Las Vegas Weekly

March 11, 2010 · 4:25 PM

Terry Fator reflects on his first year as a headliner on the Strip

By Robin Leach

Terry Fator performs at IBM's Information on Demand Global Conference 2009 at the Las Vegas Convention Center.

Photo: Tom Donoghue/www.donoghuephotography.com

Entire theater audiences sometimes line up for Terry Fator’s meet-and-greet and autograph session after his show at The Mirage. Two years ago, just before winning Season 2 of NBC’s America’s Got Talent, he was lucky to get one person in the crowd.

For more than 20 years, Terry toiled anonymously in America’s backwater towns unheralded and unknown. Then it all changed overnight, and he fulfilled his dream with a 10-year, $100 million Strip contract. Superstars from show business are now in the audience with regular fans.

Terry celebrates his first anniversary this weekend headlining at The Mirage, and in a one-on-one conversation right after he and I were out at NASCAR, we talked about the highpoints and the low moments of an extraordinary 12 months.

Robin Leach: Good to see you at NASCAR. Did you enjoy yourself?

Terry Fator: I had so much fun. Oh my goodness, that was one of the highlights of my career I think.

RL: I ask you then to start thinking about this past year. So cast your mind back over this extraordinary year -- did you ever think that you would be in this position March 2010 from where you were a year or two ago?

TF: It is just amazing. I mean no. This is something that I visualized for myself for a long time. To be able to have a show here that is selling, we are selling at 90 percent capacity every single night. To be able to do that for an entire year, to be able to do a show that people in Las Vegas and all over the country are embracing so much is really, really … what an experience. It makes all the hard work worth it.

RL: All very suddenly after 20-plus years of major struggling.

TF: That’s right. You struggle and struggle and hope that someday something would happen, and it finally has.

RL: Why do you think you never gave up hope?

TF: Well because I think I saw something in myself. I knew that I had something unique in me. I also knew that I had a truly great work ethic, so I just felt sooner or later people would like what I did. I just always felt like that all people had to do was see it. If I had a chance to go in front of America and show them what I had been working on for the past two decades I really did believe that America would like it. I am glad I was right about that.

Absolutely determination, dedication, diligence pays off in the end. Never give up on the dream. My big message is to people, while they are in line to get autographs and stuff, they will ask do you have any advice? My advice always is, “Never give up on the dream, but never stop working toward the dream. The dream really dies when you stop working at it.” If you are a guitar player and you put the guitar in the closet and don’t touch it again, the dream actually is dead. If you pull it out every day and spend 15 minutes, that really adds up over a year or a few years, and you could get really, really good. Anything can happen, and I am proof of that.

RL: So go back to the opening night, exactly 12 months from this Saturday that you are celebrating. Were you nervous? Were you confident? What was your state of mind a year ago?

TF: I wasn’t nervous, because when you spend literally 24 years getting yourself ready for one night, which is pretty much what happened last year, I was ready. I was very, very excited. I was kind of bouncing off the walls because it was the culmination of my dreams, so I was very excited, but I wasn’t nervous. One thing is, I have definitely gotten much more comfortable getting up onstage in front of an audience and giving 100 percent of myself. That’s what I am excited about for the anniversary. I am not going to have that same kind of first-night excitement with me, so I will talk a lot slower, because I know last year I was probably blazing through the show because I was so excited. I feel like I have switched into gear since I opened. I have really tightened the show up. I have written a lot of new material with new characters. So I just think it’s going to be a much more of a satisfying experience for anyone who comes this year as opposed to last year. I am excited about the show now more than ever.

RL: What are some of your favorite moments over the year and who are some of the stars that stood out? I know many stars have gone to see the show, and some have wound up onstage with you.

TF: Well my favorite moments are, well, any time you get out onstage and perform and afterwards going out and meeting everybody. Every single night, that’s my favorite part, I still go out and greet people, and the only times I don’t do the autograph signing, I don’t do them on Saturday nights because my weekend starts Sunday and Monday, and a lot of times I will leave town. But every single night when I go out and meet people, I hear stories and hear the talk about how they watched my DVD with their family. That is my favorite part, and that happens on a regular basis. My favorite celebrities … Mel Gibson came to the show, which just blew me away. I mean Adam Sandler has been to the show, Ray Romano, Kevin James, Jay Leno. We have had some really unbelievable stars come out for the show.

Mel Gibson was the biggest shock because I didn’t even know he was there, he had just driven in from Los Angeles with his son. He was researching for a movie that had to do with puppets, and he Googled ventriloquists close to here and my name popped up. So he drove in with his son, bought a ticket and came in. Somebody came to me halfway through and said, “You are not going to believe this: Mel Gibson is here.” And I am like, “Mel Gibson is in the audience?” So we had one of the ushers grab him and bring him backstage, and I got my picture with him. He loved the show, and it is times like that I will always remember. It is always fun when a celebrity comes. It is always more fun when I find out that they are there after the fact. Because I tend to, when a celebrity is there or when somebody is there that I am a big fan of, I get really excited, and again I probably rush through the show because I am all hyped up.

So it was nice to not know he was there until halfway through. He was very nice -- an amazing moment. This has really just been a surreal year. I am just truly looking forward to many, many, many more here in Las Vegas. I can give my personal guarantee to everyone here in Las Vegas that the quality of the show will never suffer, and that there will always be fresh, new and exciting things happening on my stage. That is really what my commitment is at this year anniversary.

RL: Now you’ve got a surprise coming up for all of us this Saturday with a new puppet added to the lineup. Did you let one of the others go, or is it just an addition to the family?

TF: It is just an addition. We have cut enough to accommodate the new one! We were doing a 90-minute show, and we have cut it down to about 84 minutes, so we could give six minutes to the new puppet and the same for all the others. What we have done is thrown some material out that was on the DVD. People might ask where is the Michael Jackson routine? We tell them we taped it, it is on the DVD, and they can take it home and see it any time. None of the characters have been fired or gone missing. We are just tweaking the show enough to fit in the new one. I will tell you one advance secret, and that it’s a he and that he sings songs about cars. That’s the only tease clue I will let you have, Robin. All the songs that he sings have to do with cars. So we will let you try to figure out who that is.

RL: How long did it take to make the new puppet? Incidentally, how much do puppets cost these days?

TF: Oh my goodness, they are very expensive. They are in the upwards of $30,000 to $50,000. So we had the idea for this particular character nine, 10 months ago. We have several different, we have a couple fantastic ideas, we have one puppet that is already made, but we felt that it would be better to save the unveiling of him for the next one. I am having to use one of my other puppets as a stand-in for him in rehearsals as he comes in only 96 hours before curtain up.

RL: It always sounds odd to me that you need rehearsal time with something that is on the end of your hand all the time anyway! The thing that always amazes me about your puppets is they are the most lifelike characters I have ever seen before in my life in ventriloquism. People just forget that you are there manipulating it.

TF: That’s right. That is because I spend so much time rehearsing with them and making sure they always seem life-like. It wouldn’t be fair to the audience if it wasn’t perfect like that. I can’t tell you how happy I am to hear that the puppets are life-like. That is really the ultimate goal. Creating life out of wood and felt materials.

RL: It has been a year now here in Las Vegas, so you are a local. Has it been a good for you to move from Texas and put roots down instead of schlepping all over America?

TF: Yeah, absolutely. I still have my home in Texas because I was raised there. I still have a place there, and I go back there on a regular basis, just to get a feel of home. Vegas has definitely become a wonderful place, and I feel the love from the city itself, and I hope the city itself feels the love back from me. One thing that people don’t understand is just what an amazing city this place is. If you have never left the Strip, if you have never seen the rest of the city, you can’t understand that this is a wonderful, wonderful community to be a part of. I am just honored to be able to be a representative for it. I want to thank the whole city for their wonderful acceptance of my show and what I do, and I still look forward to this being a long and very prosperous relationship for all of us.

RL: Terry, each night you fill the 1,265 seats in the theater. What is the largest crowd that you have ever had lined up after a show?

TF: Oh man, I wouldn’t even know. Normally it takes me about an hour to get through all the people and autograph signings, but there have been times when it takes me two to two and a half hours to get through it. That must have been the entire house, or it felt like it. I don’t do it on Saturdays, and I don’t do it when I have a flight to catch or something press-related right afterwards, or I don’t do it when I am sick. My commitment again is to the show itself, plus I don’t want to be infecting people. But those are the only times I don’t do it. But when I do those long meet-and-greets, I will stay until the last person that wants an autograph gets an autograph. That’s my commitment to them. I tell that to my fans from the stage, I say listen, my line is this, “When you spend 24 years without any fans, it is really great to have fans now.”

RL: You have found success. You have become a household name, but in a sense, you are locked into The Mirage for a decade. Have you been able to do other things? Have you found time to squeeze in some television or records?

TF: I have already gone into the studio and recorded a couple of songs. I am going to continue to do that. I am going to be writing and recording a new album sometime this year. I am working with some different TV networks and exploring some television deals. It will always have to schedule itself around my Mirage contract because, to me, that is my dream. I am living my dream, and anything else I do is going to have to be extraneous to that. I am not going to be giving up The Mirage to pursue a television deal or anything like that. It will always just have to be a part on top of my Mirage deal because I am having way too much fun to stop any time in the next 10 or 15 years.

RL: Do you still occasionally sneak a glance at America’s Got Talent and see who is following in your footsteps?

TF: Yeah, I watch it every time it comes on. I love the show. I am its No. 1 fan. Yeah, I watched every single episode last year. I will watch it again this year. I don’t know if they want me, but if they want me to come back and do another cameo appearance or routine, I would love to. It’s like going to a high school reunion when I go back. I get to see all the crew and producers and then of course meeting the new contestants is kind of surreal because they look at you and say, “Oh my gosh, that’s who I want to be.” It’s weird when people feel that way about you. It is weird when you have people idolizing and wanting to emulate you. It’s always a really fun experience, and I hope I get the chance to do it again this year.

RL: In the midst of all this year’s successes, both your personal and professional life hit a couple of bumps. There were a couple hiccups there. Is everything smooth with the breakups now?

TF: Yeah, you know I am trying my hardest to make positive changes. I am trying my hardest to move forward. We all have things in life that no matter how good things get, no matter how wonderful things are, there are always going to be those moments when we have mountains to climb and we have struggles to overcome. That is just the way it is. We think that, oh, getting rich and famous will solve all my problems, and some problems will end. But a whole new set of problems will spring up.

My attitude toward life and whatever curve balls are thrown at me is to just roll with the punches. It is a cliche, but when life gives you lemons, you make lemonade. You make the best of it, and you make every single thing that you have to struggle with a growing experience and turn it into a learning experience. That is what I do, I try to become a stronger person with whatever it is I have to face.

RL: Great! Congratulations on year one, and here’s to many more!

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 at Twitter.com/Robin_Leach.

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