He also attended Abbott's Get-Together and Wisconsin's Houdini Club Conventions. Soon after he had 'The Great Hendoo' business cards printed and places an ad in the local paper: 'Magician, Have Rabbit, Will Travel.' From then on he was busy performing two to three shows per week for $15 a show.Īt age 16 Doug began performing magic in local TV shows and started to attend meetings of Toronto's famed Hat & Rabbit Club. His father built him a magic table and in 1961, at age 14, Doug performed his first paid show at a friend's birthday party for the princely sum of $5. In 1956 Doug’s father received a promotion and the family moved to Oakville, Ontario. 'I was so shy,' he recalled, 'When company came I used to hide in the clothes hamper.' 'That was the first time I had ever given anybody wonder! It was a marvelous feeling.' His mother then encouraged a shy Doug to perform for his two sisters Nancy and Carol, hoping it would draw him out. Inside was a tinier box, and in that a little cloth bag, within which he found his own marked coin.

Then he reached around to his rear pocket to produce a tiny box, which he asked his father to open. An industrious Doug then makes his props from cardboard, tin cans, and construction paper he then talks his parents into buying a magic kit.ĭoug once asked his father to scratch an identifying mark on a coin, which Doug wrapped in a handkerchief and made disappear. He soon finds his way to the local library where he finds the usual library books on magic.

When he asked his mother how it's done, she told him, 'That's magic!' Doug was hooked. Henning was born on in the Winnipeg suburb of Fort Gary, Manitoba to father Clarke Henning (an air line pilot for Air Canada) and mother Shirley Jean Henning (nee Rutherford.)Īt six years old, he watched Richiardi Jr on the Ed Sullivan Show float a young lady in mid-air.

Magician art of illusion 70s