Following a Dream

He has walked on water and been dragged by hooks through his back on a helicopter ride over the Valley of Fire.

But today, Criss Angel stands to do something he has never done before: sell his first ticket on the Strip.

If the twice-postponed "Criss Angel -- Believe" stays on track for its first ticketed preview today, Angel will realize a dream he's had "since I can remember" to headline in Las Vegas, and in a multimillion dollar Cirque du Soleil production no less.

The 40-year-old magician is a rock-star level celebrity, and the first magician to use television for an express ride to the top of the Las Vegas ladder, bypassing a slow climb in the vein of pal Lance Burton.

"I come from live (performing), but recognizing and also understanding that to realize my dream I needed the component of television to launch me," says the Long Island, N.Y., magician born as Christopher Sarantakos.

That boost came in the form of "Criss Angel: Mindfreak," the A&E cable series that debuted in the summer of 2005 and now wrapping its fourth season. A Las Vegas already saturated with magicians had to make room for one more. But this one used the entire city as his stage, setting himself on fire on Fremont Street or walking down the outside wall of the Aladdin hotel.

By March of 2007, the series was headquartered at Luxor, and casino president Felix Rappaport was onstage with Angel to announce the new venture with Cirque in the theater that once housed the Blue Man Group.

BUILDING CREDIBILITY

"This could never have come any sooner," Angel says in his new dressing room after a rehearsal. "I had to go through the evolution and have television (be) the catalyst to have everything else come from that."

It was the only way to build credibility, he says. He knows, because he tried every other way first, and had near-deals with both Steve Wynn and former Cirque director Franco Dragone.

"I just had that dream and that drive," Angel says, a point he emphasizes both in interviews and in his book "Mindfreak: Secret Revelations." Both convey genuine tenacity combined with a flair for self-promotion.

Citing his credentials as a live performer, Angel says, "I've done 600 performances on Broadway; I was only supposed to do three months. I had the No. 1 pre-sell, advance ticket sale off-Broadway when I was there for 14 months. I played in Madison Square Garden for 600 shows as well as for Halloween."

All that requires a bit of translation, including the use of "Broadway" as a street rather than a theatrical designation.

Angel did draw his first serious attention performing at the Halloween-themed "Madison Scare Garden" in 1998. Lines for the arena's haunted-house attraction were continuous, so "Criss Angel's World of Illusion" was a 10-minute affair repeated 60 times a day.

After that, Angel says he headed West in the hopes of getting illusion builders in Las Vegas and California to work up front, in exchange for a stake in whatever stage show resulted.

During that time, Angel says he came very close to a deal with Wynn, which was derailed by the timing of Wynn's departure from Mirage Resorts in March 2000 and subsequent purchase of the Desert Inn.

Wynn flew to California and met Angel at the home of Sandy Gallin, the entertainment manager who for a time worked with Wynn to develop new titles. "I did my whole presentation," Angel recalls, and Wynn said, "Kid, you show me one of those illusions you just described three weeks from now, and you'll do your show at my place."

Angel arranged a showcase that was attended not only by Wynn, but by Cirque du Soleil founder Guy Laliberte. Angel remembers Wynn declaring, "Come with me on my plane, we're going to Las Vegas. I'll put you up. We're going to talk out the deal."

"You can't imagine how ecstatic I was," Angel recalls. He lived in the Desert Inn after it had closed and worked on the show "for months" before Wynn abandoned the idea of building Wynn Las Vegas without a total demolition of the Desert Inn.

After that, Angel says he decided, "If I put my faith or all of my eggs in the basket of somebody else, I'm just kind of at their mercy. At that point I went back to New York and said, 'Screw it. I'm just going to do this myself.' "

The DIY project turned out to be the first with the title "Mindfreak." It was born in a 150-seat venue carved out of the basement of the World Wrestling Federation's headquarters at Broadway and 43rd Street.

Angel mortgaged his mother's house (his father died in 1998) to finance the effort, and in the daytime, "I was handing out fliers with my hair tucked under my hat."

But the investment paid off, drawing a good review in The New York Times and the respect of Angel's magician peers.

"I don't know if anyone else would have taken the challenge to work in this room," says Johnny Thompson, the veteran consultant who ended up working on Angel's TV series as both magic consultant and on-camera member of the "Surreal Family." On both sides of the 10-by-12-foot stage, "people were looking from worst possible angles (for disguising magic)."

"I always believed you had to give the audience more than they expected," Angel says of the venture.

THE NEXT LEVEL

"Mindfreak" the stage show led to "Mindfreak" the series, and to Angel's partnership with magician-turned-producer Dave Baram.

Baram says he had been frustrated in his search for a new face of magic. "Magic is an incredible art form, but one that really hasn't grown in a lot of ways like some of the other art forms." A lot of guys would "try to replicate a David Copperfield and look a little younger doing it. But they weren't really trying to take it to the next level."

Angel succeeded, with his gothic-rock look and matching soundtrack, both derived from a parallel effort in the '90s to launch a rock career along with the magic. The TV series led to serious talks with "Le Reve" director Dragone in 2005, but Angel ultimately signed with Cirque for its sixth production on the Strip.

Now it's time to take the act to still another level, and skeptics are wondering if Angel's TV stunts in real-world settings will translate to a theatrical stage show.

Though his Cirque du Soleil partners have high praise for him, Cirque's director of creation, Gilles Ste-Croix, positions the production as "a Cirque du Soleil show with Criss Angel as the main character."

Angel, however, says most of "Believe" can be traced to plans he drew up 15 years ago. A giant monster named Tronic evolves from an early version he built in his parents' backyard, as pictured in his memoir.

The magician also has drawn fire for his tabloid profile on the celebrity scene. He has been accused of opportunism in his romantic links to Britney Spears and Cameron Diaz, some of them before he was divorced.

When his contestant girlfriend was eliminated from the Miss USA pageant last April, Angel flipped off TV cameras and lipped off at Review-Journal columnist Norm Clarke: "Write another word about me, or you'll need an eye-patch over your other eye."

It's a much calmer Angel who now sits a few feet away from his mother in his dressing room and maintains, "Norm is a nice guy. ... There's nothing between us from my end."

He also says, "Life is not perfect and neither is a career. ... No one's twisting my arm to be an entertainer, I chose that path. Along that path comes a lot of challenges and a lot of negativity sometimes.

"I just find it amusing that people would waste their life talking about me in a negative way when life is so precious and short," he says. "If you could do it better, show me how to do it. Stop talking a game and go out there and do it."

Love him or hate him, there's no denying Criss Angel practiced what he preaches.

Contact reporter Mike Weatherford at mweatherford@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0288.