The Amazing Johnathan, Magician and Subject of Hulu Doc, Dies at 63

Johnathan Edward Szeles, a stand up comedian and magician known for his recent Hulu documentary, has died. The performer, who is in large part known by his stage name of The Amazing Johnathan, passed away after a long battle with a severe heart condition. He was 63.

Szeles died late last night (Feb. 22) in his Las Vegas home, his wife Anastasia Synn told the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

“The last thing I said to him was, ‘I love you, honey, I’ll be with you when you get up from your nap,’” she said. “We were feeding him oranges and strawberries. He was so peaceful. He said, ‘Yay!’ He had the most pure and sweetest look on his face.”

The performer described himself as a “Freddy Krueger of Comedy.” His signature act was deconstructing magic tricks with gory twists. He began performing in the ’80s as a comic, even nabbing an appearance on a short lived show with “Weird” Al Yankovic and in the 2005 doc The Aristocrats. His career really took off after he performed on stage with Criss Angel during a “Mindfreak” performance, later becoming a headliner in Vegas between 2001 and 2014.

The performer first learned of his critical heart condition in 2014, when he was told he had a year to live. He lived past this prognosis, though, staging a whole comeback tour in 2017 that led to him being the subject of the documentary film The Amazing Johnathan Documentary. The movie premiered at Sundance, later airing on Hulu in 2019. Later, a separate YouTube documentary was released titled Always Amazing: The True Story of the Life Death and Return of Amazing Johnathan.

In recent years, Szeles released a book on how to perform simple magic tricks and practical jokes titled Every Trick in the Book. He had been working on a memoir, which has yet to be released.