Harry Lorayne, memory master, frequent TV guest, dead at 96

Harry Lorayne, a master of memory and a frequent guest on late-night television talk shows, where he showed off his powers of retention, died Friday. He was 96.

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Lorayne died at a hospital in Newburyport, Massachusetts, The New York Times reported. His publicist, Skye Wentworth, confirmed Lorayne’s death but did not specify a cause, according to the newspaper.

Lorayne was a particular favorite of “The Tonight Show” host Johnny Carson, appearing two dozen times, the Times reported.

He enthralled audiences with his memory and said that anyone could build a prodigious recall system if they followed his system, The Washington Post reported.

“Nobody thinks twice about going to the doctor to help them see better, or help them hear better,” Lorayne once said.

Lorayne could tell hosts the names of people he had just met, the names in small-town telephone books and recall specific passages in books and magazines, Deadline reported.

Lorayne originally was a sleight-of-hand artist, the Times reported. He was recognized as one of the foremost card magicians in the U.S., according to the newspaper.

The secret to his memory retention, he explained, was from a system of learned associations that he called surrealist visual puns, the Times reported.

He later starred in television infomercials to market his home memory-improvement system, according to the newspaper.

In 1985 on “The Merv Griffin Show,” Lorayne accurately recalled the names of 150 audience members after being told them one time, the Post reported.

Harry Ratzer was born on May 4, 1926, in the New York City borough of Manhattan, according to the newspaper.

He began performing during the 1940s and became Harry Lorayne, taking the middle name of his wife, Renée Lorraine Lefkowitz, the Post reported. The couple married in 1948, and she became part of Lorayne’s shows.

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