David Copperfield has been hailed by audiences and critics alike as the greatest magician in the world. In addition to decades of network television events, worldwide tours, and “Dreams and Nightmares," the critically acclaimed Broadway show that set box-office records, he has been featured on the cover of Forbes, Architectural Digest and Esquire and is the seventh highest paid entertainer in the world.
Copperfield has elevated the ancient art of magic to new heights and redefined it along the way. He has vanished the Statue of Liberty, walked through the Great Wall of China, flown through the air and made audience members disappear and reappear in places they would never expect.
Witty, engaging and supremely entertaining, Copperfield's approach to his venerable art has transformed the way the world looks at magic. His celebrated feats and sense of theater have won “The Magic of David Copperfield” dozens of Emmy Awards and twice led him to be named “Entertainer of the Year.” His tours have set box-office records across Europe, Asia and North and South America.
He has been honored with a wax likeness in Madame Toussaud's in London, and is the only living illusionist to receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. He was knighted by the French government, receiving the "Chevalier of Arts and Letters" and was recently given an honorary doctorate of Humane Letters from Fordham University.
Even as a kid, Copperfield was performing illusions in his home town of Metuchen, New Jersey. He began performing professionally at age 12, and became the youngest person ever to be admitted to the Society of American Magicians. By sixteen, he was teaching a course in magic at New York University
During his first week of college, he was cast as the lead in the Chicago musical, “The Magic Man” He acted, sang and created all the magic in the show, which became the longest running musical in Chicago history As a result, he was chosen to host and star in “The Magic of ABC.” His performance was so successful that CBS signed Copperfield for a series of specials, beginning with “The Magic of David Copperfield.” With each new special, Copperfield created and performed even more mind boggling feats before a live audience, without the aid of camera tricks or visual effects.
Of all his accomplishments, Copperfield insists that his greatest work to date is "Project Magic,” a rehabilitative program established in March 1982 to strengthen dexterity and motor skills in disabled patients, using sleight-of-hand magic as a method of therapy. “Project Magic” has been accredited by the American Occupational Therapy Association and currently implemented in 1,100 hospitals and in 30 countries world-wide.
Recently, Copperfield joined forces with Dean Koontz, Joyce Carol Oates, Ray Bradbury and others for “David Copperfield’s Tales of the Impossible,” an anthology of original fiction set in the world of magic and illusion. This collections was so well received that a second volume was published, “David Copperfield's Beyond Imagination.”
In addition to performing, Copperfield has a passion for preserving the art of magic for future generations. His International Museum and Library of the Conjuring Arts is a safe and permanent home for antiquarian props, books and other historical ephemera related conjuring. The museum houses the world's premiere collection of historical documentation and artifacts pertaining to magic, illusion, and the allied arts.
David Copperfield has revolutionized magic. He taken it to heights of artistry and imagination undreamed of by wizards and audiences of the past, combining spellbinding illusions with extraordinary theatre
MAGICAL HIGHLIGHTS
• David Copperfield vanished an airplane surrounded by a ring of spectators.
• He then made the Statue of Liberty disappear before a live audience of New Yorkers and a home television audience estimated at over 50 million.
• During his eighth annual special, Copperfield walked through the Great Wall of China, as thousands of live spectators looked on.
• He levitated himself across the Grand Canyon.
• He became the first person to escape from Alcatraz.
• He escaped from an imploding building and survived a plunge over the precipice of Niagara Falls.
• Copperfield made a seventy-ton Orient Express train car vanish in mid-air above a circle of witnesses.
• He defied gravity, unlocking the mystery of human flight, in his milestone illusion, "Flying."
• In "Fires Of Passion," one of Copperfield's television specials, he hung ten stories with burning ropes wearing a straight jacket above a bed of flaming spikes - the escape that not even Houdini would attempt.
• Although perhaps best known for the "grand illusion," Copperfield is also a master of pure sleight-of-hand. In "Fires of Passion," he destroyed and restored the famous Honus Wagner baseball card, worth well over a million dollars, in front of its admittedly nervous owner, hockey great Wayne Gretsky.
• The average time it takes Copperfield to create a new illusion, from conception to performance is two and a half years. "Flying," took over seven years to develop.
• He has been knighted by the French government, receiving the Chevalier of Arts and Letters and has received an honorary doctorate of Humane Letters from Fordham University.
• Copperfield owns the International Museum and Library of the Conjuring Arts, the world's largest repository of antiquarian books, magic, illusions, and other ephemera on magic and the allied arts.
• He has performed seven times for Presidents of the United States.
• In 1995, Copperfield was given a star and inducted into the Hollywood Boulevard Walk of Fame.
• He has published two books: Tales of the Impossible, an anthology of original fiction set in the world of magic and illusion, on which he collaborated with Ray Bradbury, Dean Koontz, Joyce Carol Oates and others; and Beyond Imagination (anthology part 2).
• Copperfield has been honored with a wax likeness of him in Madame Toussaud's in London.
