Actors - Uri Geller

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	Actors - Uri Geller

Uri Geller (born December 20, 1946 in Tel Aviv, Israel) is a famous but controversial alleged psychic and television personality. Originally a magician in Israeli nightclubs , he then became well known for a number of years for performances featuring claimed paranormal abilities such as telekinesis, dowsing and telepathy; metal objects were bent and watches were apparently stopped or made to run faster without any apparent physical force being applied to them. Although many people believe he is a psychic, he also has numerous critics, especially in the scientific community, who claim he is both a charlatan and a con-man.

History

Born to Hungarian and Austrian parents, Geller was named after a cousin who had been killed in a bus accident.

According to Geller, he first became aware of his abilities when he was four. He relates that he was in the garden of an Arab family's house opposite where he lived when he was hit by a light from the sky that knocked him to the grass, after which he ran to tell his mother. Shortly thereafter he was having soup during a meal, when his spoon bent and broke.

He lived in Cyprus from age 11 to 17. He claims to have served as a paratrooper in the Israeli Army, and was reportedly wounded in action during the 1967 Six-Day War. He worked as a photographic model in 1968 and 1969.

In 1969 he began to perform for small audiences as a stage magician , but quickly became a household name throughout Israel. At the peak of his career in the 1970s he worked as a full time professional, performing for television audiences worldwide.

Geller semi-retired from public life in the 1980s, although returned to the screens for the current affairs show Uri Nation in the early nineties on satellite TV.

He has said he is concentrating on enjoying wealth accumulated by dowsing, although this has not been verified; Geller maintains that companies who use his services to find commodities such as oil, gold and minerals are reluctant to admit it. In recent years he has performed demonstrations such as spoon-bending much less frequently in public .

Geller has written sixteen fiction and nonfiction books. He now lives in Sonning-on-Thames, Berkshire, England, on an estate on the bank of the River Thames. He makes various personal appearances, is involved with art and design projects, and contributes articles to newspapers, magazines, and an Internet web column. In 2002, he became honorary co-chairman of the English Nationwide Conference football club Exeter City, which was relegated to the Nationwide Conference in May 2003. He has since severed formal ties with the club. He is a vegan and speaks five languages, English, Hebrew, Hungarian, German and Greek.

Geller might be called something of a bon vivant, and he maintains many ties with celebrity society. He owns a 1976 Cadillac that is adorned with thousands of pieces of bent tableware given him by celebrities or otherwise having historical or other significance. It includes spoons from celebrities such as John Lennon and the Spice Girls, and those with which Winston Churchill and John F. Kennedy ate. Geller designed the logo for popular music group *NSYNC and contributed artwork to Michael Jackson's CD, "Invincible," and Jackson was best man when Geller renewed his wedding vows in 2001. He also negotiated the famous and highly compromising TV interview between Jackson with the journalist Martin Bashir: "Living with Michael Jackson". He failed to foresee the impact that this would have on Jackson's career. In BBC television interviews Geller has since admitted that he has not been in contact with Jackson since this time. Geller says that he has split with Jackson because of anti-Semitic statements by Jackson. Geller is an "Israeli delegate..." for the Red Crystal, the Israeli affiliate of the Red Cross. ("Israel pleased by 'improved international standing'" Dec. 09, 2005 USA Today.)

Controversy and criticism

Geller's claims of paranormal powers receive little support within the scientific community, and his critics see him as a very successful con artist. His focus on small feats like spoon bending seems inauthentic to his critics; one asked, for example, why, if Geller's talents were genuine, the Israeli government wasn't using him as a secret weapon to destroy crucial components in the weapons systems of the enemy countries encircling Israel?

Parallels to stage magic

As Geller admits, the appearance of spontaneous bending of cutlery has been reproduced by stage magicians. He asserts, however, that he actually does bend the cutlery using psychic powers, whereas others use tricks. ("Sure, there are magicians who can duplicate it through trickery. But the real ones... there's no explanation for it." ) Stage magicians note several methods of creating an illusion of a spoon spontaneously bending. Most common is the practice of misdirection, an underlying principle of many stage magic tricks. In one or several brief moments of distraction, a "psychic" magician can physically bend a spoon unseen by the audience, then gradually reveal the bend and thus create the illusion that the spoon is bending before the viewers' eyes. The spoons usually bend at the point where the bowl meets the handle, where bending would require the least force. Skeptics note Geller often turns his back on the audience, and further point to unusual conditions Geller at times sets for his performances, such as that the objects to be bent need to be moved in front of other metal objects for the psychic effect to work, or to be held underwater. They note these conditions would allow opportunities to divert the audience's attention away from the item to be bent. Regarding sturdier objects like keys, they note Geller sometimes claims these items need to be in physical contact with other metal objects, which could allow surreptitious use of leverage between the two objects to achieve the bending.

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