Playwright August Wilson (1945 - 2005) rose from humble beginnings to become a celebrated Broadway fixture with his 10-play cycle chronicling the African-American experience in the 20th century. His awards include Tony, two Pulitzers and seven New York Drama Critics Circle Awards.

Watch the full film, Ricky Jay: Deceptive Practice. Narrated by Dick Cavett, American Masters' first profile of a magician weaves together new interviews with Jay, his friends and collaborators, including writer/director David Mamet, and rare performance footage from his one-man shows and classic TV appearances.

Cartoonist and author Art Spiegelman and sleight-of-hand magician Ricky Jay share amazement and laughs at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles on the occasion of the exhibition of Ricky Jay's collection of broadsides.

While Ricky Jay has long been considered one of the world’s great sleight-of-hand artists, his career is further distinguished by the remarkable variety of his accomplishments as an author, actor, historian and consultant.

Peter Kuper's three-page comic, created during a futile wait in line for tickets to a sold-out Ricky Jay show, led to an introduction to Ricky Jay and a step towards making the documentary, Ricky Jay: Deceptive Practice.

Encyclopaedia Britannica turned to Ricky Jay for its "Conjuring" entry. In it, Jay covers the tenets of magic, its literature, and its greatest practitioners throughout time.​

Though he has collected thousands of books on magic history technique, Ricky Jay still believes that the personal mentor relationship is most important in learning his craft.