Learned Pigs & Fireproof Women

Ricky Jay

Villard Books, 1986 - Biography & Autobiography - 340 pages

A fun and brilliantly researched history of the strangest entertainers in show business history by Ricky Jay, one of the great magicians working today and the self-styled scholar of the unusual. Black-and-white photographs and color illustrations.

Contents

• SAMUEL: 145
• THE SISYPHUS OF THE CIRCUS WORLD: 201
• THE HUMOROUS HUMAN CARD: 213

About the author

Ricky Jay was born Richard Jay Potash in Brooklyn, New York in 1948. He first performed magic in public at the age of 4. At the age of 7, he appeared on a television show called Time for Pets, plopping a guinea pig into a top hat and appearing to turn it into a chicken. He left home as a teenager and worked at Lake George and at the Electric Circus. He appeared in about 40 movies and television shows including House of Games, The Spanish Prisoner, Redbelt, State and Main, Tomorrow Never Dies, Boogie Nights, and Deadwood. In the 1990s, he and Michael Weber founded the consulting firm Deceptive Practices. Their film-industry projects included a wheelchair that made Gary Sinise's Vietnam War-veteran character in Forrest Gump appear to be a double amputee. Jay wrote several books including Cards as Weapons, Learned Pigs and Fireproof Women, Celebrations of Curious Characters, and Matthias Buchinger: The Greatest German Living. He died on November 24, 2018 at the age of 70.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Learned Pigs & Fireproof Women
• Author: Ricky Jay
• Publisher: Villard Books, 1986
• Original from: Indiana University
• Digitized: Jul 1, 2009
• ISBN: 0394537505, 9780394537504
• Length: 340 pages
• Subjects: Biography & Autobiography / Entertainment & Performing Arts; Biography & Autobiography / General; Medical / Pathophysiology; Performing Arts / Circus; Reference / Curiosities & Wonders; Science / Life Sciences / Zoology / General