KARI HENDLER the Phone Rings
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PHOTOS: KARI HENDLER The phone rings. Caller ID says it’s Wil- tions,” then cleverly wrote three television next phase: “Why don’t you blindfold the liam Link. drama scripts to fulfill the requirement — duck?” Blackstone, a little less thankful than “Hi, Bill.” scripts that they sold to Alfred Hitchcock anticipated, gave Bill’s foot a kick and said “Hi, Peter. You know this piece from Presents. The “powers that be” at the school in a low voice, “Keep out of this kid!” But David Regal? I think I’m going to get that considered the submission of scripts to be he made up for that by attaching a pencil one, he’s a real clever fellow…” And so we exploiting a loophole and closed it behind with a loop of string through the buttonhole start talking magic. them, apparently not recognizing that on Bill’s suit coat, leaving him with a puzzle Bill Link is sharp as a tack. Oh, sure, show business is indeed a business. It was and a souvenir to talk about at Sunday maybe a name or two might take a few sec- an auspicious start for two business school School the next day. Ah, show business. onds longer to come back, and his legs don’t graduates, succeeding in business by doing By then, as his father’s business was work so well these days, but heck, he recently what they loved to do. succeeding, they had moved from a suburb celebrated his 81st birthday and just look at Though you’ll not see a picture of Wil- of Philly to the upscale Elkins Park area of all the work he has created and the success liam Link or Richard Levinson as teenag- the city, where two school districts were he has earned. His is a true Hollywood suc- ers wearing top hats or cradling rabbits, it being amalgamated. It was on the first day cess story, and even though he might not be was magic that brought them together and of junior high school that Link and Levin- known in the industry for his conjuring, he became the connective tissue when they son met. Bill describes it like this: “I was has always been a magician at heart. flexed their creative muscles. And their love tipped off by some of Dick’s friends to look If all he and his writing partner, Richard of magic never left them. for a guy named Dick Levinson, who was Levinson, had done in their careers was to Bill’s parents relocated from the New tall, loved and performed magic, and wrote create Colombo and Murder, She Wrote, York area to Philadelphia, where his father mysteries. Dick was tipped off to look for it would be enough. But there is so much became a successful textile broker and a short guy who wrote mysteries and did more. As a team, they’ve written books, an inveterate lover of gadgets. He shared magic. We met at lunchtime and were best novels, over thirty short stories for periodi- that love of technology with his children, friends by the end of the school day. We cals and anthologies, radio scripts, films, bringing home one of the new wire record- went home and started writing. It lasted plays, and several musicals, including one ers, becoming an early adopter of televi- over forty years.” for Broadway — the magic musical Merlin, sion — complete with gigantic magnifying They wrote that day and every day after which starred Doug Henning. They created lens — and even, at one point, buying a real school. On one day, Dick would take two magician Alexander Blacke as the lead char- Geiger counter for Bill’s brother to search buses to Elkins Park to write at Bill’s home, acter in their mystery series Blacke’s Magic, for uranium in the woods behind the house. and on alternate days, Bill would take two bringing magic to network television each But even before those days, week. That show was just one of 14 original he began taking the family television series Levinson & Link created, to see the touring Blackstone along with 26 made-for-TV movies. Their show whenever it came backgrounds in thinking magically aided the through town. When Bill team in their plotting, and they occasionally turned eight, he was the were able to insert magicians and illusions happy recipient of a Mysto into the storylines of the more than 100 Magic set. A little knowl- other scripts and teleplays for other series. edge is a dangerous thing, The list of shows they’ve worked on over and shortly thereafter, the years includes Dr. Kildare, The Fugitive, young Bill, dressed in his Mannix, Banacek, Burke’s Law, Johnny Sunday best, was attending Ringo, Ellery Queen, and The Alfred Hitch- the spectacular Blackstone cock Hour. After Dick’s untimely death, Bill show with all its mystery continued producing and writing, and he and audience participa- still works daily from his home office. tion. When children were Every conversation with Bill is illuminat- called up onto the stage, ing, shining a spotlight on some of the most Bill made sure he was part creative and innovative writers, actors, and of the group, and seeing producers in television history. He knew that Blackstone was about them all. I can sense his ease with language, to begin a routine with an ease that comes from a craft honed over Joanne, the Card Duck, nearly seventy years of daily effort. Forget he spoke up, setting the 10,000 hours — he’d achieved that before stage, he thought, for a he was out of college. He and Dick had their smooth transition into the first story published during their last year in high school. And by the time they graduated Bill Link at work in his from the University of Pennsylvania, they office [facing page]. A were professional authors. photo of Link and writing At Wharton School of Business, they partner Richard Levinson found a senior thesis topic called “Publica- still adorns his desk. MAGIC • march 2015 41 buses to the row house in Oak Lane, where leave the magic clown at home?” So they They wrote mostly during pre-computer Dick lived. They were fourteen, they loved to were back to strictly a duo act, which was days, with Dick banging away at his Swiss- write, and they loved magic. Every Saturday, fine with them. made typewriter for hours a day, every they’d take the bus downtown to Kanter’s Amazingly, in the 42 years of their day. At one point it got so hectic, they were Magic Shop in search of new mysteries. collaboration, they never fought. They working so hard, with Dick banging away at There are no artifacts from those early never argued. Of course, roadblocks arose, the keys, that his fingers were getting bloody. years. None of the early cartoon drawings perhaps a plot problem with no immediately He solved that problem by taping thimbles to still exist from the time before Bill could obvious solution, so they would break for his fingertips so that he could keep working. write words, and none of the fully illustrated the night. In the morning, one or the other Bill is a happy convert to a Mac, but Dick storybooks from a few years later. There would invariably show up with the solution. never made the change before his untimely are no photographs of Link and Levinson This formula succeeded from the start, and death. Sharing his feelings about the loss of as young magicians performing their shows the work they created was so good that it his friend and partner, Bill quotes George for birthday parties and bar mitzvahs, only led to an unbelievable series of awards. Bernard Shaw, who once said, “There are memories of lugging their suitcases through Richard Leighton Levinson and William some people so valuable and so important in the snow on the way there. Dick’s was Theodore Link received six Emmy nomina- your life that you only lose them with your larger, containing magic props and a vent tions and two Emmy Awards for their work. death.” Bill adds, “And I find in the case of figure. They always talked and thought There were also two Golden Globe Awards, Dick Levinson, that’s very, very true.” about magic they’d seen and how it worked. four Edgar Allan Poe Awards from the Mys- Obituaries in The New York Times, They’d take turns doing tricks dur- tery Writers of America, the Ellery Queen Los Angeles Times, and others recognized ing their thirty- to forty-minute show, but Award in 1989, an Image Award from the their remarkable lifelong friendship and when Dick started with the vent, Bill would NAACP, a Christopher Award saluting writing partnership. Friends said that they hide, cringing at the act, which only got media that “affirms the highest values of the were “much more than collaborators, they one laugh, when Dick spun the dummy’s human spirit,” a Writers Guild of America were more like brothers.” Steven Bochco — head in a circle. At one show, when Bill Laurel Award, the prestigious George Foster known for developing, among other shows, needed a coat with an open weave for his Peabody Award, and the Producers Guild Hill St. Blues, NYPD Blue, LA Law, and next number, the Knife Through Coat, none of America Hall of Fame Award. Although Doogie Howser, M.D. — said, “They not were to be had, except for the one Dick was Dick Levinson died of a heart attack in only finished each other’s sentences, they wearing, so off it came, exposing all the gim- 1987, at the age of 52, he (posthumously) began them.” The old saw is that you can micks and ropes for Dick’s Cut & Restored and Bill Link were inducted into the Acad- pick your friends but you can’t pick your Rope number and leaving the audience emy of Television Arts & Sciences Hall of family — in this case, they created a family howling with laughter.