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Part the First: In Which the Actor in Question is Spotted But Not Identified

So it all started when my girlfriend and I were watching Mystery Men, and we spotted this guy who was playing Captain Amazing's cynical agent -- a rotund man with a trim beard and a vocal delivery that was equal parts laconic and sardonic -- let's call it lardonic. And my girlfriend said, unselfconsciously, "Hey, it's that guy." And I said, "So it is."

Part the Second: In Which the Credentials of the Actor in Question as a "Hey! It's That Guy!" Are Confirmed, and a Mysterious Connection is Revealed, and Another Hinted At

So my girlfriend and I tried to figure out where we'd seen this rotund, trim-bearded, lardonic man recently, and we figured that it was either as

1. the quiz show producer in Magnolia
2. a porn film crew member in Boogie Nights
3. Campbell Scott's ill-fated best friend in The Spanish Prisoner
4. All of the Above. (Answer below).

And I thought, Magnolia and Boogie Nights -- so this guy must be one of Paul Thomas Anderson's troupe of favourites, including, though not limited too, Philip Seymour Hoffman, John C. Reilly, Philip Baker Hall, William H. Macy, and Julianne Moore.

Part the Third: In Which the Answer to the Question, Above, is Revealed

   d.

Part the Fourth: In Which the Actor in Question is Identified by the All-Knowing, All-Seeing Wing Chun

So I mentioned this guy to Wing Chun, and she was like, "Yeah. That's Ricky Jay."

Part the Fifth: In Which the Intrigue Thickens, like Pudding

So I went about my usual HITG investigative routine, tracking down Jay's resume, only to uncover (well, if looking something up on the Internet Movie Database can really be called "uncovering") (which it clearly can't) that Jay has not only starred in The Spanish Prisoner, but pretty much every other David Mamet-directed film, including Homicide, Things Change, and House of Games. So clearly P.T. Anderson 'stole' him from Mamet, like he stole Willie Macy. AND, more intriguingly, that Jay has listed under his "Miscellaneous Crew filmography" several intriguing consultant-type stints on films, including "consultant: confidence games" (House of Games), "sleight of hand consultant" (Sneakers), and "illusion wheelchair designer" (Forrest Gump). And I thought to myself, Hey, I bet this guy is some sort of famous magician, who got into acting after working with David Mamet on House of Games.

Part the Sixth: In Which the All-Knowing, All-Seeing Wing Chun Confirms that the "Mystery" Unearthed is Actually a Pretty Widely-Known Tidbit of Information

So I told all this to Wing Chun, and she was like, "Yeah, he's a famous magician."

Part the Seventh: In Which the Author Stumbles Upon a Serendipitous, But in the End Not That Helpful, Resource Material

So I was out for brunch with this guy, and I was telling him about how I was becoming increasingly occupied with uncovering the story of Ricky Jay, and how I hadn't been able to find any material on him on the Web (all of which makes for fascinating brunch-time tabletalk, I can assure you). And then we ambled over to our local bookstore, and I was perusing this newly released book called Life Stories, an anthology of profiles from the pages of The New Yorker, and who should be included as one of the profiles but -- yes -- Ricky Jay! What are the odds? So I bought the book and brought it home and read the Ricky Jay profile, which was titled, rather portentously, "Secrets of the Magus," and was written by Mark Singer, and which revealed that Ricky Jay is considered one of the half-dozen best, if not the best, sleight-of-hand magicians in the world, and is also an obsessive collector of, and respected scholar on, rare magic books, artifacts and the history of prestidigitation. All in all, a pretty interesting profile, even though it didn't really explain anything about how Jay ended up in Magnolia or Boogie Nights, since the article was written in 1993. Although finding out that Ricky Jay -- the guy we'd spotted in Mystery Men -- is one of the world's finest practitioners of card tricks is kind of like finding out that Gedde Wattanabe is one the world's premier flautists. Or that Ben Stein -- the "Bueller... Bueller" guy -- is a well-known conservative pundit and one-time speechwriter for Richard Nixon. Which he was.

Part the Eighth: In Which the Author Holds Forth on the Appeal of Mr. Ricky Jay

So why has Ricky Jay caught the fancy of not one but two directors (Mamet and Anderson)? He's actually not that different from Ben Stein in some ways -- not only in his laconic delivery, but in the fact that he brings to the screen a kind of assured presence that suggests he's found success in another realm, one a little more grounded and respectable than the ephemeral and necessarily narcissistic world of acting and celebrity. (Granted, whether magic is more "grounded" or "respectable" than acting is certainly debatable, but I should say that, if the New Yorker profile is any indication, Jay possesses an extremely keen and inquisitive mind, and he's thoughtful and serious about magic and its history, and he really hates people like David Copperfield. And, more importantly, his personality was forged somewhere other than the gilded crucible of L.A., with its sun-licked beaches and porcelain smiles, which gives him a very different kind of screen presence than, say, Tom Arnold, to use an extreme example. It also means that Jay is very good at playing characters with an air of mystery -- who seem to have something going on behind their eyes that they aren't quite ready or willing to share. I mean, he is a world-famous magician and everything.)

Part the Ninth: The Last Word

I think I can unequivocally say that Ricky Jay is the coolest living adult who goes by the name "Ricky," and, moreover, is quite likely the coolest Ricky of all time.