David Blaine Biography

Magician

Showman David Blaine's original specialty was "street magic" -- close-up magic done for small groups on New York City streets. His talent was showcased in a series of national TV specials in the late 1990s, with dramatic gasps from bystanders caught on camera. Soon Blaine was both a magician and a celebrity, known for his hipster style, uptown-casual clothes, and friendships with actors like actor Leonardo DiCaprio. Over time Blaine moved from small-scale stunts to much-publicized set pieces that were as much endurance tests as feats of legerdemain. Blaine was buried in a glass coffin for a week in a 1999 New York City stunt, and the next year he spent three days encased in a block of ice in Times Square. He stood atop a 90-foot pillar in New York's Bryant Park for two days in 2002 before falling into a cushion of cardboard boxes. In 2003 he spent 44 days suspended in a glass box near the Thames River in London. He lounged in a water-filled glass sphere outside New York's Lincoln Center for a week in May of 2006 in a stunt he called "Drowned Alive," and in September 2008 he hung upside down in New York's Central Park for 60 hours in a feat called "Dive of Death."

Extra credit: At the end of "Drowned Alive," Blaine tried but failed to set a world record for holding one's breath, while also attempting to escape from shackles at he bottom of his sphere. Divers pulled him from the water after seven minutes.

Other famed illusionists include Houdini and Wolfgang Von Kempelen.

Fans of the unusual may also enjoy our loop on TV Psychics.

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