1. Tony Slydini, known as Slydini, was a magician known for close-up artistry magic.
29 Facts About Tony Slydini
1. 2.
Tony Slydini received the Masters Fellowship Award and Performing Fellowship Award from the Academy of Magical Arts.
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Tony Slydini was born as Quintino Marucci in Foggia, Italy.
4.
Tony Slydini was the son of an amateur magician, who encouraged him to pursue sleight of hand at an early age.
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Tony Slydini had no access to books on magic, nor personal instruction or magical performing apparatus of any kind.
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Early on, Tony Slydini was attracted to the psychological aspects of his art, which would continually show itself in his magic in the form of precise and expert use of timing and misdirection.
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Tony Slydini was inspired by the relationship between a magician and his audience, which fueled his desire to be a close-up artist who would work intimately with the spectators.
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Tony Slydini was entertaining everyday workers and their families, but gaining valuable experience, knowledge and psychological expertise, while traveling and meeting people from coast to coast.
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In 1935, while Slydini was playing a museum in Paterson, New Jersey, the manager billed him as "Tony Foolem", in the absence of any better suggestion by Marucci.
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Tony Slydini was an expert in timing and misdirection and it showed.
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Tony Slydini remained in Boston for nearly seven years before moving back to New York.
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Tony Slydini continued to gain popularity through his public performances, including many private club and party dates, and would travel the United States from New York to California, playing scattered engagements in museums, carnivals, side shows, etc.
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Tony Slydini's fame spread and soon other well-known magicians from around the world sought out his company and expertise including the legendary Cardini, Dai Vernon, Okito, The Great Virgil, Bert Allerton, Al Flosso and Jack Gwynne.
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Reports from up, down and around the British Isles praised the lecture Tony Slydini gave on the tour.
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Tony Slydini was largely unknown to the public but became a legend to those in the magic profession.
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Tony Slydini was constantly featured in the magic magazines and publications.
17.
Cavett and Tony Slydini became friends and soon afterwards the talk show host featured the magician in a televised special, which was so well received that a second broadcast followed.
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Tony Slydini would go on to appear on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson and other popular broadcast venues of his time, but this was not his forte.
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Tony Slydini was willing to teach and the magicians he served were willing to learn.
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Tony Slydini's influence spread across the magic spectrum such that by 1975, his fame led to a major event in the field of magic.
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Tony Slydini presented three solid hours of shows and lectures, plus additional semi-private lessons available to the 90 magicians in attendance and began a tradition of educational offerings to magicians, expanding the number and nature of lectures with an emphasis on variety and versatility.
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Tony Slydini attended and lectured at the event originally named for him until his health no longer permitted travel.
23.
Tony Slydini died of heart failure on January 15,1991, after several years in a New Jersey nursing home.
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Tony Slydini was one of the first to show close-up magic as an art in itself, rather than as a lead-in to bigger and grander illusions.
25.
Tony Slydini's magic was impromptu and rather than follow a set sequence of tricks as most magicians did, he allowed his audience and the situation to dictate his show.
26.
Over his lifetime, Tony Slydini received countless awards and honors from around the world including the Masters Fellowship from the Academy of Magical Arts in 1974.
27.
Tony Slydini was awarded the Academy of Magical Arts' Performing Fellowship.
28.
Best known as a master of showmanship, misdirection and close-up artistry, Tony Slydini served as inspiration to generations of magicians, including many thousands of the famous and not-so-famous practitioners of the art.
29.
Tony Slydini is considered by many magicians to be one of the two finest 20th-century performers, teachers, lecturers and creators of artistic sleight-of-hand magic; Dai Vernon is the other.