Spellbound: The Wonder-filled Life of Doug Henning - Hardcover

John Harrison

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0982463901 ISBN 13: 9780982463901

Publisher: BoxOffice Books, 2009

Synopsis

By 1974, magic had lost its mass appeal and there was no such thing as a celebrity magician until a skinny, bucktoothed kid from Winnipeg became an overnight star in an unlikely Broadway musical called The Magic Show. Doug Henning, with his refreshingly modern approach to the art of illusion, permanently changed the face of magic and reintroduced an entire generation of audiences to grand illusion as a theatrical art.

John Harrison traces Doug's stunning rise to fame from his humble beginnings in the Toronto coffeehouse circuit to his fantastic success as the world s first celebrity magician in fifty years. Told with exacting detail and reverence for its subject, Spellbound: The Wonder-filled Life of Doug Henning is an engaging story about the making of a master illusionist and his unrelenting search for real magic.

From the highest rated magic television special in history, to three Broadway shows, to a decade of touring, John Harrison takes us on a backstage tour of Doug s performing life and gives a behind-the-scenes look at the mysterious world of grand illusion. All of Doug s astounding feats, like making an elephant vanish and walking through a brick wall, are featured in this engaging biography of a man who believed he would one day be able to levitate without resorting to his illusionist s bag of tricks.

As amazing as his onstage life, Doug Henning s journey through the bizarre world of transcendental meditation and his brush with politics are told with equal intrigue.

Spellbound: The Wonder-filled Life of Doug Henning is as exciting as Doug Henning's miracles themselves, filled with captivating adventures, like Doug's harrowing moments while submerged upside down in Houdini s Water Torture Cell on live television, his several heart-stopping incidents with rampaging tigers, and his attempt to build an amusement park in Niagara Falls.

From his first magic trick making a quarter disappear to his eventual retirement from the stage at the height of his career, the fantastic life and career of Doug Henning come vividly to life in this magical biography.

About this title

About the Author

John Harrison became addicted to magic at the age of nine when his uncle gave him two suitcases full of old magic props. At the age of 13 he saw one of the first preview performances of The Magic Show starring Doug Henning and was instantly inspired by Doug's performance. That inspiration led to his becoming a professional illusionist for a brief time in the early eighties. Realizing he was better at the behind-the-scenes aspects of entertaining, he established and ran an entertainment production company for fifteen years. He is currently a senior attorney at a large international law firm, but magic remains his first passion, He dislikes small children, animals, and direct sunlight, but his friends and family find him quite likable nonetheless. He lives in Manhattan and Las Vegas with an acrobat.

Review

Doug Henning put a new face on magic. He was the most successful and most beloved magician of his time. This sympathetic, insightful and meticulously researched biography tells the real story from his stage appearances on Broadway, in Vegas and on the road to his specials on the screen (the first of which remains the most watched magic show in world-wide television history with an astonishing audience of over fifty million viewers!). The details of his greatest illusions and of his tragically short but equally bizarre life are all here. It contains the facts. I know because I was there. --Charles Reynolds

It s about time that someone paid Doug Henning his due. John Harrison does a great job of telling the story of Doug Henning s magic and the man behind that magic. --David Copperfield

Spellbound: The Wonder-filled Life of Doug Henning is a fascinating look at the career and amazing life of one of the most important figures in contemporary magic. From Doug's humble beginnings, to his meteoric success on Broadway, to his international fame, John Harrison takes you on an amazing ride through the public and private life of Doug Henning. This book is required reading for anyone interested in a career in magic. --Lance Burton

It s about time that someone paid Doug Henning his due. John Harrison does a great job of telling the story of Doug Henning s magic and the man behind that magic. --David Copperfield

Spellbound: The Wonder-filled Life of Doug Henning is a fascinating look at the career and amazing life of one of the most important figures in contemporary magic. From Doug's humble beginnings, to his meteoric success on Broadway, to his international fame, John Harrison takes you on an amazing ride through the public and private life of Doug Henning. This book is required reading for anyone interested in a career in magic. --Lance Burton

About this edition

• Publisher: BoxOffice Books
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 0982463901
• ISBN 13: 9780982463901
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 440