A rich, full life well-lived.
Early in my career, I was trying to find who I wanted to be and what I wanted to do. Magic was my vehicle as a performer. I struggled to reconcile my background in both music and theater with what it meant to perform magic for a living. When I moved to Bradford, N.H. in 1995, neighbors, upon hearing my work, inevitably said, “Do you know about Potter Place?” I made the effort to travel the 19 miles to experience his show. The performer was dressed head to toe in period clothing from the early 1800s and had a simple setup. The props looked like ordinary objects because they were. He bantered with the gathering audience, expounding on Potter’s background and what led him to Potter Place. His eyes glittered with enthusiasm. He struck his wand upon his table and instantly we were all transported back in time. The show was enchanting. It was funny. It was gasp-inducing. It was some of the best theater I had ever seen and it was also a magic show!
That was the first of maybe 20 times I saw Robert A. Olson perform as Potter. Whenever he was performing near me I made sure I was there. Every single time I felt the same delight as that first moment. With Robert’s permission I videotaped his performances and studied them. I invited people to go see his shows with me. A few times I forced hardened magicians to go see Robert’s work who were surprised and delighted when he fooled and entertained them while engaging them in play. Not a play. Play.
Robert was the product of his time and learned from everyone he encountered. The list of some of his friends and acquaintances from his formative years is legion: Connie Haden, Cardini, Dai Vernon, Charlie Miller, Jack Chanin, Jay Marshall, Don Alan, Duke Stern, Senator Crandall, Jerry Andrus, Bruce Elliott, Bob Pearce, “The Amazing” Randi, Richard Himber, Tommy Tucker, Al Flosso, Stanley Palm, Charles Reynolds, and others.
Robert was erudite, passionate, fun, generous, loving, and dedicated to his family and friends. His whimsy underlined his deep commitment to sharing history with others. He spent a lifetime acquiring skills and passing them on. Starting in the early 1970s, Robert spent a significant portion of his life working and performing at Old Sturbridge Village in Massachusetts. He boasted that he could demonstrate almost all of the trades equally well. He may be best known for his work highlighting the memory of the first American-born magician of note, Richard Potter, through thousands of performances throughout New England and around the world. Robert’s name will forever be associated with Potter, but he portrayed other people: Mr. Bayly, Charles Dickens, EA Davis, and Harrel the Merry Wizard, as well as the fictional characters Harry Ames and Hieronymous Scotto.
It is rare for performers to have a master/apprentice experience. At some point, Robert saw something in me and asked me to continue his work in historical entertainments with an eye on sharing Potter and others with the world. He helped me throughout the development of my shows as Jonathan Harrington. It has been an incredible opportunity to use the skills he taught me to entertain audiences brought there by the decades of wonder, delight, and play he shared with his audiences. He loved them and they loved him back. I had hoped he might have had the opportunity to see me demonstrate the lessons he had worked so hard to instill. Sadly that was not to be. We talked for a bit one day early on, but he passed away peacefully 10 days shy of his 87th birthday.
Robert spent his life as a husband, father, builder, historian, collector, auctioneer, magic dealer, student, performer, researcher, and friend who brought enormous joy to hundreds of thousands over the course of his lifetime. There will always be a part of him onstage with me whenever I perform.
Robert’s enthusiasm was infectious and he went out of his way to infect as many as possible. Some might call this his love language. And how he was loved.