The Amazing Kreskin, Mentalist and 1970s Television Star, Dies at 89

The Amazing Kreskin, an entertainer who used mentalist tricks to dazzle audiences as he rose to fame on the night show circuit during the 1970s, died on Tuesday in New Jersey. He was 89.

Ryan Galway, his former road manager and close friend, said that Mr. Kreskin had died in his home in Caldwell, N.J. He did not name the cause of death.

Mr. Kreskin’s feats included divining details of the personal lives of strangers and guessing at playing cards chosen randomly from a deck. And he had a classic trick at live shows: entrusting audience members to hide his paycheck in an auditorium, and then relying on his instincts to find it — or else going without payment for a night.

Born George Joseph Kresge Jr., in Montclair, N.J., Mr. Kreskin has said he was drawn to magic and psychology as a child. He was performing mentalist tricks for audiences by the time he was a teenager.

His star rose in the 1970s when he was a regular guest on the talk show circuit, appearing on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, The Mike Douglas Show and Late Night with David Letterman. With other famous guests, he played psychological tricks that looked like magic: asking people to put their fingers on objects that would seem to move, for example, or guessing what card had been pulled from a deck.

He also did live performances around the world, using audience members as his props, promising that he had no secret assistants or electronic devices that enabled him to find hidden objects or guess a strangers’ thoughts.