A matchstick and a handkerchief drew Mac King into the world of magic when he was just 5 years old.
It was a simple trick, shown to him by his grandfather back home in Kentucky, but it ignited what would become a lifelong passion.
King was directed to place a wooden matchstick inside a handkerchief and snap it in two. He remembers feeling and hearing it break, but when his grandfather opened the handkerchief, the matchstick was whole.
“To me it was a miracle, and when he showed me how the trick was done, it was a big moment for me, and it remains a big memory,” King said.
In fact, the award-winning comedy magician, who will be on stage at the Performing Arts Center in Laguna Woods on Saturday, May 3, has passed on the illusion to children via classes and the magic kits he puts together.
King’s other grandfather also was an aficionado of magic and kept a library of books on the subject. While researching one illusion, King would read about others, increasing his bag of tricks exponentially.
“My two grandfathers were the town eccentrics, and for me it was the perfect storm,” King said in a recent phone interview.
The two older men remained among his mentors and biggest supporters as his career unfolded, but they did not live long enough to see him perform in Las Vegas.
King started his show there in 1998 and is now the entertainer with the longest-running one-man show in the town’s history.
As an up and coming magician, King tried the standard persona of “sorcerer with a top hat,” but he found that the closer he kept to his own personality, the more successful he was.
He started to add comedy to his magic act, acknowledging that he comes from a family of comedians.
“All of them are funnier than me, and there was always a big competition at dinner,” he said.
He enjoys both aspects of his act.
“Usually the trick comes first, and then I try to make it humorous,” he said.
King has been ranked the number one comedy magician in the world by Magic Magazine and was named Magician of the Year by the Magic Castle in Hollywood. He was inducted into the Las Vegas Hall of Fame as well.
Through the years of performing on the road and then making a professional home for himself in Las Vegas, King has developed several trademarks, such as an iconic suit and a trick with goldfish. He wouldn’t reveal the details of either during the interview, but they will be part of his show at the PAC, he said.
King tries to avoid the classic tricks of the trade, preferring to perform magic that is his own style. Sometimes he’ll revive an old trick and modernize it.
He does come up with original gimmicks, occasionally incorporating them into his routine immediately. Other tricks take months or even years to practice and perfect.
“I’ve been working on one for five or six years now, and it’s getting close,” he said with a laugh. “You need to do a trick in front of an audience to know if it really works.”
King has appeared on the TV show “Penn and Teller Fool Us” four times, with one more episode taped and yet to be aired. He has managed to earn one trophy for fooling the iconic pair but says it is hard to do because they are Las Vegas colleagues and friends and often see each other’s shows.
Over many years of successfully performing hundreds of tricks, he has encountered some disasters, claiming that they “keep it fun.”
“Anything bad that could happen has happened,” King said. “I have to figure out how to cover it up if I can.”
Once he cut off the tip of his thumb doing a cut-the-rope trick and bled so much he asked if there was a nurse or doctor in the audience. A nurse responded and bandaged his finger so that he could continue his show and do the following one.
“Afterward, as I was leaving to go to the emergency room, an audience member who’d seen both shows said he was disappointed with the second one because I hadn’t cut my finger,” King said with a laugh. “I had managed to make it look like part of the show.”
Many people think of magicians as nerdy, quiet types, he said, admitting that the characterization has truth to it. And when people find out that he is a magician, they often want him to immediately show them a trick.
“They think I always want to be doing magic, but I get enough attention already during my shows,” he said.
Sometimes people think he can’t be trusted not to cheat at cards or some other game because of his talents at sleight-of-hand and visual deception.
“Still, there’s no other career I would want,” King said.
Doing two shows a day in the afternoon and none at night has allowed him to live a normal family life, home in the mornings and evenings to spend time with his wife and daughter. He has been happily following this routine for 25 years and calls himself “the luckiest boy on Earth.”
He does manage to do about 12 to 15 shows a year away from his Las Vegas home base.
“My show is family-friendly and I love audiences of all ages,” King said. “It’s a treat to get away from home and into a different environment.”
He said he is looking forward to performing in the Village.
“Magic is something I do that audiences can’t explain,” King said. “When I perform, I want to be delightful as well as inexplicable.”
The Mac King Comedy Magic Show will be at the Laguna Woods Performing Arts Center on Saturday, May 3, at 7:30 p.m. Tickets for $20, $25 and $30 and are on sale at tickets.lagunawoodsvillage.com or at the PAC box office, open Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Credit/debit card fees apply. The GRF no-host bar will be available. For more information, call 949-597-4288 or email recreation@vmsinc.org.
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