Lorayne was born Harry Ratzer and grew up poor on New York's Lower East Side.

Using elementary versions of the techniques he would later employ professionally, he began earning perfect marks.Lorayne saw his first card trick when he was six or seven years old, and immediately knew he had to figure out how to do it himself.

He stole empty milk bottles from in front of apartments in the tenement in which he lived so that he could collect the $.02 deposit on them and be able to afford a deck of cards.

[citation needed] Lorayne also made news by memorizing and recalling information from phone books with no errors.

[7] According to the New Your Times, "his friend Mel Brooks planned to give that address as the home of the playwright Franz Liebkind in his 1967 film, The Producers.

After Mr. Lorayne’s wife, Renée, objected that the moviegoing public would be banging on their door day and night, Mr. Brooks changed it to the fictional 100 West Jane Street.

[2] In his obituary, The New York Times wrote that, "Mr. Lorayne’s attainments are all the more noteworthy in light of the fact that he grew up in poverty, struggled academically as a result of undiagnosed dyslexia and concluded his formal education after only a single year of high school.

"Harry Lorayne is the most influential author, publisher, and teacher of magic routines in the world today," according to the magician Randy Wakeman.