Fake Chinese Magicians

[Tom Klem]

Mike Bornstein told me that he was having trouble getting work from his Paramount agent. It seemed everyone looked like Cardini and were doing his routine. He said he was better than most but his "ugly mug" was a problem. His words not mine. So Mike reinvented himself as Kolma the Magician Mandarin as it turned the 40s. At first just in costume and later with a chinese mask made for him by Jennie Vernon. Roger Dreyer now owns it.

So Meyer Isaak Bornstein play night clubs like Leon & Eddies and travel the circuit up to Canada and down to the deep south. He once played in an "all Asian" revue with Jack Soo as the MC. You can find a image of Mike in the January 1947 Genii Magazine on page 158. He was performing in a Houdini Fund Memorial Show on November 23, 1946. He is producing a bird cage with a live dove in it. By the way it was a Lloyd cage now in my archive. I never have met a nicer man.

[Tom Klem]

I am sorry it was Isaak Meyer Bornstein and that is why in later years selling magic he used I M Bornstein. To all of us he was Mike.