Charly Eperny
(13th March 1897 - 9th July 1974)
Born in Pagny sur Moselle in France as Richard Robert Reinhold Karl Eichhorn. Introduced to magic through a magic set. Already appeared as 17 year old performer in February 1914 at the Apollo-Variete in Berlin with his own magic stage show. He survived WWI and spent 1918 to 1927 in Italy with his assistant Marta whom he married in 1925. During that time he took over the stage name Chiang Fu from a colleague. Eperny built an entire magic show around the persona and the Chinese costumes he received. Since 1930 he worked again in Germany partly as Chiang Fu and partly with a modern show which featured his signature tie and jacket color changes. After WWII he moved to Austria and received the Austrian citizenship in 1948. He died in Vienna in 1974.
Charly Eperny was also a magic scholar who collected methods and routines and authored a number of books which are still well known today. Among them are Enzyklopädie der Mikro-Magie, Das grosse Stuller-Bosco Buch, Das Rohnstein-Buch, Das Dr. Stanley Jaks Buch and several more.
