David Berglas, who died in November 2023 at the age of 97, was a Britain magician, illusionist, and US spy.
David Berglas consulted on blockbuster movies as well as performing magic for the Royal Family, the Rolling Stones, and many other luminaries. He taught card tricks to Orson Welles for the Bond spoof Casino Royale (1967) and advised Jack Nicholson as Joker in Batman (1989). In the 007 movie Octopussy(1983), Berglas coached Roger Moore during a scene in which Bond switches an authentic Fabergé egg for a fake one.
The British-German magician wasn’t always making pianos disappear, however. During WWII, 19-year-old Berglas joined the US Army Intelligence Service to help defeat the Nazis.
Mentalist magician David Berglas
Born in 1926, David Berglas’ Jewish family fled Germany when Hitler rose to Chancellor in the 1930s. “My family had to escape through different routes and different countries,” Berglas once recalled. “I traveled to England all by myself, just 11 years old and not speaking a word of English.”
Berglas was sent to a boarding school and during holidays lived in a refugee hotel in London with others who’d escaped Nazi persecution in Germany, Poland, Austria, and beyond. One of the more notable residents at the Esplanade Hotel was Sigmund Freud, a Jewish-Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis.
The young boy wouldn’t be reunited with his family in Britain until 1938, as Europe stood on the eve of war.
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David Berglas, who died in November 2023 at the age of 97, was a Britain magician, illusionist, and US spy.
David Berglas consulted on blockbuster movies as well as performing magic for the Royal Family, the Rolling Stones, and many other luminaries. He taught card tricks to Orson Welles for the Bond spoof Casino Royale (1967) and advised Jack Nicholson as Joker in Batman (1989). In the 007 movie Octopussy(1983), Berglas coached Roger Moore during a scene in which Bond switches an authentic Fabergé egg for a fake one.
The British-German magician wasn’t always making pianos disappear, however. During WWII, 19-year-old Berglas joined the US Army Intelligence Service to help defeat the Nazis.
Mentalist magician David Berglas
Born in 1926, David Berglas’ Jewish family fled Germany when Hitler rose to Chancellor in the 1930s. “My family had to escape through different routes and different countries,” Berglas once recalled. “I traveled to England all by myself, just 11 years old and not speaking a word of English.”
Berglas was sent to a boarding school and during holidays lived in a refugee hotel in London with others who’d escaped Nazi persecution in Germany, Poland, Austria, and beyond. One of the more notable residents at the Esplanade Hotel was Sigmund Freud, a Jewish-Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis.
The young boy wouldn’t be reunited with his family in Britain until 1938, as Europe stood on the eve of war.
Britain and France declared war on Germany in 1939. During the Blitz, enemy German warplanes roared overhead as David Berglas played on the streets: “The anti-aircraft would fire and after a few moments - sometimes just minutes - shrapnel from the shells would come down,” he said. “It would be red hot.”
Berglas narrowly escaped death when a bomb destroyed a movie theater he’d just left - a common occurrence in war-torn London: “At that time we could not imagine the war would ever stop.”
When he turned 19, Berglas passed the US military’s strict physical and mental tests and - although American recruits were supposed to be 21 - finagled his way into a job with US intelligence decoding German messages for the Allies. Berglas trained at a secret location in Paris. He referred to his service as an adventure filled 18 months before his discharge in 1947 at age 21.
David Berglas joined US Intelligence in WWII
From medicine to magic
Berglas dabbled in psychotherapy, specializing in medical hypnosis, and practiced magic as a hobby until turning pro in 1952. He drew from his psychological training and added memory feats and mentalism to stage shows before moving into TV where Meet David Berglas drew audiences of more than 19m viewers in the 1950s.
Berglas burnished his reputation when he completed Switzerland’s dangerous Cresta Run in a toboggan while blindfolded. His signature magic pieces include the levitation of a heavy table and he was known to smoke a cigarette under water.
The New York Times described the ‘Berglas Effect’ as magic’s best card trick, an illusion he’d performed for more than 50 years.
In the '80s he had a television series called The Mind of David Berglas where he entertained celebrities including 007 villain Christopher Lee, another former intelligence officer.
The Magic Circle
After Berglas served as president of The Magic Circle (1989-1998), he established a non-profit organization to fund educational establishments like The College of Magic in Cape Town, South Africa.
The Foundation has presented the Berglas Award at London’s annual International Magic Convention to superstars including Uri Geller and David Copperfield. Although he’d read minds for decades, David Berglas didn’t see it coming when he was honored in 2014.
Berglas was tricked into believing the award was being presented to magician Dynamo who, after receiving it, used sleight-of-hand to change the engraved name on the plaque to Berglas' name and presented it to him.
David Berglas (1926-2023)
Berglas died in 2023, survived by his wife Ruth and daughter Irena. His son, Marvin, is also a magician and president of the Magic Circle.
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