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'I don't just do tricks -- I make it magical'
By BARBARA L. FREDRICKSEN, Times Staff Writer
The grammar school kids who mob the bookstores and theaters for Harry Potter books and movies aren't the only ones who simply adore the tousled-hair wizard-in-training. So does Port Richey resident Hugh Turley, a grownup (mid 60s) kid who lives and breathes magic. The "Magic Room" in his roomy waterfront house is lined with Harry Potter figurines, Harry Potter games, Harry Potter hats and Harry Potter magic kits. But that's not all. There also are hundreds more tricks, magical sword and zig-zag boxes, mirrored chambers, decks of cards, hula hoops for levitations and other illusions ready to go. Turley is a full-time professional magician who performs all over the United States and Canada and as far away as Nigeria. This month, he's on the cover of MUM (Magic-Unity-Might) magazine, which goes to 30,000 members around the world of the 101-year-old Society of American Magicians. Inside is an 11-page spread on Turley, including the column he has done for the magazine for five years. Locals can see Turley in action on Tuesday evenings, when he does table top tricks at the Golden Corral in Port Richey, or on Sunday mornings, when he's at the Castaway Restaurant on Courtney Campbell Parkway in Pinellas County. "I've been doing magic since I was 12 years old," Turley said. "But I don't just do tricks -- I make it magical." Other magicians, for example, do the "sponge ball trick," where a ball divides, disappears, reappears and vanishes completely, as a casual time-filler. Turley makes it a dramatic event. "See that molecule on the table there," he asks a viewer, gingerly picking it up. "There's another, another and another," he continues, seeming to gather invisible particles from a bare dining room table. Suddenly, he opens his hand and out pops a big red sponge ball. He rolls a finger across the middle of the ball and -- voila! -- it's two sponge balls. "Watch closely," he solemnly intones. "You'll see that my hands never leave the ends of my arms . . .," waving the red balls in the air over his head. Then, as everyone laughs at the rapid-fire jokes, the balls suddenly are gone. Only to return when Turley pulls them from behind an observer's ear. The sponge ball trick was one of the first he learned, and he still loves it. "Lots of magicians throw away the tricks they first learned," he said. "But the first things you had may be the best things you have." The secret is in the presentation. "I used to do a 50-minute show of random tricks," Turley said. "Then my wife, Sandy, said, 'There's no connection; it doesn't make any sense. And you talk too much.' It was good magic, but it wasn't logical, no sequence to it. Now I do a show that flows, with music and costumes." One of his favorites is "History of Magic," done to Hooked on Classics, where he dons a pointed straw hat to lead the audience through ancient Chinese ring tricks, a sorcerer's hat to introduce them to illusions by Merlin, the world's oldest imaginary magician, and an oversized cowboy hat to do "Wild Bill-Dini, the younger brother of Hou-dini." "There are three kinds of magic," Turley explains. "Table top is close up -- card tricks, sponge balls, mental tricks," the kinds he does at restaurants, birthday parties and business meetings. "Parlor is for parties and uses trunks, boxes and table top," such as for a school assembly, club meeting or church group. A stage show, like the one he recently did at the refurbished Royalty Theatre in Clearwater, uses illusions, levitations and mentalism and requires assistants and a truck to haul everything to the site. Turley prides himself on his squeaky-clean shows, though he does have one "blue show" up his sleeve for grownup parties. "There are double-entendres, but no swear words nor curse words," he said. Turley took a long and winding road to his current career. First were four years in the Navy; then college in Orlando and Tallahassee; then lots of time in television production, where he created and did the character "Uncle Hubie," which was turned into a successful television show in Orlando that ran for two years in the 1970s. For 12 years, he used his magic as a deputy sheriff in Orange County to train other officers from the United States and Canada to be Officer Friendly. He combined his magic and his TV production skills to make training films for the FBI Academy. At one time, he was a ring announcer for professional wrestling. At another, he did standup comedy in nightclubs. Sometime in there, he hosted television's Scream Theatre -- writing the script, designing the costumes, playing various characters. Along the way, Turley picked up two local CableACE awards for "Best Kids' TV Series" from VisionCable in Pinellas County and was inducted into the Order of Merlin by the International Brotherhood of Magicians. It hasn't all been bouncing sponge balls and frothy silk scarves, though. "Oh, yes, I've had some embarrassing moments," Turley chuckles. There was the time he was performing a three-way rope trick for several hundred kids. A tiny girl chosen from the audience was supposed to be "cut in two" by a rope held by her friends, two stocky boys. "It came time for the boys to pull the rope that would slice through her," Turley said. "They pulled, and the rope just got tighter. They pulled again, and the girl almost doubled over." That's when Turley realized he had tied the wrong knot. He quickly retied it -- with a dramatic flourish -- and the trick was quickly completed, to wild applause. That was nothing compared to what happened several years earlier when he went to Lagos, Nigeria, with a business group that hoped to develop an entertainment spot to attract Middle Easterners. Turley was asked to give a magic show for the leaders of the country, including cabinet ministers and the chief justice of the Supreme Court. The judge was so impressed, he asked Turley to repeat the trick for the waiters. Turley did -- but when he showed one waiter his favorite sponge ball trick, the waiter moved back and began mumbling, "Voodoo, voodoo." All the waiters ran out of the building, leaving the dignitaries to look after themselves. Need a magician?Those interested in hiring Hugh Turley's magical services can call (727) 846-8456.
 © 2006 • All Rights Reserved • St. Petersburg Times
490 First Avenue South • St. Petersburg, FL 33701 • 727-893-8111 
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