David Blaine Begins Life In A Cage

Illusionist David Blaine embarked on his most daring stunt - 44 days of starvation and solitary confinement in a glass box hung from a crane.

Suspended for more than six weeks in a plexi-glass cage beside London's River Thames, the "modern-day Houdini" says he will eat no food and have one tube for water and another for urinating.

Blaine also has a quilt, a pillow, a journal, a change of clothes and a photo of his mother.

Blaine is already becoming a tourist attraction, as many find him "another one of the sights to see," says CBS News Reporter Larry Miller.

Some onlookers came to offer their support and hope Blaine will endure the full length of his latest stunt. Others are questioning his sanity and wondering about the health risks the feat could pose.

The American escapologist, who has buried himself alive in a glass coffin, been encased in a giant block of ice and thrown himself off a 10-storey pillar onto cardboard boxes, believes this is the most dangerous feat he has ever attempted.

Before stepping into his glass box before hundreds of rain-soaked fans, the 30-year-old New Yorker said: "The first three weeks of this I am pretty sure I can handle. It is the last three that are going to be insane.

"When your body really depletes everything, when you rip through all your fat stores and muscle tissue that you need, you begin to get hungry again," he said at the site beside London's historic Tower Bridge.

It is his first major stunt outside the United States.