‘Balloon Man’s’ Career on Rise

While recovering from a back operation, Donald Wortman, 42, got started on a new career.

“A friend brought me some balloons and a book on how to make them look like animals and I got real good with them,” said the Cal State Long Beach graduate.

He later took courses in clowning and magic and now is known throughout Orange County as “the Balloon Man,” which he emphasizes by handing balloons to everyone he meets.

“It promotes good feelings,” he said.

While he performs for all ages, Wortman mainly entertains at children’s parties, especially for hospital bound children and the mentally retarded. He is part of the clown group at Children’s Hospital of Orange County (CHOC).

He recently performed at the UCI Medical Center for a stroke victims’ support group.

“Using magic I can see a light in some of the children’s eyes that you can’t see without it,” he said. “Magic makes a sick or retarded kid respond in a different way.”

Doing sleight of hand has helped him make contact with teen-age retarded workers on his job, said Wortman.

“Every time I would go by this retarded kid who works with me, I would do a little hand magic and he would talk to me with his eyes,” he said. “He would call me by name and started coming out of his own world into everyone else’s.”

Wortman feels magic sometimes accomplishes the impossible, especially with youngsters.

“I get a sense of accomplishment and a wonderful feeling from being good with balloons and magic,” said Wortman, whose main job is as a repair technician at the Cal State Long Beach Library. He has been there 10 years.

“I have a degree in English, but when I graduated, the only job I could get was as a teacher, and I didn’t want to do that,” he said.

He joined the Navy and later became a certified arc welder.

His original goal was to be a children’s librarian.

“Magic has changed my thinking,” said Wortman, who found that performing for children “made me feel good inside. The more I gave of myself the more I got and the better I felt.”

Two years ago Wortman performed his first show for $35. His fee now is $100 for a 45-minute gig in which he uses various props including a magic cape, finger puppets, a toilet plunger and balloons.

He has done 60 shows this year.

“Magic is like music,” he said. “It appeals to everyone, including kids who can’t speak English. You communicate through magic. Everyone knows that. I can go anyplace in the world and have people understand me.”

A Magic Castle member and a vice president of the International Assn. of Magicians, Wortman sometimes uses his 2-year-old daughter in his act, making her disappear “right before your eyes.”

Says Wortman: “I’m not like a world class magician yet, but I’m a very good magician.”

So caught up is he in his magic act, the Long Beach resident plans to retire from his regular job at age 50 and become a full-time magician.

“I’m having a good time with magic, and I’m getting paid for it,” he said. “Magic promotes good feelings, and it’s my way of making the world a little nicer place.”

And he adds: “I’m selfish. I want to feel good and magic does that for me.”

Newport Beach residents Jennifer and Derek Werner stunned their families and friends in May, 1989, when the college graduates gave up jobs that combined grossed them $150,000 a year to enlist in the Army as privates.

But they were guaranteed that they would both be sent to the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, Calif., to study the Polish language.

“We clearly made the right decision,” said the Werners, both 31, in a telephone interview Tuesday in Costa Mesa as they prepared to leave for a new assignment in Germany as language interpreters.

“You just have to be impressed with the quality of people in the Army today,” said Jennifer, who with her husband plans to make the Army a 20-year career.