David Blaine

David Blaine (originally named David Blaine White) was born in 1973 in Brooklyn. He is one of the best known magicians in the world at the moment and is well known for his street magic, endurance acts and escapology feats.

Blaine first rose to public prominence in the late 1990s when ABC produced a TV special showcasing his street magic skills (David Blaine: Street Magic). In 1999 he took on one of his most famous endurance events when he had himself shut into a small plastic box which was placed under the ground beneath a water tank filled with three tons of water. He stayed in the box for seven days with no contact with the outside world apart from an emergency buzzer.

The following year Blaine took on another endurance stunt which is known as the Frozen in Time Stunt. Here he was sealed into large blocks of ice for nearly 64 hours on a raised platform in public view. Two years later he was hoisted on to a pillar set in New York where he stood for 35 hours. The pillar was 90ft high and only 22 inches across and Blaine stood on top of it with no support or harnesses apart from two handles on the side of the pillar which he could use if the weather got bad.

In 2003 Blaine moved his endurance act to London with his famous stunt by the river Thames. Here he lived in a transparent Plexiglass box which was hung 30ft in the air for 44 days. In 2006 he was 'drowned alive' in a sphere filled with water where he had to use tubes to breathe and to eat for a week.

His concurrent attempt to break the underwater breath holding record whilst freeing himself from restraints did not work, however he broke this record in 2008. In 2006 Blaine also took on a gyroscope endurance/escapology stunt which would see him try to escape from restraints after being spun around for 16 hours.