Fred Kaps — stage name of Abraham (Bram) Pieter Adrianus Bongers (Rotterdam, 8 June 1926 – Utrecht, 23 July 1980) — is perhaps the most decorated magician the Netherlands has ever produced. To this day he is the only artist in the world to have won the FISM Grand Prix, the unofficial world championship of magic, three times.
Visual reference
From a barber's boy to an artist
Bongers moved to Utrecht at the age of nine with his parents and two younger brothers. As a schoolboy he learned his first magic tricks from his barber — whom he visited not only for the tricks, but also for the barber's daughter, his future wife.
After secondary school his father wanted him to become an advertising illustrator, but Bongers turned his hobby into his profession. Under the name Valdini he performed at weddings and parties, and as Mystica he entertained soldiers; during his military service he performed for Dutch troops in Indonesia, keeping his sleight of hand razor-sharp.
Three-time world champion
In 1950 Kaps won the Grand Prix for magicians — the start of an international career. He is the only magician in the world to have won the FISM Grand Prix three times: in Barcelona (1950), Amsterdam (1955) and Liège (1961). He also became national champion twice, in Arnhem (1950) and Enschede (1959).
Kaps excelled both in large-scale stage work and in micromagic. A masterful manipulator and a giant of card magic, he designed countless original effects with wands, cards, candles, coins, soap bubbles and silks. His tricks were fast and impossible to follow.
The Ed Sullivan Show and worldwide fame
On 9 February 1964 Kaps performed on the American Ed Sullivan Show — by coincidence the very broadcast in which The Beatles made their US television debut. Kaps was programmed right after the band, before an audience of more than 73 million viewers, one of the most-watched broadcasts in American television history.
He performed for members of the royal houses of both the United Kingdom and the Netherlands, signed a contract with Wim Kan, and in 1963 even had his own television programme, 'Fred's Kapsalon'.
A lasting memory
Kaps gave his final performance in 1980 at the Folies Russes nightclub in Monte Carlo. That same year he was honoured by the Academy of Magical Arts in Hollywood and was diagnosed with cancer. He died at the age of 54.
His name lives on in the Fred Kaps Ring, the only Dutch chapter of the International Brotherhood of Magicians, and in the Fred Kaps Award. In Utrecht, a plaque by his former home commemorates his life's work, with the fitting Dutch words 'Verhief goochelen tot KUNST' — he raised magic to an art.
Fred Kaps quite literally raised magic to an art and put the Netherlands firmly on the world map of magic. That same dedication to technique, elegance and perfection is the standard Sudesh Roman strives for on every stage.