Carl Ballantine

Carl Ballantine

1917–2009

Early in Meyer Kessler’s career as a mediocre nightclub magician, a trick misfired and he threw out some funny lines to cover up. The audience roared. Kessler quickly recast himself as Carl Ballantine, a bumbling conjurer who got laughs through sheer incompetence. “This takes a lot out of an artist,” he would say. “Of course, it doesn’t bother me too much.”

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As a child in Chicago, Ballantine was inspired by a local barber who performed tricks with thimbles while cutting his hair, said the Los Angeles Times. A performer by 13, Ballantine entertained troops during World War II. In 1956 he became the first magician to headline a Las Vegas bill and appeared with Harry James, Betty Grable, and Sammy Davis Jr. Ballantine, whose last name came from a popular whiskey, “would walk out on stage in top hat, white tie and tails,” and announce, “If the act dies, I’m dressed for it.” He would then banter his way through a series of failed tricks, registering mock chagrin along the way. “At one point he’d tear a newspaper in strips, boldly claiming that he would restore the paper to its original state. Then he’d stop to read the want ads.”

Ballantine regularly appeared on such TV programs as The Tonight Show and The Ed Sullivan Show and, from 1962 to 1966, played the fast-talking con artist and torpedo man Lester Gruber on McHale’s Navy. He also did many voice-overs, including one for the California Raisins, in which he portrayed their agent. A horse-racing fan, he requested that his ashes be scattered over California’s Santa Anita Park.