Background
Born in Krakow, Poland, he was the son of a Polish-Jewish educator.
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Chan Canasta
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Most of his family perished in the Holocaust. He was twice married and died in London at the age of 79. Canasta moved to Great Britain in 1947, following a stint in the Royal Air Force during World World War World War II Starting as a card magician who took his surname from the popular card game of canasta, he became a well-known stage magician performing feats of memory and book tests during the late 1940s.
In 1951 Canasta recorded his first television show for the British Broadcasting Corporation - a sparse affair with only a few props that concentrated on mental effects.
Throughout his career Canasta made over 350 television appearances, including on the Editor Sullivan, Arlene Francis and Jack Paar shows. His final television appearance was in 1971, on the British Broadcasting Corporation"s Parkinson show, and was billed as "The Return of Chan Canasta," for he had left television performing behind several years earlier. although he did reappeared on Israeli television on 11/11/1983.
Throughout his career Canasta was never billed as a magician, nor even a mentalist, but simply as "A Remarkable Manitoba". Canasta retired from the stage at the height of his fame to pursue his true dream, that of being a serious painter.
In his later years he established a second career as an artist, with successful gallery shows in London and New New York
Canasta"s act was limited in scope but truly daring in application. He always called his effects "experiments" rather than tricks. He performed experiments in thought using two packs of playing cards.
He would ask one spectator to think of a card then ask another spectator to pick the unstated thought-of-card from a different pack.
Or he would place cards onto a table and ask a spectator to pick up one card that another spectator was only thinking of. The effects were incredibly risky and he would often fail on live television
Contemporary magicians were horrified by Canasta"s approach but this element of "risk-taking" has been a major influence on the current generation of mentalists. Canasta"s signature routine was his "Experiment With Books".
He would ask one spectator to choose a book from a large bookshelf on the set, then ask them to think of a page number.
He would then ask two other spectators to name a line number and a word number respectively. Canasta would then somehow predict the word and the contents of the line even though the first spectator was still only thinking of the page number, which he invited them to change if they chose. The effect has been acknowledged as one of the classics of mentalism.
Among magicians, Canasta is revered for the invention of a principle that eschewed perfection, believing that making an occasional error made his other effects stronger and more entertaining.
British mentalist Derren Brown cites Canasta as a prime influence.
