David Blaine Biography: Giving Hoodini a Run for His Money?
Being a magician and stuntman and daredevil can be an explosive combination and a life-threatening occupation. David Blaine, American magician and stuntman doesn’t seem to mind. Despite near death performances, he comes back more determined and more daring. That’s quite a feat for someone who first started in the streets showing card tricks to passersby and resuscitating dead flies back to life.
David Blaine White was born in New York on April 4, 1973. His father is a Spanish national from Puerto Rico and his mother, Patrice, was a native of Russia and belonged to the Jewish faith.
Like young kids with potential and who would later enthrall audiences all over the world, David Blaine polished his magic in the streets and also engaged in levitation. Showing tricks to anyone willing to watch, he would usually film himself. These film clips later served as the basis for three of his TV shows: Street Magic, Magic Man and Mystifier.
But complex card tricks and levitations became too easy for David Blaine. Soon afterwards, he was engaged in endurance marathons: enclosed in a coffin for seven days, encased in a block of ice for 62 hours, standing on a platform at 90 feet above ground level, and remaining in a transparent box for 44 days with no food, as well as staying submerged in water for 7 days. In one television performance with Carson Daly, Blaine apparently tore his heart out and fainted. The show was cancelled the last minute because some people in the audience were screaming and crying, obviously terrified by what they saw. Among Blaine’s more memorable shows are: being buried inside a glass coffin located in an open hole in front of a building in New York (courtesy of Donald Trump), a TV special called “Frozen in Time” where he was put inside a slab of ice that was cut along the contours of his body and stayed there for 61 hours (he was rushed for emergency treatment in a nearby hospital), Vertigo, wherein a crane took him up 90 feet and he stood on a platform for 34 hours with neither food nor water, and many other stunts that amazed spectators and observers. Blaine also performed in London by remaining inside a Plexiglas case over the River Thames.
David Blaine once dated Madonna. He has a brother called Michael who graduated from New York University this year. His mother passed away in 2002.