Talk:David Copperfield (illusionist)

Disambiguation needed

For one thing I heard about him, before the Charles Dickens novel which has nothing to do with him.

Request Edit February 2022

I have several suggested improvements for this article. As disclosed above, I have a conflict of interest because I have a personal connection to David Copperfield, so I cannot make these edits myself. I am cognizant of Wikipedia policy regarding verification, reliable sourcing, neutral point of view and avoiding promotional content and applied these and other policies to the best of my ability. Could an independent editor please review these proposed changes? Thank you.

PROPOSAL 1

In the section ‘Career and business interests’, please ADD a new sentence at the end of the paragraph that starts: “One of his most famous illusions occurred on television on April 8, 1983”:

This illusion was featured in season four of The Americans, in an episode entitled “The Magic of David Copperfield V: The Statue of Liberty Disappears,” and in the 2019 HBO documentary Liberty: Mother of Exiles.

Reason: Though this illusion was performed nearly forty years ago, it remains an important part of the American zeitgeist, as demonstrated by the persistence of accounts of this illusion in the media and in mainstream entertainment press, like Variety and Entertainment Weekly. This statement helps establish the resonance of the illusion in the culture.

PROPOSAL 2

In the section ‘Career and business interests’, please add two new final sentences to the thirteenth paragraph that starts “In January 2011 Copperfield joined the cast…”

Copperfield has served as technical advisor on several other films, including The Prestige and Now You See Me. He also served as a co-producer of the film Now You See Me 2.

Reason: This paragraph already details Copperfield’s participation in the movie industry. This adds further information from a mainstream source about his continued role in major, notable films (with their own Wikipedia pages.)

PROPOSAL 3

In the section ‘Career and business interests’, please create a new paragraph, just above the paragraph that starts “Copperfield notes his role models…”

In 2018, the New York Historical Society hosted “Summer of Magic: Treasures from the David Copperfield Collection.” The exhibit recounted the history of magic in New York and displayed some of Copperfield’s most popular illusions, like the Death Saw, and historical magical ephemera, including some of Copperfield’s collection of Houdini memorabilia.

Reason: This event was covered in multiple major mainstream press outlets, including The New York Times and The Guardian. The hosting institution for the exhibit is a major museum in New York.

PROPOSAL 4

In the section ‘Career and business interests’, please ADD a new subsection titled:

Magic as an art form”

With the following text below it:

In 2016, Copperfield worked towards the passage of Congressional Resolution 642 that would “recognize magic as a rare and valuable art form and national treasure.”

Reason: This resolution was well covered in the mainstream media, including in the Wall Street Journal, on NPR, and the Washington Post. The Congressional Resolution is notable enough to have its own Wikipedia page. Congressional Resolution 642.

PROPOSAL 5

In the section Career and Business Interests, please ADD the following paragraph after the fifth paragraph:

In 1986, Copperfield debuted a new variation on the classic sawing a woman in half illusion. Copperfield’s Death Saw illusion was presented as an escape gone wrong, sawing himself, rather than an assistant, in half with a large rotary saw blade which descended from above. Copperfield’s Death Saw has become one of his most well-known illusions.

Reason: Copperfield’s Death Saw illusion has been discussed by so many high-profile press sources, including the New York Times [1] and The Guardian [2], that it rises to the importance of a career milestone. The New York Times said:

“Of all the performers who’ve done the trick, David Copperfield is seen by many as the master thanks to his 1986 version, known as ‘Death Saw,’ which reimagined the illusion as a Las Vegas spectacle involving a huge, descending rotary blade. Once the falling buzz saw has cut Copperfield in half, two assistants pull the sections apart and he wiggles his detached feet, before, magically, turning back time and putting himself back together.”

PROPOSAL 6

In the section International Museum and Library of the Conjuring Arts section, please replace the second sentence of the second paragraph, which reads:

Located in a warehouse at Copperfield's headquarters in Las Vegas, the museum is entered via a secret door in what was described by actor Hugh Jackman as a "sex shop" and by Forbes as a "mail-order lingerie warehouse".

with:

Located in a warehouse at Copperfield's headquarters in Las Vegas, the entrance to the museum is disguised as a haberdashery.

Reason: This new text is highly up-to-date. It is sourced to an October 2021 national network news broadcast story with a video of the entrance [3] (relevant part begins @ 2:07) and a newspaper article with photos and a description of the entrance from an October 2021 Las Vegas Review-Journal story. These definitively prove that the museum in question is now disguised as a haberdashery (menswear shop).

The current description includes an off-the-cuff, jokey quote from actor Hugh Jackman during a movie promotion press junket and a conflicting neutral description of the old entrance as reported by a Forbes staff journalist. Under WP:BLPGOSSIP, it seems clear that an actor’s jokey quote should not take precedence over a more reliable and neutral description given by a staff journalist from a highly reputable publication. See also WP:GRATUITOUS: “Offensive material should be used only if its omission would cause the article to be less informative, relevant, or accurate, and no equally suitable alternative is available.” In this case, there is a better alternative to a celebrity’s press junket interview in the form of the reported Forbes article. The use of the characterization of the lingerie store as a “sex shop” is intended to embarrass Copperfield here, in violation of WP:NPOV. The newly proposed sentence, by contrast, provides an up-to-date, neutral description of the entrance that is well-supported with reliable sources. One could even argue that both the existing sentence and proposed sentence are unnecessary. As the non-binding essay WP:CONFLICTING puts it: “If the conflicting fact is of marginal encyclopedic interest, reporting on several views may lead to giving it undue prominence. A reasonable approach in that case would be to omit it entirely.”

Thank you. MagicTech1902 (talk) 18:14, 22 February 2022 (UTC)

 Partly done

Hi MagicTech1902,

first of all, thank you for your detailed proposal. The formatting and readability are much appreciated!

Proposals 1-5 have been implemented with only minor changes for clarity and consistency.

Regarding proposal 6, the video of the entrance is a WP:Primary source that requires interpretation, and the secondary source you provide is unfortunately a dead link. I agree with your argument that a neutral description is preferable, but as of right now, the neutral alternative is unsourced and thus unsuitable. The two current descriptions are, as far as I can tell, not clearly conflicting. To me, they paint a coherent image together. To clarify the intent of Jackman's comment, I will add that it was made jokingly. Arguing that the current characterization was chosen "to embarrass Copperfield" assumes WP:Bad faith; this is highly unlikely. To reiterate: I would be happy to update this section when your claim is properly sourced.

Thanks for your request (and patience), and happy editing :) Actualcpscm (talk) 16:27, 12 November 2022 (UTC)

Hi Actualcpscm, thanks very much for taking the time to look over this proposal and implement most of the changes I requested.

Regarding Proposal #6, can you take another look? The Las Vegas Review-Journal article I cited in that sentence (it’s source # 16) doesn’t seem to be a dead link, at least on my end; I just tried it out of the references section in this proposal and it brought up the article without any trouble. So I’m not sure what happened there, but it does seem to be working.

As for the video (source #17 in this proposal), that is a segment from CBS Saturday Morning, taken from CBS’ own website. Yes the video includes an interview with Copperfield, but the section beginning at 2:05 which describes the exterior of the gallery is clearly not part of a Q&A but is a description by the journalist himself. As such, I do not think that the description of the building should be considered a WP:PRIMARY. This information came from an independent journalist's observation – and it includes a visual of the building exterior so anyone can confirm that it’s true.

Hugh Jackman’s joke should not be taken as a serious description of the building that conflicts with the description by an actual journalist. As per WP:BALANCE, it shouldn’t be included at all – Wikipedia shouldn’t be including jokes or frivolous comments from celebrity interviews, which are clearly not intended to be taken seriously. People reading this in Wikipedia will think it’s true when it is demonstrably false, as per the CBS source.

Would you possibly be willing to reconsider implementing Proposal #6 in light of those two things? Thank you again for your time and your willingness to review this proposal. MagicTech1902 (talk) 23:12, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

References

@Lesliechin1: @Georgepauljohnringo: Since you’ve both weighed in on ideas about improving this article relatively recently, would you be willing to look at these proposed edits? Apologies for pinging you directly, but these have been stuck in the Request Edits Queue for a long time and there’s not much movement in it now, so I don’t know of any other way to get these considered. (And as noted above, I have a COI so I can’t make changes to the article myself.) Thanks very much. MagicTech1902 (talk) 17:13, 1 August 2022 (UTC)

Thank you for reaching out and for your very thoughtful and well-prepared edit suggestions! I'll try to look into it, apologies in advance if it takes a moment, as I am not a very active nor proficient Wikipedia editor (more of an occasional editor – when I come across an obvious mistake or a page that lacks information I happen to know, I'll take the time to edit). Georgepauljohnringo (talk) 10:06, 10 August 2022 (UTC)

You'll want to add Template:Connected contributor (paid) to the top of this page, since you're an employee and have a COI. Thanks! ---Another Believer _(Talk) 15:18, 26 August 2022 (UTC)

@Lesliechin1: @Georgepauljohnringo: Since you’ve both weighed in on ideas about improving this article relatively recently, would you be willing to look at these proposed edits? Apologies for pinging you directly, but these have been stuck in the Request Edits Queue for a long time and there’s not much movement in it now, so I don’t know of any other way to get these considered. (And as noted above, I have a COI so I can’t make changes to the article myself.) Thanks very much. MagicTech1902 (talk) 15:21, 26 August 2022 (UTC)

Plans for new illusions section

The "Plans for new illusions" section is only one sentence and refer to plans more than 10 years old – I would propose to either merge this into the Career section or, better yet, scrap it altogether. 10 year old plans that haven't panned out don't seem that relevant to me. What do you think?

Georgepauljohnringo (talk) 13:39, 29 June 2022 (UTC)

Guardian Allegations

Just saw the news. Should these be more feautred more prominently on the page? MaskedSinger (talk) 04:23, 17 May 2024 (UTC)