Gazzo

In 2001, aware that he was still the torchbearer for the Phantom legend, he resumed work on his book. He contacted David Britland and in 2002 they published Phantoms of the Card Table; Confessions of a Card Sharp. This book told Scott's entire story, and detailed his eventful demonstration in 1930. It detailed the special card work that Scott had perfected decades earlier and introduced the level of skill and practice necessary to survive as a cardsharp to an entire new generation.

His recovery was the result of Kristin's support and his own strength and sense of humour. It took almost two years and was not helped when Gazzo heard the news that Walter Scott had died, 12 May 1995.

In summer 1994 Gazzo suffered a mild stroke in the middle of a street show. He was taken to a hospital and diagnosed. He was without medical insurance, and was discharged with a bill of $30,000.

In 1983 Osborne arrived in New York City. Short of money he relied on the kindness of other street performers, or their friends, to have a place to stay. He also had to tailor his style of comedy to the American audiences in order to start making money from his street magic shows again.

Devastated Gazzo admitted his mistake at asking for 'lessons', and in an attempt to explain he removed his 1976 edition of The Phantom at the Card Table from his bag. As he left the room to get some more tea Gazzo heard "That book should never have been written".

Gary 'Gazzo' Osbourne (born 1960) is a British street magician. An expert in cons and scams, he moved in the 1980s to the US, where he befriended Walter Irving Scott (The Phantom). He is Scott's only pupil and the only person with whom Scott entrusted his biography and life's work at card cheating and sleights.

Born in 1960 in Wallingford, his interest in magic was sparked by a Christmas gift from his aunt. At age 10 he also received a copy of 'The Phantom of the Card Table' manuscript by Walter Irving Scott and Eddie McGuire, from his grandfather. The almost impossibly skilled protagonist talked about, The Phantom, intrigued the young magician and influenced his own development. He focused on scams and swindles, associating with a team of monte men until, in the late 1970s, he moved to London.

In London Osborne took to street performance on the weekends at Covent Garden. His show was a mixture of magic and comedy. At the Magic Circle headquarters in London he practiced his sleight of hand card work, among some of the top performers in the country, from what he could now gather from Scott's manuscript. While he obsessed with false dealing, and Scott's work, Osbourne began to notice that no one else appreciated Scott's stature, or even knew he, or his work, even existed. The few that did believe the wild stories of 'The Phantom's' skills also believed he was still alive, fifty years after his famous demonstration in New York City in 1930, and this was the incentive Osborne needed to search out this mysterious figure of magic folklore.