David Seth Kotkin, commonly known as David Copperfield, is a famous American magician, illusionist, as well as an actor. To the public, David Copperfield is perhaps best known for his magic tricks, such as levitating, flying, and making objects disappear, most of which were released in a format of 20 television specials. Copperfield’s first television special entitled “The Magic of ABC” aired on screens in 1977. In addition to including Copperfield’s impressive performance, it featured such famous guests as Shaun Cassidy, Cindy Williams, Adam Rich and Penny Marshall to name a few. His fifth special called “The Magic of David Copperfield IV: The Vanishing Plane” brought him an Emmy Award for “Outstanding Technical Direction”. Overall, David Copperfield has been nominated for 38 awards, and collected a total of 21 Emmy Awards,. Aside from his appearances on television screens, Copperfield has become notable as an owner of the “International Museum and Library of the Conjuring Arts”. Copperfield is also known for his charitable activities, the most popular being the “Project Magic” program, which focuses on helping physically challenged people. For his contributions to the entertainment industry, David Copperfield was awarded with a Living Legend Award, was named “Magician of the Year” in 1980 and 1987, and even received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
David Copperfield Net Worth $800 Million
A well-known magician, how rich is David Copperfield? According to sources, David Copperfield’s net worth is estimated to be $800 million, the majority of which he has accumulated from his appearances on television screens.
David Copperfield was born in 1956, in New Jersey, United States, where he studied at Metuchen High School. Copperfield’s interest in magic brought him to the “Society of American Magicians”, a fraternal magic organization, when he was only ten years old. As a result of his studies, Copperfield became proficient in magic, and even taught a course about magic at New York University at the age of 16. Upon his graduation from high school, David Copperfield decided to continue his education at Fordham University. He failed to graduate from the university, since instead of studying he chose to perform on stage. One of his very first performances was in “The Magic Man”. Around the same time, inspired by the Charles Dickens’ novel, he changed his name from David Seth Kotkin to David Copperfield. Soon after meeting Joseph Cates, who expressed interest in his talents, he made an appearance on television with “The Magic of ABC”,
In addition to having his own television specials, Copperfield made an acting debut in a slasher film, starring Ben Johnson, Jamie Lee Curtis and Hart Bochner called “Terror Train”. Since his popularity started growing, Copperfield has become a welcomed figure in the entertainment industry. Over the years, he has succeeded in selling more than 40 million tickets to his shows.
In regards to his personal life, David Copperfield married Claudia Schiffer in 1993, yet the couple split up in 1999. Several years after their divorce, Copperfield met Chloe Gosselin, whom he married in 2006.
Emmy Award for “Outstanding Technical Direction”, Hollywood Walk of Fame
Nominations
11 Guinness World Records, Living Legend by the US Library of Congress, “Magician of the Year” (1980, 1987)
Movies
“Terror Train” (1980), "The Magic Of David Copperfield XVI: Unexplained Forces", "David Copperfield: Illusion" (1994)
TV Shows
“The Magic of ABC”, “The Magic of David Copperfield IV: The Vanishing Plane”, “Project Magic”
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Each five-minute piece you now see in my show takes two years from idea to execution. That is why - when someone steals my creations - it's very difficult to deal with.
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(on working with Claudia Schiffer in his magic shows) I really love having Claudia with me in my shows. She's a great performer and a real natural with the illusions. And she's really trusting too - It's not every woman who'll trust someone like me enough to let me strap her to a guillotine and chop her head off. But the best thing about having her in my shows is that I can say that I spend my evenings sawing the most beautiful woman in the world in half.
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Fact
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He was nominated for the 2016 New Jersey Hall of Fame in the Performance Arts category.
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On January 9th, 2003, it was opened www.copperfield.ru, a Russian site with the explicit intention to reveal the largest possible number of tricks performed by David Copperfield, with the justification: "Copperfield deceives the spectators, and we only open your eyes on the truth". Site authors (a team of magicians, designers and engineers lead by Timur Abdulov) worked for more than 5 years, documenting and analyzing the illusions of Copperfield. The illusions revealed (in Russian and English) were dozens, minutely described and also accompanied by screenshots, images and some animation created by computer. Many of these illusions were never revealed before by anyone, remaining for years shrouded in mystery. The authors also published recording of the call made by Copperfield himself, who expressed his disagreement with the opening of a site so vast, which however has been deleted from the World Wide Web in 2005-2006.
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In April 2010 he appeared at the Hollywood Theater, at the MGM Grand Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada.
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Copperfield performs over 550 live shows every year since 1983. This is the list: The Magic of David Copperfield: Live on Stage (from 1983 to 1986) The Magic of David Copperfield (from 1987 to 1990) David Copperfield: Radical New Illusions (from 1991 to 1992) David Copperfield: Magic for the 90's (from 1992 to 1994) David Copperfield: Beyond Imagination (aka The Best of David Copperfield) (from 1995 to 1996) David Copperfield: Dreams and Nightmares (aka Magic is Back) (from 1996 to 1998) David Copperfield: Journey of a Lifetime (aka U!) (from 1999 to 2000) David Copperfield: Unknown Dimension (aka Global Encounter) (from 2000 to 2001) David Copperfield: Portal (from 2001 to 2002) David Copperfield: An Intimate Evening Of Grand Illusion (aka World of Wonders) (from 2003).
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Actor Robert Hegyes was born in Perth Amboy but raised in nearby Metuchen, New Jersey, the hometown of Copperfield.
In 1993, David did an on-stage illusion in which he weightlessly flew with a lady from the audience in his arms. His flight illusion was considered by many experts and historians of magic to be the greatest illusion ever performed on stage.
Has appeared on Late Night with Conan O'Brien (1993) where he presented his collection of turn-of-the-century prank devices. One, a paddle that when used to spank someone exploded powder, was used incorrectly by host O'Brien. Copperfield's pants (and behind) caught on fire, an accident from which he still carries a scar.
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One of his schoolteachers New Jersey school days was ABC News correspondent Judy Muller.
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In 1993 he met supermodel Claudia Schiffer at a Berlin celebrity gala, and in January 1994 they became engaged. During this engagement, she sometimes used to appear in his stage shows as a special guest assistant in a number of illusions: first he would levitate her high in the air before making her vanish and reappear, then he would use a large guillotine to behead her. Finally, he would saw her in half inside a glass-sided box in what has sometimes been voted by other magicians as one of the most baffling versions of the sawing in half ever performed. Claudia also appeared in David Copperfield: 15 Years of Magic (1994), a documentary in which she played the role of a reporter interviewing Copperfield in his Magic Warehouse. After a six-year engagement, in September 1999 they announced their separation.
$800 Million
