Penn & Teller

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Penn & Teller (2012)

Penn & Teller are an American magician and comedian duo. During her appearances, Penn Jillette is the narrator, Teller is "silent" and only communicates through gestures and facial expressions. Her specialties are bloody tricks, subtle pranks and revealing her own magic tricks. In addition to their show in Las Vegas , they are known as writers and performers in films and TV shows. They are both avowed atheists , brights , skeptics and libertarians , which plays a role in their public appearance, especially on the show Bullshit!

biography

Penn Jillette

Penn Jillette, 2007

Penn Fraser Jillette was born on March 5, 1955 in Greenfield , Massachusetts . His parents were both Canadians. He has an older sister.

Compared to his partner Teller, Penn found the art of magic late. In his youth he was interested in juggling and other tricks; He was rather disappointed in the art of magic by magicians like The Amazing Kreskin , who pretended their performances were real and not just an illusion. That changed when he saw a show by James Randi when he was 18 . Penn was intrigued by Randi's concept of openly presenting magic for what it is - tricks and hoaxes for entertainment - rather than creating a mysterious atmosphere of the supernatural . This was to have a decisive influence on the later style of Penn & Teller.

Penn only found professional magic when he met Teller. After high school (1973) he worked as a juggler with Michael Moschen , a classmate. He also attended the Ringling Bros. Barnum & Bailey Clown College clown school . 1975 began his career with Teller and Weir Chrisimer.

Private

Penn is married to TV producer Emily Zolten and has a daughter, Moxie CrimeFighter Jillette, and a son, Zolten Penn Jillette. The parents chose the unusual, middle name CrimeFighter because the middle name hardly plays a role in everyday life and they wanted to have a little fun.

Before his current marriage, Penn was in a relationship with Robin Quivers of the Howard Stern Show and Debbie Harry , the singer of Blondie , among others .

Red fingernail

One of Penn's trademarks is his left ring fingernail, which is always painted red . When asked about its meaning in interviews, he often answers ironically that it means that he once shot a man because he asked personal questions. In fact, it all started as a prank he played on his mother. When he started with the art of magic, she always admonished him to take good care of his hands and to manicure them , because the audience would often look at his hands. He then painted all his fingernails, which he has kept on his left ring finger to this day.

Own projects

January 2006 Penn and his buddy and juggler Michael Goudeau started their radio show "Penn Radio", which ran until March 2007. It was also available as a podcast. The “Monkey Tuesday” column was legendary in the radio show, in which stories with monkeys that were then sent by e-mail or brought in by callers were presented and commented on. The radio show had a lot of calls on the show.

After a subsequent Videolog period from Penn, he has been doing the audio podcast "Penn's Sunday School", again together with Goudeau, since February 2012, which they also broadcast live as a video, and Matt Donnelly has now joined the team as the third member is. At Penn's Sunday School they often have famous guests.

Plate

Teller, August 5, 2007

Teller was born on February 14, 1948 in Philadelphia , Pennsylvania, and is of Russian Cuban descent. Originally his name was Raymond Joseph Teller , but he had his name officially changed so that his full name is just Teller today . Teller does not reveal much of his private life. It is only known that he is neither married nor has children.

Teller began his career as a magician when he was five years old, after his parents gave him a Howdy Doody magic box. Magic became his hobby and later during college he also performed publicly at fraternity parties. There he found that if he talked less during the demonstration, he was apparently paid more attention. From this his trademark would later develop, to appear completely silent. However, his career initially took a completely different direction: after high school , he studied classical studies at Amherst College and then taught Latin for a few years at Lawrence High School in New Jersey .

At the age of 27 he finally devoted himself entirely to magic. At first he earned his money alone with occasional appearances on street corners, at medieval markets and the like. However, he soon met Penn and Weir Chrisimer and performed with them.

Joint career

Penn & Teller at the Emmy Awards, 1988

Penn and Teller met on April 10, 1974 through a mutual friend, Weir Chrisimer, and soon became friends. A little later, the three began to perform a musical magic show together, initially called the Othmar Schoeck Memorial Society for the Preservation of Unusual and Disgusting Music , and later the Asparagus Valley Cultural Society . The trio performed various magic tricks in San Francisco , many of which are still used in a similar form by Penn & Teller today. They also played music: Penn on bass , Teller on keyboard and flute, and Weir Chrisimer on accordion .

1981 Weir Chrisimer left the group, and Penn and Teller called themselves "Penn & Teller" from then on. In the years that followed, their style changed and they became increasingly popular in the United States for their off-Broadway show. They won two Emmys and a Gold Rose for their 1985 television show Penn & Teller Go Public . In 1987 they appeared on Broadway and then toured the United States several times in the 1990s. In addition, they had guest appearances in well-known television series such as Miami Vice , Friends , Dharma & Greg , Listen, who's hammering , Sabrina - Totally Verhext! , Babylon 5 , The West Wing and The Simpsons and have been regular guests on various late-night shows .

They are currently performing their magic show six times a week at the Rio in Las Vegas.

Television projects

  • Penn & Teller Go Public (1985)
  • Don't Try This at Home (1990)
  • Behind the Scenes (1992)
  • The Unpleasant World of Penn & Teller , six episodes (1994)
  • Phobophilia (1995)
  • Penn & Teller's Home Invasion (1997)
  • Penn & Teller's Sin City Spectacular , 24 episodes (1998–1999)
  • Magic and Mystery Tour , three parts (2003)
  • Bullshit! , 89 episodes (2003-2010)
  • Penn & Teller: Off the Deep End (2005)
  • Penn & Teller: Tell a Lie , six episodes (2011)
  • Penn & Teller: Fool Us , 57 episodes so far in 5 seasons (2011 – now)
  • Wizard Wars , twelve episodes (2014-2015)
  • Penn & Teller: Try this at home (2020)

Movie and TV

Books

  • Penn & Teller's Cruel Tricks for Dear Friends (1989, ISBN 0-394-75351-8 )
  • Penn & Teller's How to Play with Your Food (1992, ISBN 0-679-74311-1 )
  • Penn & Teller's How to Play in Traffic (1997, ISBN 1-57297-293-9 )
  • When I'm Dead All This Will Be Yours: Joe Teller - A Portrait By His Kid (2000, Teller, ISBN 0-922233-22-5 )
  • Sock (2004, Penn Jillette, ISBN 0-312-32805-2 )
  • How to Cheat Your Friends at Poker: The Wisdom of Dickie Richard (2006, Penn Jillette and Mickey D. Lynn, ISBN 0-312-34905-X )
  • God, No !: Signs You May Already Be an Atheist and Other Magical Tales (2011, Penn Jillette, ISBN 1-4516-1036-X )
  • Every Day is an Atheist Holiday !: More Magical Tales from the Author of God, No! (2012, Penn Jillette, ISBN 978-0-3991-6156-8 )

Computer games

  • Penn & Teller VR: Frankly Unfair, Unkind, Unnecessary, & Underhanded (2019)
  • Borderlands 3 as Pain & Terror (2019)

Awards

Penn & Teller at their Hollywood Walk of Fame Star Awards (2013)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Enthusiastic Brights , the-brights.net
  2. ↑ Penn Jillette , nndb.com
  3. ↑ Penn Jillette: The magician-comedian-writer's secrets revealed! , slate.com
  4. ↑ Q & A with Penn Jillette ( Memento of the original from April 5, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / blog.vegas.com
  5. ↑ dish , nndb.com
  6. ↑ Penn and Teller ( Memento of the original from September 18, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , All About Magicians.com @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.all-about-magicians.com
  7. ^ Futurama: Leela and the Encyclopedia Commentary , 20th Century Fox. 
  8. ↑ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0701105/
  9. ↑ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1628657/
  10. ↑ http://deadline.com/2016/01/directors-cut-slamdance-trailer-1201683529/
  11. ↑ http://makepennbad.com/