Sleight of Hand

Background:

Noted stage magician and actor Ricky Jay, who was introduced to card tricks and made his first appearance on stage at age 4, is considered one of the most knowledgeable and skilled sleight-of-hand experts in America. He is listed in the Guinness Book of World Records for throwing a playing card a hundred and ninety feet at ninety miles an hour. From ten paces he can throw a playing card into the flesh of a watermelon.

After meeting author, essayist, playwright, screenwriter and film director David Mamet in the mid 1980s, he was frequently cast in Mamet's movies, including "House of Games" (1987), "Things Change" (1988), "Homicide" (1991), "The Spanish Prisoner" (1997), "State and Main" (2000), "Heist" (2001) and "Redbelt" (2008). The award-winning actor also starred in the films "Boogie Nights" (1997), "Hacks" (1997), "Magnolia" (1999), "Heartbreakers" (2001), "Incident at Loch Ness" (2004), "Last Days" (2005), "The Prestige" (2006) and "The Great Buck Howard" (2008). Additionally, Jay wrote, produced and starred in the one-man stage show "Ricky Jay and His 52 Assistants" (January 1994-May 1994), which was directed off-Broadway by Mamet and won an Obie Award for Special Citation. The show would later appear in HBO's special in 1996 and in a London production in 1999.

Jay, who continues to expand his encyclopedic knowledge of history's weirdest incidents, also served as curator of the Mulholland Library of Conjuring and Allied Arts in Century City, California. He is also an author and has written the books “Extraordinary Exhibitions: The Wonderful Remains of an Enormous Head, The Whimsiphusicon & Death to the Savage Unitarians,” “Learned Pigs & Fireproof Women,” “Extraordinary Exhibitions,” “Dice: Deception, Fate & Rotten Luck,” “Jay's Journal of Anomalies,” “Ricky Jay Plays Poker” and “Cards as Weapons.”

Artifact Collector

Childhood and Family:

Grandson of Max Katz, a well-to-do certified public accountant and an accomplished amateur magician, Richard Jay Potash was born in Brooklyn, New York, to a middle class Jewish family. He spent most of his childhood in New Jersey and graduated from Cornell University.

Jay is currently married to Chrisann Verges. When not performing, he collects rare books and artifacts.

Ricky Jay and His 52 Assistants

Career:

At the age of four, Ricky Jay was introduced to card tricks by his amateur magician grandfather. He soon made his first appearance on-stage at the Society of American Magicians. After graduating from Cornell University, he worked as a barker and sideshow performer with a traveling circus.

In the 1970s, Jay brought his sideshow act to night spots and theaters, where he performed tricks and stunts, and was in opening shows for such performers as Tina Turner, Emmylou Harris, and the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band.

The next decade saw Jay in the CBS variety special "Like Magic" (1981). He was then cast as Philostrate in the N.Y. Shakespeare Festival production of "A Midsummer Night's Dream" (1982) in Central Park, and in its TV movie version that same year. He was also spotted as a guest in an episode of CBS’ detective series starring Gerald McRaney and Jameson Parker, "Simon & Simon."

Ricky served as a technical advisor for director Caleb Deschanel's film adaptation of David Wagoner's book, "The Escape Artist" (1982) and as the magic advisor for Douglas Trumbull's 23-minute short film "New Magic" (1983). He also served as curator of the Mulholland Library of Conjuring and Allied Arts in Century City, California.

In the mid 1980s, Jay met author, essayist, playwright, screenwriter and film director David Mamet and lectured to his acting class. He went on to serve as an advisor on Mamet's four-act play "The Shawl.” The play that was directed by Gregory Mosher starred Mike Nussbaum, Lindsay Crouse, and Gary Cole.

Jay subsequently made his feature acting debut as a sleazy Las Vegas con man in Mamet's motion picture directorial debut, the mystery "House of Games" (1987; with Lindsay Crouse, Joe Mantegna, and J.T. Walsh), in which he also served as a consultant for games. The following year, he teamed up again with Mamet for a role in the dramatic film "Things Change" (1988; starring Joe Mantegna and Don Ameche).

Entering the 1990s, Jay produced and hosted the CBS special "Learned Pigs and Fireproof Women" (1990), which was based on his 1986 book of the same title. He then acted in the pilot episode of the ABC legal drama series "Civil Wars" and worked with Mamet again for the thriller "Homicide" (1991).

In 1992, Jay portrayed an investor in the TNT production of the Mamet play set in the 1930s, "The Water Engine" (1992; starring William H. Macy, Charles Durning and Joe Mantegna), and appeared alongside Cheech Marin, John Rhys-Davies, Corbin Bernsen and David Hasselhoff in the made-for-television movie "Ring of the Musketeers." That same year, he served as the sleight of hand consultant for Phil Alden Robinson's caper film "Sneakers" (featuring Robert Redford, Dan Aykroyd, Ben Kingsley, River Phoenix, Sidney Poitier, David Strathair, and James Earl Jones) and as the cons and frauds consultant for Richard Pearce's film starring Steve Martin, "Leap of Faith."

Jay next designed the illusion wheelchair for Robert Zemeckis' Academy Award-winning drama film based on the 1986 novel by Winston Groom, "Forrest Gump" (1994; starring Tom Hanks) and was the technical consultant on Charles Shyer's romantic comedy film starring Nick Nolte and Julia Roberts, "I Love Trouble" (1994) and Frank Marshall's film version of Michael Crichton's 1980 novel, "Congo" (1995), in which he also provided the martini illusion. Jay also wrote, produced and starred in the one-man stage show, "Ricky Jay and His 52 Assistants" (January 1994-May 1994), which was directed off-Broadway by Mamet and won an Obie Award for Special Citation. He would later appear in HBO's special presentation of his solo stage show in 1996.

Jay co-starred with Sam Elliott and Jerry O'Connell in the Western TV movie "The Ranger, the Cook and a Hole in the Sky" in 1995. He returned to acting on the big screen in 1997 in the films "The Spanish Prisoner," Mamet's suspense film in which he portrayed George Lang opposite Campbell Scott, Steve Martin, Rebecca Pidgeon and Ben Gazzara. He was also cast in "Boogie Nights," Paul Thomas Anderson's period drama in which he played seen-it-all porn cameraman Kurt Longjohn. The latter film won him a Florida Film Critics Circle (FFCC) award for Best Ensemble Cast and earned him a Screen Actors Guild Award nomination for Outstanding Performance by a Cast. Also in 1997, Jay supported Stephen Rea in writer/director Gary Rosen's independent satire "Hacks" and acted in the part of computer expert Henry Gupta in the eighteenth spy film in the James Bond series, "Tomorrow Never Dies," starring Pierce Brosnan. He also hosted the A&E special "The Story of Magic."

“I suppose that if I could only do one thing, a solid card effect would be pretty high on the list. That's the root of it all, sleight-of-hand. It's certainly the thing I feel most comfortable with. But to be honest, I love the diversity of what I do. I think that for years, it kind of worked against me, and for the first time in my life, it seems to be working for me. In other words, I wouldn't want to try to make a living as an actor. I think actors... I give them a lot of credit for what they go through, but putting myself on the line like that would make me crazy. Maybe if I were 20, I would think about it. So I'm pretty fortunate that I'm in the films I'm in largely because the directors have asked me to be in them. I'd love to do more of them, but the writing and historical stuff I'll probably always do. I like mixing it up. I'm the guest curator of an exhibition of magic prints at Harvard that will open in November. I mean, it's all over the place now. I was doing this show, ‘The Ed Sullivan Show Virtual Ed,’ with Portuguese hand balancers and Chinese acrobats. It was just great. Just walking through the halls, there are guys tap-dancing and balancing as you're going through. It's really fun.” Ricky Jay (on which one is the most satisfying, being a writer, historian, actor, or performer)

Jay spent the rest of the 1990s appearing on UPN's "The Virtual Ed Sullivan Show" (1998) and in the London production of his one-man show "Ricky Jay and His 52 Assistants" (1999). He also portrayed Vic Weems, the agent of Greg Kinnear's Captain Amazing, in the comedy film directed by TV commercial director Kinka Usher, "Mystery Men" (1999; featuring Ben Stiller, Hank Azaria and William H. Macy), and teamed up again with Anderson for his successful drama, "Magnolia" (1999; starring Tom Cruise), in which he portrayed Burt Ramsey and the narrator.

Hitting the new millennium, Jay made a memorable guest appearance as an illusionist on Fox's Peabody, Golden Globe and Emmy Award-winning science fiction television series starring David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson, "The X-Files," and won Florida Film Critics Circle (FFCC), Online Film Critics Society (OFCS), and National Board of Review (NBR) awards for Best Ensemble Cast for his work in Mamet's film "State and Main," alongside Philip Seymour Hoffman and Rebecca Pidgeon.

In the following year, Jay co-starred as professional thief Don 'Pinky' Pincus, opposite Gene Hackman, Danny DeVito, Delroy Lindo and Sam Rockwell, in Mamet's crime thriller film "Heist" (2001) and was cast alongside Sigourney Weaver, Jennifer Love Hewitt, Ray Liotta, Jason Lee, and Hackman in David Mirkin's caper-romantic comedy film, "Heartbreakers" (2001), in which he also served as con games technical consultant.

From May 2002 to October 2002, Jay starred in the one-man show "Ricky Jay: On the Stem," which was directed by David Mamet at the Second Stage Theatre, in New York City, and was nominated for a Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Solo Performance. Two years later, he teamed up with Jeff Goldblum in Zak Penn's movie about the myth of the Loch Ness monster, "Incident at Loch Ness" (2004). He also played Eddie Sawyer (2004) on HBO's television series "Deadwood.” He was then seen in Gus Van Sant's musical drama "Last Days" (2005) and portrayed Milton the Magician in Christopher Nolan's period film adapted from Christopher Priest's 1995 World Fantasy Award-winning novel, "The Prestige" (2006; starring Hugh Jackman, Christian Bale, Michael Caine and Scarlett Johansson), in which he also served as magic technical advisor.

From 2006 to 2007, Jay played the supporting role of Roger Prince on the short-lived NBC drama series "Kidnapped," and Agent Kern in multiple 2007 episodes of Mamet's action-drama television series on CBS, "The Unit." Meanwhile, he also served as magic technical advisor to Neil Burger's period drama film loosely based on Steven Millhauser's story "Eisenheim the Illusionist," "The Illusionist" (2006; starring Edward Norton, Paul Giamatti and Jessica Biel), and was consultant to Steven Soderbergh's hit "Ocean's Thirteen" (2007; starring George Clooney, Brad Pitt and Matt Damon).

Recently, in 2008, Jay was featured with Colin Hanks and John Malkovich in Sean McGinly's Sundance-premiered "The Great Buck Howard" and with Chiwetel Ejiofor and Tim Allen in Mamet's martial arts film, "Redbelt."

Jay is listed in the Guinness Book of World Records for throwing a playing card a hundred and ninety feet at ninety miles an hour. From ten paces, he can throw a playing card into the flesh of a watermelon. Also an author, Jay has written the books “Extraordinary Exhibitions: The Wonderful Remains of an Enormous Head, The Whimsiphusicon & Death to the Savage Unitarians,” “Learned Pigs & Fireproof Women,” “Extraordinary Exhibitions,” “Dice: Deception, Fate & Rotten Luck,” “Jay's Journal of Anomalies,” “Ricky Jay Plays Poker” and “Cards as Weapons.”

Awards:

• Florida Film Critics Circle (FFCC): Best Ensemble Cast, "State and Main," 2001

• Online Film Critics Society (OFCS): Best Ensemble Cast Performance, "State and Main," 2001

• National Board of Review (NBR): Best Acting by an Ensemble, "State and Main," 2000

• Florida Film Critics Circle (FFCC): Best Ensemble Cast, "Magnolia," 2000

• Florida Film Critics Circle (FFCC): Best Ensemble Cast, "Boogie Nights," 1998

• Obie: Special Citation, "Ricky Jay and His 52 Assistants," 1994