Ricky Jay has died. (Not the Doper)

My only source is this tweet that Neil Gaiman retweeted.

Pretty good actor and really good magician.

Just an FYI. I freaked out when I saw this. We do have a Doper by the name of Rick Jay.

Ditto.

I have asked the mods to clarify my title. I had no idea we had anyone with such a similar name.

Tritto.

An unfortunate similarity of names.

Confirmed by Wiki.

Holy shit, that scared me.

Not my forum, but I hope the CS mods will forgive me for intervening and editing the title.

I saw this in my FB feed, and it ruined my day. I’ve been a Ricky Jay fan for years, mostly for his magic and also for being in great movies like Boogie Nights.

Back in the day I made a living as an entertainer and I worked with many magicians. Some of them were really, really good. And none could hold a wand to Ricky Jay when it came to card handling. Here’s his one-man show Ricky Jay & His 52 Assistants - watch the segment from about 7:20-22:00, it is just masterful.

Ricky Jay was an unparalleled master of card manipulation.
This is perhaps the most spectacular sleight of hand trick I’ve ever seen: Ricky Jay - Amazing Card Trick/Manipulation - YouTube There’s an unfortunate camera cut but I think we can assume there was no camera trickery involved.

RIP RJ.

That’s too bad. He was one of those guys I recognized for a long time, but never caught his name.

I had a friend who was an amateur magician. He told me it was hard to get tickets to a Ricky Jay show because whenever he was playing somewhere a lot of other magicians would buy up the tickets to see him. I don’t know if that was true, but when he was in my area about 15 years ago I managed to get a ticket. It was an amazing show.

Sad to hear this. I loved his “cards as weapons” bit, and his book “Learned Pigs and Fireproof Women” – about the strangest stage acts of all time – is a fascinating read.

Terrific talent.

Same here. :eek::frowning:

My stomach dropped a little upon reading the thread title. Thanks for adding the clarification.

Sorry Rick Jay, but when I saw Ricky Jay it never occurred to me that could refer to anyone else in the world.

His best trick is being played after death. From my Google News page, appearing one on top of the other.

How does he do it?

I hate getting old. I’m losing too many people.

Ricky Jay was a goddamn genius, at the far end of several human spectra, and we are lessened by his passing.

This saddens me. I know him from several movies, but also from his sleight-of-hand specials and talk show appearances.

From Steve Martin:

If you have not seen “House of Games” or “The Spanish Prisoner”, you are missing out on something special.

mmm

Here’s his IMDb page.

I like him is some of those Mamet things like Heist (the only one of the “crew” I felt sorry for) and State and Main.

But my all time fave is his small role as Captain Amazing’s agent in Mystery Men: " Look, I’m a publicist, not a magician." I laughed out load. Rest of audience: crickets.

Magicians are sort of a type of conmen. Too many look and act like conmen. Ricky Jay seemed like someone you could trust.

That’s what he wanted us to think!

This reminds me of the time he did an on-stage interview with Terry Gross. She asked him at one point, “Suppose I needed to find a con man. How would I find one?”

Ricky paused and said, “One will find you.”

I was unaware of who he was, though I recognized him when I saw his photo. He sounded like the real deal for sure. I read a story on his passing this morning referring to his immense talent and containing a few re-tweets frm fans and admirers. One was, “Ricky Jay just stole my wallet…God”. Damn, he must’ve been good.