A self-professed psychic medium, James Van Praagh made a name for himself by publicly declaring his own ability to converse with the dead and then parlaying that into a lucrative show-business career. A native of Bayside, NY, Van Praagh grew up Catholic, served as an altar boy, and attended seminary, but a fixation with death lingered from an early age and he soon found himself increasingly drawn to psychic and metaphysical phenomena. (He later recalled that these fascinations commenced at an early age, when he prayed to God for divine revelation and witnessed a radiant hand extending itself through the ceiling.) After relocating to Los Angeles, CA, Van Praagh began doing "readings" from the "other side" and using messages from dead loved ones to bring peace and reassurance to the living.
Van Praagh's foray into Hollywood began when he teamed up with Preston Fischer and John Pielmeier in 2002 to co-produce a CBS network telemovie adapted from his own autobiographical memoir. Entitled Talking to Heaven (like the book on which it was based), it starred Ted Danson as Van Praagh and Danson's off-camera wife, Mary Steenburgen, as a detective whom he helps solve a string of murders. At about the same time, Van Praagh himself stepped before the cameras to host the unexplained phenomena series Beyond with James Van Praagh (2002). Van Praagh found his largest audience, however, when he co-produced the prime-time supernatural drama Ghost Whisperer, starring Jennifer Love Hewitt and loosely based on his exploits.
