Luxe Life Blog

Photo Gallery: Lance Burton talks about 13-year run and the future

Posted July 1, 2009 • 3:02 p.m.

Mayor Oscar Goodman, magician Lance Burton and Monte Carlo President and COO Anton Nikodemus.

Photo: Denise Truscello/WireImage

When master magician Lance Burton first signed a 13-year contract to headline at the Monte Carlo, it was then the longest contract in Strip entertainment history. Yesterday, Lance renewed it for another six years into 2015, adding to the longevity record of 19 continuous years!

Lance and I chatted privately right after the official ceremony at the Monte Carlo, where Lance signed the contract with Monte Carlo President and COO Anton Nikodemus and was then presented with a proclamation by Mayor Oscar Goodman naming July 7 Lance Burton Day.

Lance showed me the medical photos of his broken right foot where screws have been attached to his foot between the little toe and the lower part of the arch. He broke it on May 7 while walking back onstage after rescuing an errant dove from his audience. On May 11, he underwent surgery and has spent two months in recuperation unable to put any pressure on his foot.

He now hopes his doctor will clear him this weekend to take off the brace and put on sneakers for the first time, and then resume performances -- and the start of the new six-year contract -- on July 7. Lance admits that before renewing, he considered retiring, creating a new show, exploring other cities or touring, but in the end decided the best option was to continue his marriage with the Monte Carlo.

Here’s our conversation late yesterday afternoon in the private dining room at Brand Steakhouse in the Monte Carlo:

Robin Leach: So 14 to 15 years ago, you and I walked in hard hats over the construction site before your theater here was built. I said to you, “The good news is that you have a 13-year contract, the bad news is that you have to work every night for the rest of your life.” Now here you are doing the same thing for yet another six years. How does it feel this second time around?

Lance Burton: It feels good to be employed. In showbiz, there is only one criteria for success: If you are employed, you are a success. It feels good to be able to come to work and do something you like.

RL: This is an extraordinary marriage. I am going to use the word unprecedented because I can’t think of any other entertainer in the history of Las Vegas who had a 19-year deal.

LB: When we opened here in 1996, the 13-year contract was the longest in the history of Las Vegas and in the history of entertainment, I think. It seemed so far into the future, but here we are. It seems surreal that we are here and have completed the 13 years. It is better than working for a living is what I always say.

RL: How do you keep it fresh, and do you have a time line in your head to invent, be creative and add something new every few months?

LB: Yeah, creating new material is one of the funnest parts of my job, so I am always working, rehearsing, creating new things. A few months ago, I was looking back on the tricks list that we were doing in the show when we opened here in ’96, and I realized that about 60 percent of the show is now completely different from when we originally opened. You don’t realize it because I never sat down one specific day and said let’s change 60 percent of the show. I worked on the material one routine at a time and put new stuff in the show. If they don’t like it, you throw it out. Over those 13 years, I constantly kept putting new things in the show. We’ll keep doing that over the next six years, too.

RL: So when we sit here in 2015, you will have changed another 40 percent?

LB: Absolutely. The older I get and the more I do this job, the more you learn your craft and what you are doing. For instance, even now there are days that I don’t do the exact same show. Every show is different in some way. I feel out the audience. There are portions in the show that nobody on the stage knows what we are going to do until we start the show and get into it. That is because I am feeling the audience and seeing what they are responding to. Some of the audiences respond better to the magic and not so much the comedy, some nights they are laughing at everything I say, but the magic is … OK … so I think, “OK, this is a comedy crowd.” Some nights we have a lot of kids, some nights a few, and some night we have no kids depending on the time of year. So all of those factors go into deciding what I will do in a show.

RL: Does that also give you an edge that you would need every night rather than doing it by rote?

LB: Exactly. It is very important that you don’t get into the trap of going into autopilot. … You need to be there onstage and in the moment responding to this audience … not the audience that you had yesterday. You may have done a great show and gotten a standing ovation, but tonight’s audience was not there, and they don’t know that. They’ve paid their money to see you, so you have to bring your game every night. I never let my audience down. They always get the best performance as if it’s the first one of its kind.

RL: Go back to when you were the kid growing up on the farm in Kentucky and the very first time you did your trick with the disappearing coins. Did you ever think or dream of a 19-year headliner deal on the Las Vegas Strip? What did Las Vegas represent to you at that point?

LB: I wanted to move to Vegas since I was 12 years old. I saw Siegfried & Roy on The Merv Griffin Show. Merv would come to Vegas every year and do a whole week’s worth of shows with all the performers. I saw Siegfried & Roy, The Great Thomsoni, several other magic acts that were working in Vegas. At that point, I didn’t know anything about gambling, resorts or spas. All I knew was that there was this place called Las Vegas, had no idea where it was, but if you wanted to be a professional magician, that is where you had to be.

All told, we will have been in Las Vegas 27 years sometime this summer. This fall, I will do my 15,000th show here in Las Vegas. Here at the Monte Carlo, I will do my 5,000th show. That’s over 5 million people, and I think the show here has grossed over $200 million to date.

RL: Great and impressive numbers. Congratulations. Do you ever stop to think what’s the real reason that this all worked out so well?

LB: I think about that every day. I have the nightmare still every day just like every other performer in our business. I am always afraid I will drive up to the hotel and the marquee will be changed, and I will go up and try my key to get in the door and security will come over and say, “Lance, we have finally figured out that you are a moron and have no talent, you can’t come back here anymore.”

RL: Seriously, though, there has to be a reason for this amazing success. Is it because you haven’t changed at all from the nice guy who started out all those years ago?

LB: I think the important thing in showbiz is to have a really strong work ethic. We love entertaining people, but you have to take your job seriously. When you do a show, that guy that bought a ticket for him and/or his family and maybe brought his parents, that is a commitment, a financial commitment. He doesn’t care how many awards I have won, or how great I was last night. He is there tonight, and he may only see me that one night. He has spent his hard-earned money to come see me, so it is a job that I take seriously when I go out onstage. When the show is over, I want him and his family to leave and say we had a great time tonight, and this is something we will be talking about for the rest of our lives.

RL: Now everybody wants to know about the broken foot. Is it better, when does it officially get well enough for you to come back to work?

LB: It is so much better. I know it doesn’t look like it, but after my surgery, and oh by the way, here, I haven’t shown these X-ray photos to anyone else yet, but … those are the pins, and they will stay in there forever now unless I go back with a problem and I have to have them removed. There are six pins. It is hard to see the breaks, but they are there. That is the bone that connects the little toe to the rest of the foot. It is a very small bone, but apparently you need it to walk on as I have discovered. I am doing great, though, because for five weeks, I couldn’t touch the ground and just lay in bed. I have only been walking for the last two weeks. The doctor says I can return July 7, but no jumping!

All these years later, I am still loving everything about Las Vegas. I came here 27 years ago, and I still can’t believe everything that’s happened.

I just had to be a little impertinent and ask about his 4 1/2-year relationship with singer Gabriella Versace after he told me that while he was recovering from the injury, she played nurse, driver and messenger for him.

“Nurse Versace took care of me,” Lance laughed. “Her little dog Rio would come in and lay on my foot to make it better. I have already adopted Rio as his official dog dad.” He had Gabriella show me the beautiful diamond necklace he’d given her, so I persisted if something would be going on her fourth finger sometime soon. “Don’t you have to pull a ring out of the hat at this stage of the game?”

“You are bad, Robin, but you will be the first to know.”

After our Merry Mayor of Mirth read the proclamation, I asked him what Lance meant to our city.

“He is the ultimate magician, year after year just amazes and puts audiences in awe. I don’t know how he does it. It is his personality, as well as his talent. He is a very special guy,” Oscar said. “There are certain guys that I could count on 10 fingers, people who are very famous in their own right and don’t have to make any kind of contribution, but if I ask somebody like Lance to do the right thing, to come to a charitable or civic event, you guys do it and never ask for anything, not even a thank you. That’s the greatest.”

Robin Leach has been a journalist for more than 50 years and has spent the past decade giving readers the inside scoop on Las Vegas, the world’s premier platinum playground.

Follow Robin Leach on Twitter HERE.

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