The Magic of Murray
In this week’s History of Magic, we’ll look into someone who was given the full name Leo Norman Maurien Murray Stuart Carrington Walters at birth, and who later changed his name to “Murray the Escapologist”. Born in 1901 in Melbourne, he had seen two famous magicians perform before age 10 and at that early age, he had decided to become a magician. Shortly after, the family moved to Sydney and soon afterwards young Leo began to perform small shows in their neighbourhood. Leo had a strong interest in travel and in his late teens joined the Union Steam Ship Company’s RMS Niagara to Vancouver where he cut his work short and disembarked. He managed to perform a few shows that paid his way to America by ship to Seattle, Washington. However despite approaching theatrical agents, Leo found not much work as a virtually unknown magician.