Almost all of the illusionists I see or know became illusionists at a fairly young age. Do you know of any particularly successful magicians/illusionists who didn't take up magic or begin performing illusions until their fifties or later?

Kozak started pretty late, but not fifties.

While Kristen and I are not at the level where we want to be yet...we have had certain levels of success. We both started much later in life...but like Swann said about Kozak, not in our 50's either. We did our first stage show eight years ago. I was 32 at the time.

Kevin

I remember seeing him on Comic Strip Live on Fox, in the early 90s, so he's been around awhile.

Kozak was playing the Comedy Club here in Birmingham in the 80's. At that point he had already won 1st place in the IBM close-up.

Robert Houdin's first stage performance wasn't until he was nearly 40, and he's considered to be the Father of Modern Magic.