The Amazing Johnathan dead at 63

Some sad news hit the comedy community today, The Amazing Johnathan has died at the age of 63. Since 2007, Johnathan (whose real name was Johnathan Szeles), had been battling a serious heart condition which worsened over the years before he retired from the road with a final tour in 2017. The cause of death was congestive heart failure.

The assistant to Johnathan’s wife Anatasia Synn stated he passed Tuesday night while at home “cuddling” with his wife of 11 years. A hospice nurse had been staying with him for the last 3 weeks, and confirmed his passing. Since he’d been living with the ailment for so many years the assistant stated, “We have thought we lost him so many times that we never thought it would actually happen.”

Self-described as the “Freddy Krueger of Comedy,” the comedian/magician started performing in the 80s, but didn’t properly break out until the mid-2000s. Johnathan’s specials were staples of the early days of Comedy Central, airing often on the network along with a few other comedian specials that allowed him to amass a large and cult-like following for an act that served as well as a late night Vegas lounge act as it would a hilarious comedy act. His typical shows consisted of a blend of comedy and shocking and surreal magic. It took great skill to make his good magic look bad and even more skill to make it funny and Johnathan processed both.

From 2001 until 2014 he was a Las Vegas staple at Bally’s Casino. That residency ended in 2014 when he announced that his heart was failing him and he was given one year to live. He obviously lived longer than that. He clearly was on borrowed time and made the best of it.

His 2017 tour serving as the background of two documentaries chronicling his career and his health battles. Hulu’s The Amazing Johnathan Documentary and the other was Always Amazing, which was directed by comedian and friend Steve Byrne and produced by All Things Comedy.

While both documentaries were about the same subject they could not be tonally more different. Byrne & ATC’s doc was fairly straightforward a life story showing his rise, fall, and recovery in a mostly positive light as the Hulu doc was darker, with a fairly easy start that quickly descended into madness, with almost surreal elements as it was being created. The filmmaker, Ben Berman for the doc believed he was the exclusive documentarian for Jonathan’s story but soon realized another crew (Byrne/ATC) was also following Johnathan. Things got even weirder when hardcore drug use emerged and Berman got so competitive to get the story, he began to question his own ethics. Knowing Johnathan’s style of comedy it’s entirely possible the latter Kaufman-esque documentary was staged a la Exit Through The Gift Shop and never really intended for the film to be a true documentary.

Our hearts go out to the comedy community and The Amazing Johnathan’s family and friends.