Rolando Santos: If You Believe, They Will Believe
By Chip MacGregor
Our incoming International President is a big believer in magic. He believes the performance of our art can actually have a “magical” effect on other people. In fact, he knows it’s true from personal experience.
In 1998, while Rolando Santos was living in Madrid and helping launch the second of four CNN news networks around the world, he found himself having dinner at a place called La Cava. While enjoying a great steak, tapas, and wine, he was also reading the Roberto Giobbi card magic book, Giobbi Light. The book had been translated into Spanish long before it made its way to the United States. As Rolando tells it, “I was just fiddling with a deck of cards and making notes in my magic journal. At the table behind me were four women, including an older woman who was obviously the matriarch of the family and her daughters.”
At one point, the mother’s cane fell off the chair where it was propped. Rolando picked it up and put it back on the chair near her. She thanked him and then asked if he was a magician. The fact is, up to that point Rolando had read a lot of books about magic, and was on the path to being more of a magic historian than an actual performer. But the elderly lady pointed to the cards and asked if he did magic. Rolando began doing some tricks for her from the book he had been reading. “It was my very first magical performance,” he recalls. “I did some effects for about fifteen minutes. Everything worked, and I was pretty pleased. After I finished dinner and was leaving the restaurant, one of the daughters caught up with me at the door and thanked me. I told her not to worry, that it was not a big deal, and I had enjoyed my little bit of performing. But then she said to me, ‘No, you don’t understand, my mother is dying. This is her favorite restaurant – it’s going to be one of our last nights out together. And now I will always be able to remember my mother laughing and having a good time. Thank you.’ I just stood there, speechless for one of the few times in my life. In that instant I saw the power of our craft as immense and universal. By believing in myself and my magic, I had caused others to believe, and my
performance had a ‘magical’ effect on them. That day I stopped being a bystander and jumped into magic with both feet.”
Rolando had actually grown up with some interest in magic. “Like most Texans,” he says, “I was a huge fan of Mark Wilson and the Allakazam show on Saturday morning television. The magic was fun, the rabbit was cool, but it was Nani who made the show. I still remember seeing Nani in her form-fitted black leotard, blond pony tail, and dazzling smile. She was my first crush – and became my first pinup girl. I think I wanted to be a magician like Mark just so I could have Nani around!”
Unfortunately, the Saturday morning show competed with his mother’s desire for Rolando to learn to play the piano. His mom won out, and he had to give up watching The Magic Land of Allakazam. But while the piano lessons never stuck, the idea of doing magic did.
Twenty years after leaving Texas, he was working as the assistant news director at KTTV in Los Angeles, California. One day he shared that Mark and Nani story with his executive producer, Carol Breshears. She had a friend who was a member of the 
Magic Castle, and she got him tickets to have dinner and see a show at the Castle. “I can still remember that show,” says Rolando. “The Great Tomsoni with Johnny and Pam Thompson. I was hooked again.” A few weeks later, Breshears gave him Mark Wilson’s Complete Course in Magic for Christmas, and he began learning the rudiments of the art. He likes to say, “I was a late bloomer – at age thirty-two I finally took up magic.” And, as Rolando points out, a few years ago, after hearing the story at an I.B.M. Convention, Mark and Nani sent him an autographed publicity picture from their show. “I finally got to pin her up on my wall! More importantly, because of magic they are now friends.”
The fact is, magic filled a huge void in Rolando’s life. He had been an on-air reporter and television anchor for sixteen years, but when he went into management at KTTV, he had to give up appearing onscreen. He missed the creativity of writing his own stories, and sorely missed being in front of the camera. As he explains now, his budding interest in magic changed all that: “Magic allowed me to be creative in story plots. It allowed me to perform for an audience, and most importantly it allowed me to reach out and touch people in a positive way. Those were the reasons I became a journalist to begin with, so in magic all three of the driving forces in my life came together.”
He continued his study of magic, diving into books and researching magicians. Still, it was that one night in Madrid that served as the pivotal moment in his magical life. “That night took me from being a reader and dabbler in magic, to taking an active role in magic. It was that one night of believing in myself and my art, and seeing it lead to others believing, that set me on this twenty-two-year journey that would lead to the International Presidency.”
A few days after performing for the matriarch and her daughters, Rolando looked up magicians in the local phone book and came across Rafael Benatar’s name. Without giving it a second thought, he called Mr. Benatar, told him who he was, and explained that he wanted to learn how to perform. “To Rafael’s credit,” says Rolando, “he returned my call and had dinner with me. Looking back, I realize I was so new to performing I could not even call myself a novice. The tricks with the women had worked because my sixteen years as a reporter and anchor had given me a sense of presence in front of an audience – the rest was because a higher power decided they would work. It certainly wasn’t because I had a clue what I was doing!”
On his return to Atlanta, following up on his commitment to do more with magic, Rolando joined the I.B.M. and Ring 9. He volunteered to write a Parade for the Ring, and submitted it to The Linking Ring. That Parade has led to a sixteen-year friendship with then-editor Phil Willmarth. He began studying and put together the start of his magic persona, Mitos Odnalor. Rolando combines bizarre magic and storytelling, and his unique approach eventually helped him win the Atlanta Magician of the Year award, which he notes was, “A special honor because it is a joint award given by both the I.B.M. Ring and the S.A.M. Assembly in Atlanta.” Both clubs had to agree on the winner.
Soon, his ability with words and stories began to be appreciated by others, and his “Tales of Archmage Mitos Odnalor” were published in The Linking Ring, and then in Oracle Magazine and in the book, Devil of a Bar and Pub. He has also written several articles for Magic Magazine and produced “The Why Grid,” a tool for blending magic and performing with storytelling.
His interest in writing also led Rolando to write the Ethics Column in The Linking Ring for a couple of years. This column brought him into contact with a lot of the membership. For the last several years Rolando has been the Assistant Editor of The Linking Ring. Today Rolando likes to say, “Being associated with The Linking Ring and Phil Willmarth has been an absolute highlight of my magical career. Because of TLR I came to love and understand the I.B.M.’s history. Phil used to make me proof the effects in the One-Man Parades – not only to research the credits, but to try out the effects and make sure they worked.”
Interestingly, he never aspired to be International President. Instead, Rolando had his sights set on being the Executive Editor of the The Linking Ring. But when Phil Willmarth announced that he was retiring from the journal to become International President, Rolando’s responsibilities at CNN prevented him from pursuing the editor’s chair. So, as he puts it, “I stayed on the Executive Committee, and fate and some great people decided I would be able to help run the organization as International President. And The Linking Ring ended up with a top-notch editor in Sammy Smith, which confirms that things seem to happen for a reason.”
Rolando was born and raised in Eagle Pass, a small border town in Texas. He didn’t learn to speak English until the first grade, and was raised to believe that if you believe in yourself, your dreams will come true.
Rolando and his wife will have been married twenty-five years this November. They have twin daughters, Allie and Roz, who have just finished high school, and are headed to the University of Mississippi and Loyola University New Orleans, respectively.
Rolando has launched four CNN networks around the world, and run other networks like CNN Headline News. “Not bad for a kid from a small border town,” he says. When interviewed for this article, Rolando said that when asked to move into the role of International President, his first thought was of that woman and her daughters in Madrid. “What has happened to me is a direct result of that night. It comes down to a simple philosophy that will be the theme of my Presidency: If you believe, they will believe.”
Chip MacGregor is an associate editor of The Linking Ring and head of the MacGregor Literary agency. This article originally appeared in the July 2010 issue of The Linking Ring.
