Criss Angel Biography

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criss_angel_001.jpg Criss Angel was born on December 19, 1967, raised in Long Island, New York and is of Greek descent. Angel grew up loving music, had a love for playing drums, and has always had an interest in magic. His parents are John and Dimitra Sarantakos. His mother hails from Mystra, Greece. He has two brothers, Costa and JD, as well as two cats, Minx and Hammie (short for Hamlet). One of Criss's biggest influences has been his father, who died from stomach cancer.

According to his interview with Larry King before Halloween in 2007 he was an altar boy in the Greek Orthodox Church as he was growing up, and he still believes strongly in God.

Criss Angel first became interested in magic at the age of 6, when his Aunt Stella showed him a magic trick. Two of his biggest magic influences are Harry Houdini and Aldo Richiardi. As a teenager, Angel performed at birthday parties, at night clubs, at home to entertain his family, and at private events. Early in his magic career, magician James Randi designed Angel's professional business card.

Angel played in an Industrial music band called AngelDust with friend Klayton Scott (Celldweller, Argyle Park) who produced, co-wrote, and helped arrange the music for his show, Mindfreak.

He married, in 2002, JoAnn Winkhart, an actress and daughter of Richard Winkhart; his wife filed for divorce in June 2007.

Magic Carreer

Angel performed World Of Illusion at Madison Square Garden in 1998. Criss then scored an off Broadway show titled "Criss Angel Mindfreak," which ran up until January 6, 2003 following a run of 600 performances at The World in The World Underground Theater in Times Square. He also starred in several television specials.

Criss Angel won the Academy of Magical Arts' Magician of the Year award in 2005 and the IMS Magician of the year in 2001 and 2004.

He has even revealed the methods for many of his tricks to viewers at home on TV and in videos, although the effects revealed are usually very simple such as making a toothpick disappear, picking a pocket, or making a Styrofoam cup float. Angel discusses magic and his life in Mindfreak: Secret Revelations (published April 24, 2007), which became a Los Angeles Times best seller.

Angel is scheduled to appear in a new illusion-based Cirque du Soleil production at the Luxor Hotel in Las Vegas, with an expected opening date in August 2008. Although the countdown clock featured on Angel's official website continues to point to later and later dates. As of 1/8/07, the clock is counting down to September 30, 2008. Angel has recently stated that there are plans for this attraction to run for 10 years, including 4,600 shows with a possible 5 year renewal option of his contract.

In July 2007, NBC signed Angel and Uri Geller for Phenomenon, a show airing on October 24 that searches for the next great mentalist. Angel does not believe Geller has any paranormal abilities.

On the Penn Jillette Radio show, hosted by a fellow magician, Penn Jillette of Penn & Teller, Criss Angel stated that he does not have supernatural abilities, nor does he believe that anyone has supernatural abilities.

Other projects

Angel was the featured guest star on CSI: NY on February 28, 2007 in an episode titled "Sleight Out of Hand" as the character of Luke Blade, a famous magician whose assistants die in unusual ways that are strangely related to the illusions he performs in the episode. In the episode, he performed three illusions (being sawed in half, being set on fire, and a version of his "Submerged" illusion).

criss_angel_004.jpg Angel's more notable television appearances include but are not limited to Las Vegas, The Oprah Winfrey Show, The Late Show with David Letterman, Late Night with Conan O'Brien, The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson, The Ellen DeGeneres Show, as well as VH1's Rock Honors Awards performing and introducing legendary Honoree Ozzy Osbourne. In June 2007, Angel appeared on the cover of the DUB Magazine. He also appeared on CNN's Larry King Live on July 12, 2007 and October 30, 2007. On June 8, 2007, he stated on the Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson that Richiardi was one of his greatest influences.

Starting in October 2007 he appeared as a judge on "Phenomenon," and in a CNN interview about 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 supernatural psychic ability, I'm going to bust them live and on television."

On the October 31, 2007 episode of the reality show Phenomenon, Paranormalist Jim Callahan performed a summoning, purportedly of author Raymond Hill, to help discover the contents of a locked box. Although fellow judge Uri Geller praised the performance, Angel called it "comical" and subsequently challenged both Callahan and Geller to guess the contents of two envelopes he pulled out of his pocket, offering a million dollars of his own money to whomever could do so. This led to an argument between Callahan and Angel, during which Callahan accused Angel of being an "ideological bigot", and after Angel rose from his chair and approached Callahan, the two were pulled apart as the show promptly went to a commercial break. Angel has since revealed the contents of one envelope and at the unveiling he challenged Geller one more time. Geller unsuccessful, and the envelope was revealed to contain an index card with the numbers "911" printed on it for September 11, 2001. Criss' explanation was this "if on 9-10 somebody could have predicted that 9-11 was going to happen, they could have saved millions of lives". The other envelope's contents will be revealed on the first episode of Season 4 of Criss Angel: Mindfreak.

Criss has just signed for a film version of the depression-era comic strip Mandrake The Magician. Written by Lee Falk, the story centers on a magician with hypnotic powers and a penchant for fighting mad scientists and criminal king-pins. Criss' role is Mandrake's father. He will be in estedica for the entire movie. Mandrake will start shooting in March of this year.