A Favorite Magic Trick, Effect, Illusion
Some call them tricks, others illusions, magicians usually use the word “effect” with each other. I’m not so concerned with what you call what I do; I’m much more interested with the feeling that experience evokes.
One of my absolute favorite magic moments I perform is Grippo’s Card in Envelope. It’s become a real staple of my Seated Close Up shows and based on the many conversations I’ve had with audiences and other magicians it has to be one of great moments in the show, something everyone talks about the next day, week, and year.
The effect was developed by the great Jimmy Grippo, a magician and hypnotist, who spent the last half of his life entertaining high roller guests in the Bacchanal Room at Caesar’s in Las Vegas. I’m not sure when I first learned of him but I really started to develop an appreciation of Grippo when I met Johnny Thompson and later Paul Vigil, both Las Vegas magicians and mentors of mine. Before Thompson’s died in 2019 his life’s work was published which included Grippo’s handling of the famed Card In Envelope which Thompson had learned from Grippo when they were both living in Las Vegas. I’d learned many tricks from Thompson but the Card in Envelope was not one of them since it wasn’t part of his regular repertoire.
Performing Grippo’s Card In Envelope in the Close Up Gallery at The Magic Castle in Hollywood.
I then began performing the effect as taught and slowly over many performances began to adapt it myself. I wrote a script emphasizing the impossibility of the effect and developed sleight of hand to accomplish the magic better in my own hands. When I really knew I hit something special and unique was when the effect connected with a finale in a surprising way. I don’t quite want to reveal here so that if and when you’re in the audience when I perform you can enjoy the surprise of the finale.
One evening, when performing at The McKittrick Hotel in Speakeasy Magick a gentleman approached me at the bar. After telling me what a great time he was having he said that his dad was involved in construction in Las Vegas and that when he was a little kid his dad took him to Caesar’s to see Jimmy Grippo performed. Forty plus years later he remembered not only Jimmy Grippo’s name but an effect that he began to describe, and it was Grippo’s Card in Envelope. After our conversation I sat at his table, performed a few tricks and then the Grippo effect for him. In a strange moment of reaching back in time to create an unforgettable present, he signed the card like he did when he was just a kid and when the magic moment came it was incredible.
I signed his envelope “In honor of Jimmy Grippo- Alexander Boyce”
With Brad King, who saw Grippo perform the Card in Envelope decades before my performance of it.
That night absolutely cemented for me what an incredible effect, trick, and illusion it is and how fortunate I am to share such a remarkable mystery with people all over the world.
Alexander Boyce is a sleight of hand artist and magician whose performances have been seen in The Magic Castle, The McKittrick Hotel, The Rainbow Room, Lincoln Center and many private corporate events around the world.