Stage magician The Amazing Johnathan, long a fixture in Las Vegas, has passed away. He was 63 years old. According to the Las Vegas Review-Journal, he passed away in his home at about 11:30 p.m. on Tuesday. Johathan had reportedly been unresponsive for 36 hours prior to his death, after lying down for a nap on Monday. The cause of death is not yet known officially, but in 2009, Johnathan was diagnosed with cardiomyopathy, a degenerative disease that affects the muscles in the heart. In 2014, he told an audience that he had been given a year to live.
Johnathan’s wife, a stunt artist whose stage name is Anastasia Synn, confirmed her husband’s passing later that night. The pair were married in 2014, and she was with him when he passed away.
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“The last thing I said to him was, ‘I love you, honey, I’ll be with you when you get up from your nap,’ ” Synn told the Review-Journal. “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.”
Synn said that once it was clear he was unresponsive, she “spent that time snuggling with him.”
In addition to Synn and a caregiver from BurlyCares, Magic Castle official Erika Larsen were by Johnathan’s side. Larsen is an oldf family friend. The caregiver, Stephanie Castellone, is also a performance artist and family friend. Synn has been providing her husband with constant care since his 2014 diagnosis.
“I did my best to keep his medicine in his system, clean his foot wounds, do everything a nurse would do and I’m not a nurse. But I loved him so much,” Synn said. “He wanted to pass at home. For the past six months I was begging him to go the hospital, but he absolutely hated going there.”
Born in Detroit in 1958, Johnathan Szeles developed a magic act that was as memorable as it was gross, pretending to swallow his eyeball and drinking Windex. He leaned into comedy, too, dropping drug references into the act, which made him an easy sell for shows like Late Night With David Letterman.
Johnathan drew mainstream attention with Wrong on Every Level, a Comedy Central special, in 2006. In 1997, he wrote Every Trick in the Book, a comprehensive guide to magic tricks and practical jokes.
Shortly after the book, Johnathan made his way to Vegas in 2000, and headlined at the Golden Nugget, the Sahara, Koval Theater at Miracle Mile Shops, Bally’s, and Rocks Lounge at Red Rock Resort. He continued to perform when he could up until his passing, with his final onstage appearance being last month at a roast of former Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman.
In 2018, a documentary called Always Amazing documented Johnathan’s life. In 2019, Hulu debuted The Amazing Johnathan Documentary, directed by Ben Berman.
Because of Johnathan’s reputation for practical jokes, and how long he had outlasted his diagnosis, Berman asked the magician whether he had lied about his diagnosis. Johnathan said no, but that he wanted to fake his own death and reappear five years later, but his attorneys told him that doing so could cost him — and potentially anyone who was in on the fake-out — jail time.
According to the Review-Journal, Johnathan is survived by his sisters, Nancy Rogers and Gail McGuire, and his first wife, Sandra Bowing. Synn is hoping to hold a public celebration of his life in “a major Las Vegas theater,” but there weren’t any more specific details yet.
