Paul Daniels, TV magician, dies aged 77

The magician Paul Daniels, whose career defined the TV magic genre in the 1980s and early 90s, has died at the age of 77.

The entertainer, who told viewers they would enjoy his tricks but “not a lot”, was diagnosed with an incurable brain tumour in February and last week returned from hospital to spend his final days at home.

His son Gary, a fitness presenter and personal trainer, confirmed the news on Twitter, with a picture of a crying rabbit in a top hat by the artist Helen Martin, a close family friend.

Daniels is best known for his BBC TV series The Paul Daniels Magic Show, which ran from 1979-94. He was born in 1938 in South Bank, Middlesbrough, where he began his career as a magician and entertainer.

The magician died at his home in Berkshire. He had been diagnosed with the tumour after he was taken to hospital with a suspected stroke and scans revealed he had an inoperable growth in his brain.

His son Martin, also a magician, said his father had turned down radiotherapy as it had little chance of lengthening his life. In his final days, Daniels was described as being “lucid”. “He’s happy there – some days he is tired and spends most of his time in bed dozing. But even then he is happy,” Martin said in the days before his father’s death.

Richard Cadell, presenter of The Sooty Show, said Daniels was the man who had inspired him to go into magic. “I watched his show on prime time when I was about eight and wrote to him, just a little kid who wanted to do magic, and he wrote back a handwritten letter. That really was the measure of the man,” he said.

Years later, when the pair had become friends, Cadell made the front pages of the tabloids having knocked out Daniels by throwing a pizza at his head during a sketch for The Sooty Show. “It was absolutely mortifying for me,” he said. “We threw the pizza at him and he insisted on me throwing it again because it wasn’t hard enough, and the second time the crust hit him square in the eye.

“I could never have imagined as a kid I would have Paul Daniels on my own show, much less that I would knock him out with a pizza.”

Daniels had been well and happy when the pair saw each other last year, Cadell said. “He wasn’t just an entertainer, he was a formidable magician, and encyclopedia of knowledge about magic tricks. When I saw him last he had devised a trick from a method he had read about from a book from the turn of the century,” he recalled.

Many of Daniels’ contemporaries and fellow magicians have paid tribute to the entertainer, including Paul Chuckle, Darren Day and Keith Chegwin who called Daniels “a lovely, kind and magic man”.

Daniels was born Newton Daniels in Middlesbrough in 1938 and said he fell in love with magic as a shy 11-year-old. “A hot, wet childhood holiday got me into magic,” Daniels once said. “We couldn’t go out because of the bad weather, and one of the books in the place we were staying in had magic tricks in it that you could do yourself.”

Daniels went on to do national service and to run his own grocery shop, finessing his magic tricks by performing at youth centres and working men’s clubs in the evenings, before he embarked on a full-time career as a magician in 1969.

He got his big break on TV in 1978, with a late-night show on ITV called Paul Daniels’ Blackpool Bonanza, but it was his BBC series that secured his place as one of the country’s best-loved entertainers. With his catchphrase “You’ll like this … not a lot, but you’ll like it”, his show drew in audiences of 15 million at its peak and was sold on to 43 countries.

In addition to performing magic, Daniels hosted popular quiz shows for the BBC including Every Second Counts, Odd One Out and Wipeout, as well as narrating the children’s TV show Wizbit.

Daniels married his first wife, Jacqueline, in 1960, and they had three sons before separating. He claimed in his autobiography, Under No Illusion, that he slept with 300 women after his divorce.

He met his second wife, Debbie McGee – a former soloist with the Iranian National Ballet – after she took the job of his magician’s assistant in 1979, having escaped Iran after the revolution. They married a decade later.

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Daniels and McGee went on to appear on numerous reality TV shows including Channel 5’s The Farm, ITV’s The X Factor: Battle Of The Stars, All Star Mr and Mrs and Channel 4’s Celebrity Wife Swap, in which Daniels spent a turbulent week with Vanessa Feltz.

Ola Jordan, who coached Daniels in the 2010 series of Strictly Come Dancing, called the magician her “amazing dance partner”. She said: “It was a pleasure and honour to work with you. You are in my thoughts and prayers.”

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Daniels also became known for his often controversial views on political correctness and criminal justice and his denial of climate change.

Daniels was dubious about the modern generation of magicians. Speaking to the Guardian, he described David Blaine as “not very original”. He said: “I’m not a big fan of dressing down. I like glamour. I love fantasy. I’m well aware that the current fashion is to be as grotty as possible, and Blaine is of that genre.”

In another, more recent, interview with the Guardian, Daniels declared he had no fear of death. “Death isn’t scary – it’s just like going to sleep,” he said. “It doesn’t bother me because when your time’s up, your time’s up. Some people can’t take that.”

A statement from his publicist called him “one of our most beloved entertainers” and said the magician had passed away peacefully at home with McGee at his side in the early hours of Thursday morning.

“Debbie and the family would like to thank everyone for their support and ask that their privacy be respected at this sad time,” it added.

When news of Daniels’ terminal diagnosis went public, the family began a fundraising page to raise money for causes including brain tumour research and the Grand Order of Water Rats, an entertainment industry charity, with a target of £100,000.

“I wished I could answer all your wonderful messages of support individually but there are so many,” McGee wrote on the GoFundMe page. “Paul and I had no idea how people felt, it has been truly amazing the outpouring of support.”

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Mark Linsey, acting director of BBC Television, called Daniels “an outstanding showman and one of the great entertainers of BBC Television”.

“His long-running magic show delighted viewers, as did his BBC1 quiz shows Odd One Out, Wipeout and Every Second Counts, and children’s favourite Wizbit,” Linsey said. “He will be missed, and our thoughts are with his family.”