Richard Turner | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | Richard Edward Turner June 16, 1954 |
| Occupation(s) | Card mechanic, card manipulator |
| Spouse | Kim Turner |
| Children | 1 |
| Website | Official website |
Richard Edward Turner (born June 16, 1954) is an American expert card mechanic who is known for his card trick performances. He was the subject of the documentary, Dealt .
Turner was born in San Diego in 1954, which he dubbed "the year of the full deck" (referring to a standard 52-card deck of playing cards, plus the two jokers). At the age of seven, he became infatuated with the television show Maverick . [1] [2]
His eyesight began failing at the age of nine following his recovery from a bout with scarlet fever. [2] The macula of each of Turner's eyes was completely destroyed, preventing forward vision. [1] By the age of thirteen, his vision deteriorated to 20/400; over the years, what little vision Turner possessed gradually deteriorated to the point where he presently can no longer distinguish between a fully lit room and total darkness. [3]
Turner attended a special school for the visually impaired in Santee, California, where he refused to learn Braille. His younger brother, David, had been taking karate lessons for nine months and invited Turner to accompany him. He began karate lessons in 1971 under the tutelage of Master John Murphy, the United States' founder of Wado-Kai, a Japanese hard-style karate. He was good at it and began training at Gene Fisher's Gym, eventually earning a sixth-degree black belt in Wado-Kai karate. [4]
In 1972, Turner auditioned for a small non-profit San Diego Christian theater operated by television actor Steve Terrell, and he performed for six years with the "Lamb's Players Theatre". Terrell taught Turner how to look people in the eye so that they would not know of his visual impairment. [1]
He was later introduced to stuntman Bobby Yerkes, who taught him to swing on the trapeze, walk a tight rope, and take high falls. [5]
Turner's demonstrations have been featured on television programs, including That's Incredible! , Ripley's Believe It Or Not , The 700 Club , five appearances on Japanese programs, including World Geniuses, and on Great Britain's The Paul Daniels Magic Show. He has conducted motivational lectures for international corporations and government agencies and created and performed a family entertainment program for schoolchildren, featuring a comedy routine co-starring his wife as schoolmarm "Miss Guided", his assistant. [6]
Turner performed his 19th-century riverboat gambler's act as "The Cheat" in various venues:
Turner's audiences have included Jimmy Stewart, Gene Kelly, Johnny Carson, Bob Hope, Muhammad Ali, and Secretary of State Colin Powell, who joined Turner and his wife at one of their school programs. [8] Turner auditioned for and was hired by his employers without revealing his visual impairment, and he never informs his audiences he is blind.
The United States Playing Card Company employs his services as a "touch analyst" to evaluate the texture, flexibility, and cut of dozens of decks of cards each year. [1]
Although semi-retired, Turner appears several weeks a year at The Magic Castle, performs his act and presents lectures to his peers, and performs at private parties at the Buckhorn Saloon & Museum in his hometown of San Antonio, Texas. [5] He has also appeared in a Penguin Live lecture where he details some of the work on his award-winning false dealing. [9]
In 2008, he toured as part of a stage show called Hoodwinked with Todd Robbins, Bob Arno, and Banachek. [10] [11]
In 2010, Turner was asked by director Terrence Malick to cheat Brad Pitt's character at the blackjack table in the film The Tree of Life . [12]
Screening in theatres in 2024, the documentary Lost In The Shuffle sees Shawn Farquhar explore the centuries old mysteries hidden in a deck of cards while visiting fellow magicians, including Turner, to explore their favourite card tricks.
Turner is married to Kim Turner ( née Miller). They have a son. [13]
When Turner was eleven years old, he created a puzzle game called Batty, inspired by the game Tower of Hanoi . In May 2011, he released his fourth version. Batty features eleven levels of difficulty, ranging from an uncomplicated Level 3 through the extremely complex Level 11. While a Level 3 can be resolved by an elementary school student in six or seven moves, mastering Level 11 demands far greater mathematical acumen, requiring between 1,023 and 2,047 moves without a single mistake. [14]
The Magician (I), also known as The Magus or The Juggler, is the first trump or Major Arcana card in most traditional tarot decks. It is used in game playing and divination.
Sleight of hand refers to fine motor skills when used by performing artists in different art forms to entertain or manipulate. It is closely associated with close-up magic, card magic, card flourishing and stealing. Because of its heavy use and practice by magicians, sleight of hand is often confused as a branch of magic; however, it is a separate genre of entertainment and many artists practice sleight of hand as an independent skill. Sleight of hand pioneers with worldwide acclaim include Dan and Dave, Ricky Jay, Derek DelGaudio, David Copperfield, Yann Frisch, Norbert Ferré, Dai Vernon, Jerry Sadowitz, Cardini, Tony Slydini, Helder Guimarães and Tom Mullica.
Card manipulation is the branch of magic that deals with creating effects using sleight of hand techniques involving playing cards. Card manipulation is often used in magical performances, especially in close-up, parlor, and street magic. Some of the most recognized names in this field include Dai Vernon, Tony Slydini, Ed Marlo, S.W. Erdnase, Richard Turner, John Scarne, Ricky Jay and René Lavand. Before becoming world-famous for his escapes, Houdini billed himself as "The King of Cards". Among the more well-known card tricks relying on card manipulation are Ambitious Card, and Three-card Monte, a common street hustle also known as Find the Lady.
David Anthony Williams is a professional poker and Magic: The Gathering player who also competed on Season 7 of the FOX cooking show MasterChef, where he finished as co-runner-up.
A trick deck is a deck of playing cards that has been altered in some way to allow magicians to perform certain card tricks where sleight of hand would be too difficult or impractical.
Cardistry is the performance art of card flourishing. Unlike card magic, cardistry is meant to be visually impressive and appear very hard to execute.
Guy Hollingworth is an English barrister, conjurer, author and lecturer. As a conjurer he is known for his skilful performances of card magic and for his books and lectures in which he presents original tricks and routines.
Howard Thurston was a stage magician from Columbus, Ohio, United States. As a child, he ran away to join the circus, where his future partner Harry Kellar also performed. Thurston was deeply impressed after he attended magician Alexander Herrmann's magic show and was determined to equal his work. He eventually became the most famous magician of his time. Thurston's traveling magic show was the biggest one of all; it was so large that it needed eight train cars to transport his road show.
David Frederick Wingfield Verner, better known by his stage names Dai Vernon or The Professor, was a Canadian magician.
Card marking is the process of altering playing cards in a method only apparent to marker or conspirator, such as by bending or adding visible marks to a card. This allows different methods for card sharps to cheat or for magicians to perform magic tricks. To be effective, the distinguishing mark or marks must be visible on the obverse sides of the cards, which are normally uniform.
A double lift is a sleight of hand maneuver used by magicians in card magic. It is a method by which the identity of the top card may be kept secret by lifting the top two cards as one, making it seem as if only the top card is picked up. Similar techniques may be applied to more than two cards to perform a triple or even quadruple lift. The term was coined by Theo Annemann.
Bottom dealing or base dealing is a sleight of hand technique in which the bottom card from a deck of playing cards is dealt instead of the top card. It is used by magicians as a type of card illusion, and by card sharps and mechanics, and as a method of cheating in poker or other card games.
Larry Jennings was an American magician, best known for his card techniques. He has nine books published by, or written about him. He is also known for being close friends with fellow magician Dai Vernon.
Brother John Charles Hamman S.M. was a close-up magician and Marianist Brother. The tricks he invented are still an integral part of many close-up magician's repertoire. Hamman was world-renowned in the magic community. His initial interest in the art started as a child. As he recuperated from polio, he spent hours learning, practicing and inventing card tricks and other magic involving sleight-of-hand. In many cases, he "reinvented" classic maneuvers or streamlined them. He was a member of the International Brotherhood of Magicians, the Catholic Magicians' Guild and the Society of American Magicians.
Richard J. Kaufman is an author, publisher, illustrator, and editor of books and magazines in the field of magic and amateur magicians of noted skill.
Lawrence Grey was an English magician known for his card tricks. He also worked as an occasional actor and is known for voicing Bill the Lizard in Walt Disney's Alice in Wonderland.
The art form of card flourishing, commonly referred to as cardistry, grew out of simple flourishes used in close-up magic by magicians in the 1990s to early 2000s. Chris Kenner's notable two-handed Sybil cut from his 1992 publication Totally Out of Control has carried great influence and gave birth to a series of advanced flourishes which today represents the foundation of the performance art. Sleight of hand pioneers Dan and Dave Buck popularized cardistry on the world stage with their instructional DVD releases from 2004 and 2007. Journalist Kevin Pang of Vanity Fair characterized the art of card flourishing as, "It's yo-yo tricks performed by cardsharps with the street cred of a Parkour video. There's a name for it: cardistry."
Noel Qualter is an English close up magician, magic creator and magic consultant. He is a Member of the Inner Magic Circle.
Norman Laurence Gilbreath is an American magician and author known for originating the Gilbreath shuffle. He is also known for Gilbreath's conjecture concerning prime numbers.
Bruce Cervon was an American magician who was best known for his close-up magic, both through performance and invention. He published a series of books and helped to create a permanent record of the magic of Dai Vernon through The Vernon Chronicles, and Bruce Cervon's Castle Notebooks.
