Everything that you'd see on The Ed Sullivan Show was at the Tannen's Magic. You'd think that if you could afford a trick like Doc Nixon's Dove Vanish, then you could be on The Ed Sullivan Show as an 8-year-old kid.

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.

I was 16 at the time, and I came backstage and started hanging out with them. I said, "Well, maybe you can 'vanish' the silk this way." The opening was a black stage while the "Magic to Do" song started playing. All you saw were hands, lit by Jules Fisher, and then Ben Vereen would appear beyond the hands, and at the end of the scene he would vanish a silk. The spotlight would hit a red spot on the floor where you'd see the silk on the floor. He'd pull the silk out of the floor and it became the entire set coming out of the floor.

I see people's need to dream, people's need to escape - you see it! That's why people come to comedy shows, that's why they come to your movies ... We're so needed in this world. Not as much as medicine , but to dream for a while.

You can feel better about yourself in a very short period of time depending on the kind of magic that you are doing.

Reading [Judd Apatow] book, about his background, I think there's a great similarity. What gives him the fire to work hard? He worked hard, researching the comedians of the time, what touched him about it.

I find revealing the secrets of magic quite reprehensible.