(USA: 22nd September 1893 - 3rd December 1957)
Pro vaudeville cardman since 1904 or 1905. Nominally co-author (actually entirely written by F.B. Sterling a.ka. M.S. Mahendra) of Modern Card Miracles: A Complete Card-Act with Patter (1919). Trick in Felsman's (Oct 1919).
His daughter B. Jean Johnston writes:
My father, Hugh R. Johnston was a child prodigy, who performed a one man show at the age of eight years old at the Lewis Theater in Chicago according to my Grandmother, Anna J. Johnston. The first photo I have of him performing is as a teen. He and Manuel were the two magicians put up for the famous $5,000 "Challenge" by the Chicago Conjurer's Club in 1919. He also founded the first School of Magic in the U.S. in 1919 in the Baltimore Building in Chicago. By the following month, fully one third of the Chicago Conjurer's Club members had enrolled in his school. He was only 26 at the time. He was also an inventor of magic, including "The Johnston Shuffle."Everyone wanted to take credit for this timeless magic book. In 1937, eighteen years after it was published, the famous magic historian H. Adrian Smith exposed Julian J. Proskauer's plagiarizing of it in with his almost word for word copy called "How Ja Do That?" in Tops, causing a huge scandal as Proskauer had held offices up to President in many magical societies.
Coauthors: F. B. Sterling
| Listed | Price | ||
Ten Mystifying Card TricksHugh R. Johnston![]() This is an early publication by Hugh Johnston predating his larger Modern Card Miracles by several years. Includes research on its likely publication date by Chris Wasshuber.
| 2018 / 7 / 5 | $6.00 to wish list | ||
Modern Card MiraclesHugh R. Johnston & F. B. Sterling![]() This ebook describes moves and routines for a stacked deck. The authors are using the Si Stebbins stack, but most of what is taught applies to other stacks, memorized or algorithmic. At the very end a simply two person code is taught. Dornfield, President of the Chicago Society of Magicians writes in The Sphinx magazine, November 1919 page 209: "On the same program, Hugh Johnston put over his line of incomprehensible sliders and puzzlers. The way that fellow can make a card or a whole deck do his bidding is nothing short of miraculous. He is at present busily engaged in conducting the only... | 2018 / 3 / 18 | $10.00 to wish list |