Ricky Jay

Ricky Jay
At the premiere of Redbelt, April 2008
Born	1948 (age 65–66) Brooklyn, New York
Other names	Richard Jay Potash
Occupation	Magician, actor, author
Known for	Sleight of Hand, Card Tricks, History of Magic
Spouse(s)	Chrisann Verges

Richard Jay Potash (born 1948), better known by the stage name Ricky Jay, is an American stage magician, actor, and writer. He is a sleight-of-hand expert and is notable for his card tricks, card throwing, memory feats, and stage patter.^[1] As an actor, he is known for his roles in the films Heist, Boogie Nights, and Magnolia, as well as on the acclaimed HBO series Deadwood.

Early life

Jay was born in Brooklyn, New York, to a middle class Jewish family.^[2][3] His grandfather, Max Katz, was a well-to-do certified public accountant and amateur magician who introduced Jay to the profession.^[4][5][6]

Career

In 1953, he made television debut on “Time For Pets,” making him at the time the youngest magician to appear on TV performing a full magic act.^[1]

Believed to be the first magician to ever play comedy clubs, he was also probably the first magician to open for a rock and roll band. At New York's The Electric Circus in the 1960s, he performed on a bill between Ike and Tina Turner, and Timothy Leary lecturing about acid.

At least three of his one-man shows, Ricky Jay and His 52 Assistants, Ricky Jay: On the Stem, and Ricky Jay: A Rogue's Gallery were directed by David Mamet, who has also cast Jay in a number of his films. Jay has appeared in productions by other directors, notably Paul Thomas Anderson's Boogie Nights, and Magnolia, as well as Christopher Nolan's The Prestige.

A collector and historian of note, he was a student and firm friend of the legendary Dai Vernon, who Jay states was "the greatest living contributor to the magical art." An avid collector of rare books (he has spent over five thousand dollars on single books alone) and manuscripts, art, and other artifacts connected to the history of magic, gambling, unusual entertainments, and frauds and confidence games, he is also opposed to any public revelations of the techniques of magic.^[1]

Jay joined the cast and crew of the HBO western drama Deadwood as a guest star and writer for the first season in 2004. The series was created by David Milch and focused on a growing town in the American West. Jay played card sharp Eddie Sawyer, a dealer in the Bella Union casino of ambitious newcomer Cy Tolliver. Jay wrote the episode "Jewel's Boot Is Made for Walking".^[7] He left the series at the end of the first season.

Jay is perhaps well known to the world for his role as Gupta, a henchman to villain Elliot Carver in the James Bond film Tomorrow Never Dies.

Until recently, Ricky Jay was listed in the Guinness Book of Records for throwing a playing card 190 ft at 90 miles per hour (140 km/h) (the current record is 216 feet (66 m) by Rick Smith, Jr.). Ricky Jay can throw a playing card into a watermelon rind (which he refers to as the "thick, pachydermatous outer melon layer" of "the most prodigious of household fruits") from ten paces. In addition, he is able to throw a card into the air like a boomerang and cut it cleanly in half with a pair of "giant scissors" upon its return. In his shows, he often throws playing cards at plastic animals in "self defense".

Consultant

As an expert on magic, gambling, con games and unusual entertainment, Jay has long been a go-to consultant on Hollywood projects, beginning with his work on Francis Ford Coppola's production of Caleb Deschanel's The Escape Artist.^[8] Other early work included teaching Robert Redford how to manipulate coins for The Natural, and working with Douglas Trumbull on his groundbreaking Showscan project, New Magic (1983).

In the early '90s, Jay and Michael Weber created a firm, Deceptive Practices, providing "Arcane Knowledge on a Need-to-Know Basis" to film, television and stage productions. By offering both vast historical expertise and creative invention, they have been able to provide surprisingly practical solutions to real production challenges. Among many accomplishments, they designed the wheelchair that "magically" hid Gary Sinise's legs in Forrest Gump, as well as the glass that "drinks itself" used by the gorilla in Congo. For the Broadway production of "Angels In America, part 2: Perestroika", they designed an illusion "in which a man climbs to the top of a ladder of light and vanishes in midair."^[9]

Other projects they have worked on include: The Prestige,^[10] The Illusionist, Sneakers, Leap of Faith, Wolf, The Parent Trap, I Love Trouble, The Great Buck Howard, Heartbreakers, and Oceans Thirteen.

Additionally, he has worked with libraries and museums on their collections, including the Mulholland Library of Conjuring and the Allied Arts and the Museum of Jurassic Technology in Culver City, CA.

Lectures and exhibitions

As a writer and speaker on subjects as varied as conjuring literature, con games, sense perception and unusual entertainments, Jay has authored numerous articles and has delivered many lecture/demonstrations. Among his presentations are:

• "Sleight and Shadow" at the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art. November 22, 2005.
• “Belknap Visitor in the Humanities” at Princeton University speaking on the relationship between magicians and mediums on November 21, 2005.
• "Doing Likewise: Imitation, Emulation, and Mimesis at the New York Institute of Humanities, hosted by Jonathan Miller.
• "Hocus Pocus in Perfection: Four Hundred Years of Conjuring and Conjuring Literature," the Harold Smith Memorial Lecture at Brown University.
• "Splendors of Decaying Celluloid" with Errol Morris, Rosamond Purcell and Bill Morrison at the New York Institute for the Humanities.
• "The Origins of the Confidence Game",for the conference of Police Against Confidence Crime.
• "Chirosophi: Sixteenth and Seventeenth Century Conjuring Literature," at the Henry E. Huntington Library in San Marino, California.
• "Fast and Loose: The Techniques and Literature of Cheating" at the William Andrew Clark Memorial Library, UCLA.
• "The Mystery of Fasting Impostors," and "The Avant Garde Art of Armless Calligraphers" at Amherst College.
• "Sense, Perception, & Nonsense" at the University of Rhode Island Festival of the Arts.
• "Illusion as Truth" at the International Design Conference in Aspen (keynote address).
• "Prose & Cons: The Early Literature of Cheating" at the New York Public Library (Pforzheimer Lecture Series) and the Chicago Humanities Festival.
• "Magic & Science" at the T.E.D. Conference in Monterey, California.

Jay has also lectured at Harvard University, USC, The Grolier Club, The Hammer Museum, The Getty Center, and Town Hall.

In 1999, he guest-curated an exhibit at the Harvard Theater Collection, entitled "The Imagery of Illusion: Nineteenth Century Magic and Deception."^[11]

Exhibitions of material from his collection have been mounted at The Hammer Museum,^[12] The Yerba Buena Center for the Arts,^[13] UC Davis,^[14] Christine Burgin Gallery,^[15] The Museum of Jurassic Technology,^[16] and UCLA's Clark Library.^[17]

Additionally, he has loaned material to : The Getty Center (for their exhibit "Devices of Wonder"^[18]), The Skirball Museum, The Huntington Library, and The Whitney Museum of Art.

Film

Jay is the subject of the feature documentary Deceptive Practice: The Mysteries and Mentors of Ricky Jay.

Credits

Television

• The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson (October 26, 1970)
• Saturday Night Live (1977)
• "The Ricky Jay Magic Show" - BBC special (1978)
• The Paul Daniels Magic Show (1985)
• Arsenio (1988)
• Learned Pigs and Fireproof Women – 1 hour special for American TV (1989)
• The Secret Cabaret (two series made by Open Media for Channel 4, UK)
• Ricky Jay and His 52 Assistants – 1 hour version of his Off-Broadway show, taped for HBO (1996)
• Hustlers, Hoaxsters, Pranksters, Jokesters and Ricky Jay (1996)
• "Richard Avedon: Darkness and Light," PBS American Masters (1996)
• The X-Files – "The Amazing Maleeni" (2000)
• MythBusters – Episode 20, "Exploding Jawbreaker, Static Cannon, Deadly Playing Cards." Ricky demonstrated card throwing, and the speed of his throws was clocked. (2003)
• Deadwood – Eddie Sawyer (2004), Season 1
• Tales From The Crypt (Unknown)
• The Unit (2007)
• Kidnapped (2007)
• Lie to Me (2009)
• FlashForward – Flosso (2010)
• "60 Minutes" - Interviewed by Morley Safer for segment, "Pigeon Fever"^[19] (2010).
• "The Simpsons" - plays himself in episode "The Great Simpsina" (2011)
• "Teen Titans Go!" - plays voice in Robin's head in episode "The Date" (2013)

Film

• House of Games (1987)
• Things Change (1988)
• Homicide (1991)
• Leap of Faith (1992) - Cons and Frauds Consultant
• The Ranger, the Cook and a Hole in the Sky (1995) (TV)
• The Spanish Prisoner (1997)
• Boogie Nights (1997)
• Tomorrow Never Dies (1997) - Henry Gupta
• Magnolia (1999)
• Mystery Men (1999)
• State and Main (2000)
• Heist (2001)
• Heartbreakers (2001)
• Incident at Loch Ness (2004)
• Last Days (2005)
• The Illusionist (2006)
• The Prestige (2006)
• Redbelt (2008)
• The Great Buck Howard (2008)
• The Brothers Bloom (2009)

Theater

• "A Midsummer Night’s Dream" (1982); produced by Joseph Papp for The New York Shakespeare Festival.
• "Ricky Jay & His 52 Assistants" (1994)
• "Ricky Jay: On The Stem" (2002)
• "Ricky Jay: A Rogue’s Gallery" (2009)

He also performed on the 2005 BBC Radio adaptation of David Mamet's "Faustus."^[20]

Books

When not performing, Ricky Jay collects rare books and artifacts. He is the author of several books:

• Cards as Weapons (1977), a book that has been referred to in the New Yorker as "...diverting and richly informative.".^[21] Its rarity and the card-throwing technique described in the book figured in an episode of Jonathan Creek, "The Three Gamblers." The book was also mentioned by author Ricky Jay on 20th episode of Mythbusters, when asked whether he had heard about the "Deadly Playing Cards" myth.
• Learned Pigs & Fireproof Women (1986)
• Many Mysteries Unraveled: Conjuring Literature in America 1786-1874 (1990)
• The Magic Magic Book (1994)
• Jay's Journal of Anomalies (2001)
• Dice: Deception, Fate, and Rotten Luck (with photographs by Rosamond Purcell. (2003)
• Extraordinary Exhibitions: The Wonderful Remains of an Enormous Head, The Whimsiphusicon & Death to the Savage Unitarians (2005) - a collection of 17th, 18th, and 19th-century broadsides^[22]
• 'Twixt Two Worlds or, The The Uninvited Guest: A Magician At The Seance (broadside catalogue) (2005)
• Ricky Jay Plays Poker (2006)
• Magic: 1400s-1950s (with Mike Caveney, Jim Steinmeyer, edited by Noel Daniel) (2009)
• Celebrations of Curious Characters (2010)

Music

Ricky Jay has contributed to several projects in the music world. Most notably the 2007 Sony release "Ricky Jay Plays Poker," a box set containing a CD of poker-related songs (by Bob Dylan, Robert Johnson, Townes Van Zandt, Patsy Cline, Lorne Greene, Howard Da Silva, O.V. Wright, and several others), a DVD featuring Ricky Jay discussing and performing notable feats of card table deception, and a box of Ricky Jay playing cards.

He performed on the 2 disc set of Hal Willner's Rogue's Gallery: Pirate Ballads, Sea Songs, and Chanteys, as well as its follow-up.

He appeared in the music video for Bob Dylan's "Tweedle Dee & Tweedle Dum,",^[23] from the album "Love and Theft". During the production of the video, a screwdriver reportedly fell from the rafters and lodged in Jay's hand.^[24]

He also appeared in the video for the Jerry Garcia/David Grisman single "The Thrill Is Gone," which is available on the DVD of the "Grateful Dawg" documentary.

References

External links

• Official website
• Ricky Jay Archive at the Magic Newswire website
• Ricky Jay at the Internet Movie Database
• San Francisco Chronicle review of "Extraordinary Exhibitions: Broadsides From the Collection of Ricky Jay" during 2005 exhibition
• "Secrets of Magus" 1993 New Yorker profile