Magic Mansion Jordan Price (best non fiction books of all time txt) 📖

CHARITY YOUNG AND OSCAR could not be reached for comment at the time of this show’s airing.

All stunts were performed in the presence of trained coordinators and emergency personnel. Do not attempt to re-create these stunts at home. Portions of this program not affecting the outcome, such as the event chronology and contestant comments/reactions may have been edited. Winning and elimination decisions were made by the judges in consultation with producers. Some elimination decisions were discussed with the network.

Chapter 41

WALK OF FAME

When most people think of ceremonies and red carpets and awards, men in their sharp suits and women in satiny gowns, they usually imagine these events taking place at night. Not so, the unveiling of a star on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame. Ricardo was impressed by the rigorous and precise preparation. The speeches would begin promptly at 11:30 a.m. Stars were expected to arrive between 10:45 and 11:00. And the ceremony ran with clockwork precision, friends and family in one area, press in another, fans in another still, orchestrated by a sharp female producer who could have been separated at birth from Marlene Perez.

John sipped his champagne and gazed out the limo’s window, stroking his beard. Ricardo had begged him to wear the Edwardian suit with the cutaway coat, the striped trousers and the black silk top hat. His custom made version was even hotter than the one they’d thrown together in three days for the Boardwalk Challenge. John had given the idea serious consideration, but in the end, he went with his impeccable black three-button Versace. He looked fabulous in that, too. But it didn’t reduce Ricardo to a salivating wreck in quite the same way the period costume did. John told him the ceremony was more about Rose and Glenn than it was about Professor Topaz. He didn’t want to upstage them.

Fat chance of that. Ricardo spied the cluster of Magic Mansion T-shirts from the end of the block as the limo turned the corner onto Vine. Modern audiences knew Glenn Forrest and Rose Topaz all right—but only as the aunt and uncle of Magic Mansion’s infamously gay Professor Topaz.

John and Ricardo exited the limo to the pyrotechnic dazzle of dozens of camera strobes. Ricardo took his cues from John, following his gaze, so that the two of them were more likely to be facing the same way in the same shots. It would be less likely they’d be cropped apart if neither of them was presenting the back of his head to the lens. Down the red carpet—how different it was from Magic Mansion—and into the staging area, where they waited for the ceremony to begin.

John fingered the cards in his pocket. He’d practiced his speech so that he knew it by heart—but Ricardo had talked him into bringing his notes just in case, knowing that if he had them at hand, he’d be less likely to need them.

David Copperfield, the first living magician to receive his star on the Boulevard, did the opening speech. His manner was stunningly down-to-earth for someone who owned a chain of islands in the Bahamas. He’d seen Glenn and Rose perform as a boy, and still had the utmost respect for them. When he referred to John, whom he’d only met once, he was as warm and gracious as if the two of them had been magician-pals for ages. He was handsome, too—only a few years younger than John, and he looked like he was in his forties. True magic had its perks.

Jia Lee spoke next. She’d flown in from Brussels only the night before, but you wouldn’t have known it. Her makeup, hair and cheongsam were impeccable. Women like Rose Topaz, she said, could not expect to rise above the role of magician’s assistant a mere forty years before. If only she were alive today to see how far the art had come. John surreptitiously chafed away goosebumps. In a few of his family photos, Rose did bear a striking resemblance to Jia.

Fabian Swan, rocking his purple tux in the friends and family section, nodded his agreement. Beside him, Amazing Faye shot Ricardo a pointed look that clearly stated, “See, it’s not easy being a woman in this business.” She should try being openly gay. That was a three-ring circus. And not the kind with trapezes and cotton candy.

Finally, it was John’s turn to speak. He stepped up to the podium and looked at its surface as if he was considering pulling out his note cards, but instead he tilted the microphone toward himself, stepped back half a pace so as to resist clinging to the furniture and thus keep full use of his expressive hands, and he began.

“If anyone is responsible for the long and unlikely journey that’s ended in Glenn and Rose receiving their star, it’s my agent, an old family friend, Dick Golding. Along with the producers of Magic Mansion, Dick spearheaded the campaign in exchange for my participation on the show. However, I wouldn’t have been in a position to appear on Magic Mansion at all if it weren’t for…Casey Cornish.”

John paused and took a breath. He’d never been a notorious weeper, not like the rest of the Magic Mansion crowd. But he did, on occasion, find himself choked up.

“Casey’s personality lit up the room. My years with him kept me young. He taught me how to love, and how to laugh. I don’t think he ever meant to teach me how strong I could be. But that turned out to be the main lesson I took away from the end of our time together.”

Ricardo blinked back a sting in his eyes. Faye was dabbing around the edge of her mascara.

“And now, of course, Ricardo the Magnificent can also take plenty of credit for us all being here today. Ricardo and I met during Magic Mansion’s auditions—and the hope that we might meet again was my true motivation for signing on to the show.”

John looked up and met Ricardo’s