Saturday, February 10, 2007

Is this guy cool or what? - Ricky Jay


Ricky Jay is a man who has long been a source of fascination for me. Maybe it's because I watched him in countless bit parts through the years in movies like The Spanish Prisoner and Boogie Nights, thinking he was just another grizzled character actor without being aware of his reputation as one of the greatest conjuring and sleight-of-hand artists of the past century. Born in Brooklyn in 1948 or thereabouts (an exact date is hard to come by since he is notoriously guarded about his childhood), Jay first performed magic on television aged 7, and by age 14, under the alias "Tricky Ricky", he was being touted as America's youngest magician. Thereafter followed a spell at a number of different colleges after leaving home, without ever graduating, and several years spent honing his craft, including two appearances on the Tonight Show and a number of gigs as the opening act for bands such as the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band. His ability to manipulate a deck of cards is legendary; By 1976 he had entered the Guiness Book of Records after throwing a playing card 190 feet at 90 miles an hour and he could pierce the inside of a watermelon (which he calls the "thick, pachydermatous outer melon layer") from across a room, as detailed in his rare 1977 book "Cards as Weapons". In an anecdote relayed by Mark Singer in his brilliant New Yorker piece from the mid 90's, Deborah Barton, a screenwriter from Los Angeles where Jay lives, invited him to a New Year's party at her home with a dozen or so other people. After midnight everyone gathered around a living room table to watch Jay perform some close-up card magic at Barton's request and after several dazzling illusions Jay seemed ready to call it a night when one of the other guests, a man named Mort had the temerity to say "Hey Ricky, why don't you do something truly amazing?" Barton recalled that at that moment Ricky gave Mort a look as if to say "Mort, you have just fucked with the wrong guy". Jay then told Mort to pick a card, any card. "The three of hearts" said Mort. After shuffling, Jay then gripped the deck in the palm of his right hand and sprung it, cascading all fifty-two cards so that they travelled the length of the table and pelted an open wine bottle. "O.K., Mort, what was your card again?",Ricky asked. "The three of hearts". "Look inside the wine bottle". Mort discovered curled up inside the neck, the three of hearts. Needless to say the party broke up immediately. Indeed, Jay's magic has often confounded even other magicians, who although occasionally labelling him an elitist, have compared him favourably with Houdini and it's refreshing to see a magician with an air of mystery who aspires to create a genuine sense of wonder, especially when compared to celebrity "magicians" like David Blaine (yawn) and David Copperfield. In his thirty-odd years in the business, Jay has gained a lot of famous friends including playwright and filmmaker David Mamet who in addition to casting Jay in many of his films including House of Games and Heist, has also directed two of the conjurer's stage productions, "On the Stem" and "Ricky Jay and his 52 Assistants" (the 52 assistants in questions being his deck of cards) which was also the subject of a HBO special. Mamet, with his long-standing interest in con-men and the art of deception seems to have something of a kindred spirit in Jay, has referred to him on more than one occasion as "my hero", and has often sought his advice when writing a new screenplay. He's not the only one; Jay's consultancy firm Deceptive Practices, which he set up with Michael Weber, has provided "arcane knowledge on a need to know basis" on movies as diverse as "Leap of Faith", "The Prestige", "The Illusionist" and "Forrest Gump" where they advised Robert Zemeckis on the best way to conceal Gary Sinise's legs when he was playing the amputee Lieutenant Dan. Oh, and by the way, when they say "need to know" that's exactly what they mean; actor Hugh Jackman revealed in an interview recently that when he worked with him on "The Prestige", Jay refused to teach him any tricks, even minor ones, such is his seriousness about his craft, which he considers the oldest of all the arts after music. Jay is a noted scholar on the history of conjuring and the bizarre and has written several books on the subject including "Learned Pigs and Fireproof Women" and "Jay's Journal of Anomalies" where he reveals tales of 18th century oddities such as human levitators, dentist magicians, circus fleas who were trained to pull miniscule chariots and Monetto the time-telling dog! Jay's live appearances are rare although he did recently perform in the Geffen Theatre in Los Angeles, reviving his "52 Assistants" show for the first time in over a decade, and it's quite disappointing living in Ireland as I do that I will most likely never get a chance to see this great man perform magic in person. As the pundit Charles Krauthammer once wrote: "some people can tell their grandchildren that they saw Muhammed Ali box, you'll be able to tell yours that you saw Ricky Jay deal".

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