Kevin James

Who he is

Kevin James

Kevin James was born in France in 1962 to American parents and grew up in a Michigan village of two thousand people. Magic caught him as a child, watching a magician perform at his elementary school. With no one to learn from, he checked out the library's six magic books over and over and memorised the catalogue of a magic shop an hour's drive away, trying to imagine how those miracles could possibly work. He believes that early solitude taught him the question his whole career is built on: what is possible?

Inventor, comedy illusionist and storyteller, he likes to call himself a modern P.T. Barnum. He has created effects that are now part of the repertoire of many magicians around the world: the floating rose, first released in 1991, is still featured in David Copperfield's live shows. His repertoire also includes a man cut in half who stays very much alive. He spent years at the Crazy Horse in Paris and on the stages of Las Vegas, from the Riviera to Caesars Palace.

In the cast of The Illusionists, the world's biggest-selling magic show, his character is named exactly that: The Inventor. With them he reached Broadway in 2016 and London's West End in 2017. He has won the Mandrake d'Or in Paris twice (1995 and 2019), was a semi-finalist on America's Got Talent in 2007 and in 2009 performed at the White House, in the East Room, for President Obama. For him the magician has a sacred duty: to remind adults what it was like to be a child.

Saint-Vincent knows him well: he was our guest in 2008 and 2010, and in 2020 he took part in the United Magicians for the World online charity shows. In May 2027 he returns to Saint-Vincent.