The Magic of David Copperfield

Copyright The HUMOR Project, Inc 1988 -- All rights reserved
This first appeared in Laughing Matters Volume 4, Number 2


I had the good fortune to meet with David Copperfield at a national program on The Healing Power of Laughter and Play at which we were both featured speakers. As co-author of MAGIC AND THE EDUCATED RABBIT, I have enjoyed using magic as an attention-getter, point-maker, and laughter-generator in my own programs and workshops. I especially like using magic as a metaphor, which is something that David Copperfield does with consummate skill in his own TV specials and stage shows.

David Copperfield has been amazing and delighting audiences for two decades (and he's only 30). At age 12, he became the youngest person ever admitted into the Society of American Magicians. By 16, he was teaching magic at NYU. At 18, he starred in the longest-running original musical comedy in the history of Chicago theater. At age 20, he starred in his first TV special, and three years later, he was named Magician of the Year.

Audiences and critics around the world have called David Copperfield the greatest magician of our time. His impressive credits certainly bear this out. In 1982, he vanished a jet airplane surrounded by a ring of unbelieving spectators and a television audience of millions. The following year, he made the Statue of Liberty disappear before the eyes of astonished New Yorkers and an international television audience. In his sixth CBS special, he levitated himself over the Grand Canyon. 1985 found David in China, walking through its celebrated Great Wall.

His stylish magic has produced countless ooohs and awe. He is an illusionist extraordinare who has used magic as a tool to help us perceive the ordinary world in extraordinary ways. As one reviewer noted, "he woos the audience with savvy comfort and quick wit" while performing large, dramatic illusions along with such feats on stage as:

His hotel key is put in a champagne glass. So what's his room number? Three women are asked to call out three different digits. Yep. You guessed it. They guessed it.

A man contributes a $20 bill to the game, writes his name on it. It is sealed in an envelope, shuffled with two other envelopes and set on fire. And it turns up in Copperfield's tightly zipped wallet in his breast pocket.

Behold an orange, a lemon, an egg and a canary. They're separate objects. Hold the phone, where are they? Abracadabra, the orange is peeled, inside is the lemon, inside is the egg. Break the egg and out flies the canary.

In addition to creating magic in his stage shows and TV specials, David Copperfield has expanded the application of conjuring into the field of rehabilitation and medicine. Founded in 1982, his Project Magic seeks to "levitate" the self-esteem of the disabled. Thousands of people of all ages, with problems ranging from strokes and spinal injuries to learning disabilities are functioning better--and feeling good about themselves-- with the help of volunteer magicians working with physical and occupational therapists in hospitals and nursing homes.

The premise of the program is simple. The benefits, according to Copperfield, are many. Simple sleight-of-hand tricks, such as making a knot in a scarf that dissolves with a flip of the wrist, or making a knot in a rope without letting go of either end, can enable a physically disabled person to start re-using muscles and have fun at the same time. Assisted by occupational therapist Julie DeJean, Copperfield has developed a step-by-step book that shows how magic tricks can be used in therapy. In seminars, he demonstrates the power of this therapy through videotapes of patients who are involved in rehabilitation and Project Magic. It is powerful medicine to see a car accident victim begin to regain use of his arms or a 12-year-old stroke victim begin to laugh.

Through the magic of the printed word, join me for a conversation with David Copperfield as we explore his (and our) magical world and some of his tricks of the trade.


JG: I want to let you know that I really enjoyed your most recent TV special-- and what was really special about it is that my five-year-old son, Adam, enjoyed it very much as well.

I'm curious to know about your own development and evolution-- moving from the ten-year-old shy ventriloquist to someone who now performs the world over. How has your own personal development paralleled that as a magician?

DC: I got a lot of acceptance doing ventriloquism. But it really didn't provide the growth I wanted. I wasn't very good at it either, so it was easy to make a jump to magic. As it happened, I got a lot of approval with magic as well, and that encouraged me to do even more. Later, I became enamored with Broadway, and decided I wanted to combine magic with the theater.

Magic became a form of communication for me. I always admired songwriters who could take a piece of their life and express it through their work. I try to do the same thing with magic. As a youngster, magic was the medium through which I was able to be most expressive. It helped me to come out of my shell as a youngster. So many entertainers had a certain amount of shyness-- magic helped me to get out of a lot of that, but there is still a certain amount of shyness that remains.

JG: Did you have any magic mentors early on?

DC: My idols weren't magicians. They were the Gene Kellys and Fred Astaires. That's who I looked up to, and I've modeled my career after them as opposed to Houdini, for instance. So my style wasn't that of a magician, it was that of an entertainer.

I wanted to evoke emotions through magic and magic always set out to evoke only amazement-- a terrific emotion, but I wanted it do do more. And singing, dancing, and theater operate on many levels. So I set out to adapt magic to different levels, too.

We do stuff for people who like spectacular things. Then we do some closeup magic, some comedy and lot of the emotional pieces that I develop. Magic appeals to a wide range of people, so there's something for everybody.

JG: It's interesting to me that people like Johnny Carson, Dick Cavett, and others-- people who are more well-known today as comedians-- actually got their start in magic. I've been intrigued with the relationship between humor and magic for quite a number of years.

DC: Magic gives you the opportunity to get on stage without having to be up their alone. It's the same thing music does-- it enables a person to get up on stage with a prop. Magic is an icebreaker for me. Actually, I call myself an illusionist, because an illusionist gets paid 20 per cent more than a magician.

JG: In looking at what you do for a living as a magical illusionist, I'm curious to know more about your creative process. How do you cook up ideas?

DC: Things in life become inspirations. I'm very inspired by music. Many of the pieces I've developed have been inspired by songs which call up a certain imagery in me which I've pursued. People suggest ideas. Then there are pieces of magic which I've admired which I want to make different. For instance, after I had vanished the Statue of Liberty, a friend of mine said, "Why don't you walk through the Great Wall of China." At first, we thought it was a joke. It can come from anywhere-- from watching the David Letterman Show, from a moment in my life.

JG: The humor-magic intersection is an interesting one. In your last special, the Mr. Rogers sketch in which you were trying to fold a banana bandana was a delightful, fun twist.

In my own workshops, I often talk about the relationship between HAHA, AHA, and AH! HAHA is the gut response when we find something funny, AHA is the gut response when something creative happens, and AH is the gut response to magic-- like "AH! Do that again!" or "AH! How'd you do that?"

DC: What I try to do is incorporate all of those for my audiences.

JG: You have the ability to produce awe-inspiring and AH!- inspiring shows. In your recent special, you had a line, "Share a secret, trade a smile, make a new friend." I'm aware that you've certainly been doing that a lot with your Project Magic. Can you tell us how you first got the inspiration for Project Magic?

DC: I was getting fan mail from a young magician, and six or seven letters into our correspondence he sent me an article about himself from the local paper. It showed him in a wheelchair. He had never mentioned that to me before, and according to the article he would never mention it to anybody. He'd advertise, someone would hire him, he'd show up in a wheelchair, and it was their problem if they didn't like it.

He just didn't visualize himself as a disabled person. His self-image was of someone that was special because he was able to do magic. It made him feel better-than as opposed to less-than, as many disabled people are led to believe they are.

I thought it might be a good idea if we taught magic to people with disabilities, not just to bolster their self- esteem, but to help them use muscles they might not normally use and so improve their dexterity and coordination. And we found that magic could influence motivation as well as thinking and cognitive skills. These people were able to provoke a positive reaction from other people and get excited about what they were doing.

JG: Could you give us an update on Project Magic?

DC: Project Magic is going very well. I couldn't be more proud of it. Right now, it's in 30 countries around the world with 800 teams of magicians and therapists. It's growing, and what's nice is that as we travel, I have a chance to do seminars in hospitals for the therapists and doctors on Project Magic. It's then amazing when they share what they've been doing in Project Magic. It's happening out there on a grass roots level.

JG: Are there any anecdotes that stand out for you of remarkable, magical breakthroughs that people have made?

DC: When I brought the idea to Daniel Freeman Hospital in California, we walked into a room of a young girl of eight who had had a stroke and couldn't move her hand. She watched the magic and then she began to open her hand to do this particular piece of magic that we taught. She was motivated to move those muscles--when it worked, a big smile spread across her face. To see that smile in the midst of the pain that she had been experiencing was powerful magic. You can vanish the Statue of Liberty all day long but it couldn't compare to making that smile appear.

JG: Again, the relationship between magic and self-esteem and smiles....

DC: That's the whole thing about the program for me. To teach a patient how to tie their shoes is fine...but to teach them how to do something that other people can't do can be even more powerful. When I was younger, I wasn't mentally or physically disabled. But I was socially disabled. Magic helped me overcome that. It was motivational for me. It can be motivational for others, too.

JG: I know for myself that my self-esteem has been enhanced when I've done something that I thought previously I couldn't do. Ben Vereen in your special talked about the notion that "No barriers are insurmountable," and I think that's what your walking through The Great Wall of China was symbolizing. It sounds like that is what is happening on a more personal level with the people in hospitals that Project Magic is reaching. Do you have any sense of future hopes or directions for Project Magic?

DC: Project Magic may eventually branch off into other art forms like music and dance. All the arts have something to offer. Can you imagine not just magicians but also musicians and dancers working with people in hospitals who always wanted to play music or to dance?

JG: If you could magically create a nutshell summary of the power of magic, what would it be?

DC: We've made the Statue of Liberty disappear and walked through the Great Wall of China. But that's nothing compared to seeing people who now have new lives. We have affected the quality of people's lives through magic, and we will continue to bring help and happiness to thousands more. The smiles and the laughter are the real magic!


For more ideas on the constructive applications of magic and the magic-humor connection, see "Becoming the Wizard of Ahhhhs" in LAUGHING MATTERS, Volume I,


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