The magic of Brian Gillis remembered
Brian Gillis, in front of Hollywood’s famed Magic Castle. Photo via gillismagic.com
The squeaky loaf of bread, a goof guaranteed to confuse laymen and abolish the mundane, was one of Brian Gillis’s favorite pranks.
“We’d be in Costco, he’d hide this squeaker in his hand, he would push the loaf of bread with his pointer finger, and it would squeak,” Andy Hill, half of musical duo Andy and Renee and one of Gillis’s close friends, said. “And it was almost always with a girl cashier – it one of his flirting techniques.”
Everywhere he went, Gillis – a world-class magician – carried a squeaker as one of eight things he made sure he had before he left the house. It was a whole world in his pocket, Hill said, that allowed him to practice magic, his greatest passion, anywhere, at any time, for anyone.
Gillis died last week, on July 2, of health complications following quadruple bypass surgery. He was 71 years old.
“He was such a big presence…I loved being around Brian, because he brought me into this state of wonder, and added on a layer that let me see other people brought under that same umbrella of wonder,” Hill said.
The height of Gillis’s fame may have come during the late 1980s and early 1990s when he earned his billing as “Johnny Carson’s favorite magician.”
The longtime host of NBC’s “Tonight Show,” Carson was an amateur magician himself and loved Gillis’s brand of close-up, small-group stagecraft.
Those appearances show the core of Gillis’s act: He was funny and charismatic, giving him an excellent rapport with his audience. That allowed for his sleight-of-hand trickery and skill to work its magic. He performed on Carson’s show five times, more than any other magician during his tenure.
Gillis’s career carried him around the country, performing corporate gigs for major corporations. He was a fixture at Hollywood’s famed Magic Castle, both as a performer and an onlooker. He was a magician to the stars, performing privately for the likes of Johnny Depp, Muhammad Ali and Paul McCartney, the latter who challenged him during a gig, according to a podcast with fellow magician, The Amazing Johnathan.
Gillis had asked McCartney to pick a playing card, remember it, and place it back in the deck. McCartney held up, asking “What if I don’t?”
“Well, this is my show,” Gillis said.
“This is my (expletive) party,” McCartney replied, before smiling and playing along without further incident.
Gillis’s professional life began as a teacher of philosophy — though he soon ditched that life.
“He really hated it,” Hill said. “He didn’t really like interfacing with young people, and trying to mentor them.”
Education was but a pitstop while Gillis turned to his true passion, magic performance, which he began in college. His first gig was in his hometown, Niagara Falls, performing an illusion show.
“It was a plug-in show — someone else choreographed the entire show, and I was a magician, going through it,” Gillis said during a 2013 podcast interview with Johnathan, before growing sheepish. “I was in whiteface … an illusionist mime.”
He carried on without the greasepaint, and his career would take him from New York and around the country, including a stop in Tennessee’s Dollywood, before ending up in Los Angeles.
It was in the South Bay, in 1996, that he met his longtime partner, Sisuepahn Phila, at a stop light.
Sisuepahn and her friends were in a car at Aviation Boulevard and Grant Avenue. Gillis pulled up beside them, and after catching Sisuepahn’s eye, he asked where they were going, and if he could join them.
The women said yes. Within a year, Sisuepahn and Gillis were an item, both romantically and (as Sisuepahn trained in her craft) as a magic stage duo.
In 2003, they moved into what they called the Redondo Castle, a fitting name for the tall, spired home they shared for about 10 years. There they hosted parties, movie viewings and, often, traveling entertainers.
The two ended their romance after eight years, though they remained roommates until 2013 when Gillis moved to Hollywood, and close friends and act partners until Gillis’s death.
“He was so kind to anyone in entertainment … he embraced anyone in the entertainment field with open arms,” Hill said. Gillis, he said, was not one for professional jealousy. “I’m just a workman entertainer, a local guy. He was my champion, and he treated me like a star.”
The Amazing Johnathan (real name John Szeles) met Gillis at Hollywood’s Magic Castle, shortly after moving to Los Angeles.
“He was one of the first friends I made. I didn’t know anyone when I moved to LA…and he was my biggest fan,” Johnathan said.
Though their friendship was built as much around magic and pranks (“I got him on about a million practical jokes,” Johnathan said) the two were often each others’ support.
Gillis was there when Johnathan was going through his divorce, offering a shoulder to lean on and, at times, a literal human punching bag.
“He used to train in his house, had a boxing ring in his yard, and he’d box every day … when I was down and out, he let me just whale on him, just kick his ass. He had a great sense of humor and had a great life. He just lived,” Johnathan said.
Gillis was a man who loved life, loved entertaining and loved impressing the fairer sex, particularly younger women. He spent money like it was burning a hole in his pocket (and used a trick wallet, which burst into flames upon opening, to underscore that), buying cars, suits, and new tricks, no matter the cost.
“But he’s one of the few people I’ve lent money to that’s paid me back,” Johnathan said. The two continued to be there for each other when the Great Recession of the late 2000s bottomed out the entertainment industry, and magicians suffered.
Just speaking about Gillis tears Johnathan up inside. A resident of Las Vegas, Johnathan was unable to be present for Gillis’s last days.
“I always thought he’d be there at my bedside. I was given about a year-and-a-half to live about three years ago, and I figured he’d be there for me,” Johnathan said.
Gillis had one more gig planned for just a few days before his death. The founder of the Magic Castle, Milt Larsen, hired Gillis to work a VIP party on June 29 at a new venture, the Magic Castle Cabaret, in Santa Barbara. His hospitalization threw a wrench into the plan.
“He was going to be our walk-around, and he was my favorite choice of the pros to do that,” Larsen said. “Whether he was doing card tricks at someone’s table or on stage doing his act, he was a magician who could entertain a hundred people, 10,000 people, or just two people. We lost a special friend.”
Johnathan was unable to be in Redondo last weekend for a memorial hosted by Sisuepahn. But his plan, he said, is to host another memorial at the Magic Castle in Gillis’s honor.
“I was always taking care of Brian. He’s the one guy I would always make sure he was comfortable, and he was the same for me,” Johnathan said.
Andy and Renee helped to host the memorial, but as Hill recalled, it was a long-standing joke that they would have to pull up with a van and work for an hour before they could entertain.
Gillis, a consummate entertainer, only needed a few props and the element of surprise
“He would always check his pockets for the eight things, and as long as he had those eight things, he could get through anything,” Hill said.