Richard Turner (magician)

Richard Turner (born June 16, 1954) is an American card manipulation expert.

Turner's demonstrations have been featured on television programs, including That's Incredible!, Ripley's Believe It Or Not, The 700 Club, five appearances on Japanese programs, including World Geniuses and on Great Britain's The Paul Daniels Magic Show. He has conducted motivational lectures for international corporations and government agencies, and created and performed a family entertainment program for school children across the nation featuring a comedy routine co-starring his wife as schoolmarm "Miss Guided", his assistant.

Turner performed his 19th-century riverboat gambler's act as "The Cheat" on a constant basis:

Turner's audiences have included Jimmy Stewart, Gene Kelly, Johnny Carson, Bob Hope, Muhammad Ali, and Secretary of State Colin Powell, who joined Turner and his wife at one of their school programs. Turner auditioned and was hired by his employers without revealing his visual impairment, and never informs his audiences that he is blind.

The United States Playing Card Company employ his services as a "touch analyst" to evaluate the texture, flexibility and cut of dozens of decks of cards each year.

Although semi-retired, Turner appears several weeks a year at The Magic Castle, performs his act and presents lectures to his peers, and performs at private parties at the Buckhorn Saloon & Museum in his hometown of San Antonio, Texas. Richard Turner has also appeared in a Penguin Live lecture in which he details some of the work on his award winning false dealing.

Turner was born in San Diego in 1954, which he dubbed "the year of the full deck" (referring to a standard 52-card deck of playing cards, which contains two Jokers). At the age of seven he became infatuated with the television show Maverick.

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