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David Copperfield Reflects On Career

LAS VEGAS, Nevada – Aug. 21, 2000 -- Neil Sedaka once sang "Breaking Up Is Hard to Do."

In David Copperfield's case there was little choice.

After a 15-year relationship with Caesars Palace hotel-casino, the world-renown magician found himself without a partner when the hotel announced earlier this year the closing of its showroom, scheduled for Sept. 3.

Not to worry. Copperfield found a new steady in the Hollywood Theatre at the MGM Grand hotel-casino, where he'll debut his new show, "Unknown Dimension." The production begins Thursday and runs for six nights.

Although it's not a permanent home ("We'll see how it goes," Copperfield said), the illusionist is already excited about one aspect of his new venue: the size. Although at 630 seats the theater is nearly 400 seats smaller than Caesars' showroom, Copperfield insists he's not altering his production, which will translate into a more personable presentation.

"The MGM room is more intimate, but I'm doing an arena show," he said in a recent phone interview from Lake Tahoe, where he was performing. "It's a great opportunity for the audience."

It's also a chance for them to see a production of largely new illusions, including one in which he and members of the audience will be "transported" from the MGM stage to a beach in Hawaii. A Hawaiian crew is at the beach filming the scene, which will be broadcast back to the theater audience via satellite.

The illusion has never done before, and Copperfield said it was three years in the making. Even he is impressed with this feat of magic.

"It's a very simple effect," he said, with no high-tech gadgetry.

Still, the use of a camera and satellite -- something Houdini never had -- does raise the question: Is technology changing the face of magic today? Copperfield quickly dismissed that notion by saying technology is not part of his illusion, but a means to share it.

"Technology allows the theater audience to appreciate that I'm travelling to the other side of the Earth," he said. "I'm not using the technology to take you there. That would be way too easy and it would look obvious, I think."

Having illusions that are never obvious is how Copperfield made his career.

Born David Seth Kotkin on Sept. 16, 1956, in Metuchen, N.J., Copperfield first began to perform professionally in 1968.

That same year he became the youngest person admitted to the Society of American Magicians, and four years later he was teaching a course at New York University.

A stint as the lead in the Chicago musical "The Magic Man" while he was still in college got Copperfield noticed by network brass, and he landed a job as host of "The Magic of ABC" special in 1978

One year later CBS signed him to a series of specials, beginning with "The Magic of David Copperfield." He has had 14 more specials since, with a new one scheduled for 2001.

...The illusionist now has a new girlfriend -- unidentified -- whom he presumably sees between his constant world touring; Copperfield estimates he performs 500 shows a year worldwide.

If that doesn't keep him busy enough, there are the illusions themselves.

Consequently, he spends a great deal of his spare time developing more acts, especially in finding ways to perform the same types of magic -- such as disappearing -- but in different ways.

"I've vanished every big object there is to vanish; I've escaped from everything you can escape from and went over Niagara Falls. I did a lot of stuff," he said. "How do you keep yourself interested? You really work hard to find something unique, and travelling to the other side of the planet is something I haven't done."

Then there's Fox's "Magic Secrets Revealed" specials, where a masked magician showed the reality behind the magic. Although the highly-rated shows drew the ire of many magicians for ruining the illusion, that didn't bother Copperfield.

"What bothered me was for my friends," who are also magicians, he said. "A lot of them don't have the resources to have four or five methods or more material or whatever. And when the Fox special revealed something, these guys were losing work, people who are trying to feed their wife and kids.

During his life the magician estimates that he's developed more than 20 hours of material so far, compared to someone during Houdini's time, who would have one hour to last a lifetime.

And with television, and now the Internet, allowing people all over the world to see many of his illusions, there's no sign of it letting up.

"It eats up a lot of your material," he said. "So you're obliged to have new ideas all the time."

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