I'm The Luckiest Man In The World

But When I Go Off Stage I Don't Have A Deck Of Cards With Me All The Time.

To Make Magic Credible On Screen Is Always Very Difficult. The Story Is The Most Important Thing. That Is What Should Win. If Sacrifices Or Compromises Are Made, It's Usually For Story. Story In Magic Is Very, Very Important To Me. That's What I've Really Championed Through My Career.

A Few Years Later, When I Was Still Going To These Meetings, I Was Also "second-acting" Every Broadway Show [walking In With The Crowd After Intermission]. I Snuck In To See Grease With John Travolta In Kind Of A Secondary Part And Adrienne Barbeau Playing Rizzo, Into Pippin, Hung Out With Ben Vereen And Bob Fosse. It Was An Amazing Time For A Teenager.

I Was 16 At The Time, And I Came Backstage And Started Hanging Out With Them. I Said, "well, Maybe You Can 'vanish' The Silk This Way." The Opening Was A Black Stage While The "magic To Do" Song Started Playing. All You Saw Were Hands, Lit By Jules Fisher, And Then Ben Vereen Would Appear Beyond The Hands, And At The End Of The Scene He Would Vanish A Silk. The Spotlight Would Hit A Red Spot On The Floor Where You'd See The Silk On The Floor. He'd Pull The Silk Out Of The Floor And It Became The Entire Set Coming Out Of The Floor.

I Find Revealing The Secrets Of Magic Quite Reprehensible.