Alexander – The Man Who Knows by David Charvet, John Pomeroy

Details: If this story were submitted as a script to a movie studio, it would be laughed out of Hollywood. “Too far fetched,” they would say. And they would be right except for one thing…it’s all true.

Throughout this book, two very different stories unfold. First there is the account of Claude Alexander Conlin, the man who became perhaps the highest paid entertainer in the field of magic. Starting out as a stage illusionist, Alexander eventually discarded the large props and relied on his tremendous skills as a showman to put over an act of mentalism and psychic readings. As the turbaned Man Who Knows, Alexander earned four million dollars over the course of a relatively short career during the 1920s.

The second story that runs concurrently with Alexander’s theatrical career includes details on his seven marriages (sometimes to more than one woman at once), time spent in local jails and federal prison, his trial for attempting to extort an oilman millionaire, his failed attempt to out run the authorities in a high powered speed-boat loaded with bootlegged liquor, and the four men that he admitted killing.

It is not the kind of story in which you expect to find names like Harry Kellar, Dr. A.M. Wilson, Harry Houdini, Servais Le Roy, Howard Thurston, Floyd Thayer, Joe Dunninger and Harry Blackstone but here they are, both friend and foe alike.

Contents:

013 Introduction to 2nd Edition (David Charvet)
015 Introduction (David Charvet)
018 Publisher’s Note (Mike Caveney)
021 Chapter 1 – The Boy From Alexander
029 Chapter 2 – Alaska and the Two Alexanders
039 Chapter 3 – A Magic Show and a Blizzard
047 Chapter 4 – Astro The White Mahatma
063 Chapter 5 – The Man Who Knows
072 Color Plates
087 Chapter 6 – The Alexander Show
105 Chapter 7 – Fame and Fortune
129 Chapter 8 – Among the Magicians
143 Chapter 9 – The Phoenix
167 Chapter 10 – Days on Rialto beach
175 Chapter 11 – The Payoff
183 Chapter 12 – Booze, Boats and Broads
189 Chapter 13 – Curtain
207 Appendix 1 – A Granddaughter Remembers
231 Appendix 2 – The Magic of Alexander
260 Conlin Family Tree
262 Acknowledgments
263 Index

submitted by Evan Shuster

• Publisher: Mike Caveney’s Magic Words
• Pages: 218
• Location: Pasadena, CA, USA
• Dimensions: 8″x10″
• Date: 2004
• Binding: hardbound

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