‘Blood’ is Amazing Johnathan’s stock in trade

Monday, Oct. 29, 2007 | 7:10 a.m.

ILLUSTRATION BY CHRIS MORRIS

It takes more than a potentially fatal heart condition to make comic/magician Amazing Johnathan disappear.

He recently signed up for two more years at the Sahara; sent his revealing autobiography, "Smoke and Mirrors," to his publisher for proofing; released his 2006 Comedy Central Special, "Wrong on Every Level," on DVD; and is planning his third annual Halloween haunted house - a strange private event that is being filmed for later showing on pay-per-view.

"I've lived my life doing whatever I wanted to do - that's my style," said the 49-year-old Johnathan. "I never expected to be around forever. I don't want to live to be an old man."

Cardiomyopathy could take care of that.

He said he discovered he had it in December.

"I was short of breath all the time," Johnathan said. "I couldn't walk up a flight of stairs. At night when I was sleeping it felt like I was drowning."

A native of Detroit, he flew there to see a doctor.

"He gave me the tests and told me my heart was only pumping blood at the rate of 12 percent," Johnathan said. "You're dead at 10 percent."

He was told it might have been caused by a virus that attacked his heart when he was young.

"My heart was having trouble pumping, which caused it to form big muscles around it, which makes it even harder to pump the blood," Johnathan said. "It's a serious heart disease. Eventually I might need a transplant, but they thinned my blood out so the heart is pumping much easier.

"I'm able to breathe normally again, but I have to be careful about cutting myself."

That's ironic for a guy whose career was built on macabre magic tricks that sometime s involve the illusion of blood spurting from deep cuts.

"But they have stuff that can coagulate the blood very quickly," Johnathan said. "I had to have knee surgery not too long ago and I went off the blood thinner for three days. It's a chance, but you're living."

He said that in addition to the blood thinner, he takes about 20 medications every day and has lost 20 pounds.

"Other than changing the way I'm eating , I try not to let the disease affect me," Johnathan said. "It's a waiting game. People who have it can go on for a long time with it and not get a heart transplant, just put in a pacemaker and live on blood thinners."

While he's waiting, he's busy, focused for the moment on the haunted house he creates in a warehouse east of McCarran International Airport, where he normally keeps his fleet of 20 antique and classic cars.

He started on the project four months ago.

"My show at the Sahara isn't going to be any different for Halloween. I'm working on the party," he said. "It's going to be bigger than ever."

It's a private affair for a few friends who usually bring a few friends who bring a few more friends. The elaborate events have drawn as many as 500 people, including celebrities such as Criss Angel, Robin Leach, Lance Burton and Penn & Teller.

"It gets stranger and stranger every year," Johnathan said. "This year we'll have midgets wrestling in ' blood. ' I'm trying to make it as ghoulish as possible. I visited some of the better haunted houses to see what scares people , and I took the best and adapted it."

Before you get to the party and all its surprises, you have to go through a scary maze.

"It's all animatronics, worked by remote control," Johnathan said. "We have some good surprises planned."

Because so many celebrities are discovering the party, there will be a red carpet.

"It starts out white, but as the evening goes on it turns red from ' blood, ' " Johnathan said.

The party, which begins at about 9 p.m. Wednesday and continues till the " blood " runs out, has gained such a following that TV crews will be on hand to record it for those who would like to see what goes on in Johnathan's mind when he isn't on stage. Amazing Johnathan's haunted house party will air on Cox Cable's In-Demand pay-per-view channel from Nov. 17 through Dec. 29 and in mid-March for a "Halloween in Easter" program.

Johnathan said he has no immediate plans to go public with the haunted house.

"Because then you have to get all these permits and licenses," he said. "Eventually I might like to go public ... Right now, it's just a fun thing for me to do."

Something he can put his heart into.