Manipulation
12 magicians who defined manipulation, listed in order of birth.
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🇮🇹 1793–1863 Bartolomeo Bosco Giovanni Bartolomeo Bosco The master of the cups and balls, and the leading sleight-of-hand performer in Europe in the first half of the nineteenth century.
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🇫🇷 1805–1871 Jean-Eugène Robert-Houdin The Father of Modern Magic The father of modern magic — the first to abandon wizard robes and perform in evening dress.
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🇨🇳 1854–1922 Ching Ling Foo born Chee Ling Qua The first East Asian magician to achieve world fame — and the man whose name a white performer copied.
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🇬🇧 1861–1944 Talma born Mary Ann Ford The Queen of Coins — one of the few women of the golden age to make her name on pure sleight of hand.
- 🇯🇵 1889–1972 Tenkai Ishida 石田天海 — born Ishida Teijirō He crossed to America with the Tenkatsu troupe and stayed for over thirty years — the first Japanese magician whose techniques entered the international repertoire.
- 🇬🇧 1895–1973 Cardini born Richard Valentine Pitchford He never spoke a word on stage — and perfected the silent act as a form.
- 🇯🇵 1896–1982 Adachi Ryūkō アダチ龍光 — born Nakagawa Hajime A conjurer who worked the yose variety halls rather than the theatre, rooting magic in a form of entertainment particular to Japan.
- 🇺🇸 1897–1962 Dell O'Dell born Odella Newton She performed in rhyme, and was among the first magicians anywhere to have a television show under her own name.
- 🇺🇸 1915–1992 Fetaque Sanders Fetaque Sanders Twenty-five years touring the segregated American South — the most successful Black magician of the Jim Crow era.
- 🇺🇸 1926–2006 Channing Pollock The Dove Act Pioneer The performer who made the dove act a worldwide standard — among the most influential of the 20th century.
- 🇳🇱 1926–1980 Fred Kaps born Abraham Pieter Adrianus Bongers The only magician ever to win the world championship's top prize three times.
- 🇯🇵 1940–2022 Haruo Shimada 島田晴夫 — "Shimada" Japanese parasols and doves — he carried a Japanese aesthetic to the summit of the world stage.