Dick Cavett - A Career With Magic

Dick Cavett, who starred on ABC from 1968 to 1975 on "The Dick Cavett Show," recalls in a recent article how he grew up with magic and when he met Slydini for the first time.

"...magic may be the greatest hobby for a kid," says Cavett in the story. "It's all-consuming. Get your problem child interested in it. The first time your kid masters a trick and performs it — and an adult, genuinely amazed, says, "How in heck did you do that?" — your potential juvenile delinquent will be hooked and too absorbed in the new hobby to steal hubcaps."

"I'm not saying a Svengali deck given as a bar mitzvah present would have spared us Bernie Madoff," Cavett continues. "Nor am I claiming that a magic deck popped into Dick Cheney's or Donald Rumsfeld's Christmas stockings would have spared the world their predations."

Because of his success in magic as a teen, Cavett says that he was able to loan his parents $750 towards a new Studebacker (in 1950's dollars). Read more...