The Superior Man: Magician Ricky Jay

When I had heard that magician Ricky Jay died in 2018, I had to sit down to take that news in. No, I didn’t know Jay. But I had seen him on stage and I had followed his career for years. He was 72 when he died, not that old. I expected him to live as long as his mentor Dai Vernon, who died at 98.

While he lived, Jay had been called the greatest sleight-of-hand artist in the world. I saw his stage show twice, and to witness someone who was the greatest living anything is an exceptional experience.

Ricky Jay in an episode of The Secret Cabaret.

It is daunting to write about Ricky Jay, because so much has been written about him already. Google him and you will have your pick of articles. Also, obituaries by the major news outlets and appreciations by his colleagues and friends. However, none are as thorough as the New Yorker profile written by Mark Singer in 1993 called the Secrets of the Magus, which runs about 15,000 words. That’s the length of a novella.

Click here and you can read it (at least read the first anecdote). I read the full article at least once a year. It’s extremely inspiring.

I thought that everyone knew who Ricky Jay was until I recently spoke to someone who had never heard of him. I was a “professional” kid magician when I was 12 and I still can do a couple of things reasonably well. I’ve also read a fair amount of books on the history of magic. I’m reading one now called Hiding the Elephant. So maybe being a magic enthusiast just put Ricky Jay in the front and center for me.

Burt Reynold and Jay in Boogie Nights, 1997.

Ricky Jay was not known chiefly as an actor, but he had over forty acting credits including HBO’s Deadwood, Boogie Nights, a Bond villain in Tomorrow Never Dies, and many movies directed by his friend David Mamet, including House of Games.

Jay in David Mamet’s House of Games in 1987.

A scholar of magic rivaled by almost no one, Jay wrote eleven books, but none were on magic. Most were a celebration of unusual acts. Even so, the depth of his knowledge on magic was encyclopedic, and he owned one of the greatest magic libraries in the world.

Magic is a very particular theatrical art form as Jay himself pointed out: It is by and large not a collaborative art. “Its stars are not troupes or casts or companies, but individuals.”

Although his work as a scholar is fascinating, I am not going to talk about that.

People who knew Ricky Jay say that he would practice a trick for years before showing anyone. This might be standard procedure for someone at that level of expertise. But it was certainly true of him.

I saw Jay in his hourlong performance entitled Ricky Jay and his 52 Assistants, which was directed by David Mamet. I saw it twice. I might have even seen it three times, I can’t remember. Mamet himself said of Jay: “I regard Ricky as an example of the ‘superior man,’ according to the I Ching definition. He’s the paradigm of what a philosopher should be: someone who’s devoted his life to both the study and the practice of his chosen field.”

You can also find a lot of videos YouTube of Jay doing what he does best. Watch them, especially the one called the four queens. Here it is. Watch it and then continue reading.

I say that because I am going to describe my experience of seeing Ricky Jay perform live, but I am not going to describe any of his effects.

How about that?

The performances were limited to a small number of spectators because Jay’s expertise was in card magic, and you needed to be close enough to see the effect. Children were restricted from seeing his live shows. Not because there was anything NSFW about it, but because Jay was an adult who wanted to perform for only adults. 

For those whose minds run to such things, watching him (for me) was like watching the Beatles live (without the screaming). He was a one-of-a-kind. An anomaly. Here is a man who is going to demonstrate for you in an hour what he has been practicing every day for 40 years. 

Although Jay couldn’t shake his New York personae, his patter was very erudite, and frequently contained obscure historical references. Such as references to one of his heroes, Matthias Buchinger. Buchinger was called “The Little Man of Nuremberg,” as he was only 28 inches tall and was born without hands and feet. Jay wrote an entire book about him because Buchinger was an artist, magician, calligrapher and a musician who could play multiple instruments.

In performing the famous Cups and Balls routine. he spoke of a French magician who “in 1795 announced that he would make his wife, who was five foot seven, appear under one of the cups. Practice as I have,” Jay joked, “I have been unable even…..to get married.”

I’ve seen a lot of magic in person. I used to go to the Magic Castle (a private magic club) in Los Angeles regularly. So, I’ve seen all manner of magic, close-up and otherwise. In watching Ricky Jay perform I had the same experience of watching a great dancer. Everything was beautiful. There was no wasted movement. By confining his effects to his hands, even in a theatre space, it was the equivalent of a movie closeup. I might even call it meditative, notwithstanding that each sequence would end with a stunning surprise.

Film director Christopher McQuarrie called Jay “The greatest of a vanishing breed.”

Ricky Jay in his 52 Assistants show, shown here with the cups and balls.

Ricky Jay had a lot of mentors. There is an excellent 2012 documentary called Deceptive Practices, the Mysteries and Mentors of Ricky Jay, in which he pays tribute to those great magicians of the past who passed down their arcane knowledge to him. But Jay was not a mentor to anyone. He felt uncomfortable with the role of teacher. In a 2016 interview, at the age of 70, he said, “I’m still learning. I’m absolutely a student.”

And:

“The only thing good for the art of magic is doing magic well. There’s nothing else.”