The Amazing Kreskin (born George Joseph Kresge; January 12, 1935), also known as Kreskin, is an American
mentalist
Mentalism is a performing art in which its practitioners, known as mentalists, appear to demonstrate highly developed mental or intuitive abilities. Performances may appear to include hypnosis, telepathy, clairvoyance, divination, precogniti ...
who became popular on
television
Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertisin ...
in the 1970s. He was inspired to become a mentalist by
Lee Falk
Lee Falk (), born Leon Harrison Gross (; April 28, 1911 – March 13, 1999), was an American cartoonist, writer, theater director, and producer, best known as the creator of the comic strips ''Mandrake the Magician'' and ''The Phantom''. At the ...
's
comic strip
A comic strip is a sequence of drawings, often cartoons, arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often serialized, with text in balloons and captions. Traditionally, throughout the 20th and into the 21st ...
''
Mandrake the Magician
''Mandrake the Magician'' is a syndicated newspaper comic strip
A comic strip is a sequence of drawings, often cartoons, arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often serialized, with text in balloon ...
'', which features a crime-fighting
stage magician
Magic, which encompasses the subgenres of illusion, stage magic, and close up magic, among others, is a performing art in which audiences are entertained by tricks, effects, or illusions of seemingly impossible feats, using natural means. It ...
. He has always presented himself as an "entertainer," never as a
psychic
A psychic is a person who claims to use extrasensory perception (ESP) to identify information hidden from the normal senses, particularly involving telepathy or clairvoyance, or who performs acts that are apparently inexplicable by natural laws, ...
, who operates on the basis of suggestion, not the paranormal or supernatural.
Early life
Kreskin was born in
Montclair, New Jersey
Montclair () is a township in Essex County in the U.S. state of New Jersey. Situated on the cliffs of the Watchung Mountains, Montclair is a wealthy and diverse commuter town and suburb of New York City within the New York metropolitan area. As ...
to Polish and Italian parents.
Career
From 1972 to 1975, Kreskin's television series ''The Amazing World of Kreskin'' was broadcast throughout
Canada
Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...
on
CTV and distributed in
syndication
Syndication may refer to:
* Broadcast syndication, where individual stations buy programs outside the network system
* Print syndication, where individual newspapers or magazines license news articles, columns, or comic strips
* Web syndication, ...
in the United States. It was produced in
Ottawa
Ottawa (, ; Canadian French: ) is the capital city of Canada. It is located at the confluence of the Ottawa River and the Rideau River in the southern portion of the province of Ontario. Ottawa borders Gatineau, Quebec, and forms the core ...
,
Ontario
Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central Ca ...
at the
CJOH-TV studios. An additional set of episodes was produced in 1975 through 1977 at the studios of
CFTO-TV
CFTO-DT (channel 9) is a television station in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, serving as the flagship station of the CTV Television Network. It is owned and operated by network parent Bell Media alongside Barrie-based CTV 2 outlet CKVR-DT, channel 3 ...
in
Toronto
Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the ancho ...
, billed as ''The New Kreskin Show''. He appeared on
''The Tonight Show'' 61 times from 1970 to 1980. In the 1980s and 90s he came to prominence again through several appearances on ''
Late Night with David Letterman
''Late Night with David Letterman'' is an American late-night talk show hosted by David Letterman on NBC, the first iteration of the ''Late Night'' franchise. It premiered on February 1, 1982, and was produced by Letterman's production company ...
'' and on the ''
Howard Stern Show
''The Howard Stern Show'' is an American radio show hosted by Howard Stern that gained wide recognition when it was radio syndication, nationally syndicated on terrestrial radio from WINS-FM, WXRK in New York City, between 1986 and 2005. The sho ...
''. In 2009 he became the first guest to make three appearances on ''
Late Night with Jimmy Fallon
''Late Night with Jimmy Fallon'' is an American late-night talk show hosted by comedian Jimmy Fallon.[ About pag ...](_blank)
''.
Though Kreskin makes "predictions", he does not claim to have
paranormal
Paranormal events are purported phenomena described in popular culture, folk, and other non-scientific bodies of knowledge, whose existence within these contexts is described as being beyond the scope of normal scientific understanding. Nota ...
or
clairvoyant
Clairvoyance (; ) is the magical ability to gain information about an object, person, location, or physical event through extrasensory perception. Any person who is claimed to have such ability is said to be a clairvoyant () ("one who sees cl ...
powers, and does not like to be considered a "
psychic
A psychic is a person who claims to use extrasensory perception (ESP) to identify information hidden from the normal senses, particularly involving telepathy or clairvoyance, or who performs acts that are apparently inexplicable by natural laws, ...
".
One of his best known tricks is to find his own check for his current performance. If he does not find it, he does not get paid for that day. He instructs the audience to hide an envelope containing his paycheck, while he is escorted off stage and into seclusion by other members of the audience. He then re-emerges and hunts through the audience, almost always being able to ferret out the correct location.
According to Kreskin, he has failed only ten or eleven times, including his performance at Rockwell's in Pelham, where he needed two attempts and a "rehide" of the check with an additional two attempts at finding the check/note. On April 14, 2018, Kreskin failed to find the hidden check while performing to a sold out crowd in New York's Lion Theater on 42nd St. After about 30 minutes of leading viewers around the small theater trying to find the check, Kreskin settled his search on an area behind the stage, out of view of most of the audience. The check was hidden within the general area. His efforts were in vain however, as perhaps eight to ten minutes later he threw up his hands and declared he had failed at the trick for the 12th time in 30 years.
Kreskin teaches classes for law enforcement groups, which "focuses on psychological methods such as jogging lost memories through relaxation techniques or detecting lies through body language and voice inflections".
The 2008 movie ''
The Great Buck Howard
''The Great Buck Howard'' is a 2008 American comedy-drama film directed by Sean McGinly that stars Colin Hanks and John Malkovich. Tom Hanks also appears as the father of his real-life son's character. The character Buck Howard is inspired by the m ...
'' is based on the experiences of writer-director
Sean McGinly
Sean McGinly is an American film director and screenwriter. His film ''Two Days'', starring Paul Rudd and Donal Logue, piqued the interest of Tom Hanks, who then agreed to produce McGinly's latest project, '' The Great Buck Howard'', through his ...
, who worked briefly as Kreskin's road manager.
On January 31, 2022, it was announced that Kreskin will provide the voice of The Magic Tree in a new animated series called, "''The Adventures of Little Billy: In Search of the Magic Tree''," based on a book of the same name by
Barry J. Farber
Barry J. Farber is an American entrepreneur, sales consultant, author, and talk show host.
Career
Farber has written eleven books, which have been translated into more than 25 languages with over one million copies sold. He is a monthly column ...
.
Kreskin is still active as a performer and appears regularly on
WPIX
WPIX (channel 11) is a television station in New York City. Owned by Mission Broadcasting, it is operated under a local marketing agreement (LMA) by Nexstar Media Group, making it a ''de facto'' owned-and-operated station and flagship (broadcas ...
in
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
, and annually on both the
Fox News Channel
The Fox News Channel, abbreviated FNC, commonly known as Fox News, and stylized in all caps, is an American multinational conservative cable news television channel based in New York City. It is owned by Fox News Media, which itself is owne ...
and
CNN
CNN (Cable News Network) is a multinational cable news channel headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. Founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld as a 24-hour cable news channel, and presently owned by ...
to give his
New Year's Day
New Year's Day is a festival observed in most of the world on 1 January, the first day of the year in the modern Gregorian calendar. 1 January is also New Year's Day on the Julian calendar, but this is not the same day as the Gregorian one. Wh ...
predictions for the coming year.
He has been a resident of
Caldwell, New Jersey.
Criticism
In 2002, Kreskin made a prediction that there would be a mass UFO sighting over
Las Vegas
Las Vegas (; Spanish for "The Meadows"), often known simply as Vegas, is the 25th-most populous city in the United States, the most populous city in the state of Nevada, and the county seat of Clark County. The city anchors the Las Vegas ...
on June 6 between the hours of 9:45 PM and midnight that would be witnessed by thousands of people. He also said that if there were no sighting, he would donate $50,000 to a charity. Hundreds of people camped out that evening, yet no sighting occurred. On June 8, Kreskin appeared in the opening segment of the ''
Coast to Coast AM
''Coast to Coast AM'' is an American late-night radio talk show that deals with a variety of topics. Most frequently the topics relate to either the paranormal or conspiracy theories. It was hosted by creator Art Bell from its inception in 19 ...
'' radio show, hosted by
Art Bell, to explain what had happened.
Bell read Kreskin's press release over the air to the effect that: "The sighting prediction was a total fabrication in order to prove people's susceptibility to suggestion post
9/11
The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercial ...
". Kreskin claimed he was concerned that a terrorist, with the skills of a mentalist such as himself, could pull a similar stunt involving something much worse. He stated that the predicted sighting was only an "experiment". When asked about the $50,000 donation he previously promoted, Kreskin claimed there was indeed a sighting that night since he said glowing green orbs were supposedly spotted in the sky just before midnight and reported by witnesses after news camera crews had already left the scene.
Because of this one reported sighting, Kreskin said his prediction came true anyway and therefore he did not have to pay the money he previously announced. This statement offended Art Bell, who opined that this was merely a publicity stunt on Kreskin's part, and officially banned Kreskin from his show.
As far back as January 1973, a magazine carried an interview with Kreskin in which he alluded to the possibility of this stunt—and to the dangers of the madness of crowds in general:
Works
*Kreskin's ESP Booklet, Milton Bradley (1967)
*Kreskin's Krystal Booklet, 3M Company, (1971)
*The Amazing World Of Kreskin, Random House (1973)
*Kreskin's Mind Power Book, McGraw Hill (1977)
*Kreskin's Fun Way To Mind Expansion, Doubleday (1984)
*Secrets Of The Amazing Kreskin, Prometheus Books (1991)
*The Protection Report by Kreskin, Pamphlet, GF International Group (1992)
*Kreskin's Super Secrets, booklet, GF International Group (1993)
*How To Be A Fake Kreskin, St. Martin's Press (1996)
*The Pendulum & Lifelong Enrichment Response Advertising (2000)
*The Amazing Kreskin's Future With The Stars, Meyerbooks (2001)
*Mental Power Is Real, Fitness Factory (2006)
*Four-Hour Miracle Direct, Response Advertising (2008)
*Kreskin Confidential, Author House (2009)
*Conversations with Kreskin by The Amazing Kreskin & Michael McCarty, Team Kreskin Productions, LLC (2012)
*In Real Time, Thane & Prime (2015)
References
External links
*
*
*
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kreskin
1935 births
Living people
Mentalists
American magicians
People from Montclair, New Jersey
People from West Caldwell, New Jersey
American people of Polish descent
American people of Italian descent
Seton Hall University alumni