The amazing Kreskin, the famed mentalist who had his own television show, inspired a John Malkovich film and (perhaps) a Johnny Carson character, and performed hundreds of live shows a year, died Tuesday. He was 89.

Kreskin died at his home in Caldwell, New Jersey, said his manager Ryan Galway The Hollywood Reporter.

What exactly was Kreskin’s talent? “I am not a clairvoyant, an occultist or a fortune teller. I am not a mind reader, medium or hypnotist. There is nothing supernatural about anything I do,” he explained in 1991 Secrets of the amazing Kreskinone of the 20 or so books he has written. “I am a scientist, researcher in the field of suggestion and ‘extrasensory’ perceptions. I carry out what I discover.”

An important part of his stage performance was finding the paycheck he was supposed to receive for his performance, hidden from the audience. If he couldn’t find the check, he said, he wouldn’t be paid (this happened about a dozen times in his long career). He found checks in some of the strangest places, like stuffing a turkey, inside a fire hose, and under the top bridge in a man’s mouth.

The enthusiastic Kreskin was a true pop culture phenomenon and guest at the time The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson 88 times, and the host was the one who gave him the “The Amazing” part of his name. Kreskin also claimed that Carson based his turban-wearing psychic character Carnac the Magnificent on him, although others believe the idea came from an old sketch by Steve Allen.

He also performed around 100 times each The Mike Douglas Show, The Merv Griffin Show And Regis and Kathie Lee LiveHe also appeared regularly on shows hosted by David Letterman, Jimmy Fallon and Howard Stern.

Kreskin appeared on television every New Year’s Day to make predictions about the coming year – a Newsweek The columnist once called him “America’s flesh and blood Magic 8-Ball” – and said he had been asked to assist in dozens of criminal cases.

He knew his way around a card game and even had his own Milton Bradley board game. Kreskin’s ESP, which hit stores in 1966, used a “Mystery Pendulum” to test the psychic powers of players (ages 10 to adults).

Sean McGinly, who briefly worked as Kreskin’s road manager, wrote and directed the 2008 film Big Buck Howardin which Malkovich, a mentalist, was the title character. Kreskin’s trick of finding the check figures prominently in the plot.

“The job lasted about four months, but the experience always stayed with me,” McGinly said in 2009. “Years later, I decided to write about it. So the first 10 minutes or so Big Buck Howard comes straight from my life.”

Meanwhile, Jay Roach directed Zach Galifianakis’ character in the 2010 film Dinner for jewelry idolizes the real Kreskin.

Before officially changing his name to The Amazing Kreskin, he was born George Joseph Kresge Jr. on January 12, 1935 in Montclair, New Jersey. An issue of a comic featuring the crime-fighting magician Mandrake made a big impression on him, and in third grade he began to exploit his intellectual acumen.

“One day in class we were playing ‘Hot and Cold’ – you know, ‘You get warmer, you get colder’ – and I became obsessed with trying to figure out who ‘it’ was without anyone telling me,” said he told the Chicago Tribune in 1991. “So I started getting my family to hide a penny and I tried to find it. Nothing worked until one afternoon my brother hid a penny and I climbed on a chair and reached behind the curtain rod in my grandparents’ bedroom and there it was.”

When he first appeared on television The Steve Allen Show In 1964, he walked over to shake the host’s hand and stumbled, blinded by the stage lights.

“I fell on my face on national television,” Kreskin told the New Jersey Herald in 2012. “Well, Johnny (Carson) happened to see the show. Seven weeks later he created Carnac, the clairvoyant who falls across the desk.”

He was host from 1970 to 1975 The amazing world of Kreskinwhich aired in Canada on CTV and aired in the United States. In his show, “we explore the greatest mystery of humanity, the mystery of the human spirit,” he said.

In his tribune In the interview he explained that he was “not able to penetrate into the process of the human brain, but I am able on many occasions to perceive a single thought or a series of simple thoughts when the subject is attuned to me and ready.” is to open up.” let your imagination run wild. I’m helpless if they refuse. Basically, I use the power of positive thinking.”

He was also proud of proving that hypnosis was a joke. “There is no such thing on Earth,” he said in 2018. “No one has ever entered a hypnotic trance.” And by the way, based on my findings, you cannot present evidence of hypnosis in any court case in the United States.”

His other books included 2012 Conversations with Kreskinwhich included a foreword by the late Fox News founder Roger Ailes, who booked the mentalist as a guest on the Douglas show in the ’60s.