Fourteen years old, first corporate show

My first paid corporate show was in 1976, for Dataproducts Corp. in San Jose. I was fourteen. A couple years later I was the resident magician in the magic shop at Marriott's Great America, and I showed up on Evening Magazine, the Bay Area TV show, around the same time. I developed my sleight of hand skills during high school, which was supposed to be for homework. I was fortunate enough to meet and learn from Dai Vernon and the legendary Slydini when I was only 16.

Ace Miles around age sixteen, curly hair and sunglasses, standing in front of the Magic Castle's turret in Hollywood, 1978. — Outside the Magic Castle, 1978

A Jack of all trades... An Ace at them all

Close-up sleights, parlor magic, stage illusions, mentalism, ventriloquism, and even real sideshow and circus skills: fire eating, sword swallowing, bed of nails, juggling knives and fire, unicycle, stilts, and rope walking. In the late 90s I wrote, produced, directed, and performed my own themed stage productions for King's Parks and Paramount's Great America, including the fabrication of original large-scale illusions. I ran an original production called Circus Minimus for decades, my daughters on stage, my wife and friends backstage. Two of the guest performers went on to performing careers of their own: John Gilkey went on to perform and write shows for Cirque du Soleil, and Christian Fitzharris went on to work as a Cirque du Soleil clown and appear in the film Sister Act.

I also crewed a real tall ship, the Royaliste, in the San Francisco Bay for two and a half years with a group called Tales of the Seven Seas. Cannons and all, we fired into McCovey Cove during Giants games and sailed in parades.

And then, something entirely different

I took a break from entertaining full-time and became a self-taught 3D animator and modeler. I taught myself LightWave 3D and wrote some of the first training material for it as a power user. I became a Lead Animator at Atari Games/Time Warner Interactive, taught at the Academy of Art College in San Francisco for four years, and lectured in Tokyo, Japan. I also worked as a Senior Animator for Electronic Arts and Sega on several major titles. While working at Fat Box Films in Redwood Shores, I personally created the Sega Dreamcast's bouncing-ball opening animation and the 20th Century Fox Interactive logo animation, and a Joey Award-winning animation for Sega that was a featured part of Disney Epcot's "How to Make a Video Game."

That background is why I build my own sets and run my own tech instead of hiring it out. I designed and hand-built the full pirate shipwreck I still tour with, taught myself to weld with the help of YouTube to build it. Disney Imagineering bought a series of my handmade, weathered props over a couple of years for their Pirate Cove at Disneyland Shanghai. I also did special-effects work, subcontracted through MonsterFX, for Disney's “Ghosts, Myths and Legends,” the Queen Mary's own haunted-ship tour.

Fifty years of corporate work, a few of the names

I've performed for Apple, IBM, Hewlett Packard, ABC, Disney Channel, and the Academy of Magical Arts (the Magic Castle, Hollywood), where I played a week-long run in 2025, twenty seven shows in the Parlour of Prestidigitation. At an Apple event in a park in the 1990s I taught Steve Jobs and a group of Apple managers how to juggle. In the 1990s I also did over sixty private and corporate shows in a single December, mostly across Silicon Valley and the Peninsula, once doing more than a dozen shows in one day.

I've had a repeat relationship with the Cupertino Rotary Club for decades, including 27 straight years performing my own show, Circus Minimus, at their Oktoberfest.

Ace Miles today, bald with a mustache and goatee, holding an ace of spades playing card in front of the lit Magic Castle turret in Hollywood at night. — Outside the Magic Castle, 2025

A few I'm proud of

First place, stage category, at the historic Pacific Coast Association of Magicians convention, 1983. First place, Oakland Magic Circle magic contest, 2021, the oldest magic organization in California.

And a pandemic pivot: over 400 virtual shows and over 400 five-star reviews on Airbnb Experiences Online, during 2021 alone.

First place trophy, Oakland Magic Circle Magic Contest, engraved Ace Miles, 1st Place, 2021. — Oakland Magic Circle, 2021

Ace Miles holding an Academy of Magical Arts performer coin, 2025, in front of the Magic Castle turret in Hollywood. — Magic Castle performer, 2025

What people say after

“A professional. He gets the job done. Very organized, he was up and running in nothing flat. And we so appreciate that.”

Charley Daly CEO, Chamber of Commerce, Pleasant Hill Art, Jazz and Wine Festival

Read my reviews on Google

Let's see if your date's open

Tell me what you've got and I'll be straight about whether I'm the right fit.

Emailace@acemiles.com

Phone(916) 365-2265

Where I performSacramento & the Bay Area