Who

David Blaine is known for "magic tricks" that bear a suspicious similarity to fraternity hazing rituals, including being locked in a Plexiglass box and frozen in a block of ice.

Backstory

A Brooklyn native, Blaine grew up with a busy single (Jewish) mom, and never met his (Puerto Rican) dad, and says he saw his first magic trick on the subway when he was four. After spending summers at the nerd haven of Tannen's Magic summer camp on Islip (an offshoot of the famous Tannen's Magic shop on West 34th Street), Blaine hit the streets with his act. Widespread fame arrived in 1997 with his Street Magic TV special, in which he bit through coins and levitated in front of bugged-out pedestrians.

Since then, he's staged a variety of pieces of what he calls "endurance art," i.e., publicity stunts so desperate as to be literally life-threatening: He's been buried alive, frozen in ice, stood on a pillar over Bryant Park for 34 hours, suspended for 44 days in a box over the Thames, locked inside a water-filled bubble outside of Lincoln Center for a week, and hung in a gyroscope near Times Square. On the set of Oprah in April 2008, he held his breath for for 17 minutes underwater—a world record. His next stunt? He plans to try to stay awake for a million seconds, or 11 days, 13 hours, and 47 minutes. And his next stunt after that? Hopefully it will involve making himself disappear.

Grudge

Only one talent-free charlatan can be the king of fake magic and Blaine has been fighting tooth and nail to stay on top. He's had a longstanding rivalry with fellow self-important "illusionist" Criss Angel of A&E's reality magic show Mindfreak, who has dismissed Blaine in interviews as a fraud. ("I'm not a creation of television. I actually have a live show…He never did a live show in his life.") Angel upped the ante in 2007 by filming a show on Blaine's home turf, NYC.

The look

Bizarrely, the tattoo on Blaine's forearm—the number 174517—is the concentration camp number of writer Primo Levi.

Personal

Over the years, Blaine has dated Madonna (so rumor has it), Fiona Apple, and Naomi Campbell, and B-models Josie Maran, Lonneke Engel, and Manon von Gerkan. Once a nightlife fixture regularly seen out with celebrity pals like Leo DiCaprio, Blaine's social life has taken a turn for the worse in recent years. In August 2007, he was nearly thrown out of a Hamptons club after he grabbed drinks from two female patrons, downed them, and then smashed the glasses on the floor. (The bouncers were about to eject him, but he did some apparently compelling card tricks, and was allowed to stay.) The same month, gossips reported that a doughy Blaine was stalking nightclubs for young models, but was rejected by all the girls he approached. (His talent for mind reading appears to be a little rusty.) Blaine "works" out of a two-floor studio in Tribeca and lives in an apartment at 354 Broadway that he bought in 2005.

No joke

Blaine is popular with elderly financiers: He occasionally performs tricks at the home of former Bear Stearns chairman Ace Greenberg.