Criss Angel

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Criss Angel
Born	Christopher Nicholas Sarantakos December 19, 1967 (age 41) East Meadow, New York, U.S.
Occupation	Illusionist, musician, hypnotist,stunt performer, actor,escapologist
Years active	1997–present
Website CrissAngel.com

Christopher Nicholas Sarantakos (born December 19, 1967), better known by his stage nameCriss Angel, is an American magician, illusionist, musician, escapologist, and stunt performer. He is best known for starring in his own television show, Criss Angel Mindfreak.

Early life

Angel was born to John and Dimitra Sarantakos and raised in East Meadow, Long Island, New York along 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 of Greek descent.

Angel was first introduced to magic at age 7, 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 aimed at becoming a professional magician.

Criss Angel Mindfreak

Main article: 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 Hotel. Premiering on July 20, 2005, the illusions have included walking on water, levitating above the Luxor Hotel (in the light of 39 lightbulbs 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 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.

Criss Angel Believe

Main article: Criss Angel Believe

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

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 Resorts, financed the show with $100 million.

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.

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.  Cirque du Soleil later apologized to Hilton for Angel's remarks 

Phenomenon

Main article: Phenomenon (TV series)

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 withPhenomenon. If somebody goes on that show and claims to have supernatural psychic ability, I'm going to bust [him] live and on television."

prince vivek

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. 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. 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.

In November 2008, Angel began dating Hugh Hefner's former girlfriend Holly Madison.The relationship ended in February 2009.

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