David Blaine the Magician

David Blaine White is one of the most popular Magician / Ellusionists of our time and has even been compared to the likes of the "Great Harry Houdini".
He has been amazing the world for more than 20 years with his death-defying feats and baffling cards tricks.


Early Life
He was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York on the 4th of April 1973.
His passion for magic started at just 4 years age when for the first time he saw a street magician performing in a subway. From there on he would try to copy and practice all the tricks he saw. He bought his first magic trick from a Disney shop which was the 'pencil through the card trick'.
David also read up on Harry Houdini's feats and started practicing at holding his breath for longer periods.

Magic was not David Blaines only interest as he also attended drama school and had various appearances on TV commercials and some soap operas.

David Blaine at the premiere of Redbelt at the 2008 Tribeca Film Festival
    by David Shankbone, Licensed: CC BY-SA 3.0(

Magic and Performances
In his early days of magic David would attend party's and even performed for well know celebrities such as Mike Tyson, Al Pacino, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Madonna and Jack Nicholson.

In 1997 he made a tape recording of one of his performances and sent it to ABC. Gob-smacked by what they saw they quickly got him in to do an interview and soon after that the special "David Blaine: Street Magic" was born. Two years later he stated his next show "David Blaine: Magic Man".

In April 1999 he performed his first death-defying feat in which he was buried in a plexi-glass coffin under a 3 ton water tank for 7 days, living only on fluids.
He apparently lost over 10kgs!


In November 2000 in Time Square, New York he performed his next amazing feat called "Frozen in time", this would prove to be one of his most challenging feats. Dressed lightly and encased in a massive block of ice he would attempt to stay there for 72 hours! 
Unfortunately due to sleep deprivation and unbearably cold temperatures he had to be freed from the ice using chainsaws. He managed a time of 63 hours, 42 minutes and 15 seconds before he was removed.

In 2010 another 'Extreme Magician' from Israel broke David Blaine's record. He spent 66 hours encased in a block of ice.

CC BY-SA 3.0)

David Blaine's 2006 attempt to break world record for holding breath under water.
by nickfarnhill, Licensed: CC BY-SA 2.0