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Doug
Henning - A Biography
Doug Henning has been acclaimed as one of the greatest
magicians of modern times.With his charming style and wondrous illusions, Doug
helped transformed the art of magic into a spectacular and enlightening form of
entertainment.
Doug Henning - Boy Magician
Douglas James Henning
was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. He first became interested in magic at
the age of six when he saw a magician levitate a woman on a television program.
He practiced with a magic kit and studied magic books at the local library. At
the early age of 14, he performed publicly for the first time at a friend's
birthday party. Delighted with his ability to captivate an audience, Doug placed
an ad in the local paper that read, "Magician, Have Rabbit, Will
Travel." Soon he was busy performing at parties and local television shows
in Toronto.
After high school, Doug enrolled at McMaster University, planning to be a
doctor. It was there that he studied the psychology of perception, which helped
him to understand the power of suggestion and the art of attention manipulation.
Doug applied these skills in creating illusions.
Medical School ?
Upon graduation, Doug
planned to perform magic for just two years before continuing his education. But
after turning from his studies to magic, he never went back to complete medical
school.
Instead, Doug convinced a skeptical government panel to award him a $4,000
Canadian Council Grant for the study of magic. This allowed him to travel the
world and study magic with the world's then greatest master magicians including
Dai Vernon and Slydini.
Spellbound
With a dream of
reviving magic as a great theatrical art, Doug decided to take a gamble.
Borrowing $5,000 from a bank, he designed and built some large stage illusions.
With the help of a university friend, Ivan Reitman (later producer of the hit
films Animal House, Stripes, and Ghost Busters) $40,000 was
raised at a backer's audition. As a result, the world's first rock magical
musical called Spellbound was born, combining magic, music, and story. It
broke every box office record at the Royal Alexander Theatre in Toronto and
attracted the attention of New York producers.
The Magic Show
The producers brought
Doug and his show to Broadway, made a few revisions, and opened The Magic
Show in May, 1974. Audiences loved the show and Doug was nominated for a
Tony award for his performance. The Magic Show ran for four and a half years,
one of the longest running musicals in Broadway history.
Just before his Broadway show opened Doug learned the Transcendental
Meditation technique. He says that TM is the major reason for his success
because it opened up his creativity and seemed to give him the enormous energy
needed for all of his projects.
During his years on Broadway, Doug continued to expand his career. In 1975 he
was asked by NBC to perform his first magic television special. This live
performance, before a studio audience, assured that trick photography could not
be used. After eight months' work designing original illusions which included a
recreation of Houdini's "Water Torture Escape," the first Doug
Henning's World of Magic show aired in December, 1975. The show was viewed
by 50 million people and won the Christopher Award for outstanding achievement;
in just one hour, more people saw Doug Henning's magic than had seen Houdini
during his entire lifetime.
The Television Specials
For the next seven
years these shows became annual events shown all over the world. Television
audiences have seen Doug walk through a brick wall, turn himself into a shark,
change a black horse and a white horse into a zebra, perform the Indian rope
trick, and make a four-ton elephant disappear. His shows have won an Emmy and
received seven Emmy nominations, including nomination for Best Variety Special
two years in a row. Doug soon became the best know magician in the world.
Illusion and Reality
In 1976, Doug took
two months off from The Magic Show to tour 70 colleges with his sold-out
magical lecture/demonstration, "Illusion and Reality." Soon after, he
moved to Los Angeles where he established his own production company to invent
and build original illusions. These fantastic new illusions have been featured
in all of his shows.
In the spring of 1979, Doug selected the best illusions from his television and
Broadway shoes, combined them into a two-hour production, and took the show on a
highly successful tour. Doug's touring World of Magic delighted audiences across
the country. His show carried a full cast and crew, and two truckloads of
scenery and magic. In addition to his large illusions (which included conjuring
up a 650 pound tiger), Doug performed sleight-of-hand magic which the audience
viewed on giant television screens.
Doug has also taken his magic to the Las Vegas Hilton and Sahara Tahoe hotels
headlining on a regular basis. In January, 1977, he received the coveted Georgie
Award from the American Guild of Variety Artists for Entertainer of the Year,
and received the Magician of the Year award from Hollywood's Academy of Magical
Arts and Sciences
Rock & Roll Magic
Doug has been
involved in a number of special projects as well. He has staged magic effects
for the rock band Earth, Wind and Fire, and created a show-stopping illusion
encore for Michael Jackson on the original "Jacksons" tour. Doug has
written a book titled Houdini: His Legend and His Magic, co-authored with
Charles Reynolds and published by Warner Books. He is also responsible for the
largest magic show in history -- the 1979 Magic Mania, a magical musical which
opened in Tokyo, Japan. Doug created and staged the dozens of illusions in the
show.
In December, 1981, Doug married Debby Douillard in Fairfield, Iowa. The
beautiful ceremony, complete with horse-drawn carriage, seemed to come from the
pages of a fairy tale. Debby has since appeared in Doug's 1982 and 1983
television specials and was featured as a co-star in his touring stage show.
Debby, as well as being a performer, is also a gifted designer and conceptual
artist, and helps Doug by designing illusions, sets, and costumes.
Merlin
On February 13,1983,
Doug returned to Broadway in Merlin, an elaborate five million dollar
magical, musical stage show he co-created. Merlin, produced by Ivan
Reitman and Columbia Pictures, recreated the story of Merlin's adventures. Doug,
as Merlin, performed a series of show-stopping illusions which he specially
created for the musical, including the disappearance of a live horse in mid-air.
His magic earned high praises from the critics. The New York Times wrote,
"Mr. Henning is beyond compare as an illusionist. He believes in his magic
and makes us believers too." Time magazine proclaimed him "one
of Broadway's certified miracle workers."
Merlin ran on Broadway for eight months and received five Tony
nominations. The show now holds a place in Broadway history for setting the
one-week box office record at the Mark Hellinger Theater, $421,000.
Third Broadway Show
Merlin's
success led to yet another Broadway show, a large spectacular version of Doug
Henning's World of Magic. This show was booked for a one-month run, but
because of great reviews was held over for another month.
Doug has also performed in dozens of television guest appearances around the
world, including fourteen appearances on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson;
and acted as television commercial spokesman for Minolta, T.W.A., and Chrysler's
best selling car, the Voyager. The greatest honor given to Doug was to be asked
to perform as the only entertainer at President and Mrs. Reagan's Senior Staff
Christmas Party at the White House in 1986. President Reagan personally wrote to
Doug after the performance saying, "Your amazing performance brought magic
to our evening -- in more ways than one!"
Theme Parks
In the past twelve
years Doug's interest has turned to the area of theme parks. First, in 1985,
Doug was a consultant to Walt Disney's Company of Imagineers called W.E.D. He
inspired Disney to put more magic into their rides, exhibits, and movies. Then,
in 1986, Doug helped design the planned Kingman Island theme park in Washington,
D.C. A "Theater of Illusion" was designed with fantastic magical rides
and exhibits.
Transcendental Meditation
Then Doug suspended
his performing career to study in India with His Holiness
Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, world-renowned founder of the Transcendental
Meditation Movement and genius in the realm of consciousness expansion. Doug
says, "I have always believed in real magic, that there is more to life
than the senses can perceive. Now I feel that my life-long quest has been
fulfilled because I have been studying the secrets of the yogis and the
mechanics of unfoldment of creation with Maharishi. I realize now that even my
wildest imaginings are but a fraction of what is really possible. I have learned
that the human brain physiology and nervous system is the most highly evolved
system in creation. When the nervous system is cultured, it knows no boundaries
in what it can do and experience. It can comprehend and experience the totality
and oneness of creation from a point to infinity. Then the real magic unfolds,
because in that exalted state of consciousness the human nervous system can
actually control the laws of nature, "then nothing is impossible."
Henning Meets Maharishi
The opening up of all
possibilities in Doug's life had come in November, 1975. After having practiced
Transcendental Meditation for two years as a stress-relieving technique, Doug
met the TM Movement's founder. As soon as Doug met Maharishi he knew that he had
met an enlightened man who could reveal to him all the secrets of the universe.
At the end of this first meeting Maharishi said to Doug, "Come with me and
I will teach you real magic." Doug couldn't go at that time because of his
contract with his Broadway show, The Magic Show, but he promised himself
that in the near future he would go and study with Maharishi.
"The Veda is the intelligence of nature that structures the different laws
of nature on every level of creation, from the whirling of the electrons around
the nucleus of an atom to the movements of the stars through inter-galactic
space. It is nature's intelligence that turns winter into spring at the right
time, and guides the development of the human embryo into an infinitely complex
human body.
"The Veda exists as the primordial vibrations at the subtlest level of
creation, which form the blueprint of everything in the physical world.
Maharishi has revitalized and reinterpreted the ancient tradition of the Veda,
reviving Vedic study from a fragmented approach to a holistic science,
Maharishi's Vedic Science."