Magician Le Roy Bequeaths Stock of Tricks
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The Amazing Master Miller
Unusual bequest sets up a 16-year-old Georgia schoolboy in the magic business
Life Magazine, March 8, 1954
Until he had reached the age of 11, Richard Miller III did just about the same things as the other boys in suburban Hapeville, Georgia. Then his father brought home a $2 magic set. Instead of promptly losing the pieces, Richard became adept at little stunts of legerdemain. The next year, when LeRoy Loewner, a professional magician, came through on tour, Richard's father not only got tickets for the performance but arranged an introduction as well. The boy and the magician became friends, and last year when Loewner died he bequeathed Richard his entire stock of tricks.
Today at 16 Richard is the youngest full-fledged member of the Atlanta Magicians' Club and the only high school boy in Hapeville who can make flowers bloom in two minutes, conjure up a canary and successfully stab a young girl with a dozen swords and permit her to emerge alive and smiling. He is in such demand as a performer that he earns as much as $110 a night, which in time will enable him to go to college and learn a useful profession.
Richard's benefactor was
magician Le Roy Loewner