The IJA is sad to report the passing of longtime IJA member Joe Murray.
By Alan Howard
JOE MURRAY
Juggler, comedian, and magician Joseph Murray died on December 11, 2024, at his home in Connecticut.
Born in Brooklyn, New York, Joe’s family had no show business background, but his mother loved the theater and took Joe to Broadway shows as a child. One of Joe’s cherished memories was of having his hair tousled by Joel Grey when the star went into the audience during a performance of George M! This led to an unexpectedly emotional encounter when Murray happened to run into Grey in New York many years later.
While studying Photographic Sciences at RIT in Rochester, New York, to earn gym credit Joe signed up for a juggling class taught by Greg Moss. Joe had learned to juggle earlier, but when he saw Greg passing clubs with the other students Joe realized there was a whole world of juggling he knew nothing about. He became fascinated with the art and after college took up a career as a juggler. At the same time, he was practicing magic, studying with Bruce Teall and performing close-up with magicians Joe DeLion and Paul Kozak at the Arigato Steak House in Rochester; Murray’s routine with The Hanging Coins became an audience favorite. He performed juggling — balls, clubs, rings, cigar boxes, torches — and magic at the Storytown USA amusement park in Lake George, New York all summer.
While Joe’s father, a Brooklyn police officer, had serious doubts about Joe’s choice of career, his opinion changed when he saw how successful Joe was at Storytown; once he saw how much money Joe was making, he was able to respect a career in entertainment and knew that Joe would be able to survive just fine.
Joe also began performing at resorts in the Catskills. With his natural flair for comedy, he was pressed into service as an emcee and entertainment director. While he always thought of himself as a juggler, it was his innate knack for comedy that carried him even further in show business. Joe had the ability to create something funny out of nowhere. It was often goofy comedy, but people liked him, so they liked what he was saying and doing. He enjoyed making people laugh wherever he was, not writing down routines but improvising and gradually honing the bits onstage.
He began producing Joe Murray’s Comedy Concerts at a club called Bicycle Annie’s in Albany, New York in 1984. A visit to Tom Mullica’s Tom-Foolery club in Atlanta inspired Joe to open his own magic bar with a magician friend. The Magic Sanctum in Lake George became a venue for Joe to perform each night, as well as bring in stand-up comedians from New York City, many of whom went on to great success in the industry. Throughout the 1980s, Joe produced comedy shows in several cities, but when the comics (such as future Late Night with David Letterman head writer Bill Scheft) convinced him that he could become a stand-up himself, Joe took his act on the road, working the burgeoning comedy club circuit and frequently appearing at Catch a Rising Star in New York City. Comedienne Adrianne Tolsch became a mentor to Joe, making sure he got a lot of stage time. Realizing Joe had a keen eye for spotting talent, she pushed him to become the talent booker for Catch, but Joe declined, as he wanted to be onstage and not stuck behind a desk in an office. Still, Joe was able to help other talented comics along, such as Colin Quinn, Gilbert Gottfried, and Bill Hicks. Hicks’ his style of humor was rather obscure and offensive in the US at the time and it was Joe who recommended that Bill go to England, where he would be better appreciated. Hicks gained acclaim and recognition in the UK before returning to wider success in the States.
Joe married juggler Susan Kirby in 1989. They first met at the RIT Spring Juggle-In in 1982, then reconnected at the 1987 IJA Convention in Akron, Ohio; Susan joined Joe on the road soon afterward. They worked comedy clubs together across the US and performed in Japan in the early ’90s. In 1997 they settled into a two-year run with their own magic and variety show at the Atlantis resort in Nassau, Bahamas. Joe performed his improvisational style of comedy along with juggling, magic, a comedy straitjacket escape, and fire eating. One of the comedy highlights was Joe’s performance of a variation on Cards Across that he learned from Tom Mullica’s book. A true variety artist, Murray even performed hypnosis shows. Typical of Joe’s style, he simply read a book on hypnosis acts, figured he could do it, and charmed the theater owners into booking the show.
Joe and Susan presented both solo and duo routines. Their show in the Bahamas was titled “Joe Murray’s Magic and Variety Show with special guest Susan Kirby,” with most of the serious juggling being done by Susan. As Susan did the more technical juggling in the act, Joe would, in their words, “mock” her routines, comically trying to duplicate her feats and keep up with her.
The first routine they created together was with cigar boxes. They later considered this to be a “trademark” routine that truly displayed who they were onstage. The sequence of alternating serious tricks with silly shtick made their characters clear to the audience, as the people applauded Susan’s skill and laughed at Joe’s antics. They also performed a tightly choreographed hat routine, inspired by videos they had seen of Homer Stack and Bob Brock recreating two-person hat moves that Homer had likely learned while in vaudeville. Despite Joe’s casual and fun-oriented demeanor, he was — as is Susan — a dedicated researcher into juggling history, collecting and preserving the art in various ways.
After leaving the Bahamas, the duo began working under the name The Airborne Jugglers. Joe always wanted to be onstage and never wanted to retire, but he and Susan did tire of traveling. Simply wanting to “have a house with our stuff in it,” they remained busy with performing and other show business pursuits while staying closer to home. Joe was always willing to assist in the careers of other acts that he believed in. He was an enthusiastic participant in show business, on and off the stage, happily laughing and applauding other performers as much as audiences did for him. As quick as he was to make everyone else laugh, he was just as quick to laugh at others’ jokes. Joe’s laugh was hearty and natural, and was so distinctive that comics onstage would immediately know where he was in the audience, and know that their material was working.
One of Joe’s dreams was to be a music producer, and he is the executive producer of an upcoming album by singer/songwriter Hannah Winkler. He was also a skilled photographer, specializing in 3-D photography and proud that his photos were included in a book, Queen in 3-D, about the rock group Queen; the chapter on Paul Rodgers is comprised entirely of Joe’s photography. Murray was personally invited by Sir Brian May to attend a gallery opening in London that included Joe’s work on display.
While Joe’s death at age 65 was due to a sudden heart attack, Susan believes the actual cause was Joe being heartbroken, having never recovered from the death of his older brother a few months earlier.
[For more on Joe Murray and Susan Kirby, see “The Airborne Jugglers: Laughing Matters,” originally published in the Jan/Feb 2005 issue of JUGGLE magazine.]
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