Richard Jay Potash was born in 1948, in Brooklyn, New York City USA, and is a talented artist – not only a magician, but also an actor, screenwriter and an author. Apart from being widely appreciated for his sleight-of-hand card tricks, as Ricky Jay he has also been globally recognized for his appearances in movies such as “Boogie Nights” (1997), “Magnolia” (1999) and “The Prestige” (2006), as well as in the TV series “Deadwood”.
Have you ever wondered how much wealth this multi talented entertainer has accumulated so far? How rich Ricky Jay is? According to sources, it is estimated that the total of Ricky Jay’s net worth, as of late 2017, revolves around the sum of $3 million, acquired through his magician’s career which has been active since the 1960s, as well as through his acting which began in 1982.
Ricky Jay Net Worth $3 million
Although he was born in New York City’s borough of Brooklyn, Ricky grew up in Elizabeth, New Jersey, and apart from American is also of Jewish ancestry. He was introduced to magic by his grandfather at a very early age, and gave his first public performance when he was only four years old, by appearing in the “Time For Pets” TV show. In the early 1960s, Jay regularly appeared in New York City’s The Electric Circus nightclub, which engagements provided the basis for Ricky Jay’s net worth.
Ricky’s acting debut occurred in 1982 when he appeared in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” TV movie, which was followed by an engagement in the television series “Simon & Simon”. A more notable role came in 1987 with David Mamet’s crime thriller “House of Games”, which marked the beginning of the collaboration between the two, as in the following years Jay was cast in several other Mamet motion pictures including “Things Change” (1988), “Homicide” (1991) and “The Spanish Prisoner” (1997). However, the real breakthrough in Ricky’s acting career happened later in 1997, when he opposed Mark Wahlberg, Burt Reynolds and Julianne Moore in Paul Thomas Anderson’s Oscar-nominated drama movie “Boogie Nights”; for this performance he was nominated for a Screen Actors Guild Award. It is certain that all these endeavors helped Ricky Jay to boost his total wealth.
In 1997, Jay was cast for the role of Gupta, the main villain’s henchman in James Bond franchise sequel “Tomorrow Never Dies”, starring alongside Pierce Brosnan and Jonathan Pryce. In 1999, Ricky appeared in another Oscar-nominated film, Paul Thomas Anderson’s drama “Magnolia”, for which he was honored with one more Screen Actors Guild Award nomination. In the beginning of the 2000 era, Jay made two memorable movie performances – in the critically acclaimed comical drama “State and Main”, and portraying Don ‘Pinky’ Pincus in David Mamet’s crime thriller “Heist”. In 2004 Ricky was cast for the role of Eddie Sawyer in HBO TV’s western drama series “Deadwood”, while in 2006, alongside Hugh Jackman and Christian Bale he starred in “The Prestige”. Doubtlessly, all these accomplishments made an impact on Ricky Jay’s revenues.
He has since added several more notable performances to his acting portfolio, including appearances in the TV series “Kidnapped”, “The Unit” and “Flashforward”, as well as in movies “Redbelt” (2008) and “The Automatic Hate” (2015). Additionally, Ricky also starred in the 1989 TV movie “Learned Pigs and Fireproof Women”, documentary TV series “Mythbusters”, as well as in “The Simpsons”. Besides being a guest in various TV shows such as “Saturday Night Live”, “Late Night with Conan O’Brien” and “Late Show with David Letterman”, Ricky had also hosted his own, “one-man” TV shows – “Ricky Jay: On the Stem”, ” Ricky Jay: A Rogue’s Gallery” and ” Ricky Jay and His 52 Assistants”. All these ventures have helped him to significantly increase his net worth.
Over the years, Jay has served as a consultant about gambling and magic on numerous Hollywood’s projects, cooperating with several big names of the movie-making industry such as Francis Ford Coppola and Robert Redford among plenty of others. Jay has also held various lectures about sense perception, con games, gambling and card tricks, and has also released several publications including “Learned Pigs and Fireproof Women”, “Cards As Weapons” and “Jay’s Journal of Anomalies” to name a few. Jay is also passionately collecting rare books, prints and manuscripts as well as all kinds of unusual objects connected to the history of magic, cons and gambling.
When it comes to his personal life, there is little data about Ricky Jay’s private affairs, except that he has been married since 2002 to Chrisann Verges.
