By age 16, he was teaching a course in magic at New York University. My whole life goes back to that camp experience when I was three or four." As a teenager, he became fascinated with Broadway and frequently sneaked into shows, especially musicals featuring the work of Stephen Sondheim or Bob Fosse. He said, "At Camp Harmony, we spent two weeks searching for a guide who'd been kidnapped by Indians. As a child, he attended Camp Harmony, a day camp in nearby Warren, New Jersey, where he began practicing magic and ventriloquism, an experience to which he credits his creative style. Shy and a loner, the young Copperfield saw magic as a way to fit in and, later, to meet women. Oddly enough, Copperfield's influences did not come from magicians but Hollywood actors like Gene Kelly, Fred Astaire, and Charlie Chaplin. When he was 10, he began practicing magic as "Davino the Boy Magician" in his neighborhood, and at age 12, he became the youngest person admitted to the Society of American Magicians. Ĭopperfield started his career as a ventriloquist at the age of 8 with his own ' Jerry Mahoney' puppet. In 1974 he graduated from Metuchen High School. His mother was born in Jerusalem, while his paternal grandparents were Jewish emigrants from the Ukrainian SSR (present-day Ukraine). Early life and education Ĭopperfield was born David Seth Kotkin in Metuchen, New Jersey, the son of Jewish parents Rebecca Kotkin (née Gispan 1924–2008), an insurance adjuster, and Hyman Kotkin (1922–2006), who owned and operated Korby's, a men's haberdashery in Warren, New Jersey. When not performing, he manages his chain of 11 resort islands in The Bahamas, which he calls Musha Cay and the Islands of Copperfield Bay. In 2015, Forbes listed his earnings at $63 million for the previous 12 months and ranked him the 20th highest-earning celebrity in the world. His illusions have included the disappearance of a Learjet (1981), the vanishing and reappearance of the Statue of Liberty (1983), levitating over the Grand Canyon (1984), walking through the Great Wall of China (1986), escaping from Alcatraz prison (1987), the disappearance of an Orient Express dining car (1991) and flying on stage for several minutes (1992).Īs of 2006, he has sold 33 million tickets and grossed over US$4 billion, more than any other solo entertainer in history by a large margin. He has been named a Living Legend by the US Library of Congress. Best known for his combination of storytelling and illusion, his career of over 40 years has earned him 11 Guinness World Records, a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and a knighthood by the French government. Ĭopperfield's television specials have been nominated for 38 Emmy Awards, winning 21. David Seth Kotkin (born September 16, 1956), known professionally as David Copperfield, is an American magician, described by Forbes as the most commercially successful magician in history.
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