Peace Arch News

These days Celeste Evans lives quietly in retirement in St. Petersburg, Fla., writing and visiting with her two grandchildren.

The statuesque, elegantly coiffed and gowned entertainer hasn’t produced a dove – or a toy poodle – out of thin air for a long time.

But the Queen of Magic – who grew up in White Rock before her career took her around the world three times – is still very much in the spotlight.

Last week, Evans, 77, received the Performing Fellowship Award for Stage Magic from the Academy of Magic Arts at its Magic Castle venue in Los Angeles (she was already inducted into the Magic Hall of Fame in 1998).

And on Monday, at the The Garden Theatre just outside Orlando, Fla., she’ll be honoured as one of two Legends of Magic, in a special show hosted by Dan Stapleton, president of the Florida Magicians Association. The show, which co-honours Jack Kodell, the first magician to appear in Las Vegas, is the third, and biggest, annual celebration organized by Stapleton to honour performers who’ve inspired him.

“When I was a teenager from Milwaukee, and just getting into magic, I’d see these beautiful photographs of Celeste draped in furs and gold lame, looking like a cross between Ava Gardner and Jane Russell,” Stapleton recalled. “I remember thinking ‘that’s the hobby for me!’”

There will be many historic pictures of Evans in the presentation at the restored 1935 theatre, he said – including a clip of her performing on Barbara Walters Not For Women Only show in 1970.

In the 1950s, she enthralled countless viewers with her frequent appearances on Paul Winchell, Arthur Godfrey and Ed Sullivan’s shows – and a celebrated turn on To Tell The Truth in which she won a $1,000 prize by escaping from a straightjacket in nine seconds (they would have given her longer but a commercial was due). The biggest element of her career – and the part she recalls most fondly today – was touring and live appearances all over the world, including Las Vegas, London, Tokyo, Copenhagen, Stockholm, Madrid and Seoul.

“Who would have thought a little girl from White Rock, B.C. would have done this? Not me,” said Evans, who is currently at work on a second volume of her book Has This Ever Happened To You? – a collection of magicians’ anecdotes.

“I did what I had to do to make a living, and it was not always an easy road. Magic was always dominated by men, and then I came along. I had a vision of what my act should be. It took years of practice and patience to get it there, but it was well worth it.”

Evans is quick to say she was not the first woman to entertain as a magician – there were a number of women before her.

“But I did make my own style of magic never seen before,” she said.

“I came out on stage in evening gowns, mostly strapless but always sleeveless. Dove magic was primarily done by men; I was one of the first women to do dove magic. To this day, I have many a magician come up to me and ask where I hid the doves. I’ll never tell – and neither will the doves.”

Known as Ruth when she lived in White Rock, she was first inspired by a magician – name now unknown – she saw at a school rally.

“When I was a young girl, my friends were playing with dolls. I really did not like dolls – magic was mysterious and glamourous. I spent every waking hour, after my chores were completed, practicing magic in our home’s attic.”

Evans had three siblings – brothers Jack (now 89 and living in Victoria) and Norman (who continued to live in White Rock until he passed away five years ago) and a sister, Betty, who lived in Lake Erock until she died three years ago.

“White Rock was the most wonderful place for a child to grow up in – the beaches, the boardwalk, the open spaces and the mountains. As a child, you were never bored – it was a great childhood.

“Mom was a homemaker and worked the little farm we had, and Dad was a commercial fisherman. He did any work that he could get paid for when not in the fishing season; whether it be cutting firewood, building houses, odd jobs, whatever was necessary to make a living.”

Evans showed a lot of the same application after she graduated from Trapp Tech. in New Westminster in 1949 (she had transferred from Semiahmoo High School in Grade 11).

Already determined to make magic her life, she moved to Vancouver after graduation and worked odd jobs in between her magic gigs.

“There I met a magician – John Kirby – who took me under his wing and taught me not to be just a magician, but to be an entertainer,” she said.

“Some of my magic gigs were one-night jobs, but most of my magic gigs took me away for weeks or months at a time. If my current job would not let me off work, I simply quit.”

Evans eventually moved to the U.S. and met her first husband, Harry Breyn, working with him in his talent agency in the Chicago area. They had two children, Evan and Evanna, and when Breyn passed away in 1983, she took over his business until she retired in early 2003. But it was while she was still in Canada, in 1952, that she was chosen to entertain Commonwealth troops in Korea and Japan under the auspices of the Canadian Legion, beginning an aspect of her career that ultimately led to tours around the world – sometimes to war zones – for the USO, the United Nations and the John F. Kennedy Cultural Exchange,.

“In Korea we would entertain out of a covered wagon truck to the troops at small base camps,” she recalled. “The truck’s engine was running and at any time the truck would take off to avoid enemy fire.

“It was a frightening time, however I would not have changed a thing. I am still very proud to have been one of the acts chosen.”

This article was posted in the August 1964 issue of TOPS.

Article in the May 2011 issue of the International Brotherhood of Magicians Magazine. 

This was a brochure that Celeste had circulating in the either the late 1970's or the early 1980's.