He was born to Irish immigrants who had immigrated to America after their respective home country's potato famine. Little is known about his early life before he took up an interest in magic tricks and ventriloquism at age 12. Upon leaving school at 14 years old, Dunninger began performing "mental feats of prestidigitation.”
In the late 1890s, Dunninger worked his way across the United States from Chicago to New Orleans becoming a famous illusionist and magician. He toured Europe in 1908 performing magic shows and ventriloquism as well. He returned to France in 1914 where he served as the "official magician of the U.S. Army" during WWI for entertainment purposes for French soldiers on the front lines who were born of mixed French/American parentage.
According to Dunninger, he was given a certificate by President Theodore Roosevelt "...for entertaining American and French troops with goodwill during World War I. I was given a certificate of thanks by Theodore Roosevelt, who said that I had done good work." Dunninger frequently brought along two of his assistant ventriloquists at the time.
He is credited with inventing the "dueling bolts". He also grew up and lived in Chicago, Illinois. After WWI, Dunninger traveled throughout Europe and America giving magic shows. In 1929 he became the first magician to appear on a radio show on NBC with Jack Pearl. In 1941 Dunninger was inducted into the International Society of Magicians Hall of Fame. On December 6, 1943, he was again inducted into the hall when he appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show where he performed "The Mentalist".
He was the first person to introduce "doubles" on a magic show. According to Dunninger, at the time he "became interested in medicine and psychology. He experimented with hypnosis and discovered that a person could lose his will to resist suggestion by merely hearing it several times." As a result of this discovery, he started performing feats of prestidigitation wherein "the subject would be hypnotized by watching him work as a hypnotist but would have no reaction when he was told to move his right arm." This technique allowed him to play off of conflicting thoughts while still causing an individual's body movements.
His last television appearance was on "The Ed Sullivan Show" in 1953, where he performed an illusion called "The Mentalist".
In his later years, Dunninger died in a St. Louis hospital on December 2, 1956. He was buried at the Calvary Catholic Cemetery in west St. Louis. The funeral mass was said by Monsignor Robert J. Schladweiler, chaplain of Mt. Carmel Hospital and pastor of St. John Neumann Parish, where Dunninger had been a member of the parish for many years (from 1950 to 1955) and where the church had been named the Monsignor Dunninger Memorial Church in his honor since 1960.
The real name of the character is "William Joseph Dunninger". He chose his stage name from a combination of German and Irish ancestry and adopted it in 1881 while obtaining success as a magician before moving on to become the first person in America to perform on radio as a "mentalist" (that is, interpreting thoughts). His goal was to create very realistic mental messages for people's minds to receive and decrypt as his illusions into reality. While the first performance was in 1904, it is known that he created his first such illusion (The Cipher) in 1913.
He played a major role in creating television and participating in a number of TV shows including the Ed Sullivan Show. Dunninger's fascination with psychology started when he began performing semi-hypnotized "mental" acts for children all over the country at age twelve, but he did not begin experimenting with hypnosis until 1913.
After developing these techniques and making his first million dollars in 1917 from them, a number of other magicians from across America and England began to use hypnosis into their illusions as well. He also held several patents on various aspects of hypnosis before his death on December 2, 1956, at age 77.
Mentalist Dunninger was seen in many films, most notably "Smart Alecks" (1931), "Trip to Bountiful" (1942) and "The Mentalist" (1956). He also appeared in six episodes of the TV series "Perry Mason", in which he played himself. According to a June 2009 article published by the "Des Moines Register", Dunninger's library was auctioned off at an estimated price of $5 million.
Dunninger is referenced numerous times in television's "The Simpsons". For example, in the episode "Homer Bad Man", Homer is watching an episode of "The Ed Sullivan Show" while Moe Szyslak explains that a magician named "Dunninger" cut his assistant in half.
His writings include books and pamphlets such as "How to Entertain At Parties", which is about using parlour games for entertaining at parties; and "Secrets of My Magic", which divulges some of his illusions only. Dunninger also wrote an autobiography titled "The Dunninger Story, The Truth About The Mentalist". His writing style was described as "...magically insightful and engaging...".
Dunninger was also the subject of two novels: "The Mentalist" by Richard S. Wheeler (1941) and "The Dunninger Dilemma" by Howard Middleton (1952). A biographical comic book titled "The Mentalist" was released in 1975.
In the 1958 film "Smart Alecks", Dunninger is portrayed by Edward Everett Horton. The movie is about a group of high school students, led by a college student, going to see a magic show in St. Louis to raise money for their class trip to Oklahoma City. They are accompanied by their principal and the dean of women, who is less than amused by some of Dunninger's acts.
The movie was written by comic strip writer Ed Wheeler and directed by Jules White. Edward Everett Horton played several roles in Jules White's films as well as the films "Bachelor Mother" and "Old Fools".
The article by Mrs. Mary Lou Manion on January 7, 2008 notes that films including "Smart Alecks" and "The Mentalist", as well as television interviews with Dunninger, are available on his official website which offers advertising rates.
In 1956, Dunninger appeared in the short-lived TV series "The Mentalist". The show starred Alan Young, and was based upon a character created by Milton Bradley. While the idea of a mind reader is still used today, the techniques used on The Mentalist were very close to those found in Dunninger's books and lectures. Dunninger's mentalism was also featured in the 1957 Walt Disney movie "Mary Poppins".
His book "How to Entertain at Parties" was the basis for a BBC television series produced in the early 1960s. The ten-part series, which featured guest stars including Tony Hancock as an American magician, was on BBC2 and aired Tuesday and Wednesday night after "The Frost Report".
A biography of Dunninger was released in 2009 titled "The Mentalist: The Life and Times of William Joseph Dunninger" by Ed Wheeler.