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Correction: I meant "Hollywood 26, Calif." That's the way it's listed on the front cover of the Wheeler catalog Yellow Phantom just purchased. My typo. Or rather their typo. The 6660 street address has always been part of the "28" postal code; right up to this day. But the plot gets even stranger. I just looked at an eBay screen shot I saved of what I think is the back cover page of the catalog. And there the address lists the proper five digit zip code - 90028! Also, under the business name Bert Wheeler Hollywood Magic, Inc. it says St. Pierre Enterprises. That would be either the Louis St. Pierre I mentioned five posts up who owned the shop after Wheeler's demise, or Louis' son Greg. We'll have to wait for Yellow's input to sort some of this out.

vayapues: You've mentioned you used to visit the Bert Wheeler shop in the early 60s. During that period did you ever happen to see a make-up artist named Gary Morris lurking around in the shadows? I'm referring to a feature Famous Monsters mag ran in 1965 called The Boy Who Became a Monster. You know - the kid with the "fried egg" eye. The kid proclaims: "Who has done this to me? I suspect GARY MORRIS, that great Hollywood make-up artist that I met in the Bert Wheeler House of Magic!"

When I read this as a kid I interpreted it as meaning Gary Morris actually worked at the shop. I don't necessarily interpret it that way now. Here's a photo of the monster kid "hooking" Morris:



The Gary Morris mentioned here 'may' be the one listed on this IMDB page. Interestingly, the article also says: "Lucky that Morris Scott Dollens was there to photograph my nightmare." I'm wondering if it was this Morris Scott Dollens. Who knows, maybe Mr. Dollens photographed the Burman masks in the Wheeler catalog!

Man, was it four months since I was last here? Time flies; seems like yesterday. Hmm, what's happened since then? Hope everyone made it through April tax time unscathed. I wasn't so lucky and am still trying to adjust to the discomfort and indignity of wearing an oak barrel for attire. But I digress...

CMG: Thank you much for filling in so many of the blanks surrounding the Hollywood Magic shop. You obviously must have connections with the shop to be privy to some of the info you've provided, and it really does help flesh out the story nicely. I've since uncovered a few more minor details to add. I was curious about the age of Bert Wheeler when he perished in the plane crash. He was born February 22, 1909, so he was 37 at the time of the crash. Louis St. Pierre, Sr. of course took over the shop afterward. He died on November 18, 1971 at age 81. His son Louis St. Pierre, Jr., as you mention, took over afterward. He was born July 18, 1926. You allude to his death, but I can find no info online about him dying. Do you happen to have the date he passed away, CMG?

One thing that puzzled me was the reference to 1971 "when they split the magic from the toys and games, moving the magic store to 6660 Hollywood Blvd."  You mentioned when the 6268 and 6614 stores opened, but there's no mention about when the 6660 store opened. Since I've seen the shop's magazine ads going back as far as 1950 with the 6660 address, I know it was up and running at least that long ago. I'd always assumed they were selling magic tricks at the 6660 shop from the beginning, but I'm not so sure about that now. Or am I simply misunderstanding the nature of the move you were referring to? I'm hoping you can clarify this a bit.

Okay, so we get to the part where St. Pierre, Jr's kids take over. This would be Greg and...Janor? On a previous post I mentioned a forum on the Magic Cafe website where there had been a discussion about Hollywood Magic closing. There's another forum on a different website that goes into more details about the closing. According to this one things became so heated between brother and sister that cops were dispatched to restore order. Sounds remarkably similar to the way things go down whenever I get together with my sisters. The same forum poster commented that the place looked like a crime scene, with police preventing anyone from entering the store. It's also stated that the sibling dispute has escalated into legal actions and countersuits. After the blowup, as you've already pointed out, the shop closed down for good; during the peak Halloween season.

If your statement is accurate about the store's items being sold off or put into storage, at least the latter scenario lends hope that some of the shop's historical items may not be forever hidden from public view among private collections. The previously mentioned web forum carries a post from four months ago claiming that Greg St. Pierre has all the inventory that was in the store and is planning to open a new store in the Southern California area "as soon as possible." I don't know how accurate that is but I do know I'd like to talk with Greg St. Pierre, since his connection to the shop goes back quite a while.

If you can unearth those black & white photos and old catalogs, CMG, they'd be a real treat for viewers of this thread. Here's hoping you're able to find them!       

Some of you have probably already seen the photos that have been floating around the web for a while of actors Nick Adams and Natalie Wood inside the Bert Wheeler shop. I've been trying to get a definitive date for these photos but the best I could come up with was "mid-50s." Certainly the presence of such recognizable masks as Topstone's Shock Monster (probably still called Horror Zombie at the time) would place the photos within a mid-to-late 1950s timeframe. One backstory, true or not, that seems to be connected to the photos involves gossip at the time about Adams' sexual preferences. It's claimed the studio's way of dealing with this was to pair Nick up with an actress from their roster and dispatch the couple on a sojourn to public places with a photographer in tow in order to calm and reassure a terrified public that Nick was a regular guy who spent his time banging Natalie Wood when not making movies. And the great thing about this studio policy is that we ended up with these nice interior snapshots -- originally intended for movie magazines -- of the 1950s Bert Wheeler shop! It's apparent that many of the masks seen on display served double-duty by wearing hats and wigs that were also for sale. And even mustaches. It appears the fake mustache Nick Adams is wearing in the first photo is the same one fitted on the mask to the right of Shock Monster!