"Fantastic Is the word for Fantasio"
- Walt Disney, Las Vegas, November, 1964

Fantasio... ¡the name is intriguing!

Fantasio... a seasoned performer and world traveler who makes llusions become reality before your very eyes.

In Fantasio´s act everything is important: the lighting, the music, the timming, the costumes... and the climax of each and every effect.

"To be a great magician, your must know what the reaction of the audience will be," according to Fantasio, whose creations are based upon the reaction of the viewing public. "A great trick is not necessarily one that fools the audience, rather it is an lmposibility that pleases them."

Fantasio, who specializes in slight-of-hand, developed a new style of performing magic that has been imitated around the world.

Fantasio first became interested in magic as a hobby in his early teens. His plans to study for a banking career, with a chemisty minor, at the University of Buenos Aires were thwarted by a five-month banking strike in his native Argentina. In need of work young Ricardo Roucau armed with the name of "Larry" and some pictures of the name "Larry" on a theatre marque in Buenos Aires went to Montevideo, Uruguay, where he convinced a night club owner that he was a famous magician named "Larry". His fresh approach to magic was liked by the public and his career as a professional magician started.

While working in as a profesional magician In Montevideo, he meets a young lady. They were married in 1959, and Monica joined the act. Few magicians wives are good assistants, but Monica was the exception. So much so that JAY MARSHALL said, "Monica is the best magician's assistant I have ever seen perform."

The public liked the handsome young couple and their every performance took them higher and higher on the ladder of success. Their travels took them throughout South and Central American working in nightclubs, hotels and casinos. It was at a casino In Curacao (Netherlands Antilles), where John Scarne was supervising the gambling, that the pair received the next big change In their career. Scarne liked their refreshing act, but he said that the name «Larry" was no good for working In the United States or the Continent, and he suggested that they change the name.

Here was where Ricardo and Monica did some real soul searching. In a review of their career, one word seemed to be repeated In every single review of their performances throughout Latin America: "Fantastico" (The English translation is "Fantastic.") At last they came up with the name "Fantasio." One of the first people who heard the name was the late Al Flosso, who said, "That's a good name!" And thus It was that ~ disappeared and in his place was "Fantasio".

At the 1964 Combined S.A.M.- l.B.M. Magic Convention in New York City, Fantasio won the top award for Originality." In the same year Fantasio and Monica got another very special award that carne in a very special package. Their daughter, Jackie, was born.

There is no doubt that Fantasio was one of the top working magicians of the Sixties, a period in magical history were openings for magical performers were few and far between. Fantasio and Monica had long run engagements at the famous Latin Quarter and at The Radio City Music Hall in New York City. Fantasio made a six month tour with The Liberace Show, and then they worked for 18 months In the first "Hello America" show at the Desert lnn Hotel in Las Vegas.

Inside Text:

This May, the world renowned Fantasio gave a lecture at the Magic Towne House. With a love of magic that began at age ten, Fantasio has had a long career in show business that has taken him to the far corners of the earth. The magic celebrity Silvan once said, "The style, showmanship and presentation of Fantasio is impeccable and full of masterly class."

Fantasio was born Ricardo Roucau in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on October 3, 1936. With a Box of Magic Tricks the ten-year-old Fantasio began to dabble in magic, but it was not until age seventeen that he was taught real sleight of-hand by Mario Lobo. He started to join magic clubs, meet magicians, (including David Bamberg - Fu Manchu -- and Carlos H. Colombi) and to perform magic for audiences.

Soon Fantasio was juggling magic shows on the side with working in a bank and studying chemistry at the University of Buenos Aires. Exposure in 1959 in the annual Show of his PADPEI Magic Society resulted in bookings for two television programs in Montevideo.

This was the beginning of his professional career in magic; the same year saw him playing nightclubs in Montevideo. 1959 proved to be a very important year for Fantasio in another respect, as this was when he met the dancer, Mónica. They were married and the "glamourous half" of Fantasio act was soon filled. They had a daughter Jacqueline, in 1964.

It was that year when they came to the United States after playing nightclubs, hotels and TV shows in Uruguay, Colombia, Panamá and the Caribbean resorts. Fantasio was praise by columnist Earl Wilson for his " amazingly educated fingers." A few month after their arrival here, the pair was booked for an eighteen month run in the "Hello América" show at the Desert Inn in Las Vegas.

Appearances on television programs, including the Ed Sullivan Show, followed and then came a six month run with the "Ice Revue" at the Conrad Hilton Hotel in Chicago. Soon Fantasio and Mónica had a three-month booking with Liberace, plus more hotel engagements in the eastern US.

In 1968, Fantasio and Mónica performed in Puerto Rico, The Netherlands, Guyana, Venezuela, Grand Bahamas, Miami Beach, Aruba, Curacao, Santo Domingo, and had a single appearance at the Philadelphia Conference.

Two years later, they were elected to represent the US at the World Magic Congress in Holland, which is held every three years and is sponsored by the international Federation of Magical Societies (FISM).

Fantasio took a break from show business in 1973 so that he could manufacture his famous candles and canes, but soon he became involved in shows again and did his own Magical Musical Review, Fantastique, for "El Casino" in Freeport, Bahamas.

Since 1978, Fantasio has done gala shows and conventions. Most notables was the Grand Prix of World Magic in 1978 in Tokio, Japan, which was the largest event in the history of magic in that country.

1979 saw him at the FISM Gala show in Brussels, Belgium, and on a lecture tour in Spain, Switzerland and Italy. Also that year he produced a month-long magic convention at the Premier Theater in Buenos Aires called " El Maravilloso Mundo de la Magia" (The Marvelous World of Magic).

In the last two years Fantasio has been performing and lecturing in countries all over the world, including England, Spain, Austria, Germany, Holland, France, Argentina, Canada, and the US. In July, he is scheduled to lecture at the FISM Congress in Lausanne, Switzerland.

Ever since the beginning, Fantasio has built this own props and equipment. In those early years the act was called "Larry", but Fantasio was soon told that this stage name would not go over well in the US or on the Continent and so he changed it to a word sounding like the one used by his audiences to describe his act ''Fantasio".

Lighting; music, timing and costumes are carefully combined in his productions.

The Triple Color Changing Cane to a Double Bouquet of flowers and The Candelabra have been his most honored routines as well as being available in magic shops all over the world. In Argentina, be founded "fake" magic magazine and became its first director. When the late Walt Disney spoke of Fantasio, he said, "Fantastic is the word for Fantasio!''

One of the top working rnagicians of the sixties, with engagements at the Latin Quarter and Radio City Music Hall, in New York, Fantasio has won over ten first place awards and has been made an honorary member of over a dozen magic organizations all over the world. He has shared the program with such stars as The Beatles, Bob Hope, Luis Armstrong, Tony Bennett and Flip Wilson.

It was in 1964 when Fantasio said. "To be a great magician, you must know what the reaction of the audience will be. A great trick is not necessarily one that fool the audience rather it is an impossibility that pleases them.''

It is certainly pleasing to Fantasio´s audience today to continue to enjoy the magic of this extraordinary entertainer.

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