David Avadon, 60; was illusionist and pickpocket
LOS ANGELES - David Avadon, a professional illusionist who wrote a 2007 book on pickpocketing, which was his trademark theatrical act, has died. He was 60.
Mr. Avadon, who had a recent history of heart problems, had a heart attack while exercising and died Aug. 22 at a fitness club in Santa Monica, said his brother, Joe Hutchins.
For more than 30 years, Mr. Avadon had regularly presented his pickpocket act at the Magic Castle in Hollywood. He also had entertained throughout the United States and abroad.
Mr. Avadon “really was the king of the pickpockets,’’ Sid Fleischman, a friend and fellow magician. “He could lift wallets from chiefs of police, which he had done in Los Angeles.’’
He was born David Hutchins on in Inglewood. His mother had been an acrobatic dancer in vaudeville, and his father was an engineer.
In his 20s, he adopted “Avadon’’ as his stage name.
He discovered the allure of what he called “theatrical thievery’’ at a magic show in 1973 that featured Vic Perry, a British pickpocket. “Spectators weren’t entertained; they were riveted,’’ Mr. Avadon wrote in his book, “Cutting Up Touches: A Brief History of Pockets and the People Who Pick Them.’’
The book, a study of the art of the pickpocket in history and entertainment, includes a profile of John Giovanni, a noted performance pickpocket.
Mr. Avadon had tracked down Giovanni in Beverly Hills in the 1970s and persuaded him to be his mentor. “That was my beginning,’’ wrote Mr. Avadon, who studied theater at the University of California, Los Angeles, “in this underground art.’’