Valentine Vox (born Jack Riley; February 20, 1939) is a British born American ventriloquist and author known for his scholarly book on the history of ventriloquism, I Can See Your Lips Moving: the history and art of ventriloquism, which traces the practice back some three thousand years.
As a ventriloquist Vox's career spanned over 50 years appearing in venues around the world in theatre, cabaret and on television. Besides English, he has performed his act in Japanese and German languages. In 1967 Edgar Bergen described Valentine as: A dishonest ventriloquist — because he doesn’t move his lips.
In 1997 Vox became the director of the International Ventriloquist Association and organized annual conventions in Las Vegas from 1997 to 2003 where he brought together some of the world top ventriloquists which included Jeff Dunham, Nina Conti, Jay Johnson, Ronn Lucas, Mallory Lewis, and Paul Winchell.
Vox took his name from the 1840 Victorian novel by Henry Cockton, The Life and Adventures of Valentine Vox the Ventriloquist.
Early life
Vox was born Jack Riley in Highgate, London, the son of May Riley, a cook, and John Riley, who owned a small art studio. He had two sisters, Pat and Sheila.
He became interested in ventriloquism at the age of ten after buying a penny leaflet on “how to do ventriloquism” in a magic shop and was also inspired listening to Educating Archie, a radio show that featured ventriloquist Peter Brough. He persuaded his father and mother to buy him a ventriloquist dummy. He made his debut as a ventriloquist with his new partner at his school before the Christmas break.
Upon leaving school, he became an apprentice photographer at the Stephen Shaw Studio in Crouch End. He learned the craft quickly, and one of his pictures was published on the front cover of Crusade, a national magazine, in 1955. In 1958 he immigrated to Canada with his wife Sylvia and their daughter Jacqueline.
Early career
Shortly after settling in Toronto, Vox's interest in ventriloquism was revived, influenced through watching the many ventriloquists who appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show. In 1960 he created a team of Canadian characters: a beaver named Basil, an Eskimo Ootuk and Daniel O’Rourke, a Royal Canadian Mountie figure and began performing as a children's entertainer going under his ancestral family name of O’Reilly.
In 1963 he landed a job as a warm-up man on a national television show Razzle Dazzle broadcast by CBC and made his television debut on the show January 14, 1965.
Between 1965 and 1968, he appeared on a biweekly guest spot on the Uncle Bobby show, a morning kids’ program broadcast on CFTO channel nine in Toronto.
In 1966, he turned his hand to acting and became part of the Questors, a theater company in Toronto, and was cast in the lead role in A Stranger unto My Brethren, a controversial play dealing with the subject of homosexuality. For his leading role as Michael Hamilton he won “best actor” award at the Ontario Drama Festival in Toronto. Later he became a resident actor in the newly formed theater company Theatre Toronto (1968) under the direction of Clifford Williams.
In 1967, he appeared on the prime time national TV show To Tell The Truth and defeated the panel by convincing them that the three ventriloquial voices he produced were coming from the two impostors.
In the same year, Edgar Bergen, who was doing a nostalgic tour playing venues across North America, was appearing at the Royal York Hotel in Toronto. The producers of the Uncle Bobby Show approached Bergen with the idea of performing on the show with Vox. Bergen agreed and the segment featuring the two ventriloquists performing together was aired nationally on the weekly show on CTV.
In 1968, Vox was asked by Arc Records to make an L.P. teaching ventriloquism. The record producer, Ken Warriner, suggested that the recording begin with a lesson about the history of the art. It was this suggestion that inspired Vox to venture on a quest to write the first book on the history of the art. The L.P. You Can Be A Ventriloquist was released in 1968 on the Saga Label.
Author
In 1970, Vox returned to the UK to pursue this goal to write a book on the history of ventriloquism. He began researching at the British Museum library and University of London library where he met the librarian of the Harry Price Library, Alan Wesencraft, who became his mentor and taught him the science of research.