David Copperfield

Biography

David Copperfield is an American illusionist and stage magician whose performing career has spanned more than four decades. He was born in Metuchen, New Jersey, started magic as a boy, and was admitted to the Society of American Magicians at twelve; by sixteen he was teaching a magic course at New York University. He left Fordham University to take the lead in the Chicago musical The Magic Man, adopting his stage name from a Dickens novel. Television producer Joseph Cates discovered him, and his magic specials ran from 1977 to 2001, collecting 38 Emmy nominations and 21 wins. Among his best known illusions are making a Learjet vanish, appearing to remove the Statue of Liberty, and walking through the Great Wall of China; the statue trick appeared in Liberty: Mother of Exiles (2019). He acted in Terror Train (1980) and The Incredible Burt Wonderstone (2013), advised on The Prestige, and holds 11 Guinness World Records.

70years old

Turns 71 on September 16in 339 days

Born September 16, 1956Metuchen
Star sign: VirgoThe sign runs August 23 to September 22
David Seth Kotkin (birth name)

Movie Career

Films: 5
Career span: 39 years1980 to 2019

Every film, newest first

2019Liberty: Mother of ExilesIMDb rating 6.6
20157 Days in HellIMDb rating 7.1
2013The Incredible Burt WonderstoneIMDb rating 5.9
2009Oh My GodIMDb rating 6.1
1980Terror TrainIMDb rating 5.8

Genres

Did you know?!

First role
Copperfield was 18 and three weeks into his freshman year at Fordham University when he quit to take the lead role in The Magic Man, a musical staged in Chicago. He sang, danced and devised most of the show's original illusions.
A first
Copperfield was 12 when he became the youngest person ever admitted to the Society of American Magicians, after performing as Davino the Boy Magician.
Behind the camera
Copperfield's International Museum and Library of the Conjuring Arts began in 1991 and holds roughly 80,000 items, among them Houdini's Water Torture Cabinet and an illusion by Orson Welles, the Buzz Saw.
A first
Copperfield's 1996 Broadway show Dreams & Nightmares, made with Francis Ford Coppola and others, broke box office records at the Martin Beck Theatre.
A first
Copperfield's magic secrets and technological innovations were etched into nickel plates meant to last billions of years and sent to the moon in 2019 on the Arch Mission Foundation's lunar library.