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I LIE FOR MONEY
Candid, Outrageous Stories from a Magician’s Misadventures
by Steve Spill
I LIE FOR MONEY
By Steve Spill
Publisher: Skyhorse Publishing
Hardcover: 248 Pages, $24.99
Genre: Memoir/Nonfiction/Humor
ISBN: 978-1610881531
Publication Date: May 12, 2015
“Steve Spill has been a pal of Penn’s and mine since the 1970’s. While we were still working for tips and eating
dirt at fairs, Steve was running one of the classiest comedy magic clubs in the country, and still does (his current
one is in Santa Monica). Nobody knows more about magic from the inside than Steve. And most important, Steve
and I share the deepest bond of all: we both swallow needles.” – Teller of Penn & Teller
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Contact: Julia Drake, Publicist
[email protected] l 310.359-6487
I LIE FOR MONEY
Candid, Outrageous Stories from a Magician’s Misadventures
By Steve Spill
In this funny, irreverent, unique, eccentric memoir, magician
Steve Spill reveals how he managed to survive decades inside a
rarely profitable, sometimes maddening, but often deliciously
rewarding offbeat showbiz profession—magic!
Spill tells of how his tailor grandfather sewed secret pockets in
a magician’s tuxedo back in 1910, which started his childhood
dream to become a magician. This dream took Spill on a journey
that started with him performing, as a young boy, at a “Beauty
on a Budget” neighborhood house party to engagements in
Europe, Africa, and the Caribbean, to today in Santa Monica,
California, where he’s been starring in his own shows since 1998
at Magicopolis, the theater he designed and built himself.
Being a magician has given Spill the opportunity to interact with
the world’s most famous and fascinating people. In his memoir,
Spill reveals the many unique encounters that his profession
has led him to enjoy and endure: hosting Sting as his opening
act one night, spending two days on camera with Joan Rivers,
and selling tricks to Bob Dylan, as well as encounters with Adam
Sandler, Stephen King, and other celebrities.
I Lie for Money is a literary magic show that captures the highs
and lows of an extraordinary life that will delight and amaze
you with wit and wickedness. This book should be an obligatory
read for anyone considering a creative career, and it serves as
an inspiration to those who desire to craft an independent life.
“I LIE FOR MONEY is a literary magic show that captures
the highs and lows of an extraordinary life that will
delight and amaze you with wit and wickedness.”
magicopolis.com | @magicopolis | facebook.com/magicopolis
The Author
Steve Spill has spent his entire life performing magic, producing
magic shows around the globe in places such as the French
Riviera’s Cannes Film Festival, Universal Studios Hollywood,
Harrah’s Tahoe, and Toronto’s Massey Hall.
Among the projects on which Spill has provided expertise are the
CBS TV special “The World Greatest Magicians,” and the FX TV
series “Penn & Teller’s Sin City Spectacular.”
Spill grew up at the Magic Castle, a private club for magicians
in Hollywood where his father, Sandy Spillman, was a manager
in the 1960’s and the young aspiring magician was tutored by
industry icons such as Dai Vernon, Charlie Miller and Francis
Carlyle.
At 21, he started working as a magic bartender at the Jolly Jester
saloon in Aspen, Colorado, where he perfected and became known
among magicians, for his interpretations of a number classic and
original sleight-of-hand tricks.
From 1980 to 1985,
Spill teamed up with
Bob Sheets in Washington D.C. for the long-running show, “Magicomedy Cabaret,”
which Lloyd Grove of the Washington Post called “…hard to resist.”
Over the next decade Steve maintained a busy schedule of live solo appearances
-performing his unique brand of magic at comedy clubs, casinos, and corporate
events across America, in Europe, Africa, and the Caribbean.
In 1998 Spill opened Magicopolis in Santa Monica, which is the permanent home
of “Escape Reality,” the show he stars in with his wife, actress Bozena Wrobel.
magicopolis.com | @magicopolis | facebook.com/magicopolis
Media Coverage
Steve Spill has written for, appeared on, and been quoted in multiple news outlets, organizations, and
publications. For a complete list, please visit: www.magicopolis.com
magicopolis.com | @magicopolis | facebook.com/magicopolis
Praise
“This offbeat behind-the-scenes look at a magician’s life is as unpredictable, fresh, and distinctive, as witnessing one of Steve
Spill’s shows in person.”— Nolan Bushnell, founder of Atari & Chuck E. Cheese
“With his combination of writing and performing skills and his endless inventiveness, Steve Spill is a major asset to the world
of magic.” – Dick Cavett, acclaimed former American TV host
“A ridiculously entertaining book about [Spill’s] life and adventures as a journeyman magician trying to make a living from
his art.” – Jack Shalom, producer, Arts Express, WBAI 99.5 FM in NYC
“Steve Spill is one of the greatest magicians that’s ever lived. Fact. I Lie for Money is the most entertaining book about magic
ever. Double fact. If you don’t buy this book, there will be a big hole in your life that you will never fill, a void that will haunt
the rest of your days until you cry out in the night, “WHY DIDN’T I GET THE MEMOIR THAT CONTAINED ALL THOSE AMAZING
STORIES ABOUT MAGIC?!” Triple fact. The choice is clear.” – Adam De La Pena, creator of the hit animated
series Code Monkeys
“Instantly hypnotic! Before finishing page one I was drawn in and happily trapped in Steve’s wild, surreal world.” – Brian
Brushwood, Host of Discovery’s Scam School and National Geographic’s Hacking the System
“Steve Spill is one of my favorite storytellers. The man has pioneered more venues for magic than anyone I know, and along
the way, broken lots of new ground as a comic, magician, bartender, busker, club owner, and now raconteur -- and that’s no
lie!” – Joel Hodgson, creator/star of Mystery Science Theater 3000
“A unique eye-opening account of the backstage life of a fiendishly funny magician.” – Kirsten Sheridan, Oscar
nominated screenwriter and film director
“Steve Spill’s fascinating book, I Lie for Money, opens a secret door and let’s the reader enter the almost unknown – and
often misunderstood – world of the professional magician.” – Brooks Wachtel, Emmy winning writer and
director
“A fantastic read packed with hilarious anecdotes and juicy tales of outlandish antics. Who would have thought the life of a
family entertainer could be so wild?” – Michael Larkin, NBC Digital News Producer
“Every person on the face of the earth who wants to laugh out loud and be amazed should read I Lie for Money.” – Dustin
Stinett, GENII Magazine
magicopolis.com | @magicopolis | facebook.com/magicopolis
Q/A
Q: After reading your book, one gets the sense that you are man who has met
everyone. How has working with some of the top people in entertainment
shaped your own ambitions and outlook on life?
Those who I’ve worked with or admired most possess tremendous enthusiasm, great energy, and enormous
self-awareness. My ambition is to continually strengthen those qualities in myself and communicate with
audiences while being the funniest and most amazing I can be.
Q: What was it that attracted you first to magic and has this fascination sustained you throughout your career?
I was five and my Dad was bedridden for a couple weeks with an ulcer. That’s when he lit the flame of
magic in me, which, to this day, has never gone out. He sat up in bed, his jaws sagging at first, his face
pale, stubbled with beard hairs, and taught me the simple trick with two strings that his father, my grandfather, had taught him. What I witnessed that day was one of the great thrills of my life.
The instant he started teaching me, a transformation came over him or from within him, he was no longer
a slumped man in bed suffering from an ulcer, suddenly vital and strong as if nothing was the matter with
him… a regal master mentor, majestically passing the baton, the magic wand, to his son. Nowadays the
same sort of thing happens to me, if I’m ill and have a show to do, another set of reflexes take charge and
the ailments seem to vanish while I’m on stage. After that day, instead of Legos or little green army men,
the only toys I played with were magic tricks.
One of the tricks of our trade that I love is the lying. Dyslexic displays of honesty that range from tiny little
manipulative untruths, to big, fat, in-your-face, lies. To be a professional magician is to be an expert at
dispensing disinformation, duplicity, hypocrisy, distortion, deception and fakery without any of the guilt or
unpleasant consequences. And we magicians enjoy the thrill of getting away with it.
magicopolis.com | @magicopolis | facebook.com/magicopolis
Q/A Continued...
Q: You explain and mention many original tricks you perfected throughout the
years. Which one is your favorite and why?
My favorite is whatever new thing I happen to be working on at any given moment.
Q: Your book includes a chapter on all your failed ideas. Why did you include
it?
Not ALL my failed ideas… that would fill many entire books. These are cherry picked stories in the continuing saga where I had an idea, worked up a method to do the trick, got the props together, scripted the
routine, and rehearsed it. But on stage, in front of real breathing strangers, for one reason or another, it
wasn’t a keeper. In other words, these were routines that turned out to be useless and insignificant. I’ve
included them in the book because in one way or another I found them to be poetic.
Q: You are an artist, but you also run a business, together with your wife
who’s also an artist? How do these various identities mesh?
To write, produce and perform a show in a theater that you designed, built, own and operate, you have to
be equal parts dictator and diplomat. You must be both the astonishing magician and visionary storyteller
on stage and the guy shoveling raw sewage in the middle of the night because no one else would and everything would be lost if it didn’t get done. You must be both an extravagant artist and a penny-pinching
jerk. It isn’t easy, it isn’t always fun, it isn’t about money or fame. It’s about what it takes to share your
vision with those who want to see it.
Q: What advice would you give aspiring magicians?
Nobody makes a living as a magician by accident. You gotta want it pretty bad. Success is enjoying the
journey, the stamina of a marathon runner is more important than talent, hard work helps you improve,
and when you’re obsessed you make your luck. I’m not big on giving advice, and hate to give anyone false
hope because luck has played a part in whatever success I’ve had, but I’ll say this: By utilizing your skills
and by being true to yourself and working hard it is possible to create an act or show that will, if not rake
in millions, at least not find you on welfare at the end of the day.
magicopolis.com | @magicopolis | facebook.com/magicopolis