Forest Hills' Magic Man

In many ways, Jack Greenberg is a pretty normal Forest Hills retiree.

He was born in 1930, and he did both his undergraduate and graduate work at the University of Pittsburgh, where he spent 41 years teaching business classes. He is an employee relations specialist, and he’s spent many years consulting. He’s lived in Forest Hills for half a century, and in Pittsburgh nearly his entire life.

He also is a magician.

Greenberg can perform tricks with dice, rope, cards, fire, you name it. He has performed for children, schools, private parties and theaters. He has traveled the world and met every kind of prestidigitator. And for a full year, back in 2001, Greenberg was International President of the International Brotherhood of Magicians, where he has served as a trustee since the '80s. (His membership is longstanding: He was first matriculated at the age of 15). The I.B.M. is the largest magic organization in the world, and it includes about 15,000 members who reside in 73 countries.

“I do magic for hire,” Greenberg says of his career, which has spanned seven decades and counting. “I’ve done more than a thousand shows over the years." 

Greenberg doesn’t use an elaborate stage name, nor does he dress as an august clown or Victorian conjuror. When he is introduced, his motto is, “It’s fun to be fooled,” a common magicians’ tagline. When it comes to swords and women cut in half, Greenberg has always preferred sleight-of-hand minimalism, laced with a dash of “mental magic.” The real magic is in the presentation.

“It’s a beautiful art,” he says. “There’s a lot of grace and charm involved here. Let me see how close I can come to tickling your brain a little bit. Most of my presentation is done in fun.”

When Greenberg was a boy in Pittsburgh, he took dance lessons from a young, pre-Hollywood Gene Kelly. Greenberg wasn’t much of a dancer, but he was attracted to the idea of magic. “I hadn’t seen any real magicians,” Greenberg recalls. But for his ninth birthday, Greenberg received a simple magic kit from his father. On the evening of March 28, 1939, he started to practice his first trick. The rest is history.

He also performed a dance recital earlier that evening, but that pursuit fizzled soon after.

Since then, Greenberg has learned all kinds of tricks. “I’ve done everything from the stuff that fits in your hands to moderate size illusions,” he says. “I spent many years working kids’ shows. A lot of the public thinks of magic as being for the kids. Or at least they use it as an excuse—adults are often far more interested than the kids.”

What’s remarkable about Greenberg is that he is a very thoughtful magician, a man who has thought carefully about what magic is and how it should be used. For all his success, Greenberg was always anchored by his work as a behavioral scientist. He balanced magic with other pastimes, such as playing trumpet and cornet for Pitt Band. He always felt strongly that his two worlds should cross over as little as possible.

“I kept magic as a separate entity,” Greenberg says of his teaching and consulting work. Indeed, when he first started teaching in 1958, he tried to incorporate some tricks as “interest-generating devices.” The experiment backfired. “I found it got the wrong kind of attention from the students. They were distracted from my academic messages.”

Greenberg has gone so far as to hold seminars, often for middle-schoolers, about the difference between magicians and “paranormalists.” He is critical of people who claim supernatural powers, such as palm-readers and other “paranormal experts,” particularly psychics who are used for serious tasks, like police work.

“I think that is literally dangerous,” he says. “I personally believe that most practitioners of such work are being dishonest, often to themselves as well as to others.”

In all this time, Greenberg has amassed an encyclopedia of stories and anecdotes. When his work is compared to the large-scale flash and pizzazz of David Copperfield, Greenberg immediately defends the superstar illusionist.

“David is very skilled,” he says, before launching into a story of one of Copperfield’s early shows, in Homestead. It was October 1976 and Copperfield was booked at an old Vaudeville theater to produce a television special. While a very young David Copperfield was on the bill, the show was emceed by Peter Graves (of “Mission: Impossible” fame, and also included The Amazing Randi, who were already internationally famous.)

The show was called “Magic at the Roxy,” named after the famous New York theater, and to top off the star-studded memory, Greenberg recalls Steeler Joe Green being present, among other celebrities. 

“It was one of the greatest shows I’ve ever seen,” Greenberg says.

Now that Greenberg is retired from teaching, behavioral research and consulting, his magic performances are often small and intimate, what he calls “adult living room shows.” He is free to attend conventions and perform when he feels like it.

“I’m just having fun these days,” he says with a laugh.