Sunday , June 11 2023

Ricky Jay, the sleight magician & # 39; hands challenging logic or physics, dies at & # 39; 72



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While the others breathed magic fire, the sawed women in half or whole buildings disappear done, Ricky Jay exceptional work carried out using little more than his finger pads. They were, strictly, nothing more than tricks or illusions, Sleights & # 39; hands performed by master magician.

But for those who saw Mr Jay closely, turning on row & # 39; red playing cards & # 39; Bee to reveal unexpected hand, or ħarbuhom around the room like a wild projectile, his magic tricks were nothing less than works & # 39; art, scratching head, vowed that led to achievements made him "perhaps the artist & # 39; hands more b & # 39; alive talents ", as journalist Mark Singer wrote in an article & # 39; 1993 for the New Yorker.

Mr Jay, who was also an actor, film consultant and recognized expert & # 39; & # 39 great; confidence and exotic entertainers, was & # 39; 72 years when he died 25 & # 39; November at his home in & # 39; Los Angeles. His manager, Winston Simone, said the precise cause was not immediately known.

Figure & # 39; heavyset which was playing dark clothing and short gray sadness, Mr. Jay followed his counselor Dai Vernon, Canadian magician known as the Professor, in the treatment of & # 39; deck & # 39; paper as a living person, to be carried by gravity and treated & # 39; sensitivity.

However, he was also capable of nullifying the air like a boomerang card, then cut & # 39; b & # 39; scissors and returned to his hands. F & # 39; some shows, he impaled watermelon rind – he dubbed the "thick outer layer pachydermatous melon" – a waste paper b & # 39; speeds approaching 90 miles per hour.

Raised in New York City, Mr. Jay began to bring magic tricks at the age of & # 39; 4 years, and continued to manage its act on exhibitions & # 39; TV variety and tours with & # 39; musicians such as Ike and Tina Turner. Early celebrated by fellow magicians, he began reaching an international audience from the early nineties, received a special citation of OBIE Award for "Ricky Jay and 52 His assistant", issued out of Broadway in 1994 and later became in -Ingilterra and Australia.


Ricky Jay in 2012. (Jamie McCarthy / Getty Images)

Originally directed by his friend David Mamet, the exhibition & # 39; man showed patter of relentless comic by Mr. Jay, inviting audience members on the scale by carrying out tricks with & # 39; playing cards, ball and cup and a menagerie & # 39; windup toys.

"Instead of magażina & # 39; magician, he wears authoritative and invisible mantle & # 39; accumulated traditions", wrote researcher & # 39; New York Times Ben Brantley. Mr Jay, he added, "was also in the house was tells Ballad & # 39; broadsheet melodrammatiku about shark and his son, translation & # 39; poem by François Villon about how the money played disappear and the disappearance of contemporary artist. "

His work was informed by & # 39; & # 39 thorough knowledge; "cheating in all its forms", as Mr Jay once put it. Collector & # 39; dice decaying, faded advertisements for circus artists and magic books that dated to the 16th century, he probably knew "more about the history & # 39; American conception of others", said Marcus McCorison, former president of the American Society Antikristika. the New Yorker.

While Mr. Jay was loathe to reveal the secret to his tricks, he was hired to create deception cinematic for movies like "The Escape Artist" (1982) and "The Natural" (1984), which was taught Robert Redford coin and pull the ear & # 39; someone.

With his friend Michael Weber, a fellow magician, he formed the company & # 39; Practical advice Deceptive, offered "arcane knowledge on a & # 39; need to know" and mapped out the wheelchair to character & # 39; Gary Sinise in & # 39; Forget Gump (1994), a military veteran and double amputee.

"Since Gary did not want to actually had his legs amputated to film, had talk with us," Mr. Jay explained to the Los Angeles Times.

He also runs as an actor, appearing as cardharp in the first season of HBO Western "Deadwood", as a villain in the film & # 39; James Bond "Tomorrow Never bored" and as a cameraman in "Boogie Nights", director Paul Thomas Anderson's 1997 epic about the pornographic industry & # 39; California. And it seemed at & # 39; "Heist" (2001) and other films led by Mamet, winner of the Pulitzer Prize drammaturu said that a clear common interest in fraudsters and cons.

But he was most at home performed its casualties live, before small audiences in theaters or in stupżi & # 39; private parties. Once, while he was showing event & # 39; New Year & # 39; s Eve in & # 39; Los Angeles, Mr. Jay was asked by a guest called moved to "do something really amazing", according to the profile a & # 39; Singer in the New Yorker.

Mr. Jay talablu to mention paper, and moved settling on three of hearts.

"After the search," Singer wrote, "Jay picked up the deck in the palm of his right mfaċċjatha, drop 52 paper circulated to the length of the table and said open wine bottle." Having asked to moved his card again another & # 39;, Mr. Jay instructed invited to "look inside the bottle."

"Mort found, we have moved into the neck, the hearts of" three, Singer continued. "The party broke up immediately."

Richard Jay Potash born in Brooklyn 26 & # 39; June, 1946, and watch the details of his early life as fiercely & # 39; as the secrets of his tricks. He said a New Yorker whose family moved from Brooklyn to the suburbs & # 39; New Jersey as a child, and recalled that his father used Brylcreem on his hair and on his teeth Colgate.

"Once, when I was 10 years, bidilt tubes," said Mr. Jay. "All you need to know about my father is that having brushed your teeth with & # 39; Brylcreem he put toothpaste in his hair."

As a child artist, he found early support from its Max Katz surname, who served as president of the Society & # 39; American Magicians and introduced to key illusionists like Tony Slydini, Francis Carlyle and his adviser, Vernon. He left home when he was fifteen years old, who ran with family & # 39; friend, and studied at schools including the University & # 39; Cornell before stopped working full time.

Mr. Jay wrote several books – including "Cards As Weapon" (1977) and "Learned Pigs & Fireproof Women" (1986), history & # 39; unusual entertainers – and many articles on magic history and magic.

The survivors include his wife, Chrisann Verges, producer & # 39; film and television.

While Mr Jay heritage seemed well in recent years – has been the subject of & # 39; 2012 document, "Deceptive Practice" – said sometimes beat to convince people that his tricks were those & # 39; artist, little different from work & # 39; theater actor or musician in the symphony.

"I understand more easily in & # 39; Elizabetenji times', he told People magazine in 1987. "All my life I was on the margins & # 39; this world and have been seen as something eccentric. I am eccentric. It seems that people are now ready to supply label & # 39; respectability me. This is not displeasing. It's pretty gratuity. But it made me no less eccentric. "

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