O'Connell, Sheldon: Mandrake Incomparable Official Biography of Mandrake the Magician ©1998 Hades Publications, Inc., Canada Hardcover, 234 pages ISBN: 1-894069-99-5

Image courtesy eBay seller Sorcar-TWGM

Comments: A biography of Mandrake, not a book of tricks

Contents (from book ToC, Chapter descriptions as printed in the book):

7 Foreword
9 Preface: Quick hop through the Magic Shop! Mr. Slush wants to be your friend. Required reading puts props and rabid rabbits in place.

15 Chapter 1: Roadies. Mandrake's world through trailer windows, by cloverleafs, under overpasses, toll stations, wheat fields, mountain ranges and billboards. Early performing days as a youngster at old Edison Theater. Horse carts on slippery bricks. Ma Counts, Carnie owner at Pacific National Exhibition, gives Mandrake big chance but small change.

25 Chapter 2: Reflections on 60 years of magic. Tea cup reader as poor man's psychiatrist. Silk hat, cape in storage. Shared billings and adventures with wife, Velvet. Library a continuing resource for magic and mayhem. Afternoon at Mandrake's home. Conversations into flash vanish.

33 Chapter 3: Under the Boardwalk. Muscular Bernard hangs by ankles in topsy-turvy world. Thoughts on magic performer Claude Alexander. Mandrake's personal hero, who gave audience to his worshipper from gilded throne.

41 Chapter 4: Sawed, ripped, choked and offended; Velvet as wife and mother. Alaskan fire experience. Salvation Army to rescue with costumes for Velvet. Parka, no toppers or capes for Mandrake. The Northern experience, cold tales told in the midnight sun, a Fahrenheit adventure. Silver dollar saloon.

53 Chapter 5: Volunteer from the audience please. You sir! One liners and shockers. A contrast, rural audiences harder to confound, bedazzle, amaze, electrify and supernaturalize than slick city folk.

59 Chapter 6: Mandrake's son, Lon, shares hideaway luggage space with doves, rabbits and wild 'thangs in posh hotels. Leon Mandrake's deep gulps in underwater stunt that doesn't surface.

67 Chapter 7: Picky Picky Pocket Dippers. The switch, fade, jostle, nudge of the deep magical reach. 'Beware of pick pockets!' they call and watch the unwitting pat wallet pockets for assurance. Not only in America.

73 Chapter 8: Fear of magic. Occult. 'Don't you put nothin' on me Mandrake!' Wooden you know! Loved and mourned, ventriloquist's figures no dummies! What does an assistant really do except stand around and wave like Vanna. Velvet raises a clenched hand in reply. Some problem here?

83 Chapter 9: House Party time. Front, behind and center of great illusions with leading innovators. 'Enter the Doorway to Nowhere'. Backs to the wall of Saint Valentine's Day massacre. Dive for girl in Fishbowl.

95 Chapter 10: To secure Mandrake, tie, manacle, blindfold, chain, dump into sack, place in box, add cement (whoops wrong recipe!). Meet the Carnie folk in a 10 for 1. Ten unusual attractions for one price. A lifetime opportunity. Meet Velvet as the "Headless Woman!" sustained by artificial means. Her next breath may be her last!". A love story.

103 Chapter 11: Spare parts from the "Headless Woman" recycled as bodiless "Talking Head" for hairdressers' convention. No end to this. Afraid it's gone too, in this startling transformation. Mandrake and Stage Hypnotism. Don't stare at the page!

109 Chapter 12: Rare glimpse of TV interview with Mandrake. Blindfold driving. Escape strategies. Nitty gritty lock picky. Don't underestimate smiling southern sheriffs. Promotional tours and publicity ballyhoo.

121 Chapter 13: Into the bowl at the Cave. Great Kumar on-stage does impromptu balance with Velvet in the catbird seat! Physical comedy with George Carl. Little Ronnie Mandrake tampers with guillotine trip switch and has no head to show for it. Pagoda Effect and Sword Box Vanish.

129 Chapter 14: The FBI goes hunting for magical experience in Grizzly country. An armed Velvet clears the off-ramp at Manila airport. The Mysterious East. Japanese comics and more.

139 Chapter 15: Workshop session finds Mandrake in the garage testing effects on captive (home) audience. Fun with Esper game including logic and memory enhancement. Missing pieces from pics n' puzzles? Smiles and laughter in the schoolyard with junior editions. The brotherhood and sisterhood of magic which includes Mystics, Savants, Wise Men and Women.

145 Chapter 16: Ron Mandrake on his career as magician, manipulator, and new boy in succession of schools. Bookings. And in praise of 'older women' (20s) who feared magician's X-ray vision. The why of stage fright. Expectation upon inheriting a 'name'.

163 Chapter 17: Magic as a family affair. Mentalism, ghouls and guesswork. Giant step back in time to yesterday's Fort Steele. An authentic pioneer village experience as site of magic show with Lon and Linda on stage. Townsfolk with waxed moustaches, hair pomade and pretty poke bonnets, (but not all three!).

177 Chapter 18: College lecture circuit for Mandrake. Sorcerer's apprentice, Velvet, persuades Leon to tackle colleges with players from his ghost squad of celebrated magicians in debates and lectures. Mandrake recalls shared hungry times with Bob Hope and later radio jokes about Mandrake for plus business.

189 Chapter 19: In a quick flick through rare Sunday Comics meet Mandrake's pen and ink double in appreciation of promotional impact one had on the other. College lecture circuit with revelations on subject of Trickery and Quackery 101. Military camp shows in always elegant never messy messes but armed audiences.

201 Chapter 20: Press clippings celebrate Leon's 'Mastery of Illusion Magic' in review "Atomic Vanish", "Enchanted Propaganda", "Shooting through a Woman" and others. High grosses at name spots. Thoughts about down side of high life and changed times.

207 Chapter 21: Taste of Poi as Mandrake stages 'Melting Pot' show in Hawaii. Children pay the piper by selling balloon animals within sight of Diamond Head. Reluctant trained dove bombs act at Boss Kettering's estate then doves off. Up a tree with escapist dove Lindy for the second show.

217 Chapter 22: Image change when Leon Mandrake appears as quack 'doctor' M.A. Duckcall, 'Old Medicine Man from Loony Lake'. Looks for convention business in/out of character publicity release which touts nostrums and magic formulae for the good life. Far removed from his imposing image of magician, mystic, sorcerer.

225 Chapter 23: The envelope please! Mandrake wins the academy of Magical Arts Performing Fellowship Award in 1986! Superstars masters of ceremony. Tie and tails evening meant no need for Mandrake to change. On to Magic Castle with secret passageways, whispered pass words. Ssssshhhh! Seance room for a Houdini drop-in. Mandrake reflects on the Award and elusive concept of Big Time.

231 Chapter 24: During the night of January 27, 1993, Leon Mandrake succumbed to emphysema and died peacefully in his sleep. His funeral, attended by family and close friends was a nondenominational service as he had requested. Later, special tributes, eulogies and celebrations of his great career took place on the stage of the old Edison Theater, where he began those many years ago. A fitting Requiem for Mandrake the Magician.