CBS Television · Public domain

Born Meyer Kessler, he built a vaudeville act out of magic tricks that were designed to fail — billing himself "The Great Ballantine" while his sleight of hand went comically, deliberately wrong, to his own mock exasperation. The routine is credited with essentially creating comedy magic as a genre, influencing generations of comedians and magicians who followed, and he carried the persona into a long career as a film and television actor.