In the 1930s, Kessler was doing professional straight magic as "Count Marakoff", "Carlton Sharpe", and "Carl Sharp" in Chicago, helping support his family, and later moved to New York City, where he performed in night clubs and on television variety shows. In the early 1940s, he gave up "real magic" when he realized he could not be as good as some of his peers. According to his daughter, “one night, one of his tricks got screwed up, he said something to cover, and the audience laughed. So he started adding more.”