He can appear in a flash, create snow with his bare hands and even shrink his lady assistant to one foot tall, and these are just a few illusions up the sleeves of Boca Raton’s most renowned magician, stage hypnotist and illusionist, Gary Goodman.
     Crystal Lakes Elementary students laughed and cheered Friday night as Goodman placed his lovely assistant Amber Kohl into a cabinet and began to slowly rotate a crank on the left side. To the crowd’s amazement, Kohl’s head appeared to be steadily approaching her feet until she had been transformed into a human Mrs. Potato Head – just head, hands and feet.
     “I love seeing the amazement in their faces. Magic makes people forget any problem, and some people really enjoy believing in magic,” said Goodman. “I like to believe in magic – sometimes I don’t even want to know how it’s done.”
     Although all magicians execute their tricks in much the same way, Goodman said that the manner by which each magician presents the tricks is highly unique.
     “I always compare the way magicians interpret illusions to the way singers interpret songs,” said Goodman. “When magicians perform an illusion, they have to determine what music they’ll use, come up with the choreography and the costuming and decide what they’ll say. Every magician has his own personality.”
     Whether he’s performing for young children or senior citizens, Goodman’s clean cut, yet playful attitude remains constant. He aims to dazzle and thrill with a dry sense of humor, and said he’s had the desire to do so for as long as he can remember.
     As an eight-year-old outside of Buffalo, New York, Goodman became deeply interested in the harrowing escapes of Harry Houdini after viewing the movie, “Houdini,” which was filmed in Goodman’s birth year.
“I thought it was the coolest movie I’d ever seen, and I knew I wanted a magician at my birthday.”
Goodman started reading books about Houdini’s life and soon found out he lived only a few miles from Houdini’s museum. “It was only a bike ride away,” said Goodman. “I visited the museum so often that the curator gave me a lifetime pass.”
At the age of 12, Goodman was already performing magic shows for birthdays and doing private parties at hotels and on cruise ships for money. Through good a stroke of good fortune, the young magician met and befriended Houdini’s own illusion builder, who instructed Goodman’s father in the ways of building illusions.
Because building an illusion can take up to a year and cost over $10,000 dollars, having a dad build his props was a huge plus for Goodman, and that wasn’t the only gift he received from his father.
     “My dad had big interest in show business,” said Goodman. “He was a professional musician, my uncle was a comedian and my mother was a singer and dancer.”
Although he wanted to forgo college to pursue magic, Goodman’s mother insisted that he attain a college degree. He attended Florida Atlantic University and graduated with a degree in Psychology, which Goodman said actually helped his magic.
He went on to the National Guild of Hypnotists to receive a license for stage hypnosis, and he also learned the art of mind reading.
Although Goodman’s range of magical potential separates him from the average magician, he also does quite a bit of “sleight-of-hand” magic and stage magic. Last week he changed one dollar bills into hundreds right in front of party-goers at the Deerfield Beach Hilton Forget-Me-Not Ball.
     “Unfortunately I have to turn them back because I made an agreement with the government,” said Goodman, who paid quite a bit of money to learn that secret – and it wasn’t the first time. “Sometimes you pay hundreds of dollars for a secret,” he said.
Many of those secrets are shared at international magic conventions, which Goodman enjoys attending every year along with 2,000 magicians from all over the world. Although most aspects of being a magician are favorable to Goodman, there are a few minor setbacks.
     “I’m always having to work on holidays and weekends, and I’m also not allowed to call in sick,” he said. “The show must go on.”
Plus, the magic isn’t as easy as it looks. Goodman said he spends at least three hours a day practicing “this or that,” but he also said he truly enjoys it.
     “I feel I’m very fortunate because I look forward to waking up every day and working on the magic,” he said.
For young magicians looking to enter the business, Goodman has two pieces of advice.
     “The best way is probably to start off at the library and get some magic books,” he said. “Then get your dad to write you a check for $20,000 and you’ll be on your way.”