Jonathan and Charlotte Pendragon were an award-winning husband-and-wife team of American illusionists who called their work "physical grand illusion". They are widely known thanks to numerous national and international television appearances.The couple met at the University of California, Irvine, where Jonathan was studying theatre and Charlotte was studying dance under choreographers Eugene Loring and George Balanchine. They married soon after. Charlotte (born Charlotte Ann Brown) is a dancer and former gymnast and body builder. Jonathan (born Claude Douglas Yarbrough) was a gymnast, spring board diver, martial arts expert and fencer. He used his athletic skills in a career as a Hollywood stuntman, performing the back hand springs for John Belushi down the church aisle in The Blues Brothers. He became Belushi's stunt double and friend, coordinating stunts and second directing in the movie Continental Divide.
Jonathan and Charlotte's athletic skills allowed the pair to develop a distinctive and graceful take on classic illusions such as levitation. Their shows included a number of illusions with which they became particularly associated, including Interlude, in which a woman crawls through a man's chest. They were the first artists to perform this trick. They are noted for their version of Metamorphosis. This illusion won them a place in the 50th edition of The Guinness Book of Records, under the heading of the "Fastest Transformation Illusion". Another illusion was Clearly Impossible, a sawing in half trick designed by Jonathan. Its distinctive feature is a transparent box that allowed the audience to see Charlotte from head to toe throughout the trick.
In 1996, for the finale of the third of NBC's World's Greatest Magic television specials, the duo made 25 show girls vanish and then re-appear in front of a live audience at Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas.
Until July 2009 the couple resided in San Luis Obispo County, California. On 8 July 2009 Jonathan/Claude was arrested for various alleged assault and firearms offences and placed in detention pending trial (see below). Charlotte has subsequently appeared as a solo magic act. She also has a new official website of her own (although, as of the time of writing, the couple's joint site was still live). Jonathan recently premiered his one-man show Metaphysics, an amalgam of mentalism and magic, at the Peller Theater in the Magic Castle, as well as theaters in Daytona and Orlando, Florida.
