Dell O'Dell

In 1951, The Dell O'Dell Show began on a Los Angeles television station. Very few magicians of that moment had a programme under their own name — and fewer still were women.

Key achievements

1. Born Odella Newton; she also worked as a juggler.
2. Her trademark was snappy rhyming patter, for which she employed writers.
3. In 1951 she had her own programme, The Dell O'Dell Show, on ABC's Los Angeles station — remarkably early for a magician.
4. Billed as the world's leading lady magician, she is regarded as a model for the women who followed.

Starting as a juggler

She was born Odella Newton, an American, on 20 October 1897.

Her starting point was not conjuring. She worked as a juggler. She came to magic from a physical performing discipline — and recalling that Adelaide Herrmann began as a dancer and trick cyclist tells you something about where the doors into this profession were for women in that period.

Working in rhyme

What defined Dell O’Dell’s performance was snappy, rhyming patter.

That is not decoration. A great many magical effects, performed in silence, are over in half a minute. Talk creates duration, creates a character, and creates laughter.

She took the patter seriously enough to employ writers to produce it, and some of it was printed in the trade journal Genii. Commissioning a script for an act was a distinctly forward-looking idea at the time.

1951, television

In 1951 she had her own programme, The Dell O’Dell Show, on ABC’s Los Angeles station.

It is worth registering how early that is. Doug Henning drew over fifty million viewers to an NBC special in 1975; David Copperfield’s series began in 1978. She had her own show a quarter of a century before that.

She was among the first to see how well television and magic fit together — and her strength was talk, which is exactly what works in a medium where the camera can come in close on a face.

The world’s leading lady magician

She was billed as the World’s Leading Lady Magician, and published a book, Magical Moments, in 1939.

Today she is regarded as a model for the women performers who came after. Adelaide Herrmann inherited a company and opened a road; Talma was judged on technique; Dell O’Dell went on television. The present stage rests on that accumulation.

She died on 5 February 1962.

Why she is in this archive

In scale she does not match Copperfield or Henning. But the record of who did something first carries a value unrelated to scale.

Someone went on television first and demonstrated that it worked, and the next generation followed. That the first was a woman is worth writing down.

Notable works

• The television programme The Dell O'Dell Show (1951)
• Her rhyming-patter style of performance
• The book Magical Moments (1939)

Chronology

Only years that could be verified are listed.

1. 1897 Born Odella Newton on 20 October
2. 1939 Publishes the book Magical Moments
3. 1951 The Dell O'Dell Show begins on ABC's Los Angeles station
4. 1962 Dies on 5 February