Maryland, on January 4, 1901. As he reported in a later pamphlet, he was swept away by a magic show he witnessed as a boy, began performing shows, and at one point met and collected an autograph from Houdini. Chapman belonged to Baltimore’s Society of Osiris magic club, and The Sphinx noted in 1923 that he performed the Floating Ball at one meeting. In 1924, he married Mary Hammond. An Osiris member reported in The Sphinx that the club held an all-night stag party for him to celebrate his upcoming wedding, concluding the item: “The scribe wishes to state at this point that Frank did not go to church Sunday morning.”

Four years later in 1928, Frank and Mary’s daughter, also named Mary, was born. Chapman’s performances for the public and magic clubs did not lead to a full-time magic career, despite high praise from his peers for his cleverness. A show in Washington D.C. in 1932 brought this complimentary report in The Sphinx: “Frank Chapman of Baltimore, after announcing that he was not prepared to offer close-up work and that he depended upon distance to lend enchantment to his efforts, then proceeded to give one of the best sleight-of-hand performances yet to be presented before this assembly. “Silks vanishing, changing, and reappearing in a most bewildering fashion, and a borrowed watch, after being subjected to much maltreatment, being found and restored in a previously examined loaf of bread constituted Mr. Chapman’s principal effects.” Chapman apparently supported his family with sales and advertising jobs and by 1932 he was also writing small magic booklets as promotional premiums. Fred Rickard wrote in M.U.M. in 1959 that Chapman created these booklets for publishers Increased Sales, Inc. and Graphic Publishing Co. and the little works were then sold to companies with their advertising added. Two of these booklets are included in this CD: Twenty Clever Magic Tricks from 1932 and Magic Tricks for Every Member of the Family, produced for Oakite in 1934. Rickard also said his collection included the Chapman-penned titles Twenty Clever Card Tricks, No Palming, and Modern Magic Made Easy. Chapman’s Popsicle Magic Coin Book appeared in 1933, distributed by the Popsicle Service, Inc. of Brooklyn, New York, which ordered 5000 copies, according to The Sphinx. The company offered the booklets in exchange for five popsicle wrappers. The Linking Ring reported that “Twenty simple coin feats are clearly described and illustrated. A generous supply of imitation 25-cent pieces, valued at varying amounts of ‘icles,’ accompanies the booklet.” Chapman performed sealed-letter reading over the Maryland radio waves on station WCAO, as Genii later recalled in 1936. Even more significantly, in 1931 Chapman became one of the very first magicians to

perform on television. In his “Chap’s Corner” column in Genii in 1941, he quoted a Baltimore news item from 1931: “Two of the artists who will appear on the television program sponsored by The Baltimore News and broadcast tonight over the Jenkins station W3XK at Wheaton, Maryland, are Elizabeth Palmer, soprano, and Frank Chapman, magician. Mr. Chapman will have the honor of being the first exponent of his cult to be presented over the television,” although he pointed out that Doc Nixon had beaten him onto the air by six months. The Los Angeles Times repeated Chapman’s credit in a 1933 item announcing his performance at the Elk’s Temple. During the Depression, in 1932, the Chapmans were expecting another baby and drove across the country to move to Los Angeles. Their second daughter, Betty, was born there in January 1933. With jobs scarce, Chapman worked as a truck driver for Shell Oil. Soon, however, he was promoted to regional sales manager. In a stroke of luck, Shell’s advertising branch in San Francisco employed a magician, Jack Keyes, who in 1936 organized a Shell Oil magic show that toured the country promoting the company brand. Chapman was chosen to star in one of the four road shows. The tuxedoed magician (and his clown foil) performed a fifteen-minute magic routine that included the Sympathetic Silks, Cut and Restored Rope, an umbrella effect, the Die Box, a rabbit production, and — for Christmas — transforming the clown into Santa Claus. Chapman began self-publishing magic booklets with the eight-pager series of Six Bits: in 1936, Six Bits and Another Six Bits, followed in 1937 by Six Bits More. The typewritten booklets were inexpensively produced but began establishing Chapman’s reputation for interesting close-up pieces. He continued building his name in the magic world with his “Chap’s Corner” column in Genii, with free-association news, thoughts, and brief effects. The column lasted off and on for seven years until 1944. In the late 1930s, Genii published a number of Chapman’s effects, Thayer released his comedy effect “The Wand of Laughter,” and he sold a one-sheet card effect priced, as its title announced, “For a Dime.” But his big leap arrived in July 1938 with the first of 24 issues of his Chap’s Scrapbook. Typed by hand and illustrated with his own simple drawings

and headlines (and a great silhouette of Chapman himself smoking his pipe), the Scrapbook contained gem after gem of tasteful, well-conceived close-up magic, almost always with numerous subtleties and details. The magazine had a charming feel to it, lasting through its final issue in June 1940. Chapman’s publishing ambitions, however, often proved more difficult to launch than expected. He announced a number of books which were never printed: Cards Stars of the U.S.A. in 1937, the Encyclopedia of Thumb Tip Tricks in 1938, and in 1949 Ways to Psychic Fame. Columnist Bob Weill quoted a letter from Chapman discussing his difficulties with the thumb-tip book in The Linking Ring in 1938: “The Encyclopedia is not doing as well as I expected. I refuse to do it half-way, Bob. And production costs won’t permit me to go ahead without a minimum of 200 advance subscriptions. Just want to be certain that many will accept the book when released. Have hit the half-way mark or a few beyond. Will see what current ad does. Have lots of really swell material in the book and it should gain favorable reaction with all magi. But — may be just ‘one of those things.’ We’ll see.” Weill added: “And there you have it. Imagine! A thumb tip, an article that every sort of magician can and does use, and a book that sets forth several hundred really practical new, novel, and old uses for the tip, yet Frank can’t even get more than 100 advance orders for the Encyclopedia!” Scaling down his plans, Chapman settled for a series of small booklets: Ten Stunners with a Nail Writer in 1941 (and its expanded successor Twenty Stunners with a Nail Writer in 1944) and Quick Tricks and his Fountain of Silks in 1942. Other Chapman booklets have proven too scarce to find to date. Dariel Fitzkee reviewed Chap’s Amazing Manuscript in 1944, listing its typewritten contents as routines with “a Foo Can and a funnel; another with a candle tube, silks, and a ‘gag’ wand; another with poetic patter for use with Thayer’s Jolly Roger Twentieth Century set; a serious presentation of the turban trick; and one of my personal favorites, Chapman’s own watch in loaf of bread routine.” In 1947, a Chapman ad in Genii

announced “The Phantom Pigeon,” an imitation dove accompanied by a Chapman manuscript called Miracles of the Twenty-First Century. Thayer also advertised Ideas #1 and Ideas #2 by Chapman in the 1930s. By 1943, Larsen reported in Genii that Chapman was now the “top man” in the Shell advertising department in San Francisco, where he had now relocated. There, Chapman served as vice-president of the San Francisco Advertising Club in 1947. As his longtime Genii column wound to a close, Chapman offered three effects from Chap’s Scrapbook as stand-alone manuscripts in 1944: Itzariot, Time Out, and Barnyard Phantasy. He continued writing, releasing a manuscript on the Bill Tube in co-author Lloyd Jones’ The Bat magazine from 1949 to 1950. In the 1950s, Chapman helped write ads for the Golden Gate Magic Company. Chapman’s end was a sad one. Divorced from his wife, he died in Carlsbad, California, on July 14, 1954 at age 53 of a heart attack, suffering from cirrhosis of the liver, usually an indication of alcoholism. As Larsen wrote in his Genii cover story on Chapman in 1939, “His very philosophy of living is ‘Peace on Earth, good will to men.’ He, like the late Will Rogers, likes everybody and can only see the good points in his fellow beings. Likewise, he is always ready to do what he can for others, entirely without selfish motives. His tricks, his thoughts, his advice, his efforts, his time are yours for the asking.” Special thanks to Jim Maloney for sharing his biographical research on Frank Chapman.