ALEX ELMSLEY LIVED IN A BASEMENT FLAT  in Chelsea in his retirement years. We all called it “Wuthering Depths” He suffered badly from depression which he kept at bay with Prozac and the amber juice but not necessarily at the same time.

I had known him all my magic life and he used to come to my home once a month to a small magic soiree with other friends – Jack Avis, Lewis Jones, Bernard Weller, Tom Whitestone and a few others. I telephoned him one day to arrange a date for the next meeting but got no reply. I tried several times over a number of days with the same result and when a friend from Scotland called to say that he was experiencing the same problem, I felt that I should make deeper enquiries.

I telephoned the local hospital he used to attend, the social welfare people with no answer and then I telephoned the police. They visited the flat and receiving no response , broke open the door – and found Alex lying dead on the floor.

The post mortem revealed that he had died of widespread cancer, something about which he had never spoken and having seen him regularly for months he had never revealed that he had an advancing illness. Someone suggested that perhaps he was unaware of the problem but Alex used to visit hospital fairly regularly for his depression and general health and I feel sure they would have spotted the symptoms.

No, my guess is that being brought up as a stiff, upper lip individual in a middle class family, coupled with the fact that he didn’t much like the world he saw about him and the way it was going, that he chose to say nothing and meet his end in his own time. That attitude summed up Alex – he was a gentleman of a different generation.

He had no relatives other than a few nieces in Ireland and their family who he visited a couple of times a year and of course they were immediately notified and flew to England. In discussion with them and trying to help with the funeral arrangements they said that they had no idea that he was a world -famous magician whose work had entered the repertoire of nearly every performer. His niece said that when he came to Ireland he used to show the children a few tricks with a pack of cards and coins but that was all.

The funeral was held at Putney and at the time I suggested that at a later date we would stage a tribute evening to Alex at The Magic Circle. His nieces and relatives said they would very much like to come over for that evening and so I started to put a suitable programme together. We gathered films and clips including his last appearance at The Magic Circle Centenary Celebrations together with anecdotes from magicians who knew him and some demonstrations of his favourite effects by our members.

The nieces, family and friends all sat in the front row of the theatre as special guests, about twelve people in all. The atmosphere was reverent and emotional as many episodes of his life were unfolded for his relatives for the first time. When the lights went up nearly all the family were grief stricken and in tears. His niece said to me, the words being choked out with some difficulty ” We had no idea that Alex was as famous and revered as he was – he never said a thing”. That surely sums up the nature of this unique and true man of magic – highly creative, skilled, self- effacing and with a respect and politeness that was nurtured in a different age.

I said to her “We are making a DVD of this evening and would like to send you copies for the family as our tribute to a great man and a great magician” The tears reappeared and she thanked me and said. “We all loved him ever since he was in hospital as a young boy in Scotland and his mother gave him a copy of a book about a dog called Bonzo. He loved that book and thereafter he was nicknamed throughout his life by all the family with that literary name – Bonzo. We all called him by that name whenever he came to see us.

Bonzo!

The first time the magic world had ever had heard that name associated with one of their heroes.

But perhaps it was as well,  for future world-class  card technicians giving international lectures would I am sure not feel quite the same when showing five cards as four and referring to it as the Bonzo count!.

Filed under: Magic Biographies, Magic Miscellanea