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Quote by David Copperfield

“You'd go in the magic shop [as an 8-year-old ], and you'd walk up to the magicians doing stuff, and they'd turn their back on you. "Oh my gosh, I wish they would accept me." It really lit a fire. I really wanted to succeed.”

Quote by David Copperfield

Author

David Copperfield

David Copperfield, born on September 16, 1956, is a world-renowned magician from the United States. His magical performances blend modern technology with traditional magic tricks, bringing a new level of visual impact and shock to the audience. Copperfield has won the love of audiences worldwide with his amazing magical skills and stage charm. more

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“I really wanted to succeed. I wanted to be accepted. I read every magic book that I possibly could, studied every move, and by the time I was 12, they really accepted me, they embraced me.”

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“I think the negative reinforcement really helped me in my very beginnings.”

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“I had a point of view, which was different. I looked at magic as theater, as storytelling, and I tried to have an approach that was different from what they were doing. "How can I move people and really get them to dream with a card trick, with coin magic, or even a piece of stage magic?"”

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“There was a guy named Ed Mishell. He was this grandfatherly guy who did all the illustrations for the catalogs and reviewed magic effects for the magic magazines, so all of the magic dealers would send him magic effects for free-it was a great deal. His basement was full of this stuff. He took me under his wing, and he would sneak me into the Society of American Magicians meetings in New York. It's the world's oldest magic organization.”

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“Simplicity is a great element of good breeding.”

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“There were really a bunch of old, old magic hobbyists at the time, some of them who actually had known [Harry] Houdini. You had to be 14 to go to these meetings, and he snuck me in at 12. It was glorious.”

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“A few years later, when I was still going to these meetings, I was also "second-acting" every Broadway show [walking in with the crowd after intermission]. I snuck in to see Grease with John Travolta in kind of a secondary part and Adrienne Barbeau playing Rizzo, into Pippin, hung out with Ben Vereen and Bob Fosse. It was an amazing time for a teenager.”

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“If you ever saw All That Jazz [1979], Bob Fosse was kind of raised dancing in strip joints and the whole era of burlesque, and that form ran his visual aesthetic, the pacing and rhythm of what he did.”

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“Pippin had an opening number called "Magic to Do," and Jules Fisher, the brilliant lighting designer lit it. Tony Walton did all of the sets. As a kid I thought, "Wow, I'm seeing onstage what a MGM musical would look like live." It was that good, and it was directed by Bob Fosse.”

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“I was 16 at the time, and I came backstage and started hanging out with them. I said, "Well, maybe you can 'vanish' the silk this way." The opening was a black stage while the "Magic to Do" song started playing. All you saw were hands, lit by Jules Fisher, and then Ben Vereen would appear beyond the hands, and at the end of the scene he would vanish a silk. The spotlight would hit a red spot on the floor where you'd see the silk on the floor. He'd pull the silk out of the floor and it became the entire set coming out of the floor.”

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