This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 8/17/2019
[Valadon] Paul Valadon Jr. Letter Regarding his Father’s Death. Dated April 24, 1913. Valadon Jr. writes from Phoenix, stating, in part, “What we have all foreseen has at last come. My father died yesterday (Wednesday) about noon. … Now that I am alone my one aim is to get back into the magical profession. …I have got to get the necessary money together to organize an act.” One sheet. Old folds, minor browning. Paul Valadon Sr. is best-remembered today as the man who was meant to succeed Harry Kellar and ascend to the role of America’s great magician. He was lured away from London’s Egyptian Hall by Kellar, and in the process, delivered the secret of Maskelyne’s famous Levitation, “The Entranced Fakir,” to an expectant Kellar, who went on to make the trick a true showpiece in his touring production. After Valadon and Kellar parted ways, Howard Thurston famously purchased the Kellar show, illusions, and route in 1908. Valadon died in obscurity in Phoenix just five years later.