A Celestial Celebration
LUPE NIELSEN
“Sharing Something Amazing”
So far in this series I have focused largely on performers and have said little about the business end of magic. In this feature I have the good fortune to discuss both. Lupe Nielsen is a skilled close-up magician and also the owner of Nielsen Magic, so she has experience in a wide spectrum of the business. And she is not alone; so many enterprises in our field have depended on the contributions of female partners and staff—not to mention those that are owned and operated by women. A male performer may get the spotlight, but often he is working with props made and sold by women, in costumes created or maintained by women, on stages assisted by women and in spots booked by women. A modern-day Frances Marshall, Lupe embodies the diversity of talents those of her gender bring to magic.
Born Guadalupe Maria Ah Chu in Panama on June 11, 1966, Lupe has been interested in magic all her life. She was four years old when a friend showed her a classic dollar-bill-folding effect, and she was intrigued by its puzzling nature. When a first-grade teacher took her class to the library, Lupe grabbed a magic book. At age 13 she saw a children’s program on TV and took a bus to the television station to ask for a spot on the show as a magician. That appearance got her noticed, and as a teenager she performed a great deal, working in all types of venues doing close-up, stage, and children’s magic. She took classes in theatre in the afternoons after school and performed sometimes as many as five shows on the weekends. With few other magicians in Panama, Lupe was largely self-taught and made many of her props herself. She even built a sub trunk, though she soon found it was too bulky for traveling.
The intensity of her performance schedule in high school led to a temporary burn-out, and Lupe quit magic until she came to the United States to attend Florida State University and later Virginia Tech, where she studied Technical Theatre. She gained a ton of experience stage managing shows. Since finding lucrative work in that field was difficult, she returned to magic and auditioned for a job doing close-up at Busch Gardens in Williamsburg. She was hired on the spot and worked for the theme-park for two seasons in 1988 and 1989. A highlight of her career was performing over 600 shows during that first season.
Lupe later moved to Washington, D.C. and performed magic in restaurants and dinner theatres. She’s also done bar magic at the Melrose Bar at the Hyatt Park Hotel in D.C. While working as a professional magician in the Virginia area in the 1990s, she was once asked by an agent if she could read palms for a gig. She said, “Sure,” and soon added another skill to her resume—though she hasn’t used it since. During her performing career she has had clients such as Exxon, Mobil, the Haircuttery, Freddie Mac, the Corcoran Gallery of Art, and the Department of the Interior. She has appeared on a number of magic conventions, including the IBM in Minneapolis in 1997, where reviewer Phil Willmarth said that she “is able to tease her audience as she executes false shuffles and other sleights beyond most of us.” At the 2002 IBM convention in San Diego, Lupe was a panelist for the Women’s Forum and shared her experience and advice with an eager crowd. She never billed herself as a female magician and is proud to say that her fellow performers have always treated her as “one of the guys.”
One of her mentors in magic was Scotty York (“who taught me the importance of proper and logical routining,” she writes). She studied with him for around three years, and through him met many prominent close-up magicians. When she moved to Las Vegas in 1995, Michael Skinner (“who taught me how beautiful magic can really look”) became another influence. She particularly admires Richiardi, Jr., Cardini, Juan Tamariz, Tihany, and René Lavand, but once wrote that she is also “lucky to be married to a guy who performs the most artistic eight and a half minutes you will ever see.”
Lupe and Norm Nielsen met at Hank Lee’s Magic Conclave in Cape Cod in 1989 and kept in touch over the years. They were married in Las Vegas on May 2, 1998, by veteran magician John Booth. Since 1996 she has been managing Nielsen Magic, after his previous assistant, Connie Boyd, left. Lupe had plenty of experience working with magic dealers, including Hank Lee’s Magic Factory, Collectors Workshop, and Houdini’s Magic Shop in Las Vegas. For a while she continued to perform on a part-time basis and dedicated the rest of her time to manufacturing and selling an exclusive line of magic props (Vanishing Bottles, latex doves, Okito-Nielsen items, etc.) as well as high-quality reproductions of posters from Norm’s famous collection.
When this article first appeared in 2007, Lupe described how involved she was in the magic business. In her words, “Along with Norm, I work doing everything for the business: from making the coffee in the morning, to the accounting, answering correspondence, writing the instructions for the tricks, rehearsing and routining them, to soldering and polishing metal, pouring the latex in molds, sanding the wood for the cabinets, selling, packing, and shipping the magic and posters. We attend various magic conventions every year and sometimes travel thousands of miles just to find yet another rare magic poster.”
“This has probably provided me with the best magic education I could ever have,” she continued. “Not only have I learned to run a business, but I have had the opportunity to meet almost every single magic celebrity in the field . . . Dealing with vintage posters has also widened my horizons to learning about magic history. There is always something new I learn everyday.” When asked to give advice to close-up workers, she writes, “The nature of close-up magic demands a relationship with your audience. The fact that you can look them in the eye, learn their names and interact with them demands that you transcend the tricks. Learn to communicate and speak better than anyone, and use those skills to relate to your audience. Remember they are the most important people in the room, and you are sharing with them something amazing.”
Though her last paid performance was a few years ago, Lupe remains passionately interested in learning magic and still attends conventions. Norm’s final performance was at the London Palladium in 2008. After he fully retired from the stage, they did not travel as much as they used to. But Nielsen magic continued, having made products for magicians since 1956. In addition, Lupe decided to learn the process of furniture making and has enjoyed that as a hobby for several years. As she told Alan Howard for a feature article in MAGIC in February 2013, “I’m quite content being settled and doing more woodworking. I normally live in the present; I don’t think past two weeks at a time, as far as immediate goals.” A rare Kellar poster showing him reading a book perched on an elaborate wooden book stand served as the inspiration for one of her projects: a limited run of book stands patterned after the one in the poster.
Norm and Lupe have hosted many visitors to their legendary poster collection in Las Vegas and have featured the posters in a monthly series in M-U-M called “The Nielsen Gallery.” In November 2016, both were the Guests of Honor at the New England Magic Collectors Gathering near Boston. Lupe gave a delightful lecture about their love of lithographs. The 25-year poster collection was sold in two auctions in 2016 and 2017. In the introduction to the auction catalogue Lupe wrote, “Norm and I retain a loving attachment to the collection, so much so that in letting it go we feel we are selling pieces of our lives and souls.” Collectors all over the world were grateful for the chance to share in the treasures that Norm and Lupe have cared for and cherished for so long.
Norm Nielsen passed away on April 21, 2020, at the age of 86, mourned throughout the magic community as one of the true greats. Lupe continues to operate the business, set up at conventions, and keep up with their countless friends and customers all around the world.
This article first appeared in the July 2007 issue of The Linking Ring and appears here by permission.
Stargazing
The list of other women in magic for the letter “N” is relatively short. Two FISM performers include Na Na of Japan (2003) and Malin Nilsson of Sweden (2006). Nadja-Nadr co-starred with her husband Handy-Bandy in an Egyptian-themed vaudeville magic act. Nadyne (1923-1997), of the night-club team Nardini and Nadyne, was skilled at cigarette manipulations. Naomi performed escapes, presented by Houdini rival Carly Mysto in 1905. Narda (b. 1921), a dancer with a trained dove act, assisted husband Leon Mandrake from 1940 to 1947. She turned 100 in 2021. Gema Navarro, the former wife of Juan Tamariz, and has written a book on female magicians titled Historias de Magas Antiguas y Modernas (2007). Lindsey Noel is an American magician and mentalist. Mademoiselle Neleta performed illusions in the first decade of the twentieth century, and Catherine Nelson (d. 1896) was billed as a “Magician and Bird Trainer” at Pastor’s Theatre in New York in 1887. Cynthia Neptune (1937-2012) was the first female President of the IBM British Ring in 2003. Marion Nicola (1902-1987) partnered with her husband, the great globe-trotting illusionist, during the last decade of his career.
To round out the list: Madame Nicolo made her debut in London in 1882 and was a student of Professor Field. Eveline Nightingale (1891-1987) was an English magicienne in vaudeville, as was Alice Norton, who dazzled audiences in 1907 with a jewel act in which she made real rubies and sapphires appear on the stage. “Magic Babe” Ning is from Singapore and bills herself as “The sexiest female in magic.” Amanda Nepo is a magician from the U.S. and also a magic creator. Finally, and fittingly, I must mention “Miss Norma and her Golden Violin,” where the “haunted” instrument played itself and took requests from the audience. Miss Norma’s career in the ‘20s seems to have been brief, and it would fall to Norm Nielsen to make much more lasting magic with the violin.