James Randi, dazzling magician and skeptic, dies at 92
'Everything you have seen here is tricks. There is nothing supernatural involved'
Published October 23, 2020 at 1:57pm
(ASSOCIATED PRESS) James Randi, a magician who later challenged spoon benders, mind readers and faith healers with such voracity that he became regarded as the country’s foremost skeptic, has died, his foundation announced. He was 92.
The James Randi Educational Foundation confirmed the death, saying simply that its founder succumbed to “age-related causes” on Tuesday.
Entertainer, genius, debunker, atheist ? Randi was them all. He began gaining attention not long after dropping out of high school to join the carnival. As the Amazing Randi, he escaped from a locked coffin submerged in water and from a straitjacket as he dangled over Niagara Falls.
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The Amazing Randi probably was the most famous 'debunker' of spiritualists and others who claimed to have mystical powers since Harry Houdini. He also performed on stage with Alice Cooper's 1973 Billion Dollars Baby tour.
Alice decided he wanted the BDB tour to feature him getting his head cut off so he hired the most famous "illusionist" he could think of, The Amazing Randi, to "gaff the stunt" for him. Then Alice -- who in those days lived in a persistent alcohol-induced haze -- had an inspired moment of clarity and decided the safest thing to do would be also to hire Randi to operate the device during the show. So The Amazing Randi became an Alice Cooper roadie.
I saw this show (still have the ticket stub to prove it). It was decades later before I found out the dwarf-sized executioner (Randi was barely 5-feet tall) who ran the guillotine was James Randi.
Bonus points for anybody who knows the first public stunt that Harry Houdini performed to gain acclaim and notoriety.
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