The Important 95%

Last month, burly, gimlet-eyed Joseph Dunninger, who describes himself as a "mentalist," titillated his TV audience by reading what was in the mind of Rhode Island's Congressman Aime Forand, who was standing on the steps of the Capitol, 225 miles away. (Forand was thinking: "American citizenship is priceless.") Last week, Dunninger read the mind of a Trans-ocean Air Lines pilot circling 5,000 feet above the Radio City studio. (His thought was a commercial plug for the company.) These feats, Dunninger solemnly avers, were accomplished for the entertainment of TV audiences without the use of "supernatural powers." But they have given an almost supernatural boost to his Bigelow Show* (Thurs. 9:30 p.m., NBCTV) rocketing it from 19th to second place in the current Hooperatings.

Child of Three. Dunninger accepts the applause and bafflement of his audiences with the conscious modesty of a great man. He says: "A child of three can do what I do--with 30 years' practice." Dunninger, 53, has been on the boards for 35 years. He has mystified six U.S. Presidents the Duke of Windsor, Steinmetz, Thomas Edison, and the Pope (who, Dunninger reports, gave him a few bad moments by thinking in Latin).

Quite as impressive as his mind-reading is Dunninger's deadpan claim to have split the atom singlehanded in 1929. He carries about with him the results of his experiments, a few dark-colored grains that look something like Sen-Sen. "This stuff could ignite the atom and send it off," he remarks casually. "It's enough to destroy the little globe called the universe." Dunninger wanted to share his spectacular discovery with the Government, but "they paid no attention to me." During the war, Dunninger tried to give the Navy a method of making battleships invisible, but again was balked by bureaucratic obtuseness. A Navy spokesman snorted: "Wildly fantastic. We refuse to be party to a cheap publicity stunt."

Magicians' Money. Nothing wounds Dunninger so much as this sort of skepticism. Because of it, his relations with his brother magicians are not good. "Ethics are tossed aside these days," he muses sadly. He feels that it is especially unethical of his rivals to charge that his mind-reading act is a trick. Occasionally he offers to bet $10,000 that no one can duplicate his "brainbusters." One of his detractors, Richard Himber, bandleader and amateur magician, has countered with an offer to bet $100,000 that Dunninger can't read his mind. Dunninger's reply: "I wonder, would he prove that he has a mind?"

To charges that his feats can be reproduced by any garden variety magician,

Dunninger shrugs and asks: "If other magicians can do it, why don't they copy me? You can steal anything a man possesses but you can't steal his personality. Am I right or wrong?" Walter Gibson, who has ghostwritten for Dunninger as well as for such other "greats" as Houdini, Blackstone and Thurston, thinks Dunninger is right. "All magicians mix showmanship with their magic," says Gibson. "Dun ninger's on top because he uses only 5% magic and 95% showmanship."

*On which he co-stars with Ventriloquist Paul Winchell.

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