A Las Vegas local, Melinda Saxe comes from a showbiz family – her mother was a dancer-turned-producer and her brother David Saxe is a prolific show producer, whose current roster in Las Vegas includes Scarlett & Her Seductive Ladies of Magic, currently at the Riviera and the only female magician that we're aware of performing in town.
Under the name "The First Lady of Magic," Melinda started out at a small theater in Las Vegas' Bourbon Street hotel-casino at the age of 20 and went on to have her own residencies at the Trump Taj Mahal, Atlantic City, her own 3,000-seat theater in Branson, Missouri, and the Venetian in Las Vegas (see below), plus movie and television appearances including the "World’s Greatest Magic II" and "World's Most Dangerous Magic" specials. Although derided by many as a "dumb blonde" who got by on her looks, in 1998 the International Magicians' Society named her "Magician of the Year."
Melinda’s signature illusion, and the reason for her inclusion in "World's Most Dangerous Magic," was an act called "The Drill of Death." A "penetration illusion," (yes, the double-entendres fly around this one), it was an act developed especially for her in which she was apparently impaled on a massive drill bit. You can see it here on YouTube.
In 1993, Melinda was married to magician Lance Burton, after proposing to him live on television (presumably they were dating at the time) but the marriage was short-lived (less than a year). In 2000 she married Mark Evensvold, having been set up on a date by her sister. Evensfold, a managing partner in the P F Chang's restaurant chain, apparently had no idea who she was and had never seen her peform. "I think he thought I pulled rabbits out of hats [until he came to see the show]," she commented in an interview. Two years later, in September 2002, she retired from her gig at the Venetian in order to raise a family. She now has two children, a boy and a girl, and lives with Evensvold in Scottsdale, Arizona.
As an aside, we caught Melinda's show not long after it opened at the Venetian and reviewed it in the November, 2000 Las Vegas Advisor. Overall, we were impressed with her performance, but she did get hit with one massive and memorable technical snafu. It was during an illusion in which Melinda was supposed to "vanish" a car, except something went wrong with the drapery and the car remained in clear sight, leaving the unprepared "First Lady of Magic" on stage exclaiming, "Oh sh!t, oh sh!t!"
