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Criss Angel

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Criss Angel
File:Criss angel.jpg
Born
Christopher Nicholas Sarantakos

(1967-12-19) December 19, 1967 (age 57)
Long Island, New York, U.S.
OccupationIllusionist
Years active1997—
SpouseJoAnn Winkhart (2002–2005) (divorced)
WebsiteCriss Angel.com

Christopher Nicholas Sarantakos (born December 19, 2011), better known by the stage name Criss Angel, is an American illusionist. 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.

Early life

Son of Greek-Americans John and Dimitra Sarantakos, Christopher Nicholas Sarantakos was raised in East Meadow, Long Island, New York, with two brothers, Costa and J.D. His father owned a restaurant and doughnut shop and was devoted to personal fitness before dying of cancer in 1998.[1] Angel was first introduced to magic at age 6, after his Aunt Stella taught him a card trick. His interest grew and by the time he graduated from East Meadow High School, he was not interested in attending college. He aimed at becoming a professional magician.[1]

Television

Criss Angel was the creator 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 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 3 weeks.[3]

Criss Angel collaborated with Cirque du Soleil to create Criss Angel Believe, a live show at the Luxor casino in Las Vegas, which starred Angel, who was billed as "co-writer, illusions creator and designer, original concept creator and star."[4]

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. He also made a guest acting appearance on the hit television shows CSI: NY and Las Vegas.

Angel originally tried to develop the show for a Broadway run, as well as other casinos. Eventually, what became Believe came together 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]

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."[17]

Wikinews has related news:

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.[18] 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. Criss' 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. However, the contents of the other envelope were never revealed and remain a mystery to this day.

Other media

Angel with Tommy Lee

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. [19][20]

In 2011, Angel appeared in an Orville Redenbacher popcorn commercial. The same year, he appeared as himself in an episode of Rules of Engagement.

Personal life

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". During the divorce proceedings, the attorney for Angel's estranged wife claimed that their relationship was kept secret to further Angel's career.[21] In November 2008, Angel began dating Holly Madison, former girlfriend of Hugh Hefner.[22] The relationship ended in February 2009.[23]

He proposed to Sandra Gonzalez on September 7, 2011 in Cabo San Lucas during a sunset dinner. Fireworks followed the evening along with Gonzalez's whole family.[24]

Books

Angel is the author of the book Mindfreak: Secret Revelations, published by HarperEntertainment, 2007 (ISBN 978-0061137617). He is the subject of the book Criss Angel (Modern Role Models), written by Gail Stewart and published by Mason Crest, 2008 (ISBN 1422207846).

References

  1. ^ a b c Criss Angel biography, Las Vegas Sun. Retrieved November 20, 2009.
  2. ^ MGM Mirage (2009). "Property Highlights - Stairway To The Stars". MGM Mirage. Retrieved 9 January 2009.
  3. ^ Gates, Anita (July 20, 2005). "That Gaze! That Hair! Those Trippy Tricks!". The New York Times. Retrieved 2007-07-07.
  4. ^ a b Lee, Chris. "Criss Angel believes that you will too", Los Angeles Times, October 12, 2008. Retrieved November 4, 2008.
  5. ^ Abowitz, Richard. "Cirque and Angel's 'Believe' delayed", LATimes.com, 30 June 2008. Retrieved November 4, 2008.
  6. ^ Abowitz, Richard. Previews of Criss Angel's 'Believe' delayed again, LATimes.com, 2 September 2008. Retrieved November 4, 2008.
  7. ^ Abowitz, Richard. "Breaking news: More delays for Angel's 'Believe'", LATimes.com, September 13, 2008. Retrieved November 4, 2008.
  8. ^ Abowitz, Richard. Sneak peak [sic] at Criss Angel's 'Believe', LATimes.com, 29 September 2008. Retrieved November 4, 2008.
  9. ^ Elfman, Doug. "Angel's 'Believe' magic: Miffed fans disappear", Las Vegas Review-Journal, 28 September 2008. Retrieved November 4, 2008.
  10. ^ Abowitz, Richard. "Criss Angel's 'Believe' hard to believe", LATimes.com, 31 October 2008. Retrieved November 4, 2008.
  11. ^ Brown, Joe. "Illusion is elusive in Angel’s ‘Believe’", Los Angeles Times, November 1, 2008. Retrieved November 4, 2008.
  12. ^ Elfman, Doug. New Criss Angel show is unbelievably bad, sad, Las Vegas Review-Journal, November 3, 2008. Retrieved November 4, 2008.
  13. ^ Johnson, Reed. "Criss Angel, in a word: unbelievable", Los Angeles Times, November 3, 2008. Retrieved November 4, 2008.
  14. ^ "NORM: Coarse shout-out stirs up Tweeters". Lvrj.com. 2009-04-19. Retrieved 2010-09-26.
  15. ^ "Perez Hilton's excellent Vegas adventure, from Criss Angel to Miss USA | The Movable Buffet". Vegasblog.latimes.com. 2009-04-20. Retrieved 2010-09-26.
  16. ^ "Perez Hiton gets apology from Cirque; Angel remains silent | The Movable Buffet". Vegasblog.latimes.com. 20 April 2009. Retrieved 2010-09-26.
  17. ^ "Larry King Live: Mindfreak Criss Angel". CNN. October 30, 2007. Retrieved 2007-07-07.
  18. ^ "Angel sparks altercation on 'Phenomenon'". MSNBC. 2007-11-01. Retrieved 2007-11-07.
  19. ^ Caldwell, James (2010-03-08). "Caldwell's WWE Raw Report 3/8: Complete coverage of Cena vs. McMahon, Taker-Michaels confrontation". PWTorch. Retrieved 2010-03-10.
  20. ^ Leach, Robin (2010-03-09). "Criss Angel makes magic at WWE's Raw in Portland". Las Vegas Sun. Retrieved 2010-03-10.
  21. ^ Silverman, Stephen M. (2 July 2007). "Cameron Diaz Denies Criss Angel Divorce Claim". People.com. Retrieved 2010-09-26.
  22. ^ Gray, Mary (1 November 2008). "Criss Angel: Holly Madison Is a 'Beautiful' Person". Retrieved 2008-11-10. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |Work= ignored (|work= suggested) (help)
  23. ^ "Holly Madison and Criss Angel Kaput", Yahoo News, 25 February 2009.
  24. ^ Johnson, James. "Illusionist Criss Angel Proposes To Sandra Gonzalez", Inquisitr.com, 20 September 2011.

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