Magician Ricky Jay – Final Disappearing Act
Source: thedailybeast.com
Published Nov. 24, 2018 10:08PM ET
Magician Ricky Jay – Final Disappearing Act. The master magician, actor and raconteur—died Saturday in Los Angeles at the age of 70.
Ricky Jay was a legendary American stage magician, actor, and author, widely considered one of the greatest sleight-of-hand artists of modern times. Dubbed “perhaps the most gifted sleight-of-hand artist alive” by The New Yorker in 1993, he completely reshaped the landscape of close-up magic. Rather than chasing mainstream flash, he combined phenomenal card manipulation with dense historical storytelling and a dry, witty stage presence.
Master of Sleight of Hand & Card Scaling
- Card Throwing: He once held the
Guinness World Record for throwing a playing card 190 feet at 90 miles per hour. - The Watermelon Stunt: He could famously hurl a standard playing card from 10 paces away with enough force to cleanly pierce a thick watermelon rind.
- Mental Feats: Jay often demonstrated immense cognitive capability, once performing complex mental math and reciting William Shakespeare while playing simultaneous games of chess.
- “52 Assistants”: His historic 1994 off-Broadway one-man show, Ricky Jay and His 52 Assistants (directed by frequent collaborator David Mamet), remains a golden standard for intimate, narrative-driven card magic.
Discover many 52 assistant Card Magic effects in our Magic Trip Shop and start your sleight of hand journey!
Tributes
“He was one of a kind. We will never see the likes of him again,” his manager, Winston Simone, told Variety.
Fans and friends took to social media to remember Jay, whose screen credits included roles in “Boogie Nights,” “House of Games,” “Tomorrow Never Dies,” and “Deadwood.”
They told stories of being inspired to get into magic by reading his books or watching his sleight of hand on television, recalled the mesmerizing spectacle of his live shows, and urged the uninitiated to read this seminal New Yorker profile of him.
The tributes came from luminaries like Neil Patrick Harris:
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