Hi,

Where I can find his biography?

Many thanks,

Santiago M

http://www.dragonskull.co.uk/mym_intro.htm

But I mean a full book, or any book from him?

Hmmm, well, he put out several bookish type things. They're rare(ish) and very expensive now, though. As far as biographical information goes, there are stories. But, they vary according to who is telling them, and how they felt about Tony.

I have heard that he runaway from Italy and changed his name because a problem with the mafia. I also heard that he became weird, and that he was all the day in his bizzarre character. But because I don't know that from sure, I have to remain silent until I read them...

If you can find Genni, Oct 2000, the cover and main body is dedicated to Tony.
Good Luck
KW

He ran away from Texas, not Italy. It had more to do with Mark Wilson than the mafia. If you are running away from the mafia, you don't run to Chicago! He tried of comedy magic and embraced bizarre magic. He kept the persona up all the time to a degree. He was ready to perform at any given moment, but he was not always 'on'. He had a sardonic sense of humor and loved a good gag, so he was a dark charater but not morose.

Rumors had it that his leaving Texas had something to do with the Kennedy Assassination along with another person involved also. The story goes that a note was to be delivered to Jack Ruby the night before that said, "Do not deliver the package."

Who the other person in the story skips me for the moment.

If anyone can fill me in on any of this it would be of interest.

Dick

Tom Palmer… later “Tony”, had more skeletons buried in his closet than many graveyards can boast. His biography could be titled “The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly”.

On top of the facts of his double-or-triple lives, and shifts from high-comedy magic, to builder/dealer, to bizarre guru, were the stories that were totally false but he and others took great joy in planting.

Growing up in Chicago I knew him in his “Tom” phase and have had to piece that together with his post tar-and-feathers “Tony” phase. The people who knew him throughout his life are getting older or have passed on, and even now it would be difficult to untwist fact from fancy I think.

People loved him true, but others mistrusted and detested him as well, to call him a “scamp” would be kind, this icon had feet of clay. His immersion into Bizarre Magick was a perfect case of necessity being the mother of great invention, from the stories shared with me.

Perhaps someone should get about the project of writing up his life in book form, but I think it might be better told as a work of historical-fiction… and I believe he’d like it better that way…. in the style of the great comic-book magicians of the 1940’s.

On the other hand, many hate to see their heroes “warts-and-all”, so maybe better let the tales live without being amplified by the facts?

Magically,
Walt

Though I never met him, it always sounded to me, as if his warts were what made him most interesting.

You can tell a lot about his performance, by watching the generation of bizarrists who knew and were influenced by him.

Tony, then known as Tom Palmer, worked for Mark Wilson during Mark's days in Texas. When Mark went to California to do TV he didn't take Tony. Apparently it hit Tony very hard and that is what caused a bit of personal reassetment and the move to Chicago. There was the Jack Ruby connection and "Don't deliver the package" message, but it has been found that this was not connected to the Kennedy assassination.

The "other person" was none other than Bob Cassidy.

There are many conflicting stories about Tom. I knew him, but not as well as I knew his first wife, the late Gloria Jacobsen Palmer MarcoM. According to Gloria, the other person was not Bob Cassidy, but Al Sharpe. According to Gloria, the message was "Tell Jack to cancel the contract."

Tom told a lot of people that he moved to Chicago to get away from the Mafia. I agree with Todd that this doesn't make any sense at all. I heard other things from Gloria, as well as their two daughters who are friends of mine. I don't know Tom's son well, but we have met on a couple of occasions.

MarcoM probably has more valid information about Tom than anyone else.

I have serious doubts that Tom's remaining family would approve of any biography of him that would be written without a lot of direct input from MarcoM.

Tom and I were on good terms. When the first Punx book was published, Punx called him from my house, and they chatted for a few minutes. Then I spoke with Tom as well. After his fire, the one that killed his second wife, I called him to see if there was anything I could do for him. He said that it wasn't necessary, but then he added that Magical Adventures and Fairy Tales was one of the only items that had survived the fire, unscathed.

Every one of the people who knew him had a different story about why he left Dallas. Part of this was part of the mystery that surrounded him. And part of it was a liberal layer of excrement of the male bovine that Tom, himself, provided.

He was a one-off.

Docc Hilford could also add a lot to the tale.

But if Docc wrote the book, it would cost $2,000 and strangely resemble the life story of Ted Annemann.



That was just a joke, so please don't flame me.

Nah, Docc'd write a bunch of 20-page books, and sell the story bit by bit.

I'm going to start compiling as many anecdotes about Tony from those who knew them (realizing that the list is rapidly diminishing) and start putting them together into a book.

It would be a shame if Tony's story was forgotten to the mists of time.

I'm going to be trying to talk to those who knew him, and I'm sure the stories will be bizarre, contradictory, and ultimately entertaining.

If you have a story or two to share, please e-mail me at Philemon@ElementalEntertainment.com

This will be a labor of love for a great and enigmatic man.

Philemon,

When the book is released, please tell me

Philemon,

As Bill suggests I'd get some form of blessing from the family that is still around,
o you don't spin your wheels for nothing or end up in court,
particularly with a subject where fact and fiction so frequently blur.

That said, would you be looking for "Tom" trivia, "Tony" trivia, or both?

Paul Osborne worked with Tom as a teen helping him to build illusions and would be a good early source.

Magically,
Walt

(We’ll have to trade stories someday of what Max first said on meeting me.)

A brief look on the internet yielded some information. I put the addresses so you can look for yourself.
I also found an article from "Magic" magazine I have pasted a section of it here- I hope I'm not infringing on copyright, but you have to read quite a lot of the article to find the segment on Tom Palmer (It's an article about Alton Sharpe)
I thought the part about "They were teaching me how to play poker pretty funny.

http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/russ/jfkinfo/jfk9/hscv9ref.htm

(902) Deposition of Thomas Palmer, July 20, 1978, House Select Committee on A. ssassinations, p. 15 (JFK Document 010659).
(925) FBI interview with Thomas Palmer, Dec. 16, 1963 (JFK Document 013937).
(960) FBI interview with Bobby Faye (Dec. 6, 1963), Ruby FBI files serial 810, pp. 307-08.
(961) Ibid.; and see ref. 926 above and accompanying text.
(962) FBI interview with Bobby Faye (Dec. 6, 1963), Ruby FBI files serial 810, pp. 307-08.
(963) See ref. 898, Palmer testimony, p. 213. Abe Weinstein told the Committee that AGVA never said a word to him about amateur nights. See ref. 898, Weinstein deposition, pp. 26 and 69. This seems unlikely in light of the overall situation, and, further, Palmer told the Warren Commission that as a result of the November 13 letter, Abe Weinstein suspended his amateur nights and Barney Weinstein indicated that he was going to relinquish his AGVA affiliation.
(964) Ibid., Palmer testimony, p. 213. The letter read: "Dear Jack: I don't know why you have to prove to me that business is not too good in your place. I never doubted your word. However, Mr. Irving Mazzei and
Tom Palmer are handling your situation and they will not do anything to hurt you. This is the story, that there are rules and regulations, and we have to adhere to the rules and regulations. Nobody is trying to hurt anyone and we, particularly don't want to hurt anyone who hires our people. I am sure you will come to an equitable understanding with Mr. Palmer and Mr. Mazzei." See Ruby FBI files, serial 634. pp. 745-46. (965) FBI interview with
Alton Sharpe, Nov. 26, 1963, Ruby FBI files serial 217, CE2323, 25 Warren Hearings, 284.


http://www.jfkassassination.net/russ/testimony/crowe.htm

Mr. HUBERT. Well, did you see anyone or talk to anyone after returning to your apartment?
Mr. CROWE. I don't know whether it was that night or the night after I called a friend of mine's house, Tom Palmer. I spoke with his wife about the incident.
Mr. HUBERT. Did you talk to Jack Ruby at any time between the assassination of the President, and the time Oswald was shot?
Mr. CROWE. I never spoke to or seen Jack Ruby again from Thursday night.

Mr. HUBERT. Do you recall what your recollection concerning the identification of Oswald in Ruby's club was when you spoke to the FBI and the agents of the Secret Service?
Mr. CROWE. That I had thought possibly I had seen Oswald the week before.
Mr. HUBERT. By the week before you mean the week commencing on the 11th?
Mr. CROWE. Right.
Mr. HUBERT. Can you now or have you ever been able to fix the time of that possible event more closely than just simply the week before?
Mr. CROWE. No, no.
Mr. HUBERT. Now when did it first occur to you that you had seen Oswald in the club?
Mr. CROWE. When I saw his picture in the paper Saturday or Sunday morning, I guess it was.
Mr. HUBERT. Did you convey your impression to anyone?
Mr. CROWE. Not before the radio newsman in front of the club.
Mr. HUBERT. Is there any reason why you did not?
Mr. CROWE. I had seen no one before then. Hardly anybody to speak to.
Mr. HUBERT. I am thinking from this point of view. You tell me that you had on Saturday come to some tentative conclusion that possibly you had seen his man in the Carousel Club the week before.
Mr. CROWE. Yes.
Mr. HUBERT. Did it occur to you that that information could be valuable to the police?
Mr. CROWE. No.
Mr. HUBERT. And you spoke to no one at all from the time you woke up on the afternoon of the 22d at 4 o'clock, until you met these radio people in front of the club?
Mr. CROWE. Oh, yes, I had been out at Tom Palmer's house that Saturday night.
Mr. HUBERT. Was that the only person you saw or conversed with?
Mr. CROWE. Actually, yes.
Mr. HUBERT. Did you mention to him that you had thought you had seen or it was possible that you had seen Oswald?
Mr. CROWE. No.
Mr. HUBERT. Can you tell us why not, because may I suggest to you that it would have been quite a topic of conversation. Also the coincidences that you mentioned were almost there at that time?
Mr. CROWE. I never drew up the series of coincidences until Sunday morning, because the fourth coincidence didn't happen until then.

Mr. HUBERT. Is it fair to say that if you had actually thought on Saturday that you had seen the killer of the President in the Carousel Club the week before that you would, might, have mentioned that fact to Mr. Palmer whom you visited on Saturday night?
Mr. CROWE. Not necessarily. We discussed the assassination of the President in brief, and then they taught me how to play poker and we didn't talk about it. I didn't care to talk about it. It was too unpleasant for me.

http://jfkassassination.net/russ/jfkinfo......htm#cuba

MAGIC article
During Al's two-year tenure at the Dallas AGVA office, he often opened a door or two for his fellow magi. Harry Blackstone Jr. showed up in 1962, not long after earning his master's degree at the University of Texas, looking for work. "Harry had left his job with the radio station [KTBC] in Austin and he really didn't have an act, yet. So I called up Jack Ruby, who owned the Carousel Club, and told him that there's a guy in town whose father was a famous magician. Right away, Jack offered to audition Harry on the midnight show." Blackstone put together some card tricks and did his father's Rope Tie and injected some comic relief into the Carousel's bill of exotic dancers. The audience loved him. Jack Ruby loved him. And the strippers loved him. Blackstone ended up working almost six months at the Carousel before heading out to Los Angeles, where he'd soon launch a magic career by going on television with the Smothers Brothers.
When Sharpe left Dallas in May of 1962 to go to the AGVA office in St. Louis, he offered magician Tom Palmer the branch manager position, a job Palmer would take and keep until February of 1964. Not long after Al completed his clean-up duties in St. Louis and Denver (where he had to fire the same AGVA rep he knew from his college days), he returned to Chicago and soon found out that his legal services were no longer needed.
"About that time, because of my experiences with union negotiations, I was invited to join a well-established Chicago law firm and become a partner." The firm that Sharpe would partner with for the next two decades specialized in labor relations with major airlines, including TWA and American Airlines. And several of the cases that Al would work on took him before the Supreme Court.
* * *
It was at this point in his life that Alton Sharpe became involved in the FBI investigations surrounding the November 22, 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
Sharpe had been gone from the Dallas AGVA office for a little over a year when, in the summer of 1963, Carousel Club owner Jack Ruby became totally disgruntled with the union's policy permitting non-professional strippers to perform at nightclubs under AGVA's jurisdiction. He was adamant that the competition was employing inexperienced girls and promoting "amateur nights" in a manner calculated to destroy his business.
About a week before the Kennedy assassination, Ruby received a letter from AGVA branch manager, Tom Palmer, stating that modifications to the policy were being considered and amateur nights "would not be tolerated." The letter upset Ruby; his discontent with the Dallas office grew acute. He called Sharpe at the AGVA office in Chicago, soliciting his help. Al suggested that Jack mail a copy of Palmer's letter and he'd look into it. Not long after Ruby's call, on November 21, Sharpe's services were suspended by AGVA.
On November 23, the day after the JFK assassination, Sharpe and his wife phoned the Dallas AGVA office to tell Tom Palmer of Al's termination. Because Tom was not in the office to take the call, the secretary was told of Al's misfortune. Before they hung up, Sharpe gave the secretary a message: "Tell Jack not to send the letter today, it would be awkward in Chicago."
The secretary did not tell Palmer of her conversation with Al until the next morning. And she never attempted to "tell Jack not to send the letter..." It didn't matter. Jack Ruby had been arrested and jailed for the murder of suspected presidential assassin Lee Harvey Oswald. The following day, Tom contacted the FBI, informing them of the phone call from Al.
On November 25, when FBI agents interrogated Al Sharpe in Chicago, he explained why it would be "awkward" for Ruby to send the letter. According to the agents' report, filed November 26, 1963: "Sharpe described Ruby as a person who became excited when a disagreement occurred..." That FBI report became Warren Commission Exhibit No. 2323 and was part of the Report of the President's Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy, that was submitted to the President on September 24, 1964.