Tobias Bamberg

Theo Bamberg ( born July 15, 1875 in Amsterdam, † June 28, 1963 in Chicago; Complete name Tobias Leendert Theodore Bamberg) was a Dutch- American magician with the stage name Okito.

Life

Theo Bamberg Bamberg came from the family that had already produced several generations of magicians, and even as a boy stood on the stage. His father was David Tobias Bamberg. At the age of eleven, he appeared in front of the royal family. Due to an accident he lost in 1891 as a young man his hearing almost entirely. Then he took the stage name Okito - an anagram of Tokyo - and gave up after 1893 as Japanese from which did not communicate with the audience because of ignorance of the European languages. His specialty was the floating sphere. He toured many European countries and China in 1906 and 1907, the Dutch East Indies.

In 1908 he was hired by Howard Thurston, who had taken over the Kellar show, as a shadow player. He remained until about 1920 in the United States, whose citizenship he received in 1916, he returned to Europe. From 1908 to 1912 existed in New York City on Broadway (No. 1193 ), the Bamberg Magic and Novelty Company.

Theo Bamberg was married since 1903. In 1938 he traveled to South America to visit his eldest son Fu - Manchu (David Bamberg) there. In addition to this he had another son named Donald, and a daughter named Dorothy. After the invasion of the Germans in the Netherlands he did not return to his homeland. In the following decades he lived mainly in the United States.

Bamberg was buried in the Westlawn Cemetery in Norridge, Cook County ( Illinois).

Bamberg has a place in the Hall of Fame of the Society of American Magicians today.