Task 1 . Read stories about three magicians, answer the questions.
Task 2. For
each question, choose which magician is the correct answer.
Harry Houdini
He began his magic career in 1891. At the outset, he had
little success. He performed in sideshows, and even doubled as "The Wild
Man" at a circus. Houdini focused initially on traditional card tricks. At
one point, he billed himself as the "King of Cards". But he soon
began experimenting with escape acts.
In 1893, while performing with his brother, Dash, at Coney
Island as "The Brothers Houdini", Harry met a fellow performer,
Wilhelmina Beatrice "Bess" Rahner. She and Houdini married in 1894,
with Bess replacing Dash in the act, which became known as "The
Houdinis." For the rest of Houdini's performing career, Bess would work as
his stage assistant.
Houdini's big break came in 1899 when he met manager Martin
Beck in rural Woodstock, Illinois. Impressed by Houdini's handcuffs act, Beck
advised him to concentrate on escape acts and booked him on the Orpheum
vaudeville circuit. Within months, he was performing at the top vaudeville
houses in the country. In 1900, Beck arranged for Houdini to tour Europe. After
some days of unsuccessful interviews in London, Houdini managed to interest
Dundas Slater, then manager of the Alhambra Theatre. He gave a demonstration of
escape from handcuffs at Scotland Yard, and succeeded in baffling the police so
effectively that he was booked at the Alhambra for six months.
Derren Brown is a British illusionist, mentalist, trickster,
hypnotist, painter, writer, and sceptic. He is known for his appearances in
television specials, stage productions, and British television series such as
Trick of the Mind and Trick or Treat. Though his performances of mind-reading
and other feats of mentalism may appear to be the result of psychic or
paranormal practices, he claims no such abilities and frequently denounces
those who do. Brown states at the beginning of his Trick of the Mind programmes
that he achieves his results using a combination of "suggestion,
psychology, misdirection and showmanship".
Brown was born to Bob and Chris Brown in Purley, Croydon,
London, England. He has a brother, who is nine years his junior. Brown was
privately educated at Whitgift School in South Croydon (where his father
coached swimming), and studied Law and German at the University of Bristol.
While there, he attended a hypnotist show by Martin Taylor, which inspired him
to turn to illusion and hypnosis as a career. Whilst an undergraduate, he
started working as a conjuror, performing the traditional skills of close-up
magic in bars and restaurants. In 1992, he started performing stage shows at the
University of Bristol under the stage name Darren V. Brown.
Brown was an Evangelical Christian in his teens, and became
an atheist in his twenties. Brown said he sought to strengthen his belief and
provide answers to common criticisms of religion by reading the Bible and other
Christian religious texts, but upon doing so found none of the answers he
sought and came to the conclusion that his belief had no basis.
Dunninger was born in New York City. He headlined throughout
the Keith-Orpheum Circuit, and was much in demand for private entertainment. At
the age of seventeen he was invited to perform at the home of Theodore
Roosevelt in Oyster Bay and at the home of the inventor Thomas A. Edison, both
of whom were avid admirers of his mysticism.
Dunninger was a debunker of fraudulent mediums. He claimed
to replicate through trickery all spiritualist phenomena. He wrote the book
Inside the Medium's Cabinet which exposed the tricks of mediumship. He also
exposed how the indian rope trick could be performed by camera trickery.
Dunninger had a standing offer of $10,000 to anyone who
could prove that he used paid assistants for his tricks. He often said he could
raise that offer to $100,000. Through Scientific American magazine and the
Universal Council for Psychic Research, Dunninger made this offer to any medium
who could produce by psychic or supernatural means any physical phenomena that
he could not reproduce by natural means. Dunninger appeared on radio starting
in 1943, and on television frequently in the 1950s and 60s.
1. Which magician made it clear he doesn't use real magic?
A. Brown
B. Dunninger
C. Houdini
2. Which magician went to have a lot of success abroad?
A. Brown
B. Dunninger
C. Houdini
3. Which magician enjoyed showing other performers were
dishonest?
A. Brown
B. Dunninger
C. Houdini
4. Which magician
enjoyed media success late in his career?
A. Brown
B. Dunninger
C. Houdini
5. Which magician had ambitions to work in magic after
seeing another performer?
A. Brown
B. Dunninger
C. Houdini
6. Which magician was initially a failure?
A. Brown
B. Dunninger
C. Houdini
7. Which magician abandoned many of his beliefs as he grew
up?
A. Brown
B. Dunninger
C. Houdini
8. Which magician worked with a family member?
A. Brown
B. Dunninger
C. Houdini
9. Which magician
was already performing before becoming an adult?
A. Brown
B. Dunninger
C. Houdini
Task 3. Retell the information about magicians as if
you were a journalist.
Task 4. If you were a magician what super power would
you like to have? Why? Explain your choice.
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