Memories
Stepping back in time:
He performed hundreds of amazing tricks – but this was perhaps his most famous of all.
Magician David Copperfield walked through the Great Wall of China, survived Niagara Falls, levitated over the Grand Canyon and escaped from Alcatraz. But when he made the Statue of Liberty vanish 35 years ago, nobody could quite believe their eyes.
The trickster, who filmed a series of live TV specials during the ’80s, wanted to make the 310ft statue disappear to remind people “how precious liberty is and how easily it can be lost”.
With a crowd of 20 watching on from the foot of the New York landmark, and a TV audience of millions, the 26-year-old had installed two large towers to hold a giant curtain and conceal the sculpture. Copperfield also enlisted an airborne camera crew, lighting and radar screens, all in a bid to convince a worldwide audience he wasn’t faking it.
The build-up was intense, as the magician raised a screen in front of the statue. Seconds later, it was dropped revealing a seemingly empty space where Lady Liberty had once stood, illuminated by a circle of lights.
People were baffled. Nobody could tell how he had made the 225,000lb monument disappear before bringing it back again. But the secret has since been revealed. So how did he do it? It’s all in the set-up. Lady Liberty was of course there all along, but was obscured behind one of the towers holding up the screen.
The famous illusionist didn’t move the statue. But he moved his in-person audience. The platform on which they were sitting was slowly rotated, with loud music concealing the noise and vibration of the shift. The move changed their perspective, with the statue behind the tower hidden from view. Clever use of lighting added to the effect.
Of course, it seems so simple once explained, but this trick really had everyone fooled at the time.
It was just one of many amazing stunts pulled off by Copperfield, described as the most commercially successful magician in history.
Born in New Jersey, real name David Seth Kotkin, Copperfield first began practising magic at the age of 10. By 12, he was the youngest person admitted to the Society of American Magicians.
By 16 he was teaching a course in magic at New York University. Two years later he landed the lead role in musical The Magic Man in Chicago. His US TV career began in 1977 as host of The Magic of ABC.
Then he moved on to bigger, headline-grabbing illusions, including making a Learjet vanish, an Orient Express car disappear and flying on stage.