Christopher Nicholas Sarantakos (born December 19, 1967), better known by his stage names Criss Angel and G.O.B., is an American illusionist, musician, escapologist, and stunt performer. He is best known for starring in his own television show, Criss Angel Mindfreak.
Early life
Son of John and Dimitra Sarantakos, Angel 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 He is Greek American.
Angel was first introduced to magic at age 6, after his aunt 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 university and instead he aimed at becoming a professional magician.1
Criss Angel Mindfreak
Criss Angel is the star and 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 above the Luxor Hotel (in the light of 39 focused lamps that can be seen from space2), 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 stomach down on a bed of 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 Believe
Criss Angel collaborated with Cirque du Soleil to create Criss Angel Believe, a live show at the Luxor Las Vegas hotel in Las Vegas, which stars Angel, who is billed as "co-writer, illusions creator and designer, original concept creator and star."4
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.567 The initial preview was not well received, with thoroughly negative audience reactions.89 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.10111213
In April 2009, Angel ended a performance of Believe by "hurling obscene insults" at Perez Hilton, who was an audience member. Hilton reportedly had Tweeted 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. 1415 Cirque du Soleil later apologized to Hilton for Angel's remarks 16
Phenomenon
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
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 was unsuccessful, and the envelope was revealed to contain 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". 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.
Personal life
In 2002, Angel married his longtime girlfriend JoAnn Winkhard. The couple filed for divorce five years later.1 Although Angel was seen with his wife in the buried alive illusion (season 1, episode 6, 2005), she was not credited as his wife. Rather she was listed as "Criss' Girl". During the divorce proceedings the attorney of Angel's estranged wife claimed that their relationship was kept secret to further Angel's career.19
In November 2008, Angel began dating Hugh Hefner's former girlfriend Holly Madison.20 The relationship ended in February 2009.21.
Books and music
Books
Music
References
- ^ a b c Criss Angel biography, Las Vegas Sun, Accessed November 20, 2009.
- ^ MGM Mirage (2009). "Property Highlights - Stairway To The Stars". MGM Mirage. http://www.luxor.com/attractions/attractions_property_highlights.aspx. Retrieved 09 January 2009.
- ^ "That Gaze! That Hair! Those Trippy Tricks!". The New York Times. July 20, 2005. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/20/arts/television/20gate.html. Retrieved 2007-07-07.
- ^ a b Chris Lee, Criss Angel believes that you will too, Los Angeles Times, October 12, 2008, Accessed November 4, 2008.
- ^ Richard Abowitz, Cirque and Angel's 'Believe' delayed, LATimes.com, June 30 2008, Accessed November 4, 2008.
- ^ Richard Abowitz, Previews of Criss Angel's 'Believe' delayed again, LATimes.com, September 2 2008, Accessed November 4, 2008.
- ^ Richard Abowitz, Breaking news: More delays for Angel's 'Believe', LATimes.com, September 13 2008, Accessed November 4, 2008.
- ^ Richard Abowitz, Sneak peak at Criss Angel's 'Believe', LATimes.com, September 29 2008, Accessed November 4, 2008.
- ^ Doug Elfman, Angel's 'Believe' magic: Miffed fans disappear, Las Vegas Review-Journal, September 29, 2008, Accessed November 4, 2008.
- ^ Richard Abowitz, Criss Angel's 'Believe' hard to believe, LATimes.com, October 31, 2008, Accessed November 4, 2008.
- ^ Joe Brown, Illusion is elusive in Angel’s ‘Believe’, Los Angeles Times, November 1, 2008, Accessed November 4, 2008.
- ^ Doug Elfman, New Criss Angel show is unbelievably bad, sad, Las Vegas Review-Journal, November 3, 2008, Accessed November 4, 2008.
- ^ Reed Johnson, Criss Angel, in a word: unbelievable, Los Angeles Times, November 3, 2008, Accessed November 4, 2008.
- ^ http://www.lvrj.com/news/43243067.html
- ^ http://vegasblog.latimes.com/vegas/2009/04/perez-hiltons-excellent-vegas-adventure.html
- ^ http://vegasblog.latimes.com/vegas/2009/04/perez-hiton-gets-apology-from-cirque-angel-remains-silent.html
- ^ "Larry King Live: Mindfreak Criss Angel". CNN. October 30, 2007. http://www.magicopen.com/criss-angel-secrets/mindfreak-star-criss-angel-destroys-self-proclaimed-psychics-reputation-on-tv/. Retrieved 2007-07-07.
- ^ "Angel sparks altercation on ‘Phenomenon’". MSNBC. 2007-11-01. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21576519/. Retrieved 2007-11-07.
- ^ http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20044359,00.html
- ^ Gray, Mary (2008-11-01). "Criss Angel: Holly Madison Is a 'Beautiful' Person". people.com. http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20237408,00.html?xid=rss-topheadlines. Retrieved 2008-11-10.
- ^ Holly Madison and Criss Angel Kaput Yahoo News, February 25, 2009
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