| Criss Angel | |
|---|---|
| Born | Christopher Nicholas Sarantakos December 19, 1967 Long Island, New York, U.S. |
| Occupation | Magician/Entertainer/TV Personality |
| Years active | 1997—Present |
| Net worth | US$17 million (2010) |
| Religion | Orthodox Christian |
| Spouse | JoAnn Winkhart (2002–2005) (divorced) |
| Website | |
| Criss Angel.com The Magic Place | |
Christopher Nicholas Sarantakos (born December 19, 1967), better known by the stage name Criss Angel, is an American magician. He is best known for starring in the television show, Criss Angel Mindfreak and his live performance illusion show Criss Angel Believe in artistic collaboration with Cirque du Soleil at the Luxor casino in Las Vegas, Nevada. Angel is also the creator of the MagicPlace.com .
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Angel's childhood interest in magic grew as he aged and by the time he graduated from East Meadow High School, he was not interested in attending college any longer. He aimed at becoming a professional magician.[1]
Criss Angel was the creator, director, and executive producer of the A&E Network show Criss Angel MINDFREAK. Seasons 1 and 2 were filmed at The Aladdin in Las Vegas, with Season 3 at the Luxor Las Vegas. Premiering on July 20, 2005, the show's illusions have included walking on water, levitating, walking up the side of Luxor Hotel (in the light of 39 focused lamps that can be seen from space[2]), floating between two buildings, causing a Lamborghini to disappear, surviving in an exploding C4 Crate, cutting himself in half in full view of an audience and getting run over by a steamroller while lying on a bed of broken glass. Also in season 3 he was known for jumping out of a moving car. Angel was injured and stopped production for 2 weeks.[3]
He made numerous special television guest appearances on WWE Raw, The Oprah Winfrey Show, The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson, Jimmy Kimmel Live!, The Megan Mullally Show, The Ellen Show, AVN Awards Show 2007 and Larry King Live on CNN. The Tonight Show, The Late Show, America's Got Talent", The Rosie O'Donnell Show", and introducing honoree "Ozzy Ozbourne" on "VH1"'s Rock Honors awards. He also made a guest acting appearance on the hit television shows CSI: NY, Las Vegas and Rules of Engagement
The show was originally developed for Broadway and was titled Criss Angel MINDFREAK. Eventually, the show evolved into Believe when he entered a partnership with Cirque du Soleil and the Luxor's parent company, MGM Mirage, financed the show with $100 million.[4]
After several delays, the show was set for a gala opening on October 31, 2008, with preview shows in late September.[5][6][7] The initial preview was not well received, with thoroughly negative audience reactions.[8][9] The show opened to equally harsh reviews which cited a lack of the magic Angel is known for, as well as a confusing and uninteresting theme. Reviewers felt neither Angel nor Cirque du Soleil were able to perform to their capabilities.[10][11][12][13]
In April 2009, Angel ended a performance of Believe by "hurling obscene insults" at blogger Perez Hilton, an audience member. Hilton reportedly had texted to his fans during the performance that the show was "unbelievably BAD" and that he'd "rather be getting a root canal", and word had gotten back to Angel by the end of the performance.[14][15] Cirque du Soleil later apologized to Hilton for Angel's remarks.[16]
The show has since gathered positive reviews. In 2010 the Las Vegas Sun critic John Katsilometes mentioned that the show has improved: "Believe It: Criss Angel's work has markedly improved Luxor show".[17] In 2011 the Toronto Star wrote: “The show is easily the most exciting thing now on stage in Vegas!” [18] Also in 2011 BBC critic Alex Belfield wrote: “There’s birds, flying, motorbikes, levitation and a gorgeous assistant cut in half! It’s got the heart and passion of ‘Old Vegas’ whilst being as cool and contempory as humanly possible for 2011. He’s a master of his art!”.[19]
Starting in October 2007 he appeared as a judge on Phenomenon, with Uri Geller 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 [him] live and on television."[20]
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.[21] 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 whoever could do so. This led to an argument between Callahan and Angel, during which Callahan walked toward Angel and called him an "ideological bigot", with the two 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 responded, "Although we were born one day apart - I was born on the 20th of December and you on the 19th - a lot of years between us - 40 years, you were one year old when I came out with my spoon bending..." Criss Angel cut him off at this point, saying, "I guess this is a 'no,'" and proceeded to open the envelope. The envelope contained an index card with the numbers "911" printed on it for September 11, 2001. Angel's explanation was this: "If on 9-10 somebody could have predicted that 9-11 was going to happen, they could have saved thousands of lives". Some Geller supporters point out Geller did mention the numbers one and 19 and count it as a success since he did get the digits right. Geller in fact mentioned five digits in his speech (0, 1, 2, 4, 9) as well as the month of December. The other envelope's contents was scheduled to be revealed on the first episode of Season 4 of Criss Angel: Mindfreak.
Angel was parodied in The Simpsons episode The Great Simpsina, via an extremely talented but sleazy and obnoxious magician named "Cregg Demon". Angel was loosely parodied in Ugly Americans episode "Kill Mark Kill" as Christ Angel, Leonard's older yet younger-looking brother. Angel was parodied in Robot Chicken. In the episode "I Love Her", he becomes a substitute teacher at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, where he tries to use Mindfreak on Harry Potter and his friends.
On March 8, 2010, Angel was a special guest star on the WWE. [22][23] In 2011, Angel appeared in an Orville Redenbacher Pop-Up Bowl popcorn commercial which received high Nielsen ratings.[24] In 2011 Angel also appeared as himself in an episode of Rules of Engagement.
Angel is the author of the book Mindfreak: Secret Revelations, published by HarperEntertainment, 2007 (ISBN 978-0061137617).
Angel created the BeLIEve Foundation 'Believe Anything is Possible - A JDS Foundation'.[25]
In 2002, Angel married his longtime girlfriend JoAnn Winkhart (now JoAnn Sarantakos). The couple filed for divorce four years later.[1] Although Angel was seen with his wife in the buried alive illusion (season 1, episode 6, 2005) and the body suspension illusion (season 1, episode 5, 2005), she was not credited as his wife; rather, she was listed as "Criss's Girl". In November 2008, Angel began dating Holly Madison, former girlfriend of Hugh Hefner.[26] The relationship ended in February 2009.[27]
He proposed to Sandra Gonzalez on September 7, 2011 in Cabo San Lucas during a sunset dinner. [28]