CHICAGO (AP) – Magician-ventriloquist Jay Marshall, dean of the Society of American Magicians, a 14-appearance veteran of the Ed Sullivan television show and the first entertainer to open for Frank Sinatra in Las Vegas, has died at the age of 85.

Marshall, a native of Abington, Mass., who had suffered a series of heart attacks, died late Tuesday at Swedish Covenant Hospital in Chicago, surrounded by family members and his cat, Alley Bongo, who had been smuggled in by a nephew at Marshall’s request.

The dying request was typical of Marshall’s childlike spirit, said one of his sons, New York writer-director Alexander Marshall.

“A little boy once approached my father after one of his shows and said, “Mr. Marshall, I want to be a magician, too, when I grow up,” the son recalled. “My father replied, “Son, you can’t do both.”‘

Although Jay Marshall was a noted historian of stage magic and wrote several books on the subject, his own act did not incorporate the spectacular illusions and escape stunts that were popular when he was a young vaudevillian. Instead, he concentrated on the magic of card tricks and sleight of hand, combining it with ventriloquism and often self-deprecating patter. He liked to bill himself as “one of the better of the cheap acts.”

His usual stage partner was “Lefty,” his left hand dressed in a white glove and wearing rabbit ears. Occasionally, “Righty,” Marshall’s other hand, would join them to sing trios.

Jay Marshall studied magic and ventriloquism as a boy, and proved so popular an entertainer at Bluefield College in West Virginia that he failed to graduate and went on into professional magic instead.

“Lefty” was born while Marshall was entertaining in USO shows in the Pacific during World War II.

“My father had an elaborate ventriloquist’s dummy named “Henry,” who was made by the man who created “Charlie McCarthy’ for Edgar Bergen, but he got tired of schlepping “Henry’ around from island to island,” said Alexander Marshall. “One night he simply pulled on this glove, and it became Lefty.”

“I saw him do Lefty more than 1,000 times over the years, and there was always something new in the act,” the son said.

For many years, Marshall and his wife, Frances Ireland Marshall, ran Magic Inc., a shop for professional magicians on Chicago’s North Side. Mrs. Marshall, the widow of magician L.L. Ireland, was a professional magician in her own right. She died in 2002.

Marshall is survived by his two sons, five grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.