Paul Daniels - Family and Personal Life

Family and Personal Life

Daniels married his first wife, Jacqueline Skipworth (born 1942), in 1960, when she was 17 and he was 21. He has three sons by her: Gary, Paul and Martin. Martin sometimes appeared on The Paul Daniels Magic Show, and Paul's father, Hughie, often made props for the show, such as wooden boxes for the Selbit Sawing illusion. Daniels' nephew James Phelan is a budding young magician.

Daniels married his second wife, long-time assistant Debbie McGee on 2 April 1988 in Buckinghamshire. The couple met in London in May 1979 during rehearsals for Daniels' summer season show in Great Yarmouth that year. At that time he was 40 and she was 20. McGee went on to work with Daniels in his 1980 summer show in Bournemouth and then his London stage show It's Magic before being offered the role of assistant in his long-running television series. Their relationship gradually became more established until he proposed in 1987. Early in their marriage they lived in a house in Denham, that once belonged to Roger Moore. In 1998 they moved to a house on the banks of the River Thames at Wargrave in Berkshire.

Daniels' autobiography, Under No Illusion, includes descriptions of his and McGee's joking life:

"I was writing and needed to concentrate, so I had a 'Do Not Disturb' sign on my back. Eventually I went to bed and Debbie was lying stark naked on the bed – eat your heart out fellas! She was wearing the sort of sleeping blindfold you get on long-haul flights. Printed on it was Do Not Disturb. But further down her body she had a sign that said Disturb!"

Daniels also claims in the book to have had, as of the year 2000, sexual relations with more than 300 women. This figure includes a Chinese girl he met on a Hong Kong ferry during his National Service, whom he recalls as being "rather throaty".

Daniels maintains a website that includes personal information, a detailed blog and records podcasts. The blog incorporates Daniels's diary entries and day-to-day musings and observations on a range of topics.

He has an Isuzu Trooper for hauling props and show material with the personalised registration plate that reads 'MAG1C'. He also drives a Toyota Prius for personal use. During his life he has also owned three Bentleys and a Ferrari.

In 2007 Daniels took part in the BBC Wales programme Coming Home about his Welsh family history.

In February 2009, Daniels and McGee appeared in Closer magazine in a picture recreating an image from an Armani advert that featured footballer David Beckham and his wife Victoria.

In January 2011, a wig belonging to Daniels was sold for charity on Ebay for £1,100.

Read more about this topic:  Paul Daniels

Famous quotes containing the words personal life, family and, family, personal and/or life:

    Wherever the State touches the personal life of the infant, the child, the youth, or the aged, helpless, defective in mind, body or moral nature, there the State enters “woman’s peculiar sphere,” her sphere of motherly succor and training, her sphere of sympathetic and self-sacrificing ministration to individual lives.
    Anna Garlin Spencer (1851–1931)

    Productive collaborations between family and school, therefore, will demand that parents and teachers recognize the critical importance of each other’s participation in the life of the child. This mutuality of knowledge, understanding, and empathy comes not only with a recognition of the child as the central purpose for the collaboration but also with a recognition of the need to maintain roles and relationships with children that are comprehensive, dynamic, and differentiated.
    Sara Lawrence Lightfoot (20th century)

    Unfortunately, life may sometimes seem unfair to middle children, some of whom feel like an afterthought to a brilliant older sibling and unable to captivate the family’s attention like the darling baby. Yet the middle position offers great training for the real world of lowered expectations, negotiation, and compromise. Middle children who often must break the mold set by an older sibling may thereby learn to challenge family values and seek their own identity.
    Marianne E. Neifert (20th century)

    I would rather have as my patron a host of anonymous citizens digging into their own pockets for the price of a book or a magazine than a small body of enlightened and responsible men administering public funds. I would rather chance my personal vision of truth striking home here and there in the chaos of publication that exists than attempt to filter it through a few sets of official, honorably public-spirited scruples.
    John Updike (b. 1932)

    I call heaven and earth to witness against you today that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Choose life so that you and your descendants may live...
    Bible: Hebrew, Deuteronomy 30:19.