[:el]Criss Angel (Christopher Nicholas Sarantakos) was the No. 1 magician in the world and has been named the Magician of the Century. In addition, he owns a star at the Hollywood Walk of Fame, a star that is a permanent public achievement monument in the entertainment industry, and he also is the youngest magician ever to be inducted at the Magic Hall of Fame of the International Magic Society.
For more than a decade, he has dominated the world of magic and is considered the biggest name on the planet. The way he approaches the art of illusion escapes ordinary, creating a new trend in contemporary mysticism.
He became known to the general public under the moniker “Mindfreak”. When he was at the height of his popularity, he attracted hundreds of fans who found Angel’s dedication to his art – and his fearless cheerfulness about survival. “If anything happens to me, keep shooting,” he had said as he lay on a bed of nails setting himself on fire to entertain his audience.
But fame doesn’t last forever. Although “Mindfreak” had a decently long run, it eventually came to an end, leaving the audience wondering where Angel would appear next.
The award-winning magician was born in Long Island, New York, from immigrants parents of Greek origins and is the youngest of the three children of the Saradakos family. He grew up in Elmont up to the fourth grade when his family moved to East Midlands, NY. His choice of becoming a magician is largely due to his aunt Stella, who showed him a simple card trick that was enough to excite the 6-year-old Chris. His main influence at the beginning, however, was Harry Houdini.
At the age of twelve, he made his first appearance for which he was paid $ 10, and up to fourteen, Angel performed throughout high school in East Meadow restaurants, including the Wine Gallery. His first big illusion was when he made his mother “float” in their family living room, while at the beginning of his career, the animal breeder and reality-television host, Marc Morrone, helped him find and train a set of doves for his act.
Until he graduated from East Meadow High School, he had decided to pursue a career as a professional illusionist, instead of attending college as his parents wanted. According to the Biography Channel, Angel started touring with other travel shows, while among his travels and performances, he tried broadening his knowledge of the history of magic in public libraries. He also studied the art of mysticism, music, martial arts, and even dancing.
His first TV show was in 1994, where he performed as a part of a one-hour ABC primetime special entitled “Secrets”. One of his first supporters was Horror director, Clive Barker, who, in 1995, asked Angel to work with him on his film “Lord of Illusions.” Barker said about Angel in the mid-1990s that “he is extraordinary, a spectacular mix of visionary magic. This is the future, and it can’t come quickly enough.”
During this year he collaborated with Klayton and formed Angeldust, a show that combined magic with music. In 1998, they released their first album “Musical Conjurings” from World of Conjuring. Also, that year, Angel performed a ten-minute show over the course of the “World of Illusion” conference in Madison Square Garden, performing sixty shows per day.
Angel also starred in 1997’s “The Science of Magic,” and its 2003 sequel, “The Science of Magic II.” Criss Angel Mindfreak, which later became Angel’s first television series, was originally an off-Broadway show by Angel, which, in 2001, was picked up by the World Underground Theatre. When not performing the show, Angel worked the streets promoting the show to pedestrians.
Criss Angel Mindfreak ran for more than 600 performances between 2001 and 2003 at the World Underground Theater in Times Square. In these performances, his twenty-four hours in a tank of water set a world record for the longest amount of time for a human to be completely submerged under the water. He was shackled underwater in a phone-booth-sized water torture cell – in which period he went through 16 oxygen tanks – and had to remove the shackles and chains before he got out of the water.
Ted Shaffrey, “Before he emerged from the phone-booth-sized contraption of clear plastic and steel, Angel yanked out the air hose that allowed him to breathe. Then assistants pulled a black curtain over the 220-gallon (832-liter) chamber to block the view of television cameras and about 100 people gathered outside the window in which he was displayed. Underwater, Angel apparently escaped from the shackles that bound his arms, legs and neck, before pulling himself from the watery chamber with a celebratory scream.”
In 2005, Criss Angel became the creator, director, and executive producer of the A&E Network show “Criss Angel Mindfreak”, and had entered production in January. On July 20, 2005, the show’s illusions included walking on water, levitating, walking up the side of Luxor Hotel (in the light of 39 focused lamps that can be seen from space), floating between two buildings, causing a Lamborghini to disappear, surviving in an exploding C4 Crate, cutting himself in half in full view of an audience and getting run over by a steamroller while lying on a bed of broken glass.
The show was renewed for a third season in July 2006; as of that third season, the show was A&E’s number one rated show, with more than 1.5 million viewers. That year he promoted the show with a performance where he was suspended within a cube encased in concrete above Times Square, escaping from the block before it was set to crash to the ground. Magic effects creator Sean Field stated of Angel this year that, “Criss Angel is the biggest name in magic since Houdini. No other magician has invaded pop culture to the degree that Criss Angel has. He has changed the image of magic and made it cool.”
The show became one of the most popular foreign television shows in parts of Asia, including China and was presented from 2005 to 2010, which means that the Greek-born illusionist appeared for more hours in the TV viewing area than any other magician in history. Moreover, in 2006, Angel collaborated with Cirque du Soleil to produce the stage show “Criss Angel Believe”, which became the bestselling live magic show in the world
Since October 2007, he has appeared as a judge at “Phenomenon” with Uri Geller. In a CNN interview for the show, he told Larry King “No one has the ability, that I’m aware of, to do anything supernatural, psychic, talk to the dead. And that was what I said I was going to do with Phenomenon. If somebody goes on that show and claims to have a supernatural psychic ability, I’m going to bust them live and on television.” He is known to actively discourage a belief in mediumship, stating that there is no way for mediums to speak with people beyond the dead. He has said, “If somebody’s doing that for entertainment purposes, that’s one thing. But if they claim to be communicating with the dead, I don’t care if they’re from my hometown, I don’t care if they’re my family members: I’ll expose them and tell them what they really are.”
Angel won the International Magician Society’s Magician of the Year award in 2001, 2004, 2005, 2007 and 2008, in addition to its “Magician of the Decade” title in 2009 and “Magician of the Century” title in 2010. He was the 22nd recipient of the Louie Award for outstanding achievement in the art of magic. He has also appeared on the covers of Magic and Genii magazines. In 2008, Angel was one of the inaugural nominees for the Harry Houdini Award, awarded by the Harry Houdini Museum. Angel is the youngest magician to ever be inducted into the International Magician Society’s Magic Hall of Fame. He is also the only man to have won the Merlin Magician of the Year award on two occasions, in 2001 and 2004. In 2011, he was awarded the World Magic Legacy Awards’ Living Legend award. On July 20, 2017, Angel received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, which is located next to The Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel
“I remember coming here in the 1990s and walking there and passed in front of Houdini’s star. And I thought, as someone who wanted to become an artist, who had a great dream that was unbelievable, that Houdini died in 1926 and his star will stay here as long as the planet is here,” he said at a ceremony in Los Angeles, according to the Reuters. “The man I’ve met is a generous soul and is in an endless mission to return what he has been offered,” said British actor, Gary Oldman, who was present at the ceremony.
He is also a holder of several world records, including the longest time submerged under water and the fastest time to escape from a straitjacket at two minutes and thirty seconds, the longest body suspension at 5 hours 42 minutes, and the fastest time to perform the “Metamorphosis” illusion at less than one second. He is also the holder of the Guinness world record for “The most people to disappear in an illusion”, for making 100 people disappear on May 26, 2010, during a performance of Believe at the Luxor.
Angel is the author of the book Mindfreak: Secret Revelations, published by HarperEntertainment in 2007. Mindfreak: Secret Revelations appeared on the Los Angeles Times bestseller list that year. According to the Las Vegas Sun, “The 295-page book details the early beginnings of his career, memorable demonstrations from his TV show and personal reflections. “Secret Revelations” also contains several pictures and provides step-by-step instructions for 40 of his basic Mindfreaks. Laura Morton helped the magician write the book.”
Criss Angel is the most watched magician in Internet history since the late 2000s. His clip, “Walk on Water”, has received more than fifty-three million views, while the 2013 video, “Rip Bodies Apart”, in which he seems to separate two people in half and reunite them with the “wrong” halves, has had over twelve million views within a month and has now surpassed forty-two million views.
The millions-of-worth-net magician has his own charity for children and has been making tireless efforts to help children for many years. As a result of the work and his dedication to the Make-A-Wish Foundation, he was awarded the Make-A-Wish Foundation award for most supportive celebrity and the foundation’s Chris Greicius Celebrity Award. Chris has funded his foundation, Johnny Crisstopher Children’s Charitable Foundation, since it was formed, on March 11, 2009 (it had been originally named Believe Anything Is Possible) – then named in honor of his father, Giannis Sarantakos, who passed away from stomach cancer on February 12, 1998. The institution was renamed and redefined last autumn. [:en]For over a decade, Criss Angel has dominated the world of magic and is considered the biggest name on the planet. His approach to the art of magic goes beyond tradition and has established a new trend in modern mysticism. Las Vegas journalists named him the best magician for 2012, while when Oprah Winfrey received him at her show, she repeated three times that he is simply the best.
Christopher Nicholas was born in 1976 in Long Island, New York, to Greek immigrant parents and was the youngest of the Sarantakos” family three children. His decision to become a professional magician was heavily influenced by his aunt Stella. The simple card trick she showed him was all it took to excite 6-year-old Chriss.
With Houdini as his idol, Chriss began to read about the art of magic and perform tricks in his teenage years. By the time he was 19, he was already giving shows at children’s parties and other events, sometimes earning up to 3.000 dollars a week. This is how he gradually paved his own road to global fame.
Since that day, he has given innumerable shows, always outside, in front of an audience and a great number of witnesses, who cannot believe their own eyes…It is not easy to believe that a person can burn right in front of you and then escape the flames unscathed, or be buried alive and appear next to you shortly afterwards. One of his personal records- and one that nobody has been able to break so far- is staying underwater for 24 hours. His brothers, Costas and JD, act as his assistants at most shows, while his mother is sometimes present- and visibly worried- during filming.
Apart from his Las Vegas shows, Chriss Angel has his own television series, MINDFREAK, considered the most successful magic show in television history and watched by more than 100 million viewers per season in over 90 countries.
Even online, Angel is again the most watched magician. His «Walk on Water» clip has generated over 43 million views on YouTube, while all of his clips combined have generated nearly 200 million views. Chriss Angel has now launched his own YouTube channel,where his fans can watched exclusive videos of his accomplishments.
Chriss Angel with his rock-star appearance, a star among magicians, the man that has said he likes pain because it makes him feel alive, also hides a more sensitive side. He has founded the “BeLIEve Anything is Possible” charity for children and actively supports the Make-A-Wish Foundation, which has in turn granted him the Male Wish Granter of the Year Award for his work and dedication in protecting children. Chriss Angel might be an expert in creating illusions, but he is certainly not an illusion himself.
Where it is today
Today, Criss Angel is still doing what he does best – practicing his profession as a magician. His book “Criss Angel: Mindfreak” has moved to other venues and is now a daily event at Planet Hollywood at Creaser’s Palace in Las Vegas. He performs five nights a week for the public at the packed Criss Angel Theatre.
In addition to his Las Vegas residency, Angel was a judge on the NBC game show “Phenomenon”. He also had a reality show on The CW, “Criss Angel’s Magic with the Stars.” He has appeared as himself in several movies about magic. He also has a rich personal life, with three children and a decade-plus relationship with Australian singer Shaunyl Benson that has seen them marry, divorce, date, have children and get engaged again.
Their son, Johnny, is a cancer survivor, having gone through two b-cell acute lymphoblastic leukaemia b-cell seizures. His son’s heroism inspired Angel to establish the non-profit group The Johnny Crisstopher Children’s Charitable Foundation, which is dedicated to raising awareness for childhood cancer. Angel fundraises for the foundation and also works with the Make a Wish Foundation. It just goes to show that even the boldest magicians can have a softer side.
