Jerry finds a magic cure

JERRY Sadowitz smiles as he announces his good news.

After a long and painful rift, the famously troubled comedian and magician is reconciled with his father, Isadore, a retired American scrap dealer. They recently spent four days together, and Jerry was able to cast off some of the emotional baggage he has carried ever since his dad "abandoned" him 30 years ago.

"We got on all right," says Jerry, who was devastated at the age of six when his parents split up, forcing him, his sister and his Scottish mother, Rosalyn, to emigrate from New Jersey to Glasgow.

"He paid for me to fly to America to see him. He's 73 and can't walk very well now. Everything's on a simple level. I think he has genuinely forgotten what happened. I couldn't open up to him - but it was still nice. I hadn't seen him for a long time at least 10 years."

Last year Jerry still talked with intense anger about his father, who, he said, had refused to visit him as a child, leaving him feeling inadequate and "unloved".

Now that ire has turned to pity. "I feel very sorry for him," Jerry admits.

"He worked hard all his life, lugging around scrap metal. Now he's bent double and can hardly walk. He rarely goes out. I don't think the word 'Sad' in the family surname is an exaggeration." Jerry's notoriously negative attitude to women has also mellowed during the past 12 months. He's back on talking terms with his sister Debbie, after years of silence following a minor row, and he says he helps his mother out in any way he can.

And after a long period of celibacy Jerry has a new girlfriend - "a relationship with many strengths" - about which he doesn't want to speak further for fear of destroying it.

We are talking in Jerry's favourite greasy-spoon, at the same table and in the same seats as when we last met a year ago. The caf, where Sadowitz is a well-liked regular, is in an unfashionable corner of Camden, close to where he rents a small flat from Remo Inzani, a veteran magician and friend.

And it is the world of magic - rather than stand-up comedy - that is putting Sadowitz back on track. If comedy is his longsuffering spouse, then magic is his beloved mistress. He is widely regarded as one of the most skilful close-up magicians in the world. Whereas performing comedy tends to trigger the aggressive and bitter side of his personality, magic reveals the childlike intellectual. In his conjuring shows at the Soho Theatre this week he may cut out the gags completely, because on a recent trip to Australia "everyone loved the magic but some people didn't like the comedy".

(His work for Channel 5 is also moving in that direction, with a magic special, which may become a series, as well as the continuing series, The People vs.

Jerry Sadowitz.) Jerry pulls out a copy of The Crimp! - a magicians' magazine he edits and mostly writes. It's full of complex tricks and magic book reviews, laced with the profane humour for which Sadowitz is infamous.

He says the bad language he uses acts as a "filter", putting off conjurors not on his wavelength. The Crimp! also gives him a platform to air his theories on magic.

In a detailed article entitled The Sad Truth About Magic, he argues that "the reason why magic is not popular is because nobody likes to be fooled".

Sadowitz says: "Being fooled is threatening to adults, and the [magician's] humour and charm exacerbate an already-threatening mystery. Tommy Cooper was loved on a conscious level for his humour and on a subconscious level because he never fooled you. If people like magic, how come nobody says, 'Darling, why don't we go out and be fooled tonight?'" Jerry Sadowitz is a brilliant magician.

And he admits weaving his magic makes him a lot happier than his noholds-barred style of stand-up has ever done. "My ultimate ambition now," he says, "is to achieve peace of mind."

Jerry Sadowitz will be at the Soho Theatre from tonight until Sunday and 13-16 July. Box office: 020 7478 0100.

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