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1-11 of 11
- Actress
- Writer
- Producer
Quinn Shephard is a writer, director and actress based out of the New York area, with a career spanning two decades. At age 15, Shephard began writing her debut feature Blame (2017), inspired by playing Abigail Williams in a New Jersey regional production of Arthur Miller's The Crucible. She went on to direct, produce, edit, and star in the film at age 20. It premiered at the 2017 Tribeca Film Festival, making Shephard the youngest female filmmaker ever to screen a feature there. Shephard is a 2018 Forbes 30 Under 30 Listmaker and in 2019 received a Film Independent Spirit Award nomination for Best First Screenplay for Blame.- Writer
- Director
- Producer
Richard Wenk was born in 1956 in Metuchen, New Jersey, USA. He is a writer and director, known for The Equalizer (2014), The Equalizer 3 (2023) and The Expendables 2 (2012).- Director
- Producer
- Actor
David Copperfield is the first living illusionist to be honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame: he won the star on April 25th, 1995, for the category "Live Performance" and the address is 7021 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood, California, USA. On October 2nd, 1994, he was knighted by the French government as Chevalier of Arts and Letters, and on May 22th, 1999, he received an honorary doctorate of Humane Letters from Fordham University. Along with Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese and Colin Powell, on April 24th, 2000, he received the Living Legend award from the United States Library of Congress. In 1979 and 1986 he has been named "Magician of the Year" by the Academy of Magical Arts, in July 2000 he has been named "Magician of the Millennium" by the International Federation of Magic Societies (FISM), and on September 15th, 2011, he has been named "Magician of the Century" and "King of Magic" by the Society of American Magicians. His face graces the postage stamps of six different countries, making him the only living magician to receive this honor.
16 of his groundbreaking 19 TV specials were nominated for Emmy Awards 38 times between 1979 and 2001, and 10 of them have won 21 times between 1981 and 1995. Year after year he continues to tour sold-out arenas throughout the world. He holds 11 Guinness World Records, published in the 2006 edition of this book (pag. 179) and has sold more tickets than any other solo entertainer in history, with ticket sales in the billions, more than Frank Sinatra, Michael Jackson and Elvis Presley.
Sound impossible? David Copperfield built a reputation on making the impossible look easy. He singlehandedly redefined his art, and remains the most emulated illusionist in the history of magic.
An only child, David was born in Metuchen, New Jersey, USA, on September 16th, 1956, as David Seth Kotkin. His father, Hyman Kotkin, son of Jewish immigrants from Russia, owned and operated in Korby's, a clothing/tailor shop for men and boys on Metuchen's Main Street. His mother, Rebecca Kotkin, a Jewish immigrant born in Jerusalem, Israel, worked in the insurance business. David was a shy and lonely kid who overcame his insecurity with the help of magic. He initially wanted to become a ventriloquist, being fascinated by Paul Winchell, seen in his show Winchell-Mahoney Time (1965). So he bought a ventriloquist's dummy to Macy's, a shop selling magic tricks owned by the American multinational corporation Macy's, founded in 1858 by Rowland Hussey Macy. When he made a little show in front of his classmates, he realized he was a bad ventriloquist, despite receiving an applause. Then he returned to Macy's in search of a better dummy, and in that occasion there was a demonstrator, called Dan Tsukalas, who performed a magic trick with a little wooden board where a quarter would appear and disappear. David liked it so much that he decided to buy it. Thanks to that his first magic trick he realized he was better as a magician rather than as a ventriloquist. So, by the age of 10 he began practicing magic in his neighborhood, with the stage name "Davino the Boy Magician". At 12 (1968) he was invited to join the Society of American Magicians, so became its youngest member ever and began performing professionally. At 16 (1972) was an adjunct professor at New York University, where he taught a course called "The Art of Magic".
At 18 (1974), he graduated from Metuchen High School and then enrolled at Fordham University, a Jesuit based school in New York City. But after just a week he was cast as the lead in "The Magic Man", a new musical comedy created by the producers of Grease (1978), Allan Carr and Robert Stigwood, and written by mystery author Barbara Steketee with her husband Anthony D'Amato. So after three weeks David left Fordham to play in this show. It was for this occasion that, following the suggestion of a friend, he adopted the stage name "David Copperfield", inspired by the abandoned character of the homonymous Charles Dickens's novel. The show opened in Chicago, Illinois, USA, to rave reviews. It went on to become the longest running musical in Chicago's history, and gave David the invaluable experience of performing daily in front of a live audience, allowing him to develop the spontaneity and love of live performance that has him performing up to four shows a day, and doing over 550 performances every year since 1983.
When "The Magic Man" closed after a year, David returned to New York. He continued to develop his singular approach to magic, which was strongly influenced by his love of classic MGM musicals, the dramatic storytelling exemplified by Orson Welles and Walt Disney (2 of the 4 David's idols, which also include Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire) and the lyrical, muscular romanticism of a Sinatra ballad. At 19 (1975) he performed for several months at the Pagoda Hotel in Honolulu, Hawaii.
David appeared on television for the first time on May 26th, 1976, in Magic at the Roxy (1976), a TV special dedicated to magic and filmed at Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA, on October 9th, 1975, then he made an "official" debut on September 7th, 1977, as illusionist conductor of The Magic of ABC (1977). Thanks to this ABC variety TV special he achieved top ratings and shared his unique style of magic with millions of viewers. Immediately the producer Joseph Cates put David under contract for a series of yearly TV specials titled "The Magic of David Copperfield", broadcasted on CBS starting with The Magic of David Copperfield (1978), the first official Copperfield TV special. On television between 1976 and 2001 he has performed over 150 different illusions, covering practically all kinds of them.
In each special he presented new illusions on a scale never before imagined or attempted, and always in front of a live audience, without any use of camera tricks, and rather filming in long take to demonstrate the absolute absence of manipulation of the shoot through video editing or inserting of special effects. In his 4th special, The Magic of David Copperfield IV: The Vanishing Airplane (1981), he vanished a 7 tonnes Lear Jet airplane surrounded by a ring of blindfolded spectators, and in his 5th one, The Magic of David Copperfield V (1983), he performed in front of a live audience on Liberty Island "the illusion of the century": the disappearance of the Statue of Liberty, the largest illusion ever performed by an illusionist, but especially the one that made Copperfield famous worldwide.
For the next two decades, until 2001, David continued to break new ground with his annual top-rated, Emmy Award winning TV specials, with which he continued to surpass himself, for example by "Walking Through The Great Wall Of China" (1986), making a daring "Escape From Alcatraz" prison (1987), surviving being locked in a safe on the 4th floor of an imploding building (1989), levitating and vanishing a 70 tonnes Orient Express dining car surrounded by a ring of spectators (1991), flying freely on the stage for several minutes, and also flying into an examined plexiglas container, and then flying again freely but with a girl held on to his arms (1992), escaping while hanging upside down from burning ropes in a strait jacket 10 stories above flaming steel spikes (1993), testing, in live (in USA only) broadcast, his endurance by surviving the deadly heat standing in the center of a 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit (or 1,093 degrees Celsius) "Tornado Of Fire" (April 3rd, 2001). His TV specials have been broadcasted in over 40 countries worldwide, reaching an estimated audience of over 3 billion people.
In 1996 David realized his lifelong dream of performing on Broadway: he created "Dreams and Nightmares", written by David Ives and developed with Francis Ford Coppola and Eiko Ishioka. This show, opened at Martin Beck Theatre for 25 days between December 5th and 29th, still holds the Broadway record for most tickets sold in a week, more than Cats, The Lion King, and The Producers.
As historian of his art, in 1991 he purchased for $ 2,2 million the Mulholland Library of the Conjuring and the Allied Arts in Las Vegas, Nevada, to found The International Museum and Library of the Conjuring Arts, which houses the world's largest collection of historically significant magic memorabilia: thousands of graphic images, prints, posters, playbills, photographs, manuscripts, letters, props and artifacts. It comprises of approximately 80,000 items of magic history, including 15,000 magic books, some of them from the 16th century, the Harry Houdini's Water Torture Cell (purchased at a Las Vegas auction on October 30th, 2004, for $ 300,000), his Metamorphosis Trunk and also his death certificate, the Orson Welles's Buzz Saw illusion designed for Rita Hayworth, the rifle that killed magician Chung Ling Soo, the third version of the Edgar Bergen's Charlie McCarthy ventriloquism dummy (purchased at a Sotheby's auction on June 9th, 1995, for $ 112,500), and the automaton created by Robert-Houdin (December 6th, 1805 - June 13th, 1871), who is considered the father of modern magic. It also includes the only known recording of the original Houdini's voice, pressed in 1914 on the Thomas A. Edison's wax cylinders. However the museum is not open to the public, but reserved to colleagues, fellow magicians and serious collectors.
On the literary front, Copperfield joined forces with Dean R. Koontz, Joyce Carol Oates, Ray Bradbury and others for "David Copperfield's Tales of the Impossible" (385 pages, published in December 1995), an anthology of original fiction set in the world of magic and illusion. This collection was so well received that a second volume was published: "David Copperfield's Beyond Imagination" (352 pages, published in December 1996). David has been featured on the cover of Vanity Fair, Esquire, Forbes, and Architectural Digest. The word "Copperfield" has become a part of popular culture, in a manner quite apart from anything envisioned by Charles Dickens. In today's literature and media, to "do a David Copperfield" or to "be the David Copperfield of" something has come to mean doing something magical or achieving the impossible.
In August 2006 Copperfield found a unique platform on which to create his newest wonders: "Musha Cay and the Islands of Copperfield Bay". Recognized by many as the most beautiful and spectacular destination in the world, Musha Cay is the ultimate private island paradise. Located in the Exumas, Bahamas, these 11 private islands, bought for $ 50 million, have 700 acres of lush natural beauty, 40 sugar sand beaches and a 3,218 meters (or 10,560 feet) long sandbar, truly paradise on earth. David has been developing unique magical adventures for island guests, including Dave's Drive-in, where a giant silver screen "appears" on the beach, a custom designed magical Treasure Hunt adventure, and the Secret Village, a hidden sanctuary of enchanted monkeys accessed only by entering beneath a giant rising statue and journeying through an ancient, underground passage.
David's proudest achievement, however, is Project Magic, a therapy program conceived in 1981 and organized by Copperfield with Julie DeJean, O.T.R., until the American Occupational Therapy Association (AOTA) formally approved it in March 1982. Based in the Kansas Rehabilitation Hospital, this program, that uses magic as therapy, have been established in nearly every state in the USA and in 1,100 hospitals in 30 countries worldwide. This medically-certified program motivates patients to regain their dexterity, coordination and cognitive skills by learning simple magic and sleight of hand. It is also described and shown in his 6th special, The Magic of David Copperfield VI: Floating Over the Grand Canyon (1984).
In February 2010, at the age of 53, he became a father: the French model Chloe Gosselin, his girlfriend since 2006, gave birth to their child, a daughter called Sky.- Additional Crew
- Music Department
- Producer
Hugh Lambert was born on 31 March 1930 in Metuchen, New Jersey, USA. He was a producer, known for Finders Keepers (1966), Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In (1967) and Ed Sullivan Presents Movin' with Nancy on Stage (1971). He was married to Nancy Sinatra and Marjorie Joyce Griffith. He died on 18 August 1985 in Los Angeles, California, USA.- Actor
- Stunts
- Additional Crew
Pete Dunn was born on 20 March 1922 in Metuchen, New Jersey, USA. He was an actor, known for Cimarron City (1958), The Monster of Piedras Blancas (1959) and Born Again (1978). He was married to Ella Post and Bonnie. He died on 14 April 1990 in Willcox, Arizona, USA.- Producer
- Writer
- Additional Crew
Tom Ruegger is the fourteen-time Emmy-winning producer and creative force behind many of the most popular and successful animated television series of all time, including Tiny Toon Adventures (1990), Animaniacs (1993) and Pinky and the Brain (1995) to name only a few.
Over the last decade, Mr. Ruegger served as the executive producer and chief creative executive at Warner Bros. Animation. In 2002, he started his own company, Tom Ruegger Productions, and under its banner, Tom has been involved in the development, writing and production of multiple televisions series and feature films, both animated and live action. These new works include Animalia (2007) for PorchLight and PBS, as well as a new animated series for Disney.
Mr. Ruegger began his career as an animator at Hanna-Barbera Productions, under the mentor-ship of his childhood heroes, William Hanna and Joseph Barbera. Tom's early animation efforts appeared in such familiar cartoon series as "Scooby Doo", "The New Flintstones," "Casper" and "Godzilla'. Tom honed his writing skills at Filmation Studios under the guidance of Arthur H. Nadel and Lou Scheimer, on such series as Blackstar (1981) and Tarzan, Lord of the Jungle (1976)," then returned to Hanna-Barbera to serve as a story editor and producer for a variety of shows, including Pound Puppies (1985) and Scooby-Doo and Scrappy-Doo (1979). In 1988, Tom created and produced a new Scooby franchise, A Pup Named Scooby-Doo (1988)," which was the first Scooby Doo series to be nominated for an Emmy Award.
Tom joined Warner Bros. Animation in 1989 to head up production of Tiny Toon Adventures (1990). Thus began a decade-long creative collaboration between Mr. Spielberg and Mr. Ruegger that spanned five enormously successful series resulting in ratings success, a worldwide fan base, and over 30 Emmy Awards victories in numerous categories.
With the success of Tiny Toon Adventures (1990)," Warner Bros. Animation began its second "Golden Age," and Mr. Ruegger became chief creative executive of the company. Along with Jean MacCurdy, Tom executive-produced the studio's next major productions: Taz-Mania (1991) and Batman: The Animated Series (1992), a cartoon-noir take on the dark knight that premiered to rave reviews and strong numbers.
At the same time, Mr. Ruegger continued his collaboration with Mr. Spielberg by creating a cast of breakout characters and a new franchise entitled Animaniacs (1993). This "hellzapoppin'" cartoon show, starring zany siblings Yakko, Wakko and Dot Warner, premiered on "Fox Kids," and it became the comedy template for the animation industry for a number of years - every studio wanted its own Animaniacs (1993). The series went on to win multiple Emmys as well as the prestigious George Foster Peabody Award for Outstanding Achievement in Animation Programming. As the creator of Animaniacs (1993), Mr. Ruegger was the show's senior producer, and served as a story editor, writer and lyricist on the series.
Mr. Ruegger has gone on to create and produce a number of other acclaimed series as well. These include:
Pinky and the Brain (1995) This animated series stars two lab mice, one a dim bulb, the other a megalomaniac bent on global domination. Tom created this odd duo during the development of Animaniacs (1993), and the two mice proved so popular that they were spun off into their own prime time series on the WB. Tom served as the senior producer of this award-winning series, as well as a writer, story editor and lyricist.
Freakazoid! (1995)This animated series follows the adventures of teenage nerd Dexter Douglas, who is swept into cyberspace and transformed into the world's wildest superhero, Freakazoid. Tom co-created this Emmy-winning series for Steven Spielberg, and served as executive producer, story editor and lyricist.
Histeria! (1998) This cartoon comedy follows an eccentric cast, including Father Time, Big Fat Baby, Loud Kiddington and Charity Bazaar, as they travel through time and interact with key historic figures along the way. Tom created, wrote, and executive-produced the series.
Road Rovers (1996) Tom created this animated adventure comedy starring a team of superhero canines.
Animaniacs: Wakko's Wish (1999) Tom co-wrote, produced and directed this animated feature film featuring the "Animaniacs" cast.
"Batman: Mask of the Phantasm (1993)" Tom executive-produced this feature film.
Tom grew up in Metuchen, New Jersey, and attended Metuchen High School, where he served as Student Council President, co-captain of his school's football and track teams, and editorial cartoonist for the high school newspaper. Tom attended Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire, and graduated cum laude with a bachelor's degree in English. At Dartmouth, Tom served as the director of the Dartmouth Film Society, the nation's first and oldest college film society.
In his junior year at Dartmouth, Tom received a grant from the Arthur and Lillie Mayer Foundation to create an animated film. This 10-minute film, "The Premiere of Platypus Duck," was the beginning of Tom's steps toward a film career and, especially, a greater understanding of animation. Before graduation, Tom received the Marcus Heiman Award, Dartmouth College's highest honor for creative achievement.
Currently, Tom serves on the board of directors for the Hopkins Center and Hood Museum, which are the film/theater/arts centers at Dartmouth College. Tom is a member of the Writers Guild and the Screen Cartoonist Guild. He lives in Calabasas, California, with his three sons, Nathan, Luke and Cody.
In 2003 and 2004, Tom co-wrote the pilot and served as a script editor of the Emmy Award-winning animated series Tutenstein (2003) for Porchlight Pictures.
In 2005, Tom began work as producer and story editor of a new CGI animated series entitled Animalia (2007) for PorchLight Entertainment and Burberry Production. The series is scheduled for a fall 2007 premiere on the BBC, PBS and Australia-10.
Tom, along with partners Nicholas Hollander and Mark Seidenberg, is currently developing a new animated series for the Walt Disney Company.- Producer
- Casting Department
- Additional Crew
Caroline Pessoa Murphy was born on 18 June 1970 in Metuchen, New Jersey, USA. She is a producer, known for Moral Court (2000), Object of Obsession (1994) and Laguna Beach: The Real Orange County (2004).- Karen Tull was born on 22 January 1956 in Metuchen, New Jersey, USA. She is an actress, known for Dracula Bites the Big Apple (1979).
- Eddie Eng was born on 12 November 1955 in Metuchen, New Jersey, USA. He was an actor, known for Fishbowl (2021). He died on 19 September 2020 in West Hollywood, California, USA.
- Producer
- Actor
Allen Potter was born on 5 September 1919 in Metuchen, New Jersey, USA. He was a producer and actor, known for Guiding Light (1952), The Doctors (1963) and How to Survive a Marriage (1974). He died on 5 June 1995 in Stuart, Florida, USA.- Editor
- Producer
- Director
John W. McKelvey was born on 31 December 1975 in Metuchen, New Jersey, USA. He is an editor and producer, known for A Meteorite for the Mantlepiece (2009), Lunch Break (2005) and Barman (2003).