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David Copperfield

David Copperfield (born September 16, 1956 as David Seth Kotkin) is a renowned magician and illusionist best known for his combination of spectacular illusions with storytelling. His most famous feats include making the Statue of Liberty disappear, levitating over the Grand Canyon, and walking through the Great Wall of China. His name is taken from the 1850 Charles Dickens novel.

Biography
David Copperfield was born in Metuchen, New Jersey, to Jewish immigrants from Russia. He began performing magic professionally at the age of 12, and became the youngest person ever admitted to the Society of American Magicians. By age 16, he was teaching a course in magic at New York University.

In 1982, David Copperfield founded Project Magic, a rehabilitation program to help disabled patients regain lost or damaged dexterity skills. The program has been accredited by the American Occupational Therapy Association, and is in use in over 1,000 hospitals worldwide.

Copperfield has also attempted to preserve the history of the art of magic for present and future generations by providing a safe, permanent home for antiquarian props, books, and other historical ephemera related to conjuring. His vast collection, known as the International Museum and Library of the Conjuring Arts, is housed in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Forbes Magazine reported that Copperfield earned $57 million in 2003, making him the tenth highest paid celebrity in the world. It also estimated that he made $57 million from June 2004 to June 2005 in merchandise and tour revenue.

He was engaged to the supermodel Claudia Schiffer. The couple parted ways in 1999, after a six year relationship.

Statue of Liberty illusion
Making the Statue of Liberty appear to disappear on live television was one of Copperfield's most remembered tricks.

William Poundstone's Bigger Secrets details a plausible-sounding mechanism for the trick. He suggests that entire stage and seating area for the audience was atop a rotating platform. Once the curtains were closed, blocking the view, the platform was rotated—slowly enough to be imperceptible. When the curtains opened again, the audience was facing out to sea rather than toward the statue. Poundstone further elaborates that, once the stage rotated, the statue itself was mostly concealed behind a brightly-lit curtain tower. To further misdirect attention, there were two rings of lights: one, initially lit, around the statue, and another (dark and invisible at first) in the area the audience would end up facing. When the trick "happened," the statue's lights were doused and the others turned on. The radar blip highlighted in the television presentation was simply an animation.

Some claim that this explanation is unsatisfactory, maintaining that one end of the statue's pedestal base was visible to the live audience at all times. Furthermore, the size of the suggested platform would have to be quite large to support the curtain towers and guidewires as well as be moved in some silent fashion to not arouse suspicion in the live audience.

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