Getting To Know Our 2010 Inductee!

Doug Henning - Before attending medical school, Doug Henning decided to take two years off to perform magic and make some money. Things went so well that, at age 22, he began to pursue a magic career fulltime. He applied for and received a $4,000 grant from the Canada Council for the Arts, after convincing them that magic was a form of art, and studied with Dai Vernon and other master magicians. In the early 1970s, Doug recruited his friend and fellow CWOF inductee Ivan Reitman (then at City-TV, eventually director of Ghostbusters and other movies) to help him raise the money to stage a rock and magic musical. Spellbound opened at the Royal Alexandra Theatre in Toronto at Christmas in 1973. The critics and the audiences loved the long-haired hippie/disco magician with his brightly coloured clothes and the show set box-office records for the theatre. On 28 May 1974, Spellbound was renamed The Magic Show and opened on Broadway, again to rave reviews. It was nominated for two Tonys and ran for four years, closing on New Year's Eve 1978. Henning took The Magic Show on the road, performing in Las Vegas, Lake Tahoe, and other venues. On 13 February 1983, he opened a new Broadway show. Merlin ran for six months and earned five Tony nominations. Henning returned to Broadway one more time, staging Doug Henning and His World of Magic from 11 December 1984 to 27 January 1985. Congratulations to Doug Henning! Class of 2010!