“The Freddy Kruger Of Magic” was a revolutionary showman, known for deconstructing the rules of sleight of hand and stagecraft.
John Edward Seizels, magician and stand-up comedian better known by his stage name, The Amazing Jonathan, has died. His death, confirmed by his wife, fellow artist Anastasia Sinn, was the result of a serious heart condition, a diagnosis with which he has been struggling since 2007. He was 63 years old.
"The last thing I said to her was, 'I love you, darling, I'll be with you when you wake up from your nap,'" Sinn said near midnight on Tuesday. “We were feeding him oranges and strawberries. He was so calm. He said, 'Yay!' He had the purest and sweetest expression on his face."
Sezels' magic was not for the faint-hearted. Combining brazen, offensive comedy and subversive illusions, The Amazing Jonathan's bag of tricks attracted Vegas tourists and magic buffs alike. His work was riotous, violent and frantic. With machine-gun accuracy, he teased out bits, tricks, and jokes that covered fake body parts and the audience was covered in stitches.
Born on September 9, 1958, in Detroit, Michigan, he was the youngest of three children. His family moved to Fraser, MI, where he attended a Christian private school where he was, according to his website, "a below average student."
His path from plain-old Jonathan to Amazing began in 1973 when he moved into a local magic shop. There, the owner coached the teenager before her big break: the neighborhood boy's birthday party. The set ended with young Szelles locking in the trunk of a car and a chorus of booze. He made 4 dollars.
Three years later, he was performing in the streets of San Francisco, where he befriended fellow amateur magician and future Night Court star Harry Anderson. The pairing was at the cutting edge between magic and comedy, and as Anderson rose to prominence, so did Amazing Jonathan.
In the 1980s, he toured colleges and comedy clubs, establishing himself as one of the most original acts of magic. Soon, he would make his television debut, appearing on HBO, David Letterman and The Weird Al Show, where he received his only acting credit as "Uncle Jonathan".
Over the next 20 years, Sezels flirted with television as a host and special attraction. He led Merv Griffin's syndicated variety game show, Ruckus, for one season, but left due to a contract dispute, Sezels said. However, it was her 1996 appearance on Comedy Central's Lounge Lizard that helped make her a household name.
During the 2000s, The Amazing Jonathan built a house in Las Vegas, selling rooms up and down the Strip. “For two years, I did 500 seats in one night. "Sometimes one night we sold out and then I had a great time for the next 13 years," he said during a speech in Las Vegas in 2014. "The greatest time of my entire life has been living here, and I've made millions of dollars. . I have two beautiful houses, and when I was told I had a year to live, everything came crashing down.
In 2007, doctors diagnosed Siezels with cardiomyopathy, a degenerative heart condition that affects the tissue surrounding the heart. This news made the magician disappear from the stage for five years.
In the 2010s, The Amazing Jonathan attempted to restart his career. He resided in Las Vegas until his final year before visiting comedy clubs. Despite this, his condition kept on deteriorating.
Interest for The Amazing Jonathan's unpredictable stage show and on and off stage confusion lead many to question his diagnosis. Like Andy Kaufman before him, few wondered whether his illness was an elaborate trick that would reveal the final.
In the 2019 documentary The Amazing Jonathan, director and friend Ben Berman attempts to unravel the truth of the Seizels' situation, peeling away layers of artifacts to reveal even more questions. Sezels, for his part, is upfront with Berman about his struggles with drugs (that film smokes meth and leads Berman to smoke with him) and his heart condition.
Unfortunately, the big reveal was that Jonathan was telling the truth. After years of questioning and investigation, he died at his Las Vegas home with his wife.
"I'm not sorry because I had the best, most incredible life you could have," he told the audience in 2014. "I really have. I've got everything I wanted. There's a lot to be said for worshiping Satan."