Museum of Magic: Darwin’s home-museum is a magical empire

Tuesday, Nov. 19, 2002 | 8:22 a.m.

For most men, their home is their castle.

For magician Gary Darwin, his home is his museum.

Every room in the eight-room residence in one of Las Vegas' older neighborhoods is filled with memorabilia, posters, props, autographs, books and other items that would make any magic fan swoon.

"The neighbors are pretty thrilled with me," deadpanned Darwin as he gave a tour of the one-story house near West Washington Avenue and Rancho Drive, where he has lived for 35 years.

The exterior of the home his late parents bought is painted blue. Two cement statues of Merlin the Magician sit in the front yard, which is mostly rock.

"I'm not much of a gardener," Darwin, who is in his 60s, said.

But he is an excellent magician who became interested in the art when he was a 6-year-old boy in Denver and his grandfather made a lit cigarette disappear.

"That stimulated my interest," Darwin said. "It took me six years to figure that out. His best friend was the leading magician in Denver, who picked a coin out of my ear and gave it to me. That really got me interested. Then there were the carnivals I went to with all those sideshow magicians."

Darwin's father was a draftsman who travelled frequently.

"I would attend two or three different schools a year," he recalled.

Magic gave Darwin something to do, since he didn't have the chance to participated in team sports and other activities.

"I met magician Tommy Woo when I was 12 and we were living in San Diego," Darwin said. "He was an old pro who owned a magic shop. He became my mentor and I studied under Tommy for about five years."

The family moved to Tucson, Ariz., when Darwin was about 18 and he got his first job as a professional magician, at Club La Jolla.

He worked there and at other venues in Tucson until the family moved to Las Vegas a year later, in 1958.

"I was big in Tucson and thought I was ready for Vegas," Darwin said.

But Vegas wasn't ready for him.

Darwin practiced his sleight-of-hand craft for several years, working odd jobs to support himself.

"Finally my big break came in 1965 when Jerry Schaeffer produced the first afternoon show in Las Vegas at the old Thunderbird," Darwin said. "I performed in a variety show three times a day in the afternoon, and wound up also doing three shows at night. There were very few magicians in town at that time."

Darwin often performed his magic in lounges. Eventually, he joined the Stardust's revue, "The Lido," one of the biggest shows in town in the '60s.

"I had a couple of solid years in Vegas," he said. "But I always believed in keeping my day job."

Darwin established the Gary Darwin Magic Club 37 years ago.

Every Wednesday, from 10 p.m. to 2 a.m., professional and amateur magicians gather at Boomers After Hours, 3200 Sirius Ave., to exchange information, hold a magic flea market and talk about their favorite subject.

The club, which doesn't charge admission to its meetings or dues to join, boasts about 400 members.

"It's a social group," Darwin said.

Collecting magic

Darwin picked up a few of the 100,000 or so items that fill his museum at the club's flea market. But most of it he has found through friends and a variety of other sources. The home is not open to the public, but Darwin does frequently give tours to friends and magic club members.

"This is the wood room," Darwin said as he took guests into a room where a large bed was surrounded by magical paraphernalia. "A lot of this stuff was made 50 to 100 years ago by craftsmen in magic who specialized in wood. Now, most of the props are made of plastic."

Hanging on the walls around the bedroom are images of dozens of contemporary magicians, and celebrities who are magicians of sorts -- like comedian Dom DeLuise.

"Dom isn't really a magician," Darwin said. "He's a comic magician."

David Copperfield, Siegfried & Roy and Lance Burton are among the photographs.

"I'm leaving all of this stuff to Lance in my will," said Darwin, who has been a close friend of Burton's for 20 years.

The stuff includes more than 2,000 props, 7,000 books on magic, thousands of photographs of famous magicians (many of them autographed), 1,000 posters, more than 100 magic kits, oil paintings, newspaper articles, magic magazines and other items that create a claustrophobic feeling.

"Gary has an amazing collection," Burton said during a telephone interview. "He has done this his whole life. I do a lot of my research there when I work on a new trick."

Darwin said a lot of magicians do their research at his museum.

"I started out as a researcher," he explained. "I just wanted to know the secret of things. But as years went by, it donned on me that if I added a couple of more props I could compete sets -- and then I became a collector, which is kind of a disease."

Magic principles

Darwin said there are many categories of magic -- like sleight of hand (his specialty), mentalism, manipulation and escapology, among others.

"There are approximately 150 principles in magic," he said. "There are principles of magnets, mirrors, trapdoors and black art.

"And there are about 10 basic effects, such as making something vanish or return, transforming something or levitation."

Black art is a principle in which magician Don Drake, a friend of Darwin, specializes.

"The principle involves working with black on black," Drake said as he demonstrated a number of tricks in the black arts theater set up on Darwin's back porch.

Drake is one of many magician friends who helped Darwin make his museum materialize.

Woodworker and amateur magician Pete Peterson did the woodwork in the house. Eddie Wharton, a semiprofessional magician, did the cement work in the front yard. Magician Tommy Gunn donated the filing cabinets. Locksmith Ralph Ring, who owned a magic shop in Hollywood, Calif., installed all the locks in the museum.

"I like hanging around magicians more than anyone else," Darwin said. "They are unique human beings. They have one talent other people don't seem to have, and that is curiosity. Most people see a person saw a woman in half and they forget about it in an hour. But a magician doesn't sleep till he finds out the secret."