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| David Copperfield
David
Copperfield : Biography
By age 16, David Copperfield was
teaching a course in magic at New York University. He went on to perform his
magic feats more than 500 times a year. According to Forbes magazine,
Copperfield earned $57 million in merchandise and tour revenue in 2005. By
2012, his net worth was estimated at $150 million. Over his long career, he has
won 21 Emmy Awards, among other honors, and opened the International Museum and
Library of the Conjuring Arts in Las Vegas, Nevada, which is dedicated to
preserving the history and art of magic.
Born David Seth Kotkin on September
16, 1956, in Metuchen, Jersey, David Copperfield is one of the world's most
famous magicians and wealthiest entertainers. Copperfield got his start with
magic at the age of 12, when he became the youngest person to gain admission
into the Society of American Magicians.
By age 16, he was teaching a course in
magic at New York University and performing under the name David Copperfield,
after the popular Charles Dickens novel. After a brief stint at Fordham
University, Copperfield was cast as the lead in the Chicago musical The Magic Man.
Famed Magician
and TV Personality
The success of The Magic Man led to a job
hosting an ABC magic special, which Copperfield parlayed into a lucrative
career. He went on to perform his magic feats more than 500 times a year.
Copperfield's most popular illusions include walking through the Great Wall of
China, making the Statue of Liberty disappear and escaping from a flaming raft
over Niagara Falls.
Over his long career, Copperfield has
garnered 21 Emmy Awards, been named "Magician of the Century" and
"Magician of the Millennium," received the first star on the
Hollywood Walk of Fame awarded to a living magician, and received the
prestigious U.S. Library of Congress' Living Legend Award (other award
recipients include Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese and Colin Powell). Additionally, Copperfield
was knighted by the French government, becoming the first magician to receive
the Chevalier of Arts and Letters.
According to Forbes magazine,
Copperfield earned $57 million in merchandise and tour revenue in 2005 alone.
By 2012, the magician's net worth was estimated at $150 million, and his ticket
sales had grossed an estimated $3 billion.
Other Projects
In 1982, Copperfield established
Project Magic, a rehabilitation program that uses sleight-of-hand magic as a
method of physical therapy. The program is accredited by the American
Occupational Therapy Association and is used in hospitals across the globe.
Copperfield also opened the
International Museum and Library of the Conjuring Arts in Las Vegas, Nevada,
which is dedicated to preserving the history and art of magic, and holds the
world's largest magical artifact collection (among the artifacts housed at the
museum are Orson Welles's Buzz Saw illusion and Houdini's water torture cell).
David Copperfield was famously engaged
to supermodel Claudia Schiffer in the late 1990s, but the couple parted ways
before wedding.
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