Edmund T. "Doc" Prendergast, 90, Denver dentist & magician "Vel-Dini," had encyclopedic knowledge of the great magicians
ZapRatz
By Bill Gallo, Special to the Rocky
Published October 9, 2008 at 12:05 a.m.
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/news/2008/oct/09/ed-prendergast-90-dentist-who-made-more-than/
Old friends and patients reclining in his dentist's chair always called
Ed Prendergast "Doc." But fellow magicians and seven decades' worth of
astonished audiences knew him as Vel-Dini.
He died Sept. 23 at Rose Medical Center from complications of a fall two
weeks earlier. He was 90.
"Over the years, my father sometimes used us kids as assistants," said
Vel-Dini's son, Denver journalist and author Alan Prendergast. "I
believe our mother was sawed in half once."
Edmund T. Prendergast was born July 25, 1918, in Colorado Springs.
Growing up in the Depression, he worked as a page at that city's Burns
Opera House, where he saw vaudeville and magic acts.
At the age of 11 he came under the spell of world-famous illusionist
Paul Fox, "who didn't just teach him tricks," his son said, "but the
demeanor and the ethics of magicians."
Vel-Dini (the stage name was likely a bow to his idol, Harry Houdini)
began performing Halloween shows as a teenager, complete with talking
skulls and rapping hands. He worked his way through the University of
Colorado as "the Campus Magician" and hired a Chicago agent while
completing his studies at Northwestern University's dental school.
In June 1944 he married his former CU classmate Yvonne Saliba in her
hometown of Walsenburg. She died last year.
Dr. Prendergast practiced general dentistry in Denver for 40 years, most
of them at a Cherry Creek office.
But the black arts were his passion.
Vel-Dini had an encyclopedic knowledge of the great magicians and their
feats, from Thurston and Blackstone to Kreskin and Copperfield.
In Denver, he played the old Orpheum and the Tabor, the Paramount, the
Denver and the Crest, deploying "close-up" magic, mentalism and classic
stage illusions like emerging unbound from a steamer trunk in which he'd
been firmly shackled.
Vel-Dini, too, had an alter-ego. As "Dr. Clutterhouse," a bumbler
wearing a walrus mustache and a bowler hat, he would lead familiar
tricks astray, then salvage them with unexpected conclusions.
"This was always at the end of the show," his son said. "It had to be,
because he left the stage littered with confetti, water and smashed eggs."
Dr. Prendergast also was an accomplished photographer who specialized in
stereographic landscapes.
Following services on Monday at Mother of God Catholic Church, fellow
magicians at a private reception performed a "broken wand" ceremony, the
traditional sendoff for magicians.
Alan Prendergast likely wrote the most fitting epitaph for his father
last year, after they attended a show together.
"Old magicians never die," he observed. "They just disappear in a puff
of smoke, usually through a trapdoor."
Survivors include a daughter, Gail Valentine, of Denver; three sons,
Brian, of Castle Pines, Alan, of Denver, and Mark, of Statesville, N.C.,
and four grandchildren.
Memorial contributions may be made to Catholic Charities, 4045 Pecos
St., Denver CO 80211.
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