Looking back on Lance Burton

What’s there to say about Lance Burton that hasn’t been said before?

It seemed essential to talk to the magician one more time as he began the final week of 14 years at the Monte Carlo. But, as he said with a laugh, “I’ve said it all five or 10 times in the last six months.”

He still wasn’t sure what would happen after Saturday’s last scheduled show beyond “a vacation.” He was still taking the high road with his reasons for closing one of the Strip’s longest-running titles. His departure from the theater he helped design is an “amicable divorce.”

He instructed cast and crew to pull no pranks in the final performance. “There are going to be people there who paid money to see a show,” he explained, so they needed to “give a good show to the people who are there that night.”

Which is just what he has done since 1982, spending just about his entire professional life on the Strip.

Since it has all been said before — and since Burton coincidentally closes on summer’s last lazy holiday weekend — the answer seemed to be a look back at some of what’s been said before.

■ Take, for instance, the early publicity photos that show him with ruffled tux, pasty vampire makeup and painted eyebrows.

The Louisville, Ky., native was hired for the Tropicana’s “Folies Bergere” after a home-run appearance on Johnny Carson’s show and winning an international competition in Switzerland, both in 1982.

If you ever see a publicity photo of Burton holding the Grand Prix of magic award, “the trophy was the Tropicana’s gin rummy trophy. I didn’t think the (actual) medal was impressive-looking enough. I borrowed the trophy from the Tropicana.”

■ In July 1991, Burton took the big risk of leaving the secure “Folies” job to star in a modest production show at the bygone Hacienda. It took off, and in May 1993 the Review-Journal reported, “Burton confirms that a pay hike and new perks are part of the package, but says ‘the best part’ is dropping a Sunday show that will bring him down to 11 per week.”

He chuckled at that now. “When I first came to town, it was 14 shows a week at the Trop,” he said. “I did that for two years straight without a day off. That was seven days a week. Then we went to six days a week at Hacienda.”

His final year at the Monte Carlo was down to five. “I’m too old to do the two shows a day,” the 50-year-old said. “You can do things in your 20s and 30s you can’t do in your 50s.”

■ In 1996, Burton wrapped the Hacienda run and prepared to move into his custom theater at the under-construction Monte Carlo. By then, he told me in a profile, he had learned to be himself onstage.

“A couple of nights, I would go out onstage and I would just be in a silly mood and have a real silly show. I would just go off on weird tangents and goof around with people,” he related. “At the end of the show, the reaction would be bigger than a regular show.”

Years later, he said now, he read Sammy Davis Jr.’s autobiography and a related passage hit home. A veteran entertainer told a young Davis the only problem with his act was, “there’s no mistakes. They want to be able to go home and tell stories.”

“They like to see you improvise. They like to see you have fun,” Burton now understands.

■ Interviewing Burton just before the Monte Carlo show opened, one thing I still remember is how tired he looked. “Early rehearsals were dragging as long as four hours,” I reported.

“They were supposed to have (the theater) completed eight weeks before the hotel opened. Of course, they were trying to build a whole hotel at the same time. We wound up getting our certificate of occupancy just, I don’t know, four or five days before it opened,” he said now.

“We were working 18 hours a day trying to get the show opened. But we opened on time, and on budget, the same date the hotel opened.”

If anything stands out on this lazy Labor Day weekend, it’s Burton’s work ethic over the years. Something tells me this vacation won’t be too long.

Contact reporter Mike Weatherford at mweatherford@ reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0288.