VEGAS MYTHS BUSTED: The Strip’s First Magician

• John Calvert is thought to be the first magician to perform on the Vegas Strip
• That honor actually belongs to Gloria Dea, who performed two shows on one night in May 1941 before vanishing from the magical limelight
• Dea remained in entertaiment, working as a dancer and actor before eventually leaving show business for good 

John Calvert is often credited as the first magician to perform on the Las Vegas Strip. And that’s an illusion.

Calvert was certainly the first famous magician, achieving David Copperfield-level celebrity in a career that spanned more than eight decades of performing on the Strip and Broadway..

Calvert first performed his “Magicarama” show — in which he fired assistants from cannons and severed volunteers in half with a buzz saw — in the Roundup Room at the El Rancho Vegas in 1942. Then he took it to the Dunes in the ’50s, and performed it for the final time in 2008, five years before his death at age 102, at Gary Darwin’s Magic Club.

But Gloria Dea beat Calvert to the Strip.  She prestidigitated on May 14, 1941 — also at the Roundup Room.

Just 19, she performed two shows consisting of sleight-of-hand illusions, including billiard ball manipulations and card tricks.

Dea was born Gloria Metzner on Aug. 25, 1922, in Oakland. Inspired and taught by her father — an amateur magician who called himself “The Great Leo” — Dea began performing tricks at age 4.

“Miss Dea, a petite magician who performs her rites in tights and a small cape, completely mystified the audience with her legerdemain,” the Las Vegas Review-Journal wrote in its review of her El Rancho debut. “Her concluding trick, wherein a card jumps from a handkerchief into the core of an orange, was the hit of the show.”

Vanished Into Thin Air

Despite the rave review, Dea’s debut as a magician was also her finale as one. She hung up her magic hat after those two shows.

So while Calvert had the longest-running magic show in Las Vegas history, it’s safe to say that Dea was at least tied for the shortest.

In between her two magic shows, she performed the rumba to big-band tunes played by the El Rancho house band. And dancing is the direction in which she steered her career after that.

When Dea graced Las Vegas stages again, it was in chorus lines. Most notably, she danced as a showgirl at the Flamingo shortly after its 1946 opening.

Then she pursued a Hollywood career, landing roles in “King of the Congo” (1952) and director Ed Wood’s “Plan 9 from Outer Space” (1957).

Because she never achieved fame, however, Dea’s contribution to magic in Las Vegas went unacknowledged — overwritten by Calvert’s continuous presence on the early Strip as a headliner.

After leaving show business, Dea sold insurance and cars for a Chevy dealership in the San Fernando Valley. By 1980, she moved to Las Vegas, where she lived anonymously with her fourth husband, Sam Anazlone, a fellow car salesperson who died in 2022.

Poof, She Reappears!

Dea’s story was rediscovered by AnnaRose Einarsen. And that’s only because the Las Vegas magician happened to purchase a 1940s skirt at a vintage clothing store in downtown Las Vegas in 2021.

When she asked the proprietor where it came from, she was told it was part of a collection sold to her by an old-time Hollywood actress and Las Vegas magician.

Einarsen circulated Dea’s name around the local magic community,  which researched and uncovered her long-forgotten milestone.

Once David Copperfield caught wind of the legend living in his midst, he struck up a friendship. In October 2021, the magician introduced the 99-year-old from the stage at his MGM Grand show.

Dea received a standing ovation.

She was inducted by Copperfield.

“If it weren’t for the people who went out there and really made magic important, I wouldn’t be here,” Copperfield told KVVU-TV/Las Vegas. “And I think what Gloria did was, when she did her act in the show, and got the best review, the door was open for magicians to keep performing here.

“So maybe I owe my career to her.”

Look for “Vegas Myths Busted” every Monday on Casino.org. To read previously busted Vegas myths, visit VegasMythsBusted.com. Got a suggestion for a Vegas myth that needs busting? Email corey@casino.org.