He never seems to have TV specials anymore and the last time I really remember even hearing about a big trick he planned, it was the one where he said he could teleport a person to anywhere on Earth. I believe I saw a filmed version of it and it was not impressive. Seemed to rely on stooges.
Anyway, his magic is very impressive and I remember watching his biggest tricks, culminating in his famous flying routine(again, very impressive).
I know his shows have continued and he must be coming up with new tricks, but does he still have huge showpieces? Does he do internet specials or something that show his magic?
Just wondering what his biggest tricks are the last 20 years. It’s been forever since I’ve seen him aside from small clips here and there. He did appear on Penn and Teller’s Fool Us show once.
I was curious if he’s actually still doing shows; he’s been in residency at the MGM Grand in Vegas for years (his Wikipedia article isn’t particularly clear on when that residency started), which apparently is going to wind down at the end of this year. It looks like he’s been doing the same show, more or less, since 2003, which is also about the same time that he stopped appearing on TV specials.
His biography on his website lists several other projects he seems to be involved in, including a resort in the Bahamas, and a physical therapy program for hospitalized individuals, based around practicing magic, but there’s nothing about any upcoming big showcases, online shows, etc.
Also, he’s 66 years old now. He seems to have settled into what is likely a very lucrative, and less intensive, lifestyle and career, doing the same show for two decades now, mostly (if not entirely) without traveling.
I found this interview with him, from a year ago, on CBS’s Sunday Morning. It focuses on a book he’s written about the history of magic, and a magic museum he’s curated in Las Vegas (which isn’t open to the public). There’s no real mention of any of his future plans in it.
Interestingly, at the end of the clip, the interviewer describes Copperfield, in his current show, as being half magician, half standup comic – between that, and how Copperfield himself describes his show during the interview, as being about engaging with the audience, it does sound, to me, like he’s no longer focusing on challenging/groundbreaking magic tricks . Illusionist David Copperfield discusses new book and reflects on magic, family and the future - YouTube
Penn Jillette talks about Copperfield occasionally on his podcast. I believe his Vegas show is still going strong, as is his magic museum. As @kenobi_65 stated, it is by invite only. Jillette has mentioned that Copperfield himself gives all the tours, typically at night after doing his show.
Jillette is not much of a fan of Copperfield’s magic, but he is grateful that the museum exists and is so well curated because it contains so many important historical pieces.
mmm
ETA: Copperfield’s huge showpiece illusions are created by camera angles and stooges, not traditional magic skills.
The book that Copperfield wrote (or had somebody write) talks about famous magicians and their best-known tricks with multiple photographs of their equipment, all of which is in his collection/museum.
I found the book fascinating and - as a collector - jaw-dropping. Things that you can’t even imaging existing are next to more things that are even more amazing. He clearly loves magic and it shows. He loves himself too and it shows, which will probably turn off people who disliked him in the first place. I didn’t care. If you like the history of magic, find the book in a library and read it, without giving him a penny.
Oddly enough, he came up in conversation just today, and I hadn’t thought of him in a long, long time. I guess the last I heard he was doing a long-term gig in Vegas.
I at first thought he was too serious and a little creepy but I did warm up to him over time and saw him perform in the 1980s. Even on a smaller scale, his illusions were amazing. I also saw the late Doug Henning perform. He and Copperfield were the two big guys in magic at the time, but Henning was more endearing, with his goofy, cheerful long-haired hippie personality. They were both very talented men who were a big part of reviving the art of illusion, which had fallen out of favor over the years.
They did have him on the Fool Us show. I’m surprised they don’t like his magic; he is very good. I do agree that stooges is a cardinal sin in my book. Not “real” tricks, in my opinion.
Here is his teleportation trick(“portal”) and I think the entire trick is just using stooges. I was, let’s be honest, underwhelmed…but he obviously couldn’t teleport people…so I’m not sure what the point of doing a trick like this is.
None of Copperfield’s big tricks ever impressed me-- The one thing that’s even worse than relying on stooges is relying on obvious stooges. Nor do I have any idea why his flying gets so much praise-- I’ve seen better flying from amateur productions of Peter Pan. But from what I’ve heard, he really is good at the simple, small stuff. He should stick to that.
I dunno, I thought the flying was his last major showpiece trick that was super impressive.
My church had a magician that worked designing David Copperfield’s magic tricks and he was a big part of helping come up with how to vanish the Statue of Liberty.
In his show, he brought a reduced scale Statue of Liberty and vanished it…but did it from the bottom up…slowly. It was a very impressive trick for me watching it live. The top of the mini-liberty statue is still there, but the bottom is gone and he can pass solid objects through the empty space.
No idea how this guy did it, but it impressed the heck out of me 20 or so years ago. A recording of David Copperfield actually introduced the trick for us.
Andre Kole was his name and I am saddened to just learn he died. He did preach the gospel, but was a legit incredible magician who also worked to debunk hoaxes(take that for what it is worth if you think Christianity is hoax. He did not think that, obviously).
I get the impression that someone at David Copperfield’s level does big shows in a large Las Vegas theater or an arena, and with that much of an audience, that far from the stage, you really have to do the big showy tricks. The simple, small stuff just doesn’t work at that level.
I saw his show at the MGM Grand in 2015, which at the time was called “Believe the Impossible”, and it was definitely very much in the vein of his big TV specials back in the day, right from the beginning where he appears out of nowhere astride a motorcycle in a previously empty box. The “email from the future” bit was probably the newest part of his set at the time - as the audience is being seated, there’s a thing onstage which invites you to go to a website and put in your email and hometown so it can show on a map from where people have come from. As the show is preparing to start there’s a strict warning to put your phones away and not take them out no matter what or you’ll be kicked out. Much later in the show, he does a routine with an apparently randomly selected audience member where he elicits all sorts of information from them (favorite celebrity, color, where they’re from, etc.) and at this point he tells the audience it’s OK to take out their phones and check their email - and when you do, you discover an email from him, sent just before the show started, which contains all the info he just got from that audience member.
The emotional climax of the show was a bit where he “travels back in time” and interacts with his late father in a home movie from his childhood, which certainly isn’t the most impressive bit of illusion, but connects with the general themes of his sets. Another good bit was that the people in the front rows were given paper wristbands as we were seated, supposedly to show that we were supposed to be in the VIP area. There was a bit where he had people throw darts at balloons (they may have been blindfolded, I can’t remember) which each had a word printed on them. Eventually, only one balloon was left, with the word “PEACE” on it - and then he asked the VIPs to raise their hands in the air as he turned on a blacklight and revealed the word “PEACE” written on the wristbands.
I paid for a front row seat, and my chair, which was at a round table with four others, was literally touching the edge of the stage. I had to turn it around to face the stage and he was no more than a few feet away from me for most of the show.
YOU, YES, YOU! IN THE THIRD BALCONY, LAST ROW, FOURTH SEAT FROM THE END! NO, NOT YOU MA’M, THE FLAMBOYANT FELLOW TO YOUR LEFT! YES, SIR, YOU! IS THIS YOUR CARD?
He really loves it. He has no need to do any magic shows at all. He’s a rich as any Holywood actor.
Edit: Thirty years ago, my brother saw him randomly at a museum in Washington D.C. He and his friends(seniors in high school in 1993) approached him and talked to him. He was actually super friendly and nice, at least in this random moment with a bunch of high school kids who interrupted his museum trip.
That’s an interesting update on his old Orson Welles trick from the 80s. He and Welles were friends in real life but obviously Welles was an old man and David a young magician. One of his old set pieces was to do an interactive magic trick with YOUNG Orson Welles via film footage.
Huh. I used to visit Vegas regularly for work, and a saw a lot of magic shows, including his. (Sadly, penn&teller were always dark when i visited.) His show was one of my least favorite. He seemed bored, just calling it in. Most of his tricks were pretty standard (many were the same as other magicians on the strip.) He was certainly highly technically skilled, but Mac King was more fun. I laughed when the guinea pig returned.
In that piece, he teases at a new, large scale illusion that he’s working on; it’d be interesting to see if it’s something that he ever actually produces and performs himself.
