Michele just mentioned all the stars that attended Steve Martin’s impromptu wedding… Tom Hanks, Diane Keaton, Eugene Levy, Carl Reiner and Ricky Jay. You may be thinking “Ricky who?”
I know of Ricky Jay only because he has been featured in several of my favorite movies (Magnolia, Boogie Nights, Heist), but Ricky is far more than just a character actor. He is sort of a throw back to the vaudevillians of yesterday. He is a magician/illusionist, a sleight of hand expert and can do the most incredible things with a deck of cards. Ricky is actually listed in the Guinness Book of World Records for being able to throw a playing card a hundred and ninety feet. If that is not amazing enough, the card is going 90 miles an hour when it is being thrown. Yes, that’s right – he can throw a playing card 90 miles an hour and have it go 190 feet! He can also throw a playing card and have it stick into a watermelon. Heck, I am lucky if I can shuffle a deck of cards without inadvertently playing 52 card pick up!
Ricky has starred in to one-man stage shows: Ricky Jay and His 52 Assistants and Ricky Jay; On the Stem, both of which won critical acclaim. He is also an author and has written several books including Extraordinary Exhibitions: The Wonderful Remains of an Enormous Head, The Whimsiphusicon & Death to the Savage Unitarians (Broadsides from the Collection … from the Collection of Ricky Jay), Dice: Deception, Fate, and Rotten Luck (with Rosamond Wolff Purcell), Learned Pigs & Fireproof Women (voted one of the “Notable Books of the Year” by the New York Times Book Review), The Magic Magic Book, and Cards as Weapons.
Ricky is also the founder of the Conference on Magic History and was at one time the curator of the Mulholland Library of Conjuring and the Allied Arts.
Given that Ricky is a bit of a renaissance man, I am not surprised his is a friend of Steve Martin. I could talk all day about how incredible Ricky is with a deck of cards, but rather than talk, I will let you see for yourself. The following is YouTube videos of his amazing talent:
Amazing Moves from The Ranger, the Cook, and a Hole in the Sky
Showing Off on Arsenio Hall’s Show