Ricky Jay
Ricky Jay
Richard Jay Potash, known professionally as Ricky Jay, is an American stage magician, actor, and writer. In a profile for the New Yorker, Mark Singer called Jay "perhaps the most gifted sleight of hand artist alive". In addition to sleight of hand, Jay is known for his card tricks, card throwing, memory feats, and stage patter. He has also written extensively on magic and its history. He has acted in the films The Prestige, The Spanish Prisoner, Heist, Boogie Nights,...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionTV Actor
Date of Birth1 January 1948
CityBrooklyn, NY
CountryUnited States of America
Ricky Jay quotes about
In the winters, I enrolled in the hotel management program at Cornell University. I naively thought that I knew something about sleight-of-hand, entertainment and food, and that would be all I needed.
I never talk much about my family, but my grandfather was friendly with these guys, with magicians and ventriloquists on the highest levels, and I was just interested.
I know absolutely nothing about the 20th Century.
My father was the Formica King of Long Island, and my mother was the daughter of a Bengal Lancer in India.
I certainly was performing before my writing was published, because I was performing when I was very young. And the thing is I'm very comfortable on stage, so a large portion of my act did come from ad-libs.
If it sounds too good to be true, it always is.
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.
Not only do I lie, I take real pleasure in lying, in the transmission of magic effects.
Every acting gig isn't the same, every writing job isn't the same, every live performance isn't the same - the challenge is the level of difficulty or ease, and that may vary.
The book says we may be through with the past but the past ain't through with us.
For me, the most exciting thing is to create good magic that's entertaining for an audience, and it would be lovely if a magician was fooled as well.
The pain is bad magicians ripping off good ones, doing magic badly, and making a mockery of the art.