November 25, 2024 • 9 mins
Amelia Nierenberg is a London-based reporter for the NY Times. I was fascinated by her recent story of a woman who made her way into a prestigious organization of magicians by pretending to be a man, then was found out, kicked out...and disappeared.Magicians Mount Search for Woman Behind Decades-Old Deception - The New York Times (may require subscription)Another version of the story: The woman who tricked her way into the Magic Circle – then vanished into thin air
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Politically.
Speaker 2 (00:00):
All right, let me do something completely different here. Oh
I'm so excited for this conversation. And there we go,
There we go. We got that, all right, Amelia? Can
you hear me?
Speaker 1 (00:15):
Can you hear me? Oh? Yes?
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Perfect? And very sorry to connect to you late. It
was completely my brain cramp. But I'm so glad. I'm
so glad you're here. So Amelia and Ironberg is a
London based reporter for The New York Times. Did I
pronounce your last name? Writers? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (00:31):
Did I do that right? You came so close that
it almost counts as Arrenberg.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
I knew that was the other option. I knew it
was the other option, all right. So Amelia wrote up
just a really interesting story for The New York Times
a couple of days ago, and the headline is Magicians
mount search for a woman behind decades old deception. And
there's just so many interesting little twists and turns in
(00:57):
this story. And I thought I'd ask Amelia here to
tell us, tell us the story, and maybe before you
tell us a little about the story, tell us how
you found the story.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
Sure. I love magic. My first ever boyfriend was a magician.
He was like a kid's magician. And would like lock
himself in a male bag and undo it for school assemblies.
Very cool and so I've always thought magicians have just
some of the coolest skills ever. And this story was
kicking around the British press a little bit. People there
(01:29):
were reporters searching for it. But I spych on the fray.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
So tell us, tell us about the characters, tell us
about who.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
Let's do it this way.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
Who's Raymond Lloyd?
Speaker 1 (01:40):
That is the question, isn't it. So it all started
in the late in the in the late eighties or
early nineties, there were these two really spunky women. One
Jenny was a magician, one whose name we think is Sue,
was an actress, and they were really mad because of
very restigious London magic society was men only. So they
(02:04):
decided that they would come up with this character, this
Raymond Lloyd, kind of a magician in drag maybe, And
they spent two years building this character. They performed in
London magic clubs and Raymond Lloyd, played by the actress
whose name might be Sue maybe not, gained admission into
(02:25):
this all male magic society, douping and surprising all the magicians.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
So so the woman who was a magician, didn't think
she had the acting skills to pretend to be a
man and do the magic tricks in front of them,
the men who were judging it. So she trained the
actress to do the magic tricks. Is that what happened?
Speaker 1 (02:43):
Yeah, that's kind of the idea. I think. I understand
that she might have looked too much like a woman,
or was already pretty well known, so might have been
going up in front of peers who already knew her.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
Okay, So then they they create this character Raymond Lloyd,
who sufficiently impresses this very elite magic society called the
Magic Circle, that he gets gains entrance into the into
the Magic Circle. Then what happens?
Speaker 1 (03:12):
Then he's in the Magic Circle. I think he like
lit a bill on fire and had it reappear Raymond.
Raymond had to have a drink with his practitioners. He went,
He went there a couple of times, and then the
Magic Circle decided that it would allow women. So Raymond
(03:32):
told them that he was not named Raymond and he
was not a He I think probably expecting to be
welcomed and cheered and you know, saluted for this incredible
deception which is sort of what magic is all about.
And instead Raymond was promptly expelled from the society and
Raymond disappeared.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
Wow, okay, so now that there's there's two people involved
in this story, ray Raymond who might whose real name
might be Sue, and Jenny, who was the actual magician
who trained maybe Sue. So people are trying to track
them down. So what's been the success or lack thereof
(04:13):
in talking to these two people, and who's alive and
who's not now?
Speaker 1 (04:18):
So Jenny died about twenty years ago. Her son is
carrying on her business. I talked to him. He sort
of remembers this. He said his mom was a really
spunky woman, and I think was always frustrated by the
fact that she wasn't able to join the society because
she was a woman. But Raymond or Sue or whatever
(04:38):
her name is, it seems to have disappeared, and the
Magic Circle basically I think someone pulled it up, was
talking about it, pulled it out of the archive, mentioned
it to a colleague. Nothing really serious, and then there
was sort of this rain union of a couple of
the Magic Circle members who said, oh my gosh, we
had to find her. We have to apologize. This is horrible.
(05:01):
And I think they basically were hoping that she had
left an address or a phone number in the archives
and they could bring her up and say, you know,
I'm so sorry, would you like to come back? But
they've been searching their former journalists in the group and
they cannot find her. So they went to the press
hoping to sort of share the message that they'd really
love to. They think she is still alive and maybe
(05:22):
just doesn't want to want to show her show up,
But they're really hoping that they can find her and
make things right and maybe have her perform again.
Speaker 2 (05:31):
I wonder if Raymond Lloyd. I wonder if Raymond Lloyd's
real last name is Lloyd, Like, could this person's name
be Sue Lloyd? Could it be not Sue and not Lloyd?
Do we know?
Speaker 1 (05:43):
So she the actress, actually gave her name as Sophie Lloyd,
which is what they thought her name was. In this
past week, they have gotten some information that makes them
think her name maybe Sue. I actually tried to do
an anagram of Raymond Lloyd. He did all these like
nerdy little things. Hence the magician boyfriend in middle school
continuation of nerdy theme. It doesn't there's nothing really good
(06:06):
of an anagram, so I have no idea. I think
that they've got very little to go on, and I
think they're kind of just hoping for the best.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
One of the things I wonder about is if is
if there are any old pictures, even if Raymond Lloyd
was in costume, where maybe AI could try to match
versus this almost infinitely large online database of pictures.
Speaker 1 (06:35):
That is such a good idea. Yeah, there's facial recognition software.
There's like one picture that the Guardian had from thirty
something years ago and he one of the magicians told
me that he he Raymond looked a lot like Harry Bonner,
which is true. And there's a picture of him him,
(06:56):
and there's a picture of her and it's a little blurry,
a little black and white. But if any crack pot
facial detective facial recognition people want to get on it,
I think there would be a lot of magicians in
London who would be grateful.
Speaker 2 (07:08):
I wonder if Jenny or Jenny's son has any pictures
in a box somewhere of Jenny and whoever this other
person is.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
I'm sure that's been asked, you are exactly you are
on the tracks it has But I mean, I think
he would love that I spoke with him. He doesn't.
I mean it was years ago. He hasn't He hasn't
spoken to Sue in decades, he said, Sue, Sophie, Raymond, Lloyd, whatever.
But yeah, he was. He doesn't have archives, but he was.
(07:40):
That was the first thought of the magicians too. They
went straight to him. Wow.
Speaker 2 (07:43):
So so did did Jenny's son meet Sue or whatever
her name is. Did they actually meet in person at
some point?
Speaker 1 (07:50):
I think so? Yeah. He I think she was a
good friend of his mom's and they she came around.
He remembered things about her. I think they I think,
you know, when he was a little kid. Maybe they
knew each other a little bit. But again it's been
a couple of decades. Yeah, I think the going the
going suspicion is maybe she does not want to be found. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (08:12):
I guess if she's alive then I mean it's hard
to avoid the story at this point. I mean, I
have seen it in the British press too. And if
if this person is in Britain and conscious, you know,
probably has has seen the story and It is so
interesting that this group was men only and and now
the chair, the chairperson of the group, or the president
(08:35):
of the group, whatever the title is, is a woman
who wants to find this woman and apologize. I think
that's an interesting and interesting part of the story. It
must have been. We can we can wrap it up here.
But was this a fun thing for you to get
involved with and to research?
Speaker 1 (08:51):
Oh? Yeah, it was. It was one one of my
favorite stories I've done recently. And you know, women in
magic are still really fighting for recognition. There are very
few women magicians, and I think a lot of women
in magic would love to meet someone so courageous and
so daring and so good at deception as one of
their four mothers, to thank her for being so brave.
(09:12):
Love it, Love it.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
Amelia Nierenberg's piece for The New York Times is called
Magicians Mount Search for Woman behind decades old Deception. It's
a really fun story. It's up on my blog at
Rosskominski dot com as well. If you have a hard
time finding it just in your own searching, I made
it easy for you to find.
Speaker 1 (09:31):
Amelia.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
Thanks so much for joining us from London today. Really
appreciate your time and such a fun article.
Speaker 1 (09:36):
Thank you so much,
Politically.
Speaker 2 (00:00):
All right, let me do something completely different here. Oh
I'm so excited for this conversation. And there we go,
There we go. We got that, all right, Amelia? Can
you hear me?
Speaker 1 (00:15):
Can you hear me? Oh? Yes?
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Perfect? And very sorry to connect to you late. It
was completely my brain cramp. But I'm so glad. I'm
so glad you're here. So Amelia and Ironberg is a
London based reporter for The New York Times. Did I
pronounce your last name? Writers? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (00:31):
Did I do that right? You came so close that
it almost counts as Arrenberg.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
I knew that was the other option. I knew it
was the other option, all right. So Amelia wrote up
just a really interesting story for The New York Times
a couple of days ago, and the headline is Magicians
mount search for a woman behind decades old deception. And
there's just so many interesting little twists and turns in
(00:57):
this story. And I thought I'd ask Amelia here to
tell us, tell us the story, and maybe before you
tell us a little about the story, tell us how
you found the story.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
Sure. I love magic. My first ever boyfriend was a magician.
He was like a kid's magician. And would like lock
himself in a male bag and undo it for school assemblies.
Very cool and so I've always thought magicians have just
some of the coolest skills ever. And this story was
kicking around the British press a little bit. People there
(01:29):
were reporters searching for it. But I spych on the fray.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
So tell us, tell us about the characters, tell us
about who.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
Let's do it this way.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
Who's Raymond Lloyd?
Speaker 1 (01:40):
That is the question, isn't it. So it all started
in the late in the in the late eighties or
early nineties, there were these two really spunky women. One
Jenny was a magician, one whose name we think is Sue,
was an actress, and they were really mad because of
very restigious London magic society was men only. So they
(02:04):
decided that they would come up with this character, this
Raymond Lloyd, kind of a magician in drag maybe, And
they spent two years building this character. They performed in
London magic clubs and Raymond Lloyd, played by the actress
whose name might be Sue maybe not, gained admission into
(02:25):
this all male magic society, douping and surprising all the magicians.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
So so the woman who was a magician, didn't think
she had the acting skills to pretend to be a
man and do the magic tricks in front of them,
the men who were judging it. So she trained the
actress to do the magic tricks. Is that what happened?
Speaker 1 (02:43):
Yeah, that's kind of the idea. I think. I understand
that she might have looked too much like a woman,
or was already pretty well known, so might have been
going up in front of peers who already knew her.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
Okay, So then they they create this character Raymond Lloyd,
who sufficiently impresses this very elite magic society called the
Magic Circle, that he gets gains entrance into the into
the Magic Circle. Then what happens?
Speaker 1 (03:12):
Then he's in the Magic Circle. I think he like
lit a bill on fire and had it reappear Raymond.
Raymond had to have a drink with his practitioners. He went,
He went there a couple of times, and then the
Magic Circle decided that it would allow women. So Raymond
(03:32):
told them that he was not named Raymond and he
was not a He I think probably expecting to be
welcomed and cheered and you know, saluted for this incredible
deception which is sort of what magic is all about.
And instead Raymond was promptly expelled from the society and
Raymond disappeared.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
Wow, okay, so now that there's there's two people involved
in this story, ray Raymond who might whose real name
might be Sue, and Jenny, who was the actual magician
who trained maybe Sue. So people are trying to track
them down. So what's been the success or lack thereof
(04:13):
in talking to these two people, and who's alive and
who's not now?
Speaker 1 (04:18):
So Jenny died about twenty years ago. Her son is
carrying on her business. I talked to him. He sort
of remembers this. He said his mom was a really
spunky woman, and I think was always frustrated by the
fact that she wasn't able to join the society because
she was a woman. But Raymond or Sue or whatever
(04:38):
her name is, it seems to have disappeared, and the
Magic Circle basically I think someone pulled it up, was
talking about it, pulled it out of the archive, mentioned
it to a colleague. Nothing really serious, and then there
was sort of this rain union of a couple of
the Magic Circle members who said, oh my gosh, we
had to find her. We have to apologize. This is horrible.
(05:01):
And I think they basically were hoping that she had
left an address or a phone number in the archives
and they could bring her up and say, you know,
I'm so sorry, would you like to come back? But
they've been searching their former journalists in the group and
they cannot find her. So they went to the press
hoping to sort of share the message that they'd really
love to. They think she is still alive and maybe
(05:22):
just doesn't want to want to show her show up,
But they're really hoping that they can find her and
make things right and maybe have her perform again.
Speaker 2 (05:31):
I wonder if Raymond Lloyd. I wonder if Raymond Lloyd's
real last name is Lloyd, Like, could this person's name
be Sue Lloyd? Could it be not Sue and not Lloyd?
Do we know?
Speaker 1 (05:43):
So she the actress, actually gave her name as Sophie Lloyd,
which is what they thought her name was. In this
past week, they have gotten some information that makes them
think her name maybe Sue. I actually tried to do
an anagram of Raymond Lloyd. He did all these like
nerdy little things. Hence the magician boyfriend in middle school
continuation of nerdy theme. It doesn't there's nothing really good
(06:06):
of an anagram, so I have no idea. I think
that they've got very little to go on, and I
think they're kind of just hoping for the best.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
One of the things I wonder about is if is
if there are any old pictures, even if Raymond Lloyd
was in costume, where maybe AI could try to match
versus this almost infinitely large online database of pictures.
Speaker 1 (06:35):
That is such a good idea. Yeah, there's facial recognition software.
There's like one picture that the Guardian had from thirty
something years ago and he one of the magicians told
me that he he Raymond looked a lot like Harry Bonner,
which is true. And there's a picture of him him,
(06:56):
and there's a picture of her and it's a little blurry,
a little black and white. But if any crack pot
facial detective facial recognition people want to get on it,
I think there would be a lot of magicians in
London who would be grateful.
Speaker 2 (07:08):
I wonder if Jenny or Jenny's son has any pictures
in a box somewhere of Jenny and whoever this other
person is.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
I'm sure that's been asked, you are exactly you are
on the tracks it has But I mean, I think
he would love that I spoke with him. He doesn't.
I mean it was years ago. He hasn't He hasn't
spoken to Sue in decades, he said, Sue, Sophie, Raymond, Lloyd, whatever.
But yeah, he was. He doesn't have archives, but he was.
(07:40):
That was the first thought of the magicians too. They
went straight to him. Wow.
Speaker 2 (07:43):
So so did did Jenny's son meet Sue or whatever
her name is. Did they actually meet in person at
some point?
Speaker 1 (07:50):
I think so? Yeah. He I think she was a
good friend of his mom's and they she came around.
He remembered things about her. I think they I think,
you know, when he was a little kid. Maybe they
knew each other a little bit. But again it's been
a couple of decades. Yeah, I think the going the
going suspicion is maybe she does not want to be found. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (08:12):
I guess if she's alive then I mean it's hard
to avoid the story at this point. I mean, I
have seen it in the British press too. And if
if this person is in Britain and conscious, you know,
probably has has seen the story and It is so
interesting that this group was men only and and now
the chair, the chairperson of the group, or the president
(08:35):
of the group, whatever the title is, is a woman
who wants to find this woman and apologize. I think
that's an interesting and interesting part of the story. It
must have been. We can we can wrap it up here.
But was this a fun thing for you to get
involved with and to research?
Speaker 1 (08:51):
Oh? Yeah, it was. It was one one of my
favorite stories I've done recently. And you know, women in
magic are still really fighting for recognition. There are very
few women magicians, and I think a lot of women
in magic would love to meet someone so courageous and
so daring and so good at deception as one of
their four mothers, to thank her for being so brave.
(09:12):
Love it, Love it.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
Amelia Nierenberg's piece for The New York Times is called
Magicians Mount Search for Woman behind decades old Deception. It's
a really fun story. It's up on my blog at
Rosskominski dot com as well. If you have a hard
time finding it just in your own searching, I made
it easy for you to find.
Speaker 1 (09:31):
Amelia.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
Thanks so much for joining us from London today. Really
appreciate your time and such a fun article.
Speaker 1 (09:36):
Thank you so much,
The Ross Kaminsky Show News
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