World of Uri Geller, psychic and entertainer

Born in Israel, Uri Geller, 65, first performed in clubs in Tel Aviv in the late 1960s, bending spoons and making watches stop. By the early 1970s his performances, in which he claimed to be able to use powers of telepathy and psychokinesis, were attracting worldwide attention. He claims to have used his powers to stop Big Ben working, and to discover oil in the Gulf of Mexico, and he has worked as a psychic coach to Reading Football Club. He has undergone tests at the Stanford Research Institute in California, and other scientific institutions, with mixed results, and his abilities have been dismissed by sceptics. An interview, In Confidence with Uri Geller, is on Sky Arts on April 2 at 8pm. He has two children, Daniel, 30, and Natalie, 29, and lives with his wife, Hanna, in Sonning-on-Thames, Berkshire.