Blaine began his career with street magic, performing card tricks, levitation, and illusions, such as bringing apparently dead flies back to life. Recorded live in front of everyday people by a small camera crew, this act provided the basis for his breakthrough television specials, David Blaine: Street Magic, David Blaine: Magic Man, and David Blaine: Mystifier.

He later turned his attention to feats of endurance; these included being buried alive for seven days, spending 61 hours encased in ice, standing on a tiny platform at the top of a 100 foot high pole for 35 hours, and living in a transparent Perspex (Plexiglas) box for 44 days without food (over the Thames).

Though not the first entertainer to perform street magic or survive endurance stunts, Blaine's unique contribution to magic was his charismatic use of video and television to reach the MTV generation in a decade where magicians were out of touch with younger audiences.

On April 5, 1999, Blaine spent seven days buried inside a glass coffin at the bottom of an open pit in front of an office building owned by Donald Trump in New York City where passersby could view him, 24 hours a day.

"There were Jewish Hasids standing next to Muslim cabdrivers who were next to black kids. Businessmen in designer suits stood beside heavily pierced street kids. Every conceiveable social type was represented," recalls Blaine. "I saw something truly incredible. I saw every race, every age-group, and every religion gathered together smiling, and that made everything worth it. I saw magic."

On Monday, November 27, 2000 Blaine began a stunt called 'Frozen in Time'. Blaine spent time in a closet of ice located in Times Square, New York. A tube provided him with air and water, and a tube was provided for removal of his urine. He was encased in ice for 61 hours, 40 minutes, and 15 seconds before being removed. The block of ice was on a stand, with space between the ground, and the ice was transparent, to prove to skeptics that he was inside the ice the whole time. He was taken to the hospital immediately after being removed because doctors feared he was going into shock. He says he still could not walk normally a month after the stunt. A TV special aired covering the stunt.

On September 5, 2003, Blaine began his 44-day endurance stunt sealed inside a transparent case suspended 30 feet in the air over Potters Fields Park on the south bank of the River Thames in London. The case, measuring 7ft by 7ft by 3ft, had a webcam installed so that viewers could observe his progress. During this period the magician reportedly received no food and only water.

As with his New York City stunt, Premature Burial, the vast majority of his London visitors were generally supportive, seeking little more than a wave from the magician. However, the stunt became the subject of much press and media attention, due to a raucous minority who were mischievous or outright hostile to Blaine's presence.

Newspapers reported that eggs, lemons, sausages, bacon, water bottles, beer cans, paint-filled balloons and golf balls had all been thrown at the box; a hamburger was flown round the box by radio-controlled model helicopter; one man was arrested for climbing the scaffolding supporting Blaine's box and attempting to cut the power and water supply to the box; and the magician was treated to numerous displays of bare bottoms and breasts.

"You've picked the wrong town to be hung in, Mr Blaine," wrote The Sunday Times. "What is clear from the start is that Londoners are not taking Blaine quite as seriously as he takes himself. ... Really, it makes you proud to be British."

A gaunt Blaine emerged on schedule on October 19, murmuring "I love you all!" and was quickly hospitalized. A subsequent letter in the New England Journal of Medicine, co-written by Blaine, described his nutritional recovery, revealing similar symptoms often exhibited by the malnourished who are being reintroduced to liquid and solid foods.

Blaine's brazen showmanship still has some people questioning whether he had indeed starved himself, or had been receiving liquid food from the tube supposedly used only for water.