David Blaine
Street magic has become a phenomenon. You can see people performing magic in every corner of the world, capturing reactions on cheap cameras and sharing them on the social media. But why is the routine so popular? The answer is David Blaine... He is most popularly known for his specials David Blaine: Street Magic and David Blaine: Magic Man aired on ABC. The series instantly sent an influential typhoon across the world with his casual narration on mind-blowing magic tricks. What he essentially succeeded in doing, in the end, was not achieving all the fame and money, but as the guy would say, reviving magic to the state it was 100 years ago.
Early Life And Career Of David Blaine
Davin Blaine White, popularly known as David Blaine was born on April 4, 1973, in Brooklyn, New York. His father William Perez was a veteran of the Vietnam War and his mother Patrice Maureen White was a school teacher.
Blaine was raised by her mother alone for several years, shifting at the number of schools. When he was 10, his mom married John Bukalo and three of them moved to Little Falls, New Jersey, wherein Blaine enrolled in Pa s saic Valley Regional High School.
He developed the fondness for magic since an early age after a street magician in a subway had blown his mind. Since then, he and street magic have never parted ways. However, talented Blaine had other hobbies too alongside street magic: acting! He attended the Neighborhood Playhouse drama school and appeared in TV commercials and soap operas.
David Blaine’s Career
It all began at the age of 21. Blaine started making a name for himself by performing magic at celebrity functions, acc u mulating praises and promises for a magic career from famous names like Mike Tyson, David Geffen, and Al Pacino.
He sent a tape of him performing magic tricks to ABC and got a terrific response. He soon got his own show, after impressing in an interview arranged for him. His first street-magic show David Blaine: Street Magic aired on ABC on May 19, 1997, and got its audience at the edge of their seats.
His low-key style of performance with the loudest of acclamations from the audience made the show an instant hit, making him the hottest name in magic at the moment.
Two years later, his second show David Blaine: Magic Man broke new grounds altogether. In the show, Blaine travels around the country trying to amaze whoever he finds on the streets. While some of his mind-boggling magic tricks and stunts left his audience jumping, shouting, and running, some took him for a psychopath instead.
Apart from street-magic, Blaine also specialized in endurance stunts. His human aquarium stunt gathered a serious amount of audience, wherein he submerges himself in a water-filled sphere for seven days feeding himself through tubes, outperforming his idol Harry Houdini.
He has performed several other breathtaking endurance stunts like Frozen in Time, encasing himself in a box of ice for 63 hours, 42 minutes and 15 seconds and 44 days long Above the below stunt where the transparent Plexiglas case that sealed him was suspended 30 feet in the air next to Potters Fields Park.
David Blaine’s Net worth
The estimated net worth of the magician as of February 2017 is $18 million. His main sources of income are his own street magic shows and appearances on TV specials. On top of TV shows, he has also set and broken many world records.
In 2016 period Blaine cut down on public and private performances to work on his then-upcoming ABC special, David Blaine: Beyond Magic. David turned down a number of big opportunities and is also known to have pa s sed on a 100 million dollars deal in Vegas while developing the world-tour project.
His manager said, “David is very picky about who he a s sociates with. David makes his decision based on arts, not commerce”.
David Blaine’s Personal Life
Blaine has a lovely daughter, Dessa with French Model Alizee Guinochet. The couple who got engaged back in April 2009 after dating for few years separated in 2014.
Prior to that, Blaine had been involved in a number of brief relationships. In 2006, he was in a relationship with Dutch fashion model Lonneke Engel. Similarly, he dated several gorgeous divas in 2000s, like Manon von Gerken and Daryl Hannah in 2002, Mallory Snyder in 2004, Lonneke Engel in 2006. The guy was even rumored to have hooked up with pop sensations Madonna and Bijou Phillips.
For decades, we longed for his magic tricks to be revealed. However, to add to our misery, he began keeping his personal life a secret too, since his departure with Alizee Guinochet.