I was an only child. We were so poor, my parents and I had the same room.

My uncle's house burned down when I was 6 years old. We got out safely. But ever since, I've had a nightmare of dying in a fire.

Watching people react, watching people be inspired, be taken on a journey, forgetting their problems, looking ahead in their own lives to doing impossible things. That's kind of what drives me, gives me a sense of focus.

For one of my specials, I said, "I'm going to make an airplane disappear." Okay! And the next day, everything went crazy - it was like breaking the internet before the internet.

I was a captive and a slave. I loved Dora Spenlow to distraction! She was more than human to me. She was a Fairy, a Sylph, I dont know what she was--anything that no one ever saw, and everything that everybody ever wanted.

I fell in love with magic acts and bridged into that.

I was published in Tarbell Course in Magic when I was 12.