Greetings, all --

Here in Providence, RI, we have a local character named Walter Miller. Wally is a mildly retarded adult, 60 years old or so, who can often be found around city hall performing card tricks with a grubby old deck. His moves seem to be limited to a glide, top change, and some palming.

I once asked him where he learned his magic, and he said "From my father -- Charlie Miller was my father." Apparently, Wally has told someone else that his father wasn't around much when he was growing up.

I'm a mentalist, and unfortunately don't know a whole lot about the serious sleight-of-hand men (a "lamentable lacuna" in my knowledge) but I know that Charlie Miller is considered one of the very best sleight-of-hand magicians of the 20th century. I was always under the impression that he was a West Coast guy.

Is anyone here more familiar with Miller's biography, and can comment? Could this be the case? Or is Wally just putting me on? (Maybe his dad was a Charlie Miller, but not that Charlie Miller.)

Thoughts?

Thanks!

Rory

Charlie lived all over the country. For a while he lived in El Paso, Texas. During another period of his life, he lived upstairs of Magic, Inc.

He was somewhat itenerant. Ask Wally where he was born.

Charlie was definitely an itinerant! I had not yet met Charlie when Jay and Fran invited me to stay in the "Charlie Miller Suite. I was working the Chicago area, and still driving a station wagon. Jay came along to see the school show, and after the show, he said, "Don't book a motel room, we have a guest room, and you're welcome. Here's a key to the back door." It was the beginning of a long and wonderful friendship. I had "carte blanche admission" to Jay's library. (I thought that I had died and gone to heaven!)

When Fran and Jay lived in Oak Park (the shop was still in the loop at 109 N Dearborn) Charlie came for a visit. The visit lasted for many months! Jay, telling me about it, said that Charlie considered himself a "guest of society". The Marshall's guest room was often "inhabited" by visiting magicians over a period of time.

One day, the late Robert Parrish, magician,and author of several magic books was a dinner guest, and, known for his dry wit, asked, "Who's in the Charlie Miller Suite, this week?" The name"'stuck"!

I was privileged to be a frequent guest over about ten years, until I started touring the western part of the U.S.