Richard Jay Potash, known professionally as Ricky Jay, was an American stage magician, actor and writer.
20 Facts About Ricky Jay
2.
Ricky Jay's acting credits included the films The Prestige, The Spanish Prisoner, The Ranger, the Cook and a Hole in the Sky, Mystery Men, Heist, Boogie Nights, Tomorrow Never Dies, State and Main, House of Games and Magnolia, and the HBO series Deadwood.
3.
Ricky Jay was born in the New York City borough of Brooklyn to Shirley and Samuel Potash.
4.
Ricky Jay rarely spoke publicly about his parents, but did share an anecdote: "My father oiled his hair with Brylcreem and brushed his teeth with Colgate," Jay recalled.
5.
Ricky Jay's grandfather, Max Katz, was a certified public accountant and amateur magician who introduced Ricky Jay to magic.
6.
Ricky Jay first performed in public at the age of seven, in 1953, when he appeared on the television program Time For Pets.
7.
Ricky Jay is most likely the youngest magician to perform a full magic act on TV, the first magician to ever play comedy clubs, and probably the first magician to open for a rock and roll band.
8.
Ricky Jay quickly developed a following among magic aficionados, and a reputation for sleight-of-hand feats that baffled even his colleagues.
9.
Some years ago, late one night in the bar of the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Chicago, [Ricky Jay] was performing magic with a deck of cards.
10.
Ricky Jay then assembled the deck face down, shuffled, cut it into two piles, and asked Nogulich to point to one of the piles and name his card.
11.
Ricky Jay opposed any public revelations of the techniques of magic.
12.
Ricky Jay could throw a playing card into a watermelon rind from ten paces.
13.
Ricky Jay appeared in a number of David Mamet films including House of Games, The Spanish Prisoner and Redbelt; he appeared in a few episodes of the Mamet-produced TV series The Unit as a CIA recruiter.
14.
Ricky Jay played Henry Gupta, a henchman to villain Elliot Carver, in the James Bond film Tomorrow Never Dies; and appeared in Paul Thomas Anderson's Boogie Nights and Magnolia, as well as Christopher Nolan's The Prestige.
15.
Ricky Jay joined the cast of the HBO western drama Deadwood as a recurring character and writer for the first season in 2004, playing card shark Eddie Sawyer.
16.
Ricky Jay wrote the episode "Jewel's Boot Is Made for Walking" and left the series at the end of the first season.
17.
Ricky Jay authored numerous articles and delivered many lectures and demonstrations on such subjects as conjuring literature, con games, sense perception, and unusual entertainments.
18.
Later press coverage reported that Ricky Jay died of natural causes.
19.
Ricky Jay performed on the 2005 BBC Radio adaptation of David Mamet's Faustus.
20.
Ricky Jay appeared in the video for the Jerry Garcia and David Grisman single "The Thrill Is Gone," which is available on the DVD of the Grateful Dawg documentary.