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06 September 2008

Terri Rogers (1937 – 1999) ventriloquist, designer of magical tricks.

Ivan Southgate was raised in Ipswich. He worked as a supporting act in Music Hall in the 1950s, and was a highly proficient ventriloquist.

He transitioned to Terri Rogers with surgery on the National Health Service in the early 1960s ++at Charing Cross Hospital.

She was a highly respected designer of magical tricks for, among others, David Copperfield, Paul Daniels, and continued to perform as a ventriloquist. She was in the 1968 review, Boys Will be Girls at the Theatre Royal Stratford East, and worked the UK cabaret circuit. Her career eventually took her to Las Vegas and US television.

The one reflection that she had once been a man was that she gave her dummy, Shorty Harris, a deep male voice.

Her husband was Val Andrews.

She died after a series of strokes.

*Not the artist.
  • Terri Rogers and Martin Breese. Secrets: The Original Magic of Terri Rogers. London: Martin Breese Publishing, 1986.
  • Terri Rogers. More Secrets by Terri Rogers. London: Martin Breese, 1988.
  • "Terri Rogers". Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terri_Rogers


Time:

6 comments:

  1. Anonymous20/10/08 21:55

    Thank you so much for posting this infomation and the link to a Terri Rogers video. As transsexual woman and an admirer of the art of ventriloquism, I was thrilled to find there have actually been transgender ventriloquists.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Saturnalia25/5/12 16:43

    I think one or two were perhaps men with Klinefelter's syndrome (XXY), which is sometimes very hard to diagnose without doing a karyotype but in other cases is much more extreme in its effects. Doing a stage show as a woman may be easier than trying to convince the audience that you are male if you are especially androgynous.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Zagria26/5/12 20:24

      I don't understand your comment. a) Terri made a good living as a designer of tricks for others and did not need to perform b) a person with KS as you describe would not go through the difficulties of the transsexual change.

      Delete
    2. felixgarnet20/11/12 07:15

      Some people with Klinefelter's (XXY) do transition from male to female - my partner for one.

      Delete
    3. Zagria20/11/12 08:26

      Because some do is no reason to assume without evidence that Terri was KS.

      Delete
  3. Ray Reynolds18/5/22 08:31

    I was a dj/host from 1971 and one of the first cabaret acts I worked with was "Terri Rogers" at Nans Pantry Ilford Brilliant act and a joy to meet

    ReplyDelete

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