Is The Historic Malco Theatre, home to Maxwell Blade's Theatre of Magic & Comedy, haunted?
That was a question explored on a recent episode of "Portals to Hell," a Travel Channel reality show starring Jack Osbourne and Katrina Weldman, now in its third season. The pair investigate allegedly haunted or supernatural places and recently visited the Malco, owned by magician Blade, who performs his magic act on its stages.
"It's very cool, well-done. I've watched it myself a couple of times already -- which I normally don't watch myself on camera -- but it was fun to watch it," Blade said in an interview.
"There was a young man who became a friend of mine named Anthony Cross out of Memphis. He's a native of Memphis and he picked 13 places around America, locations to shoot this season, and we got lucky," Blade said.
"He looked up Hot Springs and looked up a few things here and saw the theater and thought 'Hey, that's a great place, so let's go.' So in a nutshell it was just by the toss of a dart so to speak and got real lucky and great people, glad to have them. glad they were here," he said.
"They do paranormal investigations, not in the sense that they want there to be a ghost, but almost to dispel it; to really investigate if what's been claimed is true."
The venue has a macabre history, Blade said.
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"You know we've had some odd things happen here. I myself have had several things happen, but I think every theater in the world is haunted by some ghost.
"One of the managers up in the apartment I understand died. That's allegedly the ghost that the psychic saw on the show."
The ghost, which Blade said is named Clyde, allegedly misses the days of the Malco showing movies.
The psychic "was brought in, by the way, not knowing where she was going, knowing nothing about it, so there's no way she could look into it prior to it, which is kind of a neat idea, I think, but she said that Clyde was here and he likes me but he wants it to be I guess a movie theater," he said.
"I've never seen a ghost, but I've had odd things happen. I would love to see a ghost, and I wouldn't even run. I think most people would probably run if they see a ghost."
Blade recalled an incident about 15 years ago where six or eight Hot Springs police officers came into the theater.
"I left the door open and they came in to look around and called me. I said 'I'll be right there.' About five of them out back here, and I said, 'You guys come on back in, I'll get you something to drink,' and there was a couple of them that said, 'Nah, we're not ever going to go back into that.' (One said), 'I'll never go back in that building again' (and) I said, 'Really, well, did you see something?' He said 'Yeah.' He was visibly shaken," Blade said.
"I get a little creeped sometimes when I'm by myself, but I'd like to see a ghost," he said.
The Malco was built in 1946 on the foundation of The Princess Theatre, Blade said, which was at the location from 1910 until it burned down in 1935.
Blade said it was neat meeting Osbourne, who is the son of heavy metal singer and TV personality Ozzy Osbourne, and noted keeping the filming of the "Portals to Hell" episode a secret was difficult.
"We couldn't talk about them being here, nor could we tell anyone that they were here. They were here for a solid week, and we had to close, and it was a fun week. I had a good time, made some new friends," he said.
"He's a humble guy and on the film, on the show, when you see them come in and I greet them, that was really the first time, that's really the first time that I met them, that wasn't an edited in or worked out piece," Blade said.
"But he was a neat guy. So was Katrina," he said, noting Weldman bought one of his paintings while there.
Blade said the appearance on the show will be a positive for both the theater and for Hot Springs.
"I mean any time you get on national television, as I said, I couldn't purchase that kind of advertising," he said. "I've had people from all over the country calling or emailing me, reaching out on Facebook."
He noted some fellow magicians from New York City contacted him and said, "'Hey, that's a cool theater, I didn't know you were down there.' But yeah, it's opened up a lot of doors. It will definitely bring in more visitors to Hot Springs, and they will go into everything here. It's no minus in that package, it's definitely a plus."
Maxwell Blade performs a magic trick on his stage at The Historic Malco Theatre for members of the Hot Springs National Park Rotary Club. - Photo by Tanner Newton of The Sentinel-Record