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Teller
Teller - after the Penn & Teller show at the Rio in Las Vegas, Nevada, August 5, 2007.
Born	Raymond Joseph Teller February 14, 1948 (1948-02-14) (age 62) Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Residence	Las Vegas, Nevada
Nationality	American
Occupation	Magician, Illusionist, Writer, Actor, Painter
Height	5'9" (1.75 m.)
Known for	Half of the comedy magic duo known as Penn & Teller
Political party	Libertarian Party
Religion	Atheist
Website Penn and Teller.com

Teller (born February 14, 1948^[1]) is an American magician, illusionist, comedian, writer, and the silent half of the comedy magic duo known as Penn & Teller, along with Penn Jillette. He is known for his advocacy of atheism, libertarianism, free-market economics, and scientific skepticism. He legally changed his name from Raymond Joseph Teller to just "Teller", and possesses one of the few United States passports issued in a single name.^[1]

Biography

Raymond Joseph Teller was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. His parents were of Russian Jewish and Cuban descent. Teller only learned of his Jewish ancestry when he was 50 years old.^[2] He attended Central High School and Amherst College and taught English and Latin at Lawrence High School in Lawrenceville, New Jersey.^[3] He was selected to be a member of the Central High School Hall of Fame in 2001.

Teller is an accomplished sleight of hand artist and is considered an expert on the history of magic. He is also a gifted painter. He is an atheist,^[4][5] debunker, skeptic, and Fellow of the Cato Institute (a libertarian think-tank organization which also lists his partner Penn Jillette as a Fellow). The Cato Institute association is featured prominently in the Penn and Teller Showtime TV series Bullshit!

He collaborated with Jillette on three magic books, and he is also the author of "When I'm Dead All This Will Be Yours!": Joe Teller - A Portrait by His Kid (2000), a biography/memoir of his father. The book features his father's paintings and cartoons which were strongly influenced by George Lichty's Grin and Bear It. The book was favorably reviewed by Publishers Weekly:

When Teller, the quiet half of the Penn and Teller showbiz team, made one of his monthly Philadelphia visits to see his parents, Joe and Irene ("Pad" and "Mam"), he was shown 100 unpublished cartoons his father drew in 1939. These "wryly observed scenes of Philadelphia street life," as Teller describes them, are in a loose, sketchy style imitative of the great George Lichty (1905-1983), famed for his long-run syndicated "Grin and Bear It." Teller and his father's "memories began to pump and the stories flowed" after they opened boxes of old letters that Teller read out loud (learning for the first time about a period in his parents' lives that he knew nothing about, such as the fact that his father's name is really Israel Max Teller). Joe's Depression-era hobo adventures led to travels throughout the U.S., Canada and Alaska, and by 1933, he returned to Philadelphia for art study. After Joe and Irene met during evening art classes, they married, and Joe worked half-days as a Philadelphia Inquirer copy boy. When the Inquirer rejected his cartoons, he moved into advertising art just as World War II began. Employing excerpts from letters and postcards, Teller successfully re-creates the world of his parents in a relaxed writing style of light humor and easy (yet highly effective) transitions between the past and present.

Teller does not speak while performing although there are occasional exceptions, usually when the audience is not aware of it. For example, he did the voice of "Mofo the psychic gorilla" in their early Broadway show with the help of a radio mike cupped in his hand. Teller's trademark silence originated during his youth, when he earned a living performing magic at college fraternity parties.^[6] He found that if he maintained silence throughout his act, spectators refrained from throwing beer and heckling him and focused more on his performance.

Teller also said "Science" in a high-pitched voice in Penn and Teller's appearance on the television show Bill Nye the Science Guy, namely the episode "Light Optics," and he has a speaking part in the movie The Fantasticks.

Teller began performing with friend Weir Chrisemer as The Ottmar Scheckt Society for the Preservation of Weird and Disgusting Music. Teller met Penn Jillette in 1975, where they joined a three-person act called Asparagus Valley Cultural Society, which played in San Francisco. In 1981 they began performing exclusively together as "Penn & Teller", an act that continues to this day.

Teller is a coauthor of the Nature Reviews Neuroscience paper "Attention and awareness in stage magic: turning tricks into research" from the November 2008 issue.^[7]

Bibliography

• Jillette, Penn; and Teller (1989). Penn and Teller's Cruel Tricks for Dear Friends. New York: Villard. ISBN 0-394-75351-8. 
• Jillette, Penn; and Teller (1992). Penn and Teller's How to Play with Your Food. New York: Villard. ISBN 0-679-74311-1. 
• Jillette, Penn; and Teller (1997). Penn and Teller's How to Play in Traffic. New York: Berkley Trade. ISBN 1-57297-293-9. 
• Teller; and Joe Teller (2000). "When I'm Dead All This Will Be Yours!": Joe Teller -- A Portrait by His Kid. New York: Blast Books. pp. 128. ISBN 0-922233-22-5. 
• Teller; Karr, Todd; and Abbott, David P. (2005). House of Mystery: The Magic Science of David P. Abbott. Marina del Rey, California: Miracle Factory. 

See also

• Penn & Teller
• Penn Jillette
• Mononymous person
• Gene Sheldon
• Harpo Marx

References

External links

• Penn & Teller's official website
• A Tour Of Teller's Home
• Video of Teller talking
• Penn & Teller official FAQ (Internet Archive)
• Teller at the Internet Broadway Database
• Teller at the Internet Movie Database
• A man, a ball, a hoop, a bench (and an alleged thread)… TELLER! - Las Vegas Weekly