Robert McDaniel has passed on

[Steve Hook]

Robert ("Bob") McDaniel, from the Austin, TX area, passed on early today following a brief illness.

You may remember that he'd written two comb-bound books of mostly card magic:

THE ROYAL TREATMENT [published by Chuck Martinez in 1981]
and CARD VENTURES [published by Mickey Hades International in 1984]

Robert was an intelligent, successful, kind, and generous person. He never performed magic professionally but his family, friends, and former employees, when seeing him perform, all experienced his many hours of planning and practice. Robert was more than a bit of a perfectionist.

His other significant interest in life was music, being an expert at keyboards and guitar. One of his teenage bands in Louisville, KY made the local record charts a couple of times back in the sixties. One of his bands even had the honor of opening for The Beach Boys one summer. He still had a hand in writing and recording music and had, over the last ten years or so, mastered several of the current, high-end computer-based recording and producing programs.

Robert was one of the best of the best and he'll be missed.

[Richard Kaufman]

His books were quite good! Our condolences.

[Steve Hook]

If you have THE ROYAL TREATMENT, go back and work up "Triple Decker Kings" again. Signed-card or not, it's an impressive routine for laymen....and it's fun to do. Robert put a lot of work into his set-list and this was a fortuitous amalgamation of three separate tricks. I know Greg Eanes has gotten a lot of mileage out of the routine over the years, as have I.

And thanks for your kind comment, Richard.

[Brad Henderson]

Lived in austin for decades and never heard of or ran into him. oddly, also grew up in the louisville ring and never heard of him there either. shame. sounds like the kind of guy you’d want to know