April 8, 1983 –
In front of a live audience of 20 tourists, David Copperfield makes the Statue of Liberty disappear. A large opaque screen appeared between two giant pillars. When the screen fell, the Statue of Liberty vanished. Then the screen went back up, and when it fell again, the statue was back.
The secret to the Lady Liberty illusion was nothing more than a rotating platform. Copperfield had seated his audience on a surface that turned via a hydraulics system. He then raised the curtain and kept the audience distracted with loud music and general showmanship, while the platform was slowly rotated a few degrees. Then, when the curtain was lowered, one of the pillars that had previously supported it now blocked the audience’s view of the statue. In the area that the platform now faced, Copperfield and his team had set up a circle of lights identical to the ones that encircled the real Liberty.
The Haus of Dcaligari 