Fred Van Buren

Fred Van Buren toured the world as a performer with his magic and illusion shows, performing with his wife Connie Greta as the magic illusion act Van Buren and Greta. A British born magician, illusionist and showman who is also well known as a builder and magical inventor. Van Buren's magic inventions include the unique Vanishing Motorbike and Rider which is performed completely surrounded by the audience, the Fluorescent Light Tubes Penetration which is an advancement of Robert Harbin's Experiment 13 illusion, and the Substitution Trunk to Fountain Finale. Recreations and advancements have included the Crinoline Lady and Disembodied Princess illusions.

Van Buren's original interest in show business started when he was a young child. He got the shock of his life when he walked into the local butcher’s shop one day in the 1930s; meat was scarce and it seemed that the butcher had decided that desperate times called for desperate measures and the butcher was selling elephant meat. Clearly displayed on the shop wall on Middlewich Road in the historic market town of Sandbach in Cheshire was a large picture of an elephant. The poster was not offering pachyderm delights but was actually advertising a circus. The circus was coming to town.

It turned out to be Chapman’s Circus and that visit to the butchers changed young Van Buren’s life. He went to see the circus and was so enthralled by the magic of it all that he was immediately bitten by the show business bug.

From that day on, whenever there was a circus in the area young Van Buren would be in the audience. One open air circus was Bob Gandey's circus, which Van Buren began regularly visiting, as well as Gandey’s Circus in its winter quarters in nearby Brereton. During these visits he gained a great deal of knowledge about circus life and show business in general, listening to the old performers and showmen’s anecdotes which strengthened his resolve to be a part of this magical area of entertainment.

Van Buren went on to present his own shows but in the early days he also had a "proper job", he became an apprentice cabinet maker and French polisher as well as doing his own shows and pantomimes. He was often employed in making vehicle bodies for ERF and Foden, coffins for local undertakers, and boxes for local businesses. It turned out to be a useful grounding for the making of magical apparatus in later years.

Towards the end of the Second World War the family began holidaying in Blackpool and it was here that the magic flame really ignited, thanks to a visit to Paul Clive’s Magic Shop on the North Pier. Every year, Van Buren would visit the beautifully opulent Blackpool Tower Circus, which from that young age he always wanted to appear in.

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