Charles Greene III on Ionia: Magician Princess Secrets Unlocked
In this episode of The Magic Book Podcast, professional magician, historian, and author Charles Greene III discusses his journey from corporate magic to becoming an authority on vintage magic posters and Friedländer lithography. He shares insights from his decade-long research into the subject of his book, "Ionia: Magician Princess Secrets Unlocked." Charles also discusses two upcoming biographies and how his investigations have uncovered connections between magic history and early Hollywood.
Transcript
Coming up in this episode of The Magic Book Podcast ...
Charles Greene III [:So how is it that someone who's the daughter of two different magicians, who live fairly comfortably, is able to travel the world with an illusion show of eight people, a couple of bears, animals, large props. How is this all happening? If you wanna know how something works, follow the money trail.
Adrian Tennant [:You're listening to The Magic Book Podcast, conversations about classic and contemporary books that teach, illuminate, and celebrate the art of magic. I'm your host, Adrian Tennant, a lifetime student of magic and mentalism, occasional performer, and longtime book collector. Thanks for joining me. Welcome to the eleventh episode of The Magic Book Podcast. Today, my guest is Charles Greene III, a professional magician, magic historian, and author. For over three decades Charles has specialized in corporate presentations and trade show performances. As a magic historian and collector, he's known for his expertise in vintage magic posters founding MagicPosterGallery.com back in 2000. Charles is also the author of "Ionia: Magician Princess Secrets Unlocked," a groundbreaking biography that took a decade to research, and more recently, the book, "A Complete History of Friedländer Lithography." Charles, welcome to The Magic Book Podcast.
Charles Greene III [:Adrian, thanks so much. I'm so looking forward to being here today. Thank you.
Adrian Tennant [:Let's start at the beginning. What was your first live experience with magic?
Charles Greene III [:Well, I grew up in Hackensack, New Jersey, which is about seven miles out of New York City. Hackensack, even though it's a county seat of Bergen County, very small town. I remember on the next block from my house was a church called Mount Olive Church that I was familiar with. And in the back of the church between the church and the parsonage, there was this fair. And I remember seeing a magician entertain the children essentially. And it wasn't a great big magic show. There weren't illusions, but there were the standard kind of props that I remember. And that was really my first magic show.
Charles Greene III [:And it was only a block or half a block from my house. And I was probably five or six.
Adrian Tennant [:I understand that your magic book encounters began in a public library. Is that right?
Charles Greene III [:They did. Once again, going back to Hackensack. In Hackensack, there was Hackensack Public Library, and in the library, there was a section on magic. So when I gained a stronger interest in magic, and it was many years after that first performance, because the short route is that I had many different hobbies before magic, but then magic was the one that stuck. And when I started delving deeper, I went to the public library and in there was the section, that we all know of, for magic. And it happened to be that at that time, when I was going to the public library, there was a "Boys' Life" cover that had Dale Penn on the cover of the magazine. And so here was a magician who looked like me on the cover. He had this great look, confident.
Charles Greene III [:He had the doves flapping, and he was on the cover. I was like, "Wow! This is great!" And, of course, then there were all the other magic books as well, but that was one of the great first visuals of a magician that I saw in print.
Adrian Tennant [:Can you remember the first magic book you purchased?
Charles Greene III [:I can. Now we go from Hackensack from my house to downtown where the library is. And then in the next block from the public library, it's no longer there, unfortunately, there was this great bookstore called Womraths, W-O-M-R-A-T-H-S. And downstairs there was a magic section. And I remember going there and one of my first purchases, it may not have been my very first, but I still have the actual book, was "The Illustrated History of Magic," by Milbourne Christopher. And I know that along with this book, I also bought at that same time period, like "Expert Card Technique" by Hugard, and several other magic close-up books.
Adrian Tennant [:Which of those magic books would you say had the biggest impact on you?
Charles Greene III [:I probably went in both directions. So I was a performer, and I've always been a close-up performer. That's where I really found my greatest calling. But at the same time, with just a few books, I read a chapter of "The Illustrated History of Magic" every night before I went to bed. And I now can look back and say, "You know, the reason why I love the Chung Ling Soo's 'Spellbound' poster so much is that it was a poster that I saw in Milbourne Christopher's book when I was 15 years old." So from then until now, decades later, you know, I've always loved that poster and the history and the stories that are about these magicians of so many different varieties of different languages, of different countries, of different approaches to magic really called out to me and still does. I mean, graphics are something that's very much an important part of my life. And as I sit here now talking with you, I'm looking at about ten different magic posters.
Charles Greene III [:So Chung Ling Soo, three Ionias, Manek Shah, Uferini, and Thurston. Obviously, "The Illustrated History of Magic," had a great impact on my life.
Adrian Tennant [:Charles, I believe Tannen's Magic Shop in New York played a part in your development as a magician. Can you tell us about your connection to Tannen's?
Charles Greene III [:Sure. I say that I grew up magically in Tannen's. I say 17 floors above Times Square at 1540 Broadway when that's where my Tannen's was located. And every Saturday I would go into New York and it started off just once going with my mother. My mother took me into Manhattan. I went up there one time with very little money or not really knowing what to expect, but going up the elevator in an office building and I'm like, "This is strange." And then the doors parted and another world opened up unto me because there were people hanging outside in the vestibule, which wasn't very large, just the little hallway, but there were all these eight-byten photos of great magicians that were taken like by Bruno of Hollywood and all these other magical stars that kind of knew about. And then you walk through the door of Tannen's and then it was like, you're in Ali Baba's cavern, because there was all this activity and there's a smell and there was Irv and there was like Sol Stone and there were these other people and people behind the counter and all the props along the walls.
Charles Greene III [:And it was just like, "This is it. This is really a great place!" So I bought a catalog that first day. I'm sure I bought something small that first day as well because they were great salespeople and I was fascinated by the magic. But eventually I came back to Tannen's every single Saturday on my own. And I would stay there until 3:30 when the shop closed. And then at 3:30, I would go over to a place called the Governor's restaurant, which is at, I think 38th and Broadway. And in the back of Governor's, it was the place where every Saturday, all the magicians hung out and it was mostly close-up magicians, but it was quite the illuminati of the magic world.
Charles Greene III [:So there was Sol Stone, David Roth, Frank Garcia, Geoff Latta, Wesley James, Harry Lorayne, Derek Dingle. I mean, I could go in on and on and on. And it was the universe and they, those guys were like the center of the sun. And I was just literally like Jupiter, Pluto hanging out at a back table with my friends, Joseph Safuto and Polaris, Carl Mellish, and Little John. But I was always influenced by what I saw there, what I could like look over the shoulders of certain people and see and, you know, occasionally get invited over to the other table and they would say, "Hey, Lee, watch this. You got to see this guy!" Or someone come into town and they would sit in session for a while. But Tannen's was the place that I got my inspiration. It was a place that I went to every Saturday.
Charles Greene III [:It's a place where I got great advice from like Mario Carrandi and Bob Elliott, who is such a great dear friend. Tannen's is just key to my history and my creation and where I got great advice with Jack Ferraro, one of the owners at the time later said to me, "You know, Charles, don't do magic for a living." And it wasn't that he didn't want me to be a magician or interested in magic or buy magic, but he realized that some people in magic only do magic and they don't do much else. And then they don't have a good successful life after that. And I got what he said. I understood. So even though I continued doing magic and magic's been my full-time career, I also knew that I had to find a way to make something more of magic and be able to live a full life so that I could retire, so I could have a family, so I could be comfortable. Because unfortunately, unlike a lot of the people on the "Genii" covers that I saw, the magicians - most of them - did not have a good end story to their lives.
Charles Greene III [:The great magicians that we venerate on these covers, they didn't end their life well. You know, there's a long list of them. And I fortunately received some really great advice from a few people in magic who said, "You know, you need to find something else. You need to find a way to make money while you're asleep. Magic is great. But there's more to being a professional magician than just doing the magic."
Adrian Tennant [:Well, you mentioned "Genii" and the magic magazines. Charles, you've been featured on numerous magic magazine covers, actually, three times on "Genii" as well, of course, as the covers of "The Linking Ring," "MAGIC Magazine," and "M-U-M." Now today, you're known for your work as a corporate magician at trade shows. I'm curious, how did you develop that particular specialty?
Charles Greene III [:When I was at Tannen's, I picked up a book about doing close-up magic in restaurants. It was called "Cashing In on Close-up Magic" by Scott Hollingsworth, who was in Houston, Texas at the time. He's still in Houston, Texas. And it's about how to do magic in restaurants. I did a few restaurants and bars when I was in Hackensack, New Jersey. I worked for the Six Flags Corporation, eventually got down to Texas. When I was in Texas, I had to create a living as a magician. And so I literally got in my car and went to all of these restaurants following the advice of Scott Hollingsworth.
Charles Greene III [:I became this great corporate magician in Texas and became the social magician in Houston. Fast-forward to a time when Roger Klause was a friend and he said, "Hey, I'm going over to a trade show and I'm going to see some guys work." So there was Bud Dietrich, Dick Stoner - Eddie Tullock might have been there as well - at the Offshore Technology Conference. And so Roger said, "Do you want to go?" I said, "Yep, sign me up. I'm ready." So I went and on that day I saw these magicians, but memorable to me was Dick Ryan, who had this great style. And I can still remember he was working for Sikorsky Helicopters. And I thought, "I can do that."
Charles Greene III [:And it wasn't a thing of arrogance where it's like, "I'm better than him." By no means. But it's like, "I'm doing magic similar to what he's doing. I need to change my style. It's not a tuxedo. It's a three-piece suit. You know, it's a regular long tie. It's a certain amount of scripting that's involved, but I can do that." So after that, I changed my approach, started knocking on doors. I got my first client, and that led to my second, then my fourth, then my tenth.
Charles Greene III [:And then eventually, I got clients that would just take me all over the world to do trade show magic.
Adrian Tennant [:Did you have an agent during this period or were you doing it all yourself?
Charles Greene III [:I started off by myself. There were a couple of magicians with whom I worked where they would book me with other clients of theirs, but I also had my own clients at the same time. The thing about money is that when you're with someone else, they come first and understandably they come first. So if something happens to them, to their business, if anyone's going to be cut, you're going to get cut and you need to have your own two feet upon which you can stand. So I've always had my own clients as well as when I've worked with other people. And the same thing when I had extra work for my clients, when I couldn't be even as a magician in two places at once, I would have someone who I could trust like Danny and like some other people and say, "Hey, could you work for my client and fill in for me these days?" So that's how it all worked out.
Adrian Tennant [:Excellent. Back in 2000, you created MagicPosterGallery.com, which is the web's largest collection of vintage magic posters covering the period from 1890 to 1930. Charles, what motivated you to establish the resource?
Charles Greene III [:As I was working for all of these trade shows and doing a lot of international travel, it was also at the time period that I fell in love with vintage magic posters. So posters printed by stone lithography between 1890 and 1930. That all began at the home of George and Sandy Daily. At that time, they were in York, Pennsylvania. Went into their house and I saw probably hundreds of magic posters and I was hooked. As I kept traveling with trade show work, I would visit with different magicians in the various cities where my conference happened to be. So if I was in San Francisco, I went to visit someone who lived in Oakland, California, who's a great collector, actually several in that area. If I was down in Southern California, I went to visit with Mr.
Charles Greene III [:Buffum, who was on Balboa Island. And if I was in Nashville, Tennessee, I would go visit David Price. If I was in New York, I would visit with other people. So the corporate work allowed me to see a lot of great collections, but I realized that I needed information at my fingertips so I could recall what posters I had, what I had seen, different bits of information about these performers. And at the time with the internet, there really wasn't a resource, but I thought I'm going to put everything that I have online and create a resource, not only for me, but for everyone else. So that someone will know, "Hey, there are two variations of this poster," or "This one is unique," or "Here are the sizes of all of these Chung Ling Soo posters," or "Here are the Ionia posters." So that's why it became essential for me to put this online was because I needed the resource to start with, and I thought everyone else would appreciate it as well.
Adrian Tennant [:If you're enjoying this episode of The Magic Book Podcast, please consider leaving a rating on Spotify or a review on Apple Podcasts. You can also follow The Magic Book Podcast page on Facebook, thanks! Charles, your first book, "Ionia: Magician Princess Secrets Unlocked," published in 2022, grew from your fascination with a single poster. What was it about that image that captured your imagination?
Charles Greene III [:Well, the image of Ionia. We go back to Tannen's. And in Tannen's in 1976, Charles and Regina Reynolds put out a book that was printed by the poster house by Jack Renard, great poster auction house in New York City. But Charles and Regina Reynolds did the book together. Sometimes Regina does not get the credit because they just say Charles Reynolds. I just really want to make that clear. It's Charles and Regina Reynolds who put out the book and it was an oversize - most magicians have seen it - book of mostly graphics of the posters of the time with some information upfront.
Charles Greene III [:And as a 16-year-old boy flipping through, I get to page 63 and there is this bejeweled woman with outstretched arms. And it's like, well, I probably spent a second or two more on that page before I flipped over to Herrmann and all the other guys in the book. That image obviously stuck with me. Her story stuck with me. And as time went on, I was introduced to a little bit more about her, but there really wasn't much more at all. We're talking probably a decade or two later. And I find some things that were written by Eddie Dawes, who had done the most research up until the time of the book about the De Vere family. And in one of his sections, and he did three different sections about the De Vere's.
Charles Greene III [:And in one of them, he says, "If anyone happens to know any more information about Ionia or the family De Vere, I would like to know." And I thought once again, "Well, how difficult could that be?" Well, I learned my lesson! Her story is very hard to tease out. It's written in many different languages. It's written in French. It's written in English. It's written in Swedish. It's written in Russian.
Charles Greene III [:Danish, it's really deep and hard to find. But I was driven to pull it all together. And a friend of mine at one point had written a small little business card for me. Wayne Whisner had given me this business card that he created. It said, "Charles Greene, accumulator of Ionia information." And it was true, that she was my focus. And when the pandemic happened, we were all locked down and I was in one room in my living room. My daughter was in the other room doing her work and I was on the couch and I thought "I have all this time."
Charles Greene III [:"I should just start writing." And so I wrote and I wore out that couch, but I have a book. I have the Ionia book.
Adrian Tennant [:Charles, what did that research and writing process look like? I've got the image of the couch obviously, but I'm curious. What kept you motivated to keep working on the project?
Charles Greene III [:I think that a part of me is a thing of not letting go. There's another way. There's another door. "What's ten more feet down the road? Let me find out." And for some people, that's good and some people that's bad or depending on what area of interest you have. But for research, it's wonderful because there's always another rabbit hole in which you may fall and follow. There's always a thread. I saw this picture somewhere and there's a citation.
Charles Greene III [:And if I follow that citation, "Oh, look, there's an author. If I do the Internet search, I could possibly talk to the author." And maybe I don't get to the author, but I can find this. So it's just a matter of, if you keep digging, you will find the goal for what you're looking. And during the pandemic, one of the things that happened was that everyone was at home. And so I had many experiences where I would see something in a book and it would be, let's say a program and there would be a citation of who had this program. And so I was able to find them on the Internet and then I sent them an email and they would say, "Well, you know, I don't have the time or everything's closed down. I'm sorry, but yes, I did have access to that." I would say, "Fine."
Charles Greene III [:And "thank you so very much." Then, because things were just so odd at that time period for all of us, I would receive a message back saying, "You know, the museum was open for two days and I was able to go into the museum. I found what you were looking for, and here's the exact picture that you want." Specifically, this happened with Eric Colleary at the Harry Ransom Center. In their list of the many things that they have - and they are a wonderful resource for magic as well as other things of the performing arts - in their resources, they had a business card of Charles De Vere for Ionia. And it was a case where I reached out to Harry Ransom and to Eric and he said, "You know, everything's locked down." And then he said, "but wait a second, I can go in for an hour or two. I found it."
Charles Greene III [:"And here's the Ionia De Vere business card you're looking for." And this is something from like 1910 that now has been given to me. And these things are miracles, you know, the things that you can reach out and touch and acquire through connections through the Internet these days. It's just amazing.
Adrian Tennant [:Ionia, whose real name was Clémentine, came from a show business family. Her father Charles De Vere and mother Julia Ferrett, known professionally as Okita, were both professional magicians and De Vere became the preeminent magic dealer of his day with a shop in Paris for thirty years. Charles, how did this magical heritage influence Clémentine's performances and career do you think?
Charles Greene III [:She was the last of eight children. Some of the children preceding her did pass away early, but everyone was essentially involved in performing of one nature or another. So the oldest child, one of the oldest sons, was involved in theater production. Another son was involved. His name was Camille. Camille was to be the rising magician, but then he had diabetes and passed away in 1909 at the age of 24. And so his career was cut off. Ionia is then after him because she is the youngest child.
Charles Greene III [:So she picks up or is given the magic mantle. Other people in the family are Clara, who performs with the mother, Okita. And during the time period, so we're jumping back a little bit. But when Okita was traveling around all of Europe doing magic with her show, she brought her children with her. So she had Clara, who's the oldest girl. She had Elise De Vere, who was the second oldest daughter. And then she brought also Ionia with her. So as she's traveling around Europe, she has these three children, these three girls.
Charles Greene III [:Then she teaches the older two girls, Clara and Elise, an act of their own, plus a dual act. So as they travel around Europe, there's Okita who's on the bill, but then there's also Clara and Elise who are known as the little girls, the dancing sisters, and then each of them have an act. So you think from a business standpoint, this is great. An agent brings on one essentially performer, Okita, but then gets three other acts to fill the bill. So they were doing a lot of work. Clara goes on to become a very well known musician. Elise De Vere becomes a star of Broadway stage and cabaret. So there was a lot of strong influence for Clémentine before she actually comes of age and gets on stage.
Adrian Tennant [:When did she first go on stage?
Charles Greene III [:Well, she was on stage before she did magic. I'm gonna jump back for a moment. She was married to a lion tamer. Charles De Vere, her father, was the European agent for the Bostock Circus. When the Bostock Circus comes to Paris in 1903 and 1904, there is a lion tamer there named Herman Weedon. He's one of the stars of the show. He's a lion tamer. Herman Weedon meets Charles De Vere.
Charles Greene III [:He meets Ionia. Things happen. There's a relationship develops and Herman Weedon and Ionia/Clémentine. They marry, they marry, they go off traveling around the world together. They actually come to the United States for performances and their huge performances. And one night in Scranton, Pennsylvania, Ionia - Clémentine, she's not Ionia at that point - Clémentine gets into the lion's cage and does an act. She's a featured act in Scranton, Pennsylvania, and she only does it one night.
Charles Greene III [:That's it. And I think she realized that it's better to see the show than to be the show when you're a lion tamer. Once was enough for her. So she performs first as a lion tamer. Then she leaves him. They separate because he's off doing his own shows around Europe. She stays in Paris. She forms an act with an Australian woman who is performing at the Folies Bergère.
Charles Greene III [:And they do an act in Paris with animals that include, small bears, cubs, and then also they have a dancing elephant in one of their shows. So it's a variety act. Then they separate. Clémentine doesn't act on her own. And I think somewhere around this time period, so now we're at like 1908, 1909, her father, Charles De Vere, probably thinks, "I know a lot about magic. I'm a professional magician. I taught my wife how to do magic and have an act and travel the world."
Charles Greene III [:"I think I can do this for my daughter." And so he develops an act for Clémentine based on kind of Egyptian motif. And thus we have Ionia. And as most people do not know this at the same time, he develops an act for another woman named Jehul de Retz who takes over Okita's act because Okita is an older woman at this point. She doesn't perform as much. You know, she doesn't have that youthful activity and Charles De Vere develops an act for her. So Charles De Vere actually trains two different people as magicians. One being his daughter, Clémentine, and the other one being Jehul de Retz, who takes over the Okita act.
Adrian Tennant [:You connected with Ionia's niece who lives in France. Charles, how did you make that connection, and how did it affect your research?
Charles Greene III [:Back in the early days of the Internet, what it was more like the Wild West, these chat rooms would just appear on the Internet. You just go on, you would find things and it wasn't as logical as it is today. And there was a chat room called, I think it was called RootsChat, like you would look for your roots. So a lot of work about genealogy. And in that room, I found two people who changed my life regarding Ionia. One person, his name is Michael. He's Ukrainian. He's still alive.
Charles Greene III [:And, I recently had the pleasure of meeting him in person, but we began our relationship and research about Ionia back through that chat room. Another person who I met through that chat room was Clémentine's niece. She's alive and living in Paris. And we would start writing these notes to each other. At that point, my French was not that good and there weren't these translation softwares. And so I just had to bang out my bad French. But she said, "Well, since Paris is your favorite city in the world," - which it is - she said, "I will write to you in French." And I was like, "Oh my gosh, I've got to up my game," which I did.
Charles Greene III [:And so that was one factor that made a difference in my learning of French. And then she was just nice to me. And she didn't have a lot of information about Ionia personally, like, because it was a great time difference. She only knew her for about five or six years. Before Clémentine, Ionia left Paris and went down to the southern coast, down to the Cote D'Azur. So they only had about five years. So her memories are from the memories of a child. So she remembers like the animals that were there at the house.
Charles Greene III [:She remembers the horse. She remembers the Jaguar car that Clémentine had. She remembered a certain attitude about Clémentine. And at this point, Clémentine, for a long time before this, Clémentine had given up magic. Clémentine only did magic as Ionia for three years. So this was not a long career. And by the time she goes to Russia, which is the famous story that everyone knows about, she's not doing magic at all. So that when her niece meets her and knows of her as a child, she's not the magician.
Charles Greene III [:She's actually got a whole other life, which is as Princess Clémentine Eristavi Tchitcherine. And the sense of regality and regalness was very much apparent in her time and was the sense that Clémentine wanted to convey to everyone. And so that's the time that her niece knew her. But she, the niece, gave me great information and we keep in touch. We probably chat by email probably once a week still. And I've met her three times in Paris and we have a lovely little relationship. She's met my wife. She's met my daughter.
Charles Greene III [:It's wonderful. And I'm so glad that I can relate this story to her because she doesn't really know anything about her aunt or her family because they were so far removed from her time period.
Adrian Tennant [:Well, as you mentioned, Ionia performed magic for only three years. Yet she maintained an extravagant lifestyle afterward. Charles, what surprised you most about her story?
Charles Greene III [:The most surprising thing was how she was able to do what she did, how she did support her life and maintain a very high lifestyle. Now I live in Washington, D.C., and one of the questions that comes from Washington, D.C. is "follow the money!" If you want to know how something works, follow the money trail. So how is it that someone who's the daughter of two different magicians who live fairly comfortably is able to travel the world with an illusion show of eight people, a couple of bears, animals, large props. She has a very high lifestyle. When she moves to Russia, she's in a Russian estate and she's got large pieces of land that has serfs and materials that she uses in contracts with different Russian cities. Then she returns from there and she lives in wonderful mansions in Paris itself. And her last place in Paris is this grand estate in Nui, on the edge of Paris, that is still this huge corner estate.
Charles Greene III [:So follow the money. How does she do this? It turns out that her brother-in-law [Frank Joseph Godsol], the man who her sister Elise married was a multimillionaire, like multimillionaire, probably having access to like tens of millions of dollars at any particular time. And he was able to finance the life for himself, for Elise, for another De Vere, for the brother, and support him in some operations, also for Clémentine as well. So there was a lot of money that was available to Clémentine. It wasn't directly hers, but they didn't have any other place to let the money go to. So of course they had to use their millions. I've been to the house that's in Southern France. And when I went to visit it recently, a couple of years ago, it's literally overlooking the bay that looks over towards Monaco and then over to Italy.
Charles Greene III [:And then like the house around the corner, that's Bill Gates's house. And this house over here, well, Bezos, that's his mansion down there. And that's David Niven's house down there. So it's not a shabby neighborhood to say the least. She did well. She did well.
Adrian Tennant [:In the book about Ionia, you write about some of Ionia's more dramatic episodes, like Clémentine staying in a Moscow hotel cellar for three months of the Russian Revolution. Charles, I know it's pretty hard to pick, but what some of her other memorable adventures or publicity stunts?
Charles Greene III [:Well, let's go with publicity stunts. As she was touring around and touring around, you know, all different countries, imagine you're traveling by train. This is traveling in Europe and across the continent back in 1910 through 1913. So in England, she did a publicity stunt that may have been done by other people, people even outside of magic, but where she would walk a bear in Hyde Park every day. Well, walking a live bear, a good sized bear that was probably bigger than her, in Hyde Park caught everyone's attention. So she was pictured. Pictures were taken of her with the bear. There are several, probably at least a half dozen shots, that I know of, of her with the bear during that scene.
Charles Greene III [:And that picture was featured in a weekly European paper that was shown in England, in Germany and in France. So different versions of it and probably more than I know of, but it would definitely, you know, it captured everyone's attention. So that was one publicity stunt. Another situation that appeared in lots of different papers all over Europe involved a bear. She was in Vienna towards the end of her career. So this is approximately 1913. She was in Vienna for almost a year and she wound up being at, the Ronacher Theater, grand theater of Vienna. And in the basement, she had a bear while the bear got loose and the bear attacked the barmaid and then attacked the person who helped the barmaid to get away from the bear.
Charles Greene III [:And then officers were called down. They had to shoot the bear. Well, this became an ongoing saga in the newspapers once it was captured. They talked about the whole thing, who was there, what happened, who got bit, all the details. There was a trial that was most public and the count of the trial was in the papers for several days. And once again, this is big news. This is a big story. And so this went all over Europe and you can read the details of the trial.
Charles Greene III [:At that point, it was Clémentine's ex-husband (Herman Whedon). This is the lion tamer who was the manager of the Ronacher. And he is in the details of the account. He gives testimony. Ionia is mentioned. There's some charges that are brought against him. There are charges that are brought against Ionia. He has to pay a small fee.
Charles Greene III [:She's threatened with jail time, but it doesn't seem that she received any for one reason or another. But that was a big story and a big publicity thing in her life. Another one was that she was supposed to come to the United States as a magician. This is one of the great unfortunate things that did not happen. Her brother-in-law and some theatrical people were involved in a grand theatrical theater called, the Folies Bergère in New York City. It was modeled after the one in Paris, and this is going to be in New York. It actually was the first dinner theater in Manhattan, the first dinner theater of its type. And it premiered at the beginning of 1913, I think, in the spring.
Charles Greene III [:Mae West was one of the first performers there. But there are several things that were not taken into account by the owners and it failed. But she, Ionia, was supposed to be there in the fall of 1913 because that performance did not happen. She did not come to The United States. And because of that, she did put in an ad in some British papers saying Ionia - with this enormous act - is now available for bookings because of the closing of the Folies Bergère and is now immediately available for options of shows. But she had quite the adventure as a magician in just three years. And then one of her final performances, was up in Sweden. She goes far north of Sweden and was there for a whole month.
Charles Greene III [:And this is one of the things where - you know, diligent research - where I found this information in her name of Ionia in the papers. And it's hard to find things about Ionia because I only lead you to many other loose threads about the Ionia Islands in Greece and about mythology. But I eventually find out the theater and I call the theater or I send them the newspaper and they said, "Well, you know, all 28 of these listings are probably not going to be about her." I say, "Sure, but there's one or two, that'd be great." And they come back and say, "Well, actually, all 28 are about her." And she was there for a month. And so there are all these listings of her performing in Sweden. And there's two different articles about her in Swedish in the newspapers.
Charles Greene III [:And there are a couple of pictures of her, which are different from any others that we've seen. And of course those are all in the Ionia book.
Adrian Tennant [:"Ionia: Magician Princess Secret Unlocked" is beautifully illustrated. Charles, how did you approach the visual aspects of telling Ionia's story?
Charles Greene III [:Visuals are very important to me that I think comes or is, demonstrated by my love for stone lithography. Even before stone lithography of magicians, I collected the works of Patrick Nagel, who has a very strong graphic style. I'm a very visual person. So when I was putting the book together, I wanted to create the book that I wanted. And I've seen some marvelous books. I mean, I've been highly influenced by the great writers, from Milbourne Christopher, David Price, Mike Caveney. And I think the book that probably influenced me the most right before I got to creating "Ionia" was the Suzy Wandas book ("Suzy Wandas: The Lady with the Fairy Fingers") by Kobe Van Herwegen, who has become a great friend and a great person that he is, gave me some strong influences and information. But it's like, well, that's kind of the style that I want.
Charles Greene III [:And because I had so many visuals about Ionia, about the family De Vere, about Paris, about different things from their lives, I wanted to put them all in there. And once again, almost like MagicPosterGallery.com was a place for me so I could use it for research. Now with the Ionia book, if I wanna know anything about Ionia, I don't have to go through my files. I can just go through the book and all her posters are there. All the images of her sister, her father, all the dates of the births, the deaths, the divorces, everything. It's all in one place. So, you know, one sense, it was for me, but how I created it, I was highly influenced by everything that I saw before that in magic, but also out of magic as well.
Adrian Tennant [:Just a reminder that you can be notified when new episodes of this podcast are published by subscribing to the email alerts. You'll find all the details on the podcast website at TheMagicBookPodcast.com. Charles, let's talk about your research into Friedländer lithography. What drew you to explore this particular poster manufacturing firm?
Charles Greene III [:There are so many Friedländer images. Great, amazing images of a variety of performers and artists and magicians that were done by Friedländer. So online, you can look at what is called the Jaap collection that's over in Holland. And it's a collection of several hundred, like several hundred, like maybe like a thousand plus, different images of Friedländer that can be seen at your fingertips. In magic, there are a great number of Friedländer posters. So Houdini and Kassner, a variety of other performers. And once again, this was created in part because it's something that I really needed as a collector, and I thought other people would like it as well. A key thing of Friedländer lithography is that if you have a Friedländer poster, you're very fortunate to begin with because it is such great lithography, is that there is generally a four digit number, even though at some point there were three digit numbers, but there's a four digit number on the poster.
Charles Greene III [:So what does this number mean? Well, it's a Friedländer serial code system that by knowing that number or using that number, you can learn the date that your poster was printed. So if you look at that four digit number, you go to the code and you say, "Oh, that poster was printed in 1913," or "that is from 1900," or "that is from 1920." The information about the code was not widely distributed. How I received a copy of the code, the original code that I had, I honestly don't know. It was, I literally had a scrap of paper that this was on like a little, like probably four-by-five, almost like an index card, but slightly bigger that I received from someone. And it might've been in some book. And I credit a man named George Philophilus known as "the miscellaneous man." He was a great poster collector, a poster dealer.
Charles Greene III [:He knew a lot about lithography, a lot about Friedländer posters, and I believe I received this somehow from him. Well, I carry this paper with me, and once again, I always wanted to have it. I thought other collectors would like it as well. So I created the complete history of Friedländer lithography and made sure that, the Friedländer serial code was in there. So anyone's got a Friedländer poster can look at their poster, find the number, and then know what year the poster was printed.
Adrian Tennant [:Well, your book, "A Complete History of Friedländer Lithography," explains how the Friedländer serial code helps date posters. Can you tell us how the system works?
Charles Greene III [:Yes. So the code goes from 1 all the way to the number of 9075. So if you look at a Friedländer poster, there's going to be a three-digit - probably or most likely a four-digit - number that will fall somewhere between 1 and 9075. Okay. And then within that range, it's broken down. So if I go here to, let's say 201 to 1600, If that's on your poster, that poster was printed in the range of 1880 to 1899. Okay. Then it becomes a little bit more specific to an actual specific year, 1601 to 1800 gives you the year of 1900.
Charles Greene III [:And maybe I should do this in reverse. Posters printed in 1904 will have the number 2701 to 3100 printed on it. Posters printed in 1916 will have a number 6416 to 6500 printed on it. So if you tell me the four-digit number that's on any Friedländer poster, I then look at what is the right side of this printed code and can say, "Oh, well, here's the year that it was printed." It's very straightforward and simple, but no one else had this information in print. No one else had it. But then oddly enough, and this is the great thing about magic, how sometimes, you know, we think we've got something that's so special or it's unique or we've never seen the same one before. I put this in print.
Charles Greene III [:And then at the same time, a gentleman in France, François Voignier created a book called "La Magie S'Affiche," so "The Magic of Posters," and it's an awesome book. If you have any interest in magic posters, magic history, you should find this book. And in there, he also has the Friedländer serial code. And it's the only other place where it is in print. And the amazing thing is that in doing my research for my book, I had my original list. I had made some changes. It was on magicpostergallery.com, but there were some errors.
Charles Greene III [:I changed some things. Richard Hatch did a wonderful job of looking it over for me and making some suggestions. And I printed mine and I had mine then, Monsieur Voignier printed his and he said, "You know, they are exactly the same. We have the exact same information." So that's kind of a miracle!
Adrian Tennant [:Mhmm.
Charles Greene III [:And I'm glad that they both do match, and now they've become the authority for the serial code of Friedländer posters.
Adrian Tennant [:Charles, I understand you currently have two book projects in the works. The first of which is a biography of Charles De Vere. So what aspects of his life and career do you find most compelling?
Charles Greene III [:Charles has a very interesting life because he did so much. He started off as someone who was a survey person, someone doing roadmaps and taking surveys of roads in England. He sees some magicians and decides, "Hey, I'm going to do magic for a living," and really does take off with it. He becomes successful on his own. He builds shows. He then creates illusions. He then goes into selling magic, has a variety of different magic shops in London. Then he goes over to Brussels, creates a magic theater over there and does more magic and more illusions.
Charles Greene III [:Then he goes down to Paris and he creates, you know, these other things with Okita and another magic shop that just becomes the center point during his whole life. He's involved with all these great magicians. I mean, he's one of Houdini's best friends. He knows T. Nelson Downs, Thurston. When he comes to Paris, he's spending time with Charles De Vere. He knows all of these people. He is really this nexus of all this great magic history. And then he retires for a period of time.
Charles Greene III [:He goes out into the country, he creates the act for his daughter. He comes back to magic in Paris, takes back his shop, then he retires again. But at this point, Okita, his wife, Julia Ferrett, has died and he is involved with another woman and they move out to the country outside of Paris, but then they he's still doing magic. There's so much to his story that fascinates me, not just not only from the magic standpoint, which is great, but just as a person who has to create a business and has a full life that involves being an entrepreneur and creating opportunities for himself and for his family.
Adrian Tennant [:Well, your other book project is a story that reaches beyond the magic community. Can you tell us about that?
Charles Greene III [:I can. So Ionia's brother-in-law is Frank Joseph Godsol. This is the man who married Elise De Vere. This is the multimillionaire. And he was an American from Cleveland born there in 1874. And he goes on to become a multimillionaire. And I was fascinated because he, once again, that goes to like, well, in Ionia's story, the family and the family De Vere, let's follow the money. All the money came from Frank Godsol.
Charles Greene III [:But in looking for information about Frank Godsol, there really is none. There's none. There are a few lines. But to consider his basic story that he was someone who made multi millions of dollars in different businesses in Europe, then he came to The United States with his millions. He was arrested here in Washington, D.C., pursued by the French government. They wanted him extradited back to France because of the millions that he made in France during World War One. The US government did domestic spying and assisted the French in trying to get him back over to France.
Charles Greene III [:His trial that happened in Washington, D.C. went on for more than a year. Eventually, it reached the levels of the Supreme Court of the United States who did not take the case, and he was set free. He then had his millions to spend and he spent it in Hollywood. So he then took his millions along with some from the DuPonts and some other people from Chase Bank of New York invested in Samuel Goldwyn's company, Goldwyn Pictures in 1919. And then in 1922, Frank Godsol kicked Samuel Goldwyn out of his own company. He took over as the majority stockholder of Goldwyn Pictures, was president of Goldwyn Pictures, and then in 1924, Frank Godsol negotiated and created the merger with Louis B. Mayer and Marcus Lowe that formed MGM, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. But then after that point, Godsol leaves the industry.
Charles Greene III [:He's ill, eventually dies a decade later, and very little was ever written about him again and none of it was positive.
Adrian Tennant [:So you're going to fill that gap for us?
Charles Greene III [:I have such the gap filler - you won't believe me!
Adrian Tennant [:Amazing. How are you approaching writing for a broader audience?
Charles Greene III [:Honestly, the same way. As my wife - who is an English teacher - will tell you, she'll say, "You know you're not a writer, right?" And it's true, I'm not a writer. But I know a great story when I see one. I write in a certain way that I believe creates the narrative and I have great editors. So the way I'm doing this is the same way that I've done the Ionia book is I'm presenting this. It's a biography, so I don't have to make something up. And Frank Godsol, just like Ionia has an amazing story. It's colorful.
Charles Greene III [:It was front page news in Washington, D.C., in Paris, and all over the world. It's a great tale to tell and should be told. It just hasn't been. And by doing lots of digging, by being very persistent, I have found things that no one knew existed about Frank Godsol, and pictures, and his relationships, and his business connections. And I've been helped by many people inside and outside of magic.
Adrian Tennant [:And do you have estimated publication dates for either of these books? Or that's always an unfair question to ask ...
Charles Greene III [:It's so unfair because it's it's when the editing is done, and the editing is done when someone says, "I'm tired of editing," you know, because you want it to be right. You want to be perfect. And I do have to tell you the story. I mean, it's ... I might tear up because it's, you always find new information. And one of the things with the internet, I mean, that's one of the great things you can always keep digging. On the internet there appeared about two weeks ago to me a book about, Louis B. Mayer and Irving Thalberg. And they were the people who came into MGM as a part of the merger. And they were the early Hollywood producers during the time period of like 1920s and 1930s.
Charles Greene III [:And I thought, "Oh my gosh, there's a book about two people who would have met Godsol, who knew him, who were there with him like, you know, on a day-to-day basis and who knew him really well." And so I reached out to this person and the person that happens to be the former "Los Angeles Times" film critic. I thought, "How am I gonna get ahold of this person?" I had no idea. So I reached out to one person. I reached out to Glenn David Gold, who wrote "Carter Beats the Devil," who lives in L.A. And he's like, "Well, I know of him, but I don't know him." Then I reached out to someone else and I sent something to an association for retired film critics. Two days ago, the gentleman reached out to me.
Charles Greene III [:He sent me an email and he said, "I apologize for the delay." And it wasn't a great delay. It was only like in about a couple of weeks. And he doesn't know me from Adam, you know? But he said, "I don't have any information about Godsol. I only have tangential information. But my delay in getting back to you was that the reason I'm getting back to you so late is that my house was burned in the Palisades fire in California." And I just ... I mean, I still ... this gets to me because here's a man who has lost everything. And he said his research material is gone.
Charles Greene III [:His house is gone. And here's a man who lost his home, lost all of his possessions, yet he took the time to reach out to me and then apologize for being delayed. And I was - I will forever be touched by that. And one of the things I am most conscious of is how much I've been helped by other people and how willing I am for anyone to call me. Like if anyone's writing a book, thinking about writing a book, wants to know about how to write a book, how to do book covers or whatever, call me, contact me, send me an email because I know I have been so helped by so many other people. I could fill an hour with just those names. Larry Hass, Gary Brown, Paul Kieve. I mean, just the list would go on and on.
Charles Greene III [:I know I'm missing people. Stephen Minch, you know, it's just, I am just grateful. I'm only here because people have helped me and I'm amazed by the community and I'm grateful for our community. So many people have just said in all of these projects, "I hear you're working on Ionia. Here's this letter that no one's ever seen before." "Hey, you're doing your work about Charles De Vere. Look, I happen to have these letters." Someone at a magic conference said, "I've got these letters."
Charles Greene III [:"I'm just gonna bring them to you." I said, "Oh oh, great. Thank you." And so I had them and I said, "You know, I haven't been able to go through all the letters. I'm just gonna give them back to you and you know, maybe something will work out something later." He goes, "No. I want you to have these original letters." And I was blown away.
Charles Greene III [:And I said, "Well, thank you, but I think you should have them." And he says, "No, just take them, make a copy of them, send me the copy because I need them for my work, but I want you to have the originals."
Adrian Tennant [:Oh, nice.
Charles Greene III [:And I realized that I'm just, I mean, as I've always known, I'm a caretaker. People have things, we're caretakers. The posters I'm looking at, they're a hundred years old. I've had them for a period of time. I will have them. I'm going to pass them on to someone else. And I think that's something that I am always aware of is that I'm just here for a short amount of time. I wanna help other people.
Charles Greene III [:I wanna pass on information. I wanna share information. And then this is all going to go to someone else. So I need to take care of it now.
Adrian Tennant [:You mentioned Eddie Dawes, and I know you greatly admired him. In what ways did he influence your work?
Charles Greene III [:Eddie influenced me because ... and I I'm not an Eddie Dawes. I'm not comparing myself to Eddie in any way. He's an amazing person, and what he did is fantastic. How he has influenced me is to be a humble writer in that sometimes we write information, we put something in a book, and then it is done and never changes and we can't go back. And in looking back at specifically the information about the De Veres from other authors such as (Sam) Sharpe and some others, there are just things that are wrong. They were put in print and then they were repeated and repeated and repeated and never adjusted. Eddie, however, when he did his articles, he would then go back later and say, You know, I've learned new information. I'm going to make these changes."
Charles Greene III [:"I'm going to let you know what I got wrong. And I'm going to make the changes and tell you what is now the new information that we know." That to me is so critical. It's important to say, "Hey, I got this wrong. I'm making the correction. Here it is for you." When the Ionia book was done, I continued to do research to see if I missed anything about her. I did not, but I found a ton load of stuff about Charles. And there's some things that I hint at in the Ionia book and it has to do with pictures of Okita and who is ... if it's Julia Ferrett, or if it was his first wife - who was Millie De Vere and not Julia to whom he was not married - or if it was the third person, the third woman in his life, who was his second wife.
Charles Greene III [:And I've learned some definitive information and that information is going to be in the Charles De Vere book. And I will say specifically, "Here's what I had before. Here is what we now know, and here's the correction." And I think that's really important that we can update and revise and not say, "Oh, I've written this and I can't touch it." I've learned that from Eddie Dawes.
Adrian Tennant [:Well, this is The Magic Book Podcast, and regular listeners know what question I'm going to ask you next. Charles, what magic book - or books - do you most cherish in your own collection, and why?
Charles Greene III [:Wow. I knew the question was coming up. In my own collection ... I do not have a huge magic library. Once I think it's interesting, I'm a professional magician. This is how I've made my living. It's how I've gained my house and everything else in livelihood. But my magic collection, my book collection is not that large compared to others. So I would say that "100 Years of Magic Posters" is a book that means a whole lot to me.
Charles Greene III [:It's a book that I go to again and again. Now, because it's very easy to digest to gain inspiration from it. Another book that means a lot to me is Bruce Elliott's "Classic Secrets of Magic." It's one of the books that I have my original copy that I bought back in Hackensack, New Jersey. And I still do one of the magic tricks in there. It's The Ambitious Card that if I have to do magic for someone and I don't have to think about things, it's something I've done around the world in thousands and thousands of places. It's that routine that I acquired from that book that I still go back to every now and then. And I'm just so thankful for the magic in books.
Charles Greene III [:Because to me, when I grew up, books was it. You couldn't learn from anywhere else. I mean, if you went to private sessions, but you had to learn it from a book. And I still remember the time period of being in my bedroom with "Expert Card Technique," and realizing all these left-hand motions are doing this, the right hand motions are doing that, but when they come together, that's the magic. That's the magic. So books to me are essential. They're essential places to learn and to go back to.
Adrian Tennant [:Charles, if our listeners would like to learn more about your work or purchase your books, where should they look?
Charles Greene III [:Well, I'm not a great magic dealer. I like to delve in all of this stuff. The best place is IoniaSecrets.com. So that's where you can buy the Ionia book. That's where you can buy the "Complete History of Friedländer Lithography." That's where future books will be announced and where they will be available. Generally, if you buy them online at that site, there is a discount. That's the best place is Ioniasecrets.com.
Adrian Tennant [:Perfect. Charles, thank you so much for being my guest on The Magic Book Podcast.
Charles Greene III [:Adrian, thanks so much. I've enjoyed this time immensely and have a great day.
Adrian Tennant [:You've been listening to The Magic Book Podcast. In this episode, Charles Greene shared his journey from corporate magician to magic historian and author. We explored his groundbreaking research on Ionia, his expertise in magic posters and lithography, and learned about his upcoming biographies. Charles's insights remind us that magic's rich history continues to reveal new secrets to those willing to search for them. You'll find the transcript accompanying this episode on the website at TheMagicBookPodcast.com, plus a blog post with a summary, time stamps, and links to the books Charles mentioned. If you have a question or would like to suggest a topic for a future episode, please contact me, Adrian@TheMagicBookPodcast.com. Thanks for listening to The Magic Book Podcast. I've been your host, Adrian Tennant.
Adrian Tennant [:Until next time. Goodbye.
