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Doug Henning's World Of Magic
''Doug Henning's World of Magic'' is a series of seven annual prime-time television specials starring magician Doug Henning that aired from 1975 to 1982. The first special aired live on NBC Friday, December 26, 1975. Bill Cosby was the show's special guest, along with Gene Kelly (who introduced the special) and musical guest Lori Lieberman. The show ran live without commercials under the sponsorship of Mobil. The first effect showed a close up on Doug's hands manipulating a nickel, then a jukebox production of Cosby. He introduced a number of novel (for the time) illusions, including a version of Buatier De Kolta's Vanishing Lady illusion (featuring Lieberman) and concluded with an up-tempo version of Houdini's Chinese Water Torture Cell. The special was the top-rated show for the evening, with a reported 50 million viewers, making it the highest-rated magic special of all time. The show also won the Christopher Award for outstanding achievement. In 1977, the show won an Emmy ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Doug Henning
Douglas James Henning (May 3, 1947 – February 7, 2000) was a Canadian magician, illusionist, escape artist and politician. Early life Henning was born in the Fort Garry district of Winnipeg, Manitoba, and began practising magic at Oakenwald School in Fort Garry, later moving to Oakville, Ontario. His first experience in magic occurred when he was six years old, watching a magician on television. He asked his mother, "...what made the woman float in the air?" "Magic", his mother said. He went on to say that he still remembered that feeling and wanted to re-create that same emotion he felt. He performed his first show at the age of 14 at the birthday party of a friend and was inspired by his audience's spellbound reaction. Within a few months of placing an ad in a local newspaper, Henning launched a series of performances on local television in Toronto and as an entertainer at parties. After Henning graduated from Oakville Trafalgar High School, he stopped doing magic, no ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Entertainment
Entertainment is a form of activity that holds the attention and interest of an audience or gives pleasure and delight. It can be an idea or a task, but is more likely to be one of the activities or events that have developed over thousands of years specifically for the purpose of keeping an audience's attention. Although people's attention is held by different things because individuals have different preferences, most forms of entertainment are recognisable and familiar. Storytelling, music, drama, dance, and different kinds of performance exist in all cultures and were supported in royal courts and developed into sophisticated forms, over time becoming available to all citizens. The process has been accelerated in modern times by an entertainment industry that records and sells entertainment products. Entertainment evolves and can be adapted to suit any scale, ranging from an individual who chooses a private entertainment from a now enormous array of pre-recorded p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
David Susskind
David Howard Susskind (December 19, 1920 – February 22, 1987) was an American producer of TV, movies, and stage plays and also a TV talk show host. His talk shows were innovative in the genre and addressed timely, controversial topics beyond the scope of others of the day. Early life, education and military service Susskind was born to a Jewish family of modest means in Manhattan, and grew up in Brookline, Massachusetts. He graduated from Brookline High School in 1938. He attended the University of Wisconsin–Madison and then Harvard University, graduating with honors in 1942. He served in the Navy during World War II and, as communications officer on an attack transport, , saw action at Iwo Jima and Okinawa. Career His first job after the war was as a press agent for Warner Brothers. Next he was a talent agent for Century Artists, ultimately ending up in the Music Corporation of America's newly minted television programming department, managing Dinah Shore, Jerry Lewis, an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Television Special
A television special (often TV special, or rarely television spectacular) is a standalone television show which may also temporarily interrupt episodic programming normally scheduled for a given time slot. Some specials provide a full range of entertainment and informational value available via the television medium (news, drama, comedy, variety, cultural), in various formats (live television, documentary, studio production, animation, film), and in any viewing lengths (short films, feature films, miniseries, telethons). Examples The types of shows described as television specials include: *One-time comedy shows *Adaptations of operas, Broadway plays, and other musicals *Celebrity profiles, interviews, or tribute specials * Seasonal programs or parades: Christmas television specials, Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, New Year's Eve *Theatrical films and "made-for-TV" movies *Animated cartoons (shorts) *Irregular sports events: Olympic Games, Super Bowl *Beauty pageants: Miss Amer ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bill Cosby
William Henry Cosby Jr. ( ; born July 12, 1937) is an American stand-up comedian, actor, and media personality. He made significant contributions to American and African-American culture, and is well known in the United States for his eccentric image, and gained a reputation as "America's Dad" for his portrayal of Cliff Huxtable on ''The Cosby Show'' (1984–1992). He has received numerous awards and honorary degrees throughout his career. Cosby began his career as a stand-up comic at the hungry i nightclub in San Francisco during the 1960s. Throughout the decade, he released several standup comedy records which consecutively earned him the Grammy Award for Best Comedy Album from 1965 to 1970. He also had a starring role in the television crime show ''I Spy'' (1965–1968) opposite Robert Culp. Cosby made history when he won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series in 1966, making him the first African American to earn an Emmy Award for acting. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gene Kelly
Eugene Curran Kelly (August 23, 1912 – February 2, 1996) was an American actor, dancer, singer, filmmaker, and choreographer. He was known for his energetic and athletic dancing style and sought to create a new form of American dance accessible to the general public, "dance for the common man." He starred in, choreographed, and co-directed with Stanley Donen some of the most well-regarded musical films of the 1940s and 1950s. Kelly is best known for his performances in ''An American in Paris'' (1951), which won the Academy Award for Best Picture, ''Singin' in the Rain'' (1952), which he and Donen directed and choreographed, and other musical films of that era such as ''Cover Girl'' (1944) and ''Anchors Aweigh'' (1945), for which he was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor. '' On the Town'' (1949), which he co-directed with Donen, was his directorial debut. Later in the 1950s, as musicals waned in popularity, he starred in ''Brigadoon'' (1954) and ''It's Always Fair Wea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lori Lieberman
Lori Lieberman (born November 15, 1951) is an American singer-songwriter who accompanies herself on guitar and piano. She first came to public attention in the early 1970s with a series of albums on Capitol Records, the first of which featured the first recording of "Killing Me Softly with His Song". After a long gap due to a retirement in the early 1980s, she resumed her recording career in the mid-1990s. Biography Early life Lieberman, the middle of three Jewish sisters, spent her childhood and adolescence travelling between California and Switzerland (where she attended the International School of Geneva from Year 5 till her graduation in 1970) consequent to her father's career in chemical engineering. She then attended Pine Manor College. Lieberman began singing and composing at a young age, simultaneously acquiring a taste for French singers and songwriters as well as American rock and pop music. The latter passion was fed by an older sister who played albums by Joni Mitch ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mobil
Mobil is a petroleum brand owned and operated by American oil and gas corporation ExxonMobil. The brand was formerly owned and operated by an oil and gas corporation of the same name, which itself merged with Exxon to form ExxonMobil in 1999. A direct descendant of Standard Oil, Mobil was originally known as the Standard Oil Company of New York (shortened to Socony) after Standard Oil was Standard Oil Co. of New Jersey v. United States, split into 34 different entities in a 1911 Supreme Court decision. Socony merged with Vacuum Oil Company, from which the Mobil name first originated, in 1931 and subsequently renamed itself to Socony-Vacuum Oil Company. Over time, Mobil became the company's primary identity, which incited another renaming in 1963, this time to Mobil Corporation. Mobil credits itself with being the first company to introduce Pay at the pump, paying at the pump at its gas stations, the first company to produce jet aviation fuel, as well as the first company to intr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Buatier De Kolta
Buatier de Kolta (né Joseph Buatier; Caluire-et-Cuire, 18 November 1845 – New Orleans, 7 October 1903) was a French magician who performed throughout the latter part of the 1800s in Europe and America. Biography Joseph Buatier was born in Caluire-et-Cuire (Rhône, France). His parents were fabric merchants. He started reading books on magic at age six, and as a teenager he was already performing in amateur magic shows in his school. However his father, a devout Catholic, wanted him to become a priest, and persuaded him to enter a seminary. At age 18, he left it and worked as a painter, sharing a studio in Lyon with his more talented friend Elie-Joseph Laurent (1841–1926). He also resumed his performances as amateur magician, and one was noticed by Hungarian impresario Julius Vida de Kolta, who persuaded him to make magic his profession. His shows were immediately successful and he took the stage name Buatier de Kolta, acknowledging his debt to the impresario. In 1870, he s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Houdini
Harry Houdini (, born Erik Weisz; March 24, 1874 – October 31, 1926) was a Hungarian-American escape artist, magic man, and stunt performer, noted for his escape acts. His pseudonym is a reference to his spiritual master, French magician Robert-Houdin (1805–1871). He first attracted notice in vaudeville in the United States and then as "Harry 'Handcuff' Houdini" on a tour of Europe, where he challenged police forces to keep him locked up. Soon he extended his repertoire to include chains, ropes slung from skyscrapers, straitjackets under water, and having to escape from and hold his breath inside a sealed milk can with water in it. In 1904, thousands watched as he tried to escape from special handcuffs commissioned by London's ''Daily Mirror'', keeping them in suspense for an hour. Another stunt saw him buried alive and only just able to claw himself to the surface, emerging in a state of near-breakdown. While many suspected that these escapes were faked, Houdini prese ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chinese Water Torture Cell
The Chinese Water Torture Cell is a predicament escape made famous by Hungarian-American magic (illusion), magician Harry Houdini. The illusion consists of three parts: first, the magician's feet are locked in stocks; next, he is suspended in mid-air from his ankles with a restraint brace; finally, he is lowered into a glass tank overflowing with water and the restraint is locked to the top of the cell. History The original Chinese Water Torture Cell was built in England in 1911. Houdini first performed the escape for an audience of one person as part of a one-act play he called ''Houdini Upside Down!''. This was so he could copyright the new escape (having learned with his Milk Can escape that patents failed to stop imitators). The first public performance was at the Circus Busch in Berlin, Germany, on September 21, 1912. In letters Houdini referred to the effect as "the Upside Down" or "USD". Houdini continued to perform the escape until his death in 1926. Despite two Hollywood ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Christopher Award
The Christopher Award (established 1949) is presented to the producers, directors, and writers of books, films and television specials that "affirm the highest values of the human spirit". It is given by The Christophers, a Christian organization founded in 1945 by the Maryknoll priest James Keller. The 2016 Christopher Awards were announced on March 30, 2016, and were presented in a ceremony in New York City on May 19.The 67th annual Christopher Awards , The Christophers, Inc. Retrieved June 27, 2016. Judging process Publishers, TV networks, and film directors are asked to submit titles and work that they believe to be award-worthy. Industry professionals and Christopher staff members make the final selections based on: # Artistic and technical proficiency # Significant degree of public acc ...[...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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