Melinda: First Lady of Magic (b.?)Melinda Saxe, billed as "The First Lady of Magic," is best known for network television performances and Las Vegas stage shows. Enjoy this feature which includes a fact-filled profile, and in-depth biography.
Profile
Real NameMelinda Saxe Aliases First Lady of Magic Occupation Magician Place of Birth Las Vegas, NV. USA Height 5'7" Eyes Brown Hair Blonde Abilities Saxe possesses the ability to dazzle any audience with her charismatic stage presence, stunning good looks and mind-boggling illusions. Her signature illusion is called the "Drill of Death," which Saxe is chained up in front of a giant drill which appeared to advance and impale her before lifting her up and spinning her limp body high above the stage.
Bio
Melinda Saxe is best known for network television performances and Las Vegas stage shows in which she was billed as "The First Lady of Magic". She is often associated with the "Drill of Death" illusion which was a signature trick developed for her by Andre Kole. Saxe comes from a Las Vegas showbiz family. She is the daughter of Bonnie Saxe, a dancer turned show producer, who helped launch Melinda's performing career. Her brother, David Saxe, began assisting in the technical and business side of her shows while still a college student and went on to be her producer for 17 years. Her self-styled title "The First Lady of Magic" originated as the name or billing strapline for the various shows she presented in a succession of Las Vegas venues throughout her career. When she was 16, she had a dream. "I was on a huge dark stage wearing a large black cape. I was doing magic," she recalls. "The next day, when I woke up, I thought it was all stupid, because females aren't magicians. They never have been. Still, I couldn't get it out of my head. Most boy magicians start about age 10," says Saxe, by way of explaining those 10-hour-a-day sessions behind her closed door. "I didn't start until I was 16, so I knew I had a lot of years of practice to make up." She would shut herself up in her studio for hours, sometimes all day practicing one trick over and over. She spent some of her earlier years in backstage dressing rooms, hoping to follow in her mother's dance steps (her dad, Richard, 55, is a band leader). Graduating from high school a year early, she joined the Siegfried and Roy magic show as a dancer at 17, hoofing onstage each night while honing her legerdemain by day. When she was 19 her mother got her booked as a magician at Vegas' oddly named Bourbon Street Hotel, and Saxe left the chorus line behind.
Four years later in Las Vegas, flashing neon lights on the marquee of the Landmark Hotel spell out the answer: Melinda: The First Lady of Magic! Saxe's arrival at the summit of her profession was confirmed by an invitation to perform for her peers at the annual convention of the Society of American Magicians this summer in St. Louis. In 1995 she was chosen by producer Gary Ouellet as one of the acts for the second of his World's Greatest Magic television specials broadcast on the NBC network. Ouellet was again influential in promoting Saxe's career when she starred in her own special for Disney in 1997. Ouellet was producer for the show, which was titled Melinda: First Lady of Magic after her stage shows. She also featured in the first of Ouellet's World's Most Dangerous Magic specials in 1998, in which she escaped using levitation after being tied up and placed in a glass tank that was filled with snakes. Saxe stopped performing in 2002 saying she intended to devote herself to starting a family with her new husband.
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