Keating is a Fortean I really wish I knew more about: I think he would have some fascinating insights into the organization, and Tiffany Thayer.
Keating was born in 1897; bewitched by a magic show at age eight, he ran a way in his early teens and apprenticed himself to the magician Howard Thurston (who Jim Steinmeyer, Fort’s biographer, called “The Last Great Magician.”) He struck out on his own in 1915 and became a popular entertainer through the 1920s, making the transition from Vaudeville to big theaters and developing an act that relied on fast patter and comedy—rather than the superciliousness of his mentor, Thurston.
By the 1920s, Keating was investigating spiritualists, as was the wont of that day’s magicians, and he became involved with one medium, Mina Crandon, who was perhaps the most renowned speaker-to-the-dead of her time. Houdini thought that he successfully proved her a fake, but, later, another magician accused Houdini’s assistant of setting her up—apparently, that later magician was Keating, who was said to be upset at having seen one of Houdini’s manuscripts, which praised Keating as a magician but denigrated his ability as an investigator of psychical powers. Whatever the case, the facet interesting to the history of Forteans is that Keating became involved with Crandon at the invitation of Hereward Carrington, who also would later be a Fortean—indeed, an honorary founder.
Keating moved to the stage in 1930s, both theater and cinema. In 1934, Keating moved to Hollywood, and it appears here is where he met Tiffany Thayer. They became friends. The exact course of their relationship is not clear: they attended a Will Rogers show together on St. Patrick’s Day 1935; they both appeared in the 1936 movie “The Devil on Horseback”; and even after Tiffany Thayer left Hollywood, his wife attended Keating’s Halloween party. It is not surprising that the two would have befriended: they had a lot in common, both having left home as a teen to pursue a career on the stage, both interested in the outré. Thayer dedicated his most autobiographical novel—his kiss-off to Hollywood, Little Dog Lost—to Fred Keating, which suggests that the two may have discussed issues related to the novel’s themes: the puniness of modern society, the need for the individual to strike out on his or her own.
When Thayer did just that—struck out in his own and started his own little magazine to thumb its nose at the world—Keating was a contributor (though not a regional director; and he never made honorary founder.) Thayer mentioned him in 1940 as a contributor of clippings, and then again seven more times through 1953. In almost all of the cases, it is impossible to connect Keating directly to a clipping or even a subject. But one article he sent in 1950 got a special call out from Thayer:
Peace is a Red plot! . . . The bonbons go to MFS Keating this rubber, for a squib from the Daily News 6-8-50 old style, relating that four men and woman were arrested Memorial Day for painting a sign in Prospect Park, Brooklyn. The wording was, ‘PEACE--NO H-BOMB.’
Keating also maintained his friendship with Thayer, which seems to have been no easy task. It may have been Keating who introduced Thayer to Carrington. (Thayer met Carrington at least twice.) And Keating was there at the dinner welcoming Garry Davis as an Accepted Fellow of the Fortean Society:
The question mark which was placed after the name of Accepted Fellow (19 FS) Garry Davis, when he accepted with his fingers crossed, was removed May 2, 20 FS [1950]. A group of New York City Forteans, which included three Founders, and more than a dozen of the pacifically-inclined, together with several of their wives, welcomed Garry at an informal dinner (without speeches) on that date, and YS was left with the impression of fine understanding and sincere respect exchanged by all hands.
“Garry and his bride, Audrey Peters, are both Forteans, born, and the Society can rely upon them to carry that viewpoint with them wherever they go.
“We were particularly lucky to catch Scott Nearing between debates in Philadelphia and Brooklyn, at the end of the Vermont sugaring season. As a veteran campaigner for rational human relationships, and one who has solved the personal problem of living in self-respect under a shamefully organized economic system, Scott made available his life-time of experience toward the promotion of the ‘world-citizen’ concept.
“Pamphleteers Jay J. M. Scandrett and Paul Bleek, endocrinologist Harry Benjamin, M.D., actor Fred Keating, editor and ‘contemporary-archeologist’ Jack Campbell, Founder Sussman, MFS McMahon--AND the ladies--all contributed mightily to the discussions which ranged from vegetarianism to Venus with stopovers at Aristophanes’ Lysistrata. Renaissance banking, Einstein and ‘leadership’ cum demagoguery. The press was not invited.
Keating eventually went back to magic. He died in 1961, two years after Thayer and the Fortean Society. Unlike most of the Forteans considered up to this point, he was something close to an intimate of Thayer. But as far as I can tell, left no record of their friendship, in his writings or an archive. That friendship was, in Fort’s terms, a damned thing.
Keating was born in 1897; bewitched by a magic show at age eight, he ran a way in his early teens and apprenticed himself to the magician Howard Thurston (who Jim Steinmeyer, Fort’s biographer, called “The Last Great Magician.”) He struck out on his own in 1915 and became a popular entertainer through the 1920s, making the transition from Vaudeville to big theaters and developing an act that relied on fast patter and comedy—rather than the superciliousness of his mentor, Thurston.
By the 1920s, Keating was investigating spiritualists, as was the wont of that day’s magicians, and he became involved with one medium, Mina Crandon, who was perhaps the most renowned speaker-to-the-dead of her time. Houdini thought that he successfully proved her a fake, but, later, another magician accused Houdini’s assistant of setting her up—apparently, that later magician was Keating, who was said to be upset at having seen one of Houdini’s manuscripts, which praised Keating as a magician but denigrated his ability as an investigator of psychical powers. Whatever the case, the facet interesting to the history of Forteans is that Keating became involved with Crandon at the invitation of Hereward Carrington, who also would later be a Fortean—indeed, an honorary founder.
Keating moved to the stage in 1930s, both theater and cinema. In 1934, Keating moved to Hollywood, and it appears here is where he met Tiffany Thayer. They became friends. The exact course of their relationship is not clear: they attended a Will Rogers show together on St. Patrick’s Day 1935; they both appeared in the 1936 movie “The Devil on Horseback”; and even after Tiffany Thayer left Hollywood, his wife attended Keating’s Halloween party. It is not surprising that the two would have befriended: they had a lot in common, both having left home as a teen to pursue a career on the stage, both interested in the outré. Thayer dedicated his most autobiographical novel—his kiss-off to Hollywood, Little Dog Lost—to Fred Keating, which suggests that the two may have discussed issues related to the novel’s themes: the puniness of modern society, the need for the individual to strike out on his or her own.
When Thayer did just that—struck out in his own and started his own little magazine to thumb its nose at the world—Keating was a contributor (though not a regional director; and he never made honorary founder.) Thayer mentioned him in 1940 as a contributor of clippings, and then again seven more times through 1953. In almost all of the cases, it is impossible to connect Keating directly to a clipping or even a subject. But one article he sent in 1950 got a special call out from Thayer:
Peace is a Red plot! . . . The bonbons go to MFS Keating this rubber, for a squib from the Daily News 6-8-50 old style, relating that four men and woman were arrested Memorial Day for painting a sign in Prospect Park, Brooklyn. The wording was, ‘PEACE--NO H-BOMB.’
Keating also maintained his friendship with Thayer, which seems to have been no easy task. It may have been Keating who introduced Thayer to Carrington. (Thayer met Carrington at least twice.) And Keating was there at the dinner welcoming Garry Davis as an Accepted Fellow of the Fortean Society:
The question mark which was placed after the name of Accepted Fellow (19 FS) Garry Davis, when he accepted with his fingers crossed, was removed May 2, 20 FS [1950]. A group of New York City Forteans, which included three Founders, and more than a dozen of the pacifically-inclined, together with several of their wives, welcomed Garry at an informal dinner (without speeches) on that date, and YS was left with the impression of fine understanding and sincere respect exchanged by all hands.
“Garry and his bride, Audrey Peters, are both Forteans, born, and the Society can rely upon them to carry that viewpoint with them wherever they go.
“We were particularly lucky to catch Scott Nearing between debates in Philadelphia and Brooklyn, at the end of the Vermont sugaring season. As a veteran campaigner for rational human relationships, and one who has solved the personal problem of living in self-respect under a shamefully organized economic system, Scott made available his life-time of experience toward the promotion of the ‘world-citizen’ concept.
“Pamphleteers Jay J. M. Scandrett and Paul Bleek, endocrinologist Harry Benjamin, M.D., actor Fred Keating, editor and ‘contemporary-archeologist’ Jack Campbell, Founder Sussman, MFS McMahon--AND the ladies--all contributed mightily to the discussions which ranged from vegetarianism to Venus with stopovers at Aristophanes’ Lysistrata. Renaissance banking, Einstein and ‘leadership’ cum demagoguery. The press was not invited.
Keating eventually went back to magic. He died in 1961, two years after Thayer and the Fortean Society. Unlike most of the Forteans considered up to this point, he was something close to an intimate of Thayer. But as far as I can tell, left no record of their friendship, in his writings or an archive. That friendship was, in Fort’s terms, a damned thing.
