Herbert L. Becker
American magician
Herbert Lawrence Becker (born August 12, 1951) is an American former magician, escapologist, stunt performer, author, and businessman. As a magician, Becker performed as Kardeen.
Biography
Early life
Herbert Lawrence Becker was born in Hollywood, Florida in 1951.
Magic
Becker performed under the name "The Kardeen Brothers" with Marc Nicols. Later, he worked solo as "The Great Kardeen". Kardeen bested then replaced Harry Houdini as the Worlds Fastest Escape Artist in the Guinness Book of World Records. He helped open the first Guinness Museums, toured with Guinness on Parade and performed at the Steel Pier and Radio City Music Hall (1976) with the Guinness show. As a magician, Becker toured worldwide until he retired in 1978. Becker appeared as himself (a magician) on the Orlando television program Bozo the Clown appearing weekly and The Maury Povich Show (2001).
In his book All the Secrets of Magic Revealed: The Tricks and Illusions of the World's Greatest Magicians, Becker explained how magicians such as Harry Houdini, David Copperfield, Doug Henning, and Siegfried and Roy created some of their most famous illusions, to the consternation of his colleagues.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Herbert L. Becker” as american magician. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 14, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5734855. VIAF identifies the subject as 36149192. The Library of Congress control number is n94082901. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1951, 1976, 1978 and 2001.
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This entry incorporates text from “Herbert L. Becker” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.