who is Uri Gueller?
Born in Tel Aviv, Mandate of Palestine (now Israel) to Jewish parents with Austro-Hungarian background, Geller was named after a cousin who had been killed in a bus accident. He was the only child of retired Army sergeant Itzhaak Geller and Manzy Freud. Geller says he is a relative of Sigmund Freud on his mother's side. (The specific relationship is not identified.)[2]
At the age of 11, Geller and his family moved to Nicosia, Cyprus, where he attended a Catholic high school and learned English.[3] According to James Randi's book, "there are no records at the Israeli Ministry of Education to show he graduated."[4] Then at the age of 18[5] he served as a paratrooper in the Israeli Army,[6] and was wounded in action during the 1967 Six-Day War.[7] He worked as a photographic model in 1968 and 1969, and in the same year, he began to perform for small audiences as a nightclub entertainer,[8] becoming well-known in Israel.[9]
After seeing a performance by the British magician and mentalist David Berglas, Geller started to bend spoons like him.[citation needed] Geller first started to perform as a magician in nightclubs in Tel Aviv. By the 1970s Geller became popular in the United States and Europe. He also received attention from the scientific community who were interested in examining his claims of psychic abilities. At the peak of his career in the 1970s he worked full-time, performing for television audiences worldwide.
Geller rose to fame after performing a series of televised performances which he said were paranormal demonstrations of psychokinesis, dowsing, and telepathy.[10] His performance included bending spoons, describing hidden drawings, and making watches appear to stop or run faster. Geller said he performs these feats through willpower and the strength of his mind.[11] Critics have demonstrated that his performances can be duplicated using stage magic tricks.[12]
He owns a 1976 Cadillac adorned with thousands of pieces of bent tableware given to him by celebrities or otherwise having historical or other significance. It includes spoons from celebrities such as John Lennon and the Spice Girls, and those with which Winston Churchill and John F. Kennedy ate. Geller designed the logo for popular music group N*SYNC[13] and contributed artwork to Michael Jackson's CD, Invincible.
Jackson was best man when Geller renewed his wedding vows in 2001.Geller also negotiated the famous TV interview between Jackson with the journalist Martin Bashir: Living with Michael Jackson. In BBC television interviews, Geller has since admitted that he has not been in contact with Jackson since this time. Geller says that he has split with Jackson because of anti-Semitic statements Jackson had purportedly made.
Geller has affiliations with various groups. He is president of International Friends of Magen David Adom, a group that lobbied the International Committee of the Red Cross to recognise Magen David Adom ("Red Star of David") as a humanitarian relief organisation. In 2002, he became honorary co-chairman of the English Nationwide Conference football club Exeter City, who were relegated to the Nationwide Conference in May 2003. He has since severed formal ties with the club.
In recent years he has been a part of several television programs. In May 2002, he appeared as a contestant on the first series of the British reality TV show I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here! where he finished 8th place. Then in early 2007 Geller hosted a reality show in Israel called The Successor ("היורש"), where the contestants performed magic tricks and Geller was accused of "trickery."[ In July 2007 NBC signed Geller and Criss Angel for Phenomenon, which started airing on October 24 to search for the next great mentalist, which contestant Mike Super won.Starting January 8, 2008 Geller is also hosting the competition The Next Uri Geller which is broadcasted by Pro7 in Germany. In February 2008, Geller began a show on Dutch Television called De Nieuwe Uri Geller, which shares a similar format to its German counterpart. The goal of the program is to find the best mentalist in The Netherlands. He started the same show in Hungary from March 29, 2008. During the show Geller speaks both in Hungarian and in English. Geller also performs his standard routines of making stopped watches start, spoons jump from televisions, and tables move.
Geller currently lives in Sonning-on-Thames, Berkshire, England. In recent years, he has performed demonstrations such as spoon-bending much less frequently in public.[citation needed] He is a vegan and speaks three languages: English, Hebrew and Hungarian.[citation needed] In an appearance on Esther Rantzen's 1996 television talk show Esther, Geller claimed to have suffered from anorexia nervosa for several years.[20] In addition he has written sixteen fiction and nonfiction books.
Uri Geller starred in the horror film Sanitarium (2001) directed by Johannes Roberts and James Eaves. from wikipedia
