Christopher Nicholas Sarantakos (born December 19, 1967), better known by his stage name Criss Angel is an American magician, musician, escapologist, stunt performer, and actor. He is best known for starring in his own television show, Criss Angel Mindfreak.

Early life

Criss Angel was raised on East Meadow, Long Island, New York. He is of Greek descent. Angel grew up loving music, had a love for playing drums, and has always had an interest in magic. He first got interested in magic because of his aunt. Whenever she came over to their house, she would show a new trick and Criss would always try to get her to tell him how she did it. She always did and as a result, he is where he is now. His parents are John and Dimitra Sarantakos. His mother hails from Mystra, Greece. He has two brothers, Costa and JD. One of Criss's biggest influences has been his father, who died from carcinoma of the stomach.[1]

Magig career

Angel performed World Of Illusion at Madison Square Garden in 1998. Criss then scored an off Broadway show titled "Criss Angel Mindfreak," which ran up until January 6, 2003 following a run of 600 performances at The World in The World Underground Theater in Times Square. He also starred in several television specials. Criss Angel won the Academy of Magical Arts' Magician of the Year award in 2005[2] and the IMS Magician of the year in 2001 and 2004.[3]

He has even revealed the methods for many of his tricks to viewers at home on TV and in videos, although the effects revealed are usually very simple such as making a toothpick disappear, picking a pocket, or making a Styrofoam cup float. Angel discusses magic and his life in Mindfreak: Secret Revelations (published April 24, 2007), which became a Los Angeles Times best seller.

Angel is scheduled to appear in a new illusion-based Cirque du Soleil production at the Luxor Hotel in Las Vegas entitled Criss Angel: Believe, with an expected opening date in September 2008. The countdown clock featured on Angel's official website is counting down to September 12, 2008 as a premiere. Angel has recently stated that there are plans for this attraction to run for 10 years, including 4,600 shows with a possible 5 year renewal option of his contract.

In July 2007, NBC signed Angel and Uri Geller for Phenomenon, a show airing on October 24 that searches for the next great mentalist.[5] Angel does not believe Geller has any paranormal abilities.

Criss Angel is the star and creator of the A&E Network show Criss Angel Mindfreak. Seasons 1 and 2 were filmed at the The Aladdin in Las Vegas, with Season 3 at the Luxor Hotel. Premiering on July 20, 2005, the illusions have included walking on water, levitating above the Luxor Hotel, floating between two buildings, causing a Lamborghini to disappear, surviving in an exploding C4 Crate, cutting himself in half in full view of an audience and getting run over by a steamroller while lying stomach down on a bed of glass.[7] Criss is scheduled to begin filming Season 4 of Mindfreak in October 2007, and the show is scheduled to run for two more seasons after that.

He attempted to jump out of a prisoner transport vehicle before it fell off a cliff in season 3. Criss made it but, as revealed at the end of the episode, injured his neck. Production was stopped for two weeks while he recovered and Criss has sworn never to attempt this stunt again.

New season of Mindfreak starts on June 5, 2008.

Phenomenon

Starting in October 2007 he appeared as a judge on Phenomenon, with Uri Geller and in a CNN interview about the show he told Larry King "no one has the ability, that I'm aware of, to do anything supernatural, psychic, talk to the dead. And that was what I said I was going to do with Phenomenon. If somebody goes on that show and claims to have supernatural psychic ability, I'm going to bust them live and on television."

Criss Angel challenges Uri Geller and Jim Callahan over paranormal claims

On the October 31, 2007 episode of the reality show Phenomenon, Paranormalist Jim Callahan performed a summoning, purportedly of author Raymond Hill, to help discover the contents of a locked box.[9] Although fellow judge Uri Geller praised the performance, Angel called it "comical" and subsequently challenged both Callahan and Geller to guess the contents of two envelopes he pulled out of his pocket, offering a million dollars of his own money to whoever could do so. This led to an argument between Callahan and Angel, during which Callahan accused Angel of being an "ideological bigot", and after Angel rose from his chair and approached Callahan, the two were pulled apart as the show promptly went to a commercial break. Angel has since revealed the contents of one envelope and at the unveiling he challenged Geller one more time. Geller was unsuccessful, and the envelope was revealed to contain an index card with the numbers "911" printed on it for September 11, 2001. Criss' explanation was this: "If on 9-10 somebody could have predicted that 9-11 was going to happen, they could have saved thousands of lives". The other envelope's contents will be revealed on the first episode of Season 4 of Criss Angel: Mindfreak.
Beginning when he was six years old, Criss Angel immersed himself in a multitude of art forms, from performance artist and musician to mystifier and provocateur. Since then, a relentless work ethic combined with enormous talent, skill and vision has perpetuated Criss as one of the most provocative artists of our day. From creator, executive producer and director of his #1 rated television series on A&E (Criss Angel MINDFREAK) countless television specials, live shows, music albums, and more - Criss has redefined the term "artist" for the 21st Century.

Criss had the highest advance tickets sales during his fourteen month/600 performance off-broadway run of Criss Angel MINDFREAK of which he created, produced, directed and starred in. Criss Angel MINDFREAK (the television show) is currently on schedule to film its 70th episode in its unprecedented third season shot at The Luxor Hotel and Casino, Las Vegas. The television show notably ranks #1 in countless international markets and the first 2 season dvds have consistently been the #1 and #2 best selling DVDs in A&E's history. Prominent publishing house, Harper Collins released Criss' highly anticipated first book, Criss Angel MINDFREAK: Secret Revelations in April 2007 and he has already added the accolade of best selling author to his credit as his book made it to the LA TIMES bestseller list.

Criss has also received numerous awards throughout his career. He was named 2001, 2004, 2005, 2007 and 2008 Magician of the Year, making him the first five-time / back-to-back recipient ever to be awarded these most prestigious accolades. Criss was also unanimously selected as the recipient of the 22nd Louie Award for outstanding achievement in the art of magic. Throughout the years, Criss Angel has also been featured on NBC's Las Vegas, The Late Show With David Letterman, Late Nite with Conan O'Brien, the Late, Late show with Craig Fergusen, the Ryan Seacrest morning show, The Opie and Anthony show, Ellen, Jimmy Kimmel Live, CNN, FOX, NBC, ABC, CBS, Foxs News Channel, E!, Spike, MTV, The Howard Stern Show, WB, VHI, TLC, UPN, TNN, Playboy Channel, and The Discovery Channel and has garnered international coverage on the largest rated television networks in the world.

Criss Angel MINDFREAK season 3 premiered to unprecedented ratings drawing close to 3 million viewers making it the # 1 cable television show in its timeslot. Season 4, slated to start pre-production in September 2007, will culminate in a memorable 100th episode, a mark seldom reached by any television show in history.

Most recently, Criss was featured as Luke Blade, in an episode of CSI:NY of which scored unprecedented highs for the series in the 18-49 year old demographic and was the #1 show in its timeslot. In addition, Criss has been featured on the Oprah Winfrey show, the VH1 Rock-Honors Awards performing and introducing legendary honoree Ozzy Osbourne, as well as having a cover story done on him in the popular auto mag, DUB.

Criss has been both the #2 and #1 most searched name on Yahoo.com in consecutive weeks, is an accomplished musician having produced and performed on five self-titled cd's, has appeared in arenas coast-to-coast including Madison Square Garden in which he performed for over 80,000 people over a short sold-out run, and broke all-time records at Borders Books and Music, For Your Entertainment, Virgin Megastores and countless other outlets for most fans to attend a signing. Criss held the most successful merchandise signing of the complete North American chain of Borders Books and Music for the year 2006.

Criss Angel's overwhelmingly dominates the internet as his demonstrations have been viewed on YouTube.com a staggering 5 times more frequently than David Blaine and 10 times more frequently than David Copperfield. CrissAngel.com is visited by more unique visitors each month than any magician in internet history. Criss' merchandise sales have exceedingly surpassed any artist of his kind and rival the most influential artists in any music genre today.

Criss most recently inked his first network deal to star as a judge on NBC's "PHENOMENOM." The reality series will showcase self- proclaimed Mentalists as they perform "so-called" supernatural demonstrations in the hopes of being crowned the world's "next great Mentalist."

In an unprecedented collaboration, Criss has partnered with Cirque Du Soleil to on a new live show which will be opening late summer at the Luxor Hotel and Casino Las Vegas. Without a doubt, Criss Angel is single-handedly responsible for magic's most recent resurgence in popular culture. More info on criss along with his merchandise line can be found at www.crissangel.com.