Q+A: Terry Fator reflects on eighth anniversary at The Mirage, renewal through 2021
There are two more years remaining on the unparalleled 10-year, $100 million contract that entertainer Terry Fator signed with The Mirage as its headline attraction, and he’s just been renewed for another five years to 2021.
The singer, impressionist and ventriloquist says it is only now with his third marriage, to Dallas catering and event planner Angie Fiore, that he has finally found contentment and true happiness. The couple were married twice in September and November of 2015. I started my interview Monday afternoon with Terry asking about his eighth anniversary of “Terry Fator: The Voice of Entertainment” at The Mirage.
It seems like only yesterday that you won Season 2 of “America’s Got Talent” and landed your Strip residency. Does it seem like eight years?
It does and it doesn’t. I feel like I’ve lived several lifetimes since I started. At the same time, it feels like you blink and it’s gone, so it’s weird. I’ve been through a lot in the eight years — a lot.
I think in Las Vegas you have to experience a kick in the head every now and then.
Yeah. It’s just like anybody, though; I’m searching for happiness. People think you sign a big, multimillion-dollar deal, and you’re happy. I wasn’t happy until I met Angie. Really happy. I mean I was happy, but I didn’t know what it meant to be happy inside, too. Now I feel content. I’ve got a real, genuine contentment in my life. I don’t have a lot of drama. It’s just amazing.
She was right next door, but you never saw her. You went through two divorces, first with Melinda after 18 years, then the second with Taylor Makakoa. Your sister introduced you to Angie at your 50th birthday celebration at home in Dallas.
I never saw it coming. We both believe in God. We believe God put us together because what are the odds that I would happen to have a friend who knew her? I hired her through this friend as a caterer, and, boom, there it is.
Let’s go back to the beginning. You arrived here after winning Season 2 of “AGT,” and you learned that you landed a long residency here, something that you’d worked for for 20-plus years. Then it hit you that this was real. It was no more tents of just two or 10 people. Suddenly the crowds were 2,000 at a time.
Yeah, it’s incredible. I don’t think that I realized the magnitude of it at first. I’d been dreaming of it since I was a kid, but I was 43 when it happened — better late than never, right? It just never occurred to me that it wouldn’t work because I had seen the kind of reaction that the audiences had on the road. Once I figured out that I needed to do impressions and ventriloquism, I saw how people reacted to it.
I just knew those fans who watched me would want to come and see me live, and it’s cool that I have this place where they can come from all over the world. I’ve worked so hard. I’ve probably rewritten the show 15 time in the eight years. I work all the time. I’m always creating; I’m always writing.
To be honest with you, knowing that this is the eighth year, it blows me away. I’m like, “Wow, I really did beat the odds.” Nobody beats the odds in Las Vegas, and I did it. Now I want to go as long as I can. I love doing this. We’ve got five more years now. If we’re continuing to be successful, I have no reason to think that we won’t continue to perform at The Mirage.
In a sense, that’s even more staggering than the first residency.
It really, really is. I feel like my job is just to keep coming up with new and fun stuff for my audiences. If I keep doing that and I keep pushing myself to be better, then I just feel like there’s no reason why it shouldn’t continue to go. It’s the same thing that happened to me on “AGT.” I had to put out the best I had the very first episode. Then once I made it through, I said, “OK, now how do I top that?”
I had to do that six times. I always say, “How do I top what I’m doing now?” If I can continue to do that, well, first of all, that’s the true mark of a professional, someone who can continue to top what they’re doing. Second of all, I believe that’s really the secret to why I’ve been successful for eight years and continuing.
Yet, being honest, if people said that you as a singing ventriloquist would get 15 years in The Entertainment Capital of the World, they would’ve taken you away with the men in white coats.
They would have — I think nobody thought it would work. I was the only one who thought that it was gonna work. I give Scott Sibella, who was president of The Mirage at the time, a lot of credit for believing in me. He told me that he was going to be in a lot of trouble if I didn’t work because they spent a lot of money to promote it and to make the change over and to put my name on the theater. I know that he was very relieved when it was as successful as it has been.
We know it’s working as long as we’re having people in the audience, and they’re still enthusiastic. The sold-out numbers really help. One of the things that’s so great about my show is that it’s really very inexpensive to put on. We’re not like a Cirque show. I don’t have 100 people or 180 people. I have me, my band, my team who works with me and DJ Ben Harris.
The only problem is there is no backup. There’s nobody who can do what I do, so when I get sick or I go down, man, I can’t call somebody. I just do my best to stay healthy. I visit the doctor a lot to get checkups to make sure everything’s good, make sure the throat’s good. I just went to see him last weekend to say, “Hey, look at the pipes.” He said, “They’re in fantastic shape.” So I’m still kicking and ready to go.
What has Angie brought you in the last 18 months that you didn’t have before?
First of all a support system at home. I don’t think anybody ever made me feel as important as she does, and I mean as a person. Not only that, she makes me feel like a star. I never felt like a star until her at home. She really does, and I don’t mean she sucks up to me. She makes me feel special, and I never had that.
I didn’t realize it, but in my life all of the people who were close to me just wanted to take, take, take. I didn’t realize that there was this emptiness inside. She really filled that emptiness. She came in, and she doesn’t want anything other than my presence, and that’s really cool to have.
Finally tranquility and peace?
That’s just it. Every single night since we first got together, we snuggle. It’s really nice to have somebody to snuggle with; it’s nice to have somebody. It’s an amazing way to end a day. It’s very peaceful; it’s very tranquil. I wake up in the morning, and I’m happy when I see her next to me. I’ve never had that until now.
You’ve added a Sir Elton John doll to your lineup as you start the ninth year with a talk-show format. How can you be Johnny Carson sitting behind the desk if all the dummies are sitting on the couch?
That’s how it feels to me, and that’s why I came up with this idea. When I was a kid, I would look in the mirror and I would pretend to be Johnny Carson. I would say, “Well for our next performer, we have … ” and I wasn’t doing an impression of Johnny. I was pretending that I was a talk-show host.
I emulated the talk-show format, and that’s how I learned how to write my shows and do ventriloquism and make it believable that every one of my puppets is a believable character and is real. I came up with this idea last year, and I said, “You know what? I’m just gonna go backward and become a kid again and become a talk-show host for my audience.”
We’re gonna pretend, just like when I was pretending when I was 10 years old. It’s really fun because there’s a joyful exuberance in my doing it because it feels real. It feels like I’m really a talk-show host and I’m bantering with my keyboard player, Bill Zappia. Then I call up one of the characters, and I talk to them.
I’m really curious: How do you banter and ad lib with yourself? Your voice, then the doll’s voice? How do you flip the switch on and off between the character and you?
It takes a lot of practice; it really does. The funny thing is when I do, I almost get lost in that character, too. I have created these characters, they’re so three dimensional, that I can separate my psyche and be sitting there chatting with them. Not that I really believe that they’re real, but it feels real because when you practice it so much, it’s just like an assembly line.
You know, if you first start on an assembly line, you’ll be like Lucy and Ethel. But you do that for 30 years, 40 years, you’re gonna get pretty darn good at it, and that’s really what it is. It’s 40 years of bantering back and forth with a puppet. I can really let them take over and just let them, let their character come alive.
It gets harder when I’m tired or sick. If I have a cold or something, there’ll be times when the wrong voice comes out, but what I do with that is I just have fun with it. I bring the audience in on the joke and mistake. And, most of the time, the audience will come up afterward and go, “Was that a part of the show?”
Which means I did perfectly. If I screwed up and the audience thought it was a part of the show, I’m OK with that. But, it’s really hard; again, it’s practice. It’s just years and years and years, thousands, tens of thousands of hours of rehearsal and practice, and it just becomes natural.
With the introduction of Sir Elton, you had to get the English voice down?
A little bit. I already do Hyphen, who is kind of a Beatle, and I gave him a Beatles’ Liverpool accent. With Elton, he’s more of a normal British accent. I don’t want to go too far with him. I don’t really do much talking with him because he’s the singing guest. He’s the musical guest. He comes out and does seven of his songs in a medley. We have a very funny ending for it that I watch the audience, and they’re just delighted.
I bring out the puppet, and they all laugh because the puppet looks so cool. You’ve seen pictures. He looked so cool, then when he starts to sing, the audience goes nuts. They sing along, and it’s become a highlight of the show. We start off with “Crocodile Rock,” then we do “Candle in the Wind,” then we go into “Tiny Dancer,” “The Bitch Is Back,” “I’m Still Standing” and one more.
Elton is the first new doll for Season 8, and you have other ideas percolating?
I absolutely do. I want to do more real-life characters. I want to start going overseas. If I pull out Elton John and I’m in Japan, they’re all gonna know who that is. Doesn’t matter where I go in the world, they all know Elton John. It’s gonna make it much easier for me to transcend that language barrier.
I chose Elton because he is next door at Caesars Palace. Angie and I went and saw him last year; his performance just blew us away. So many iconic, amazing songs; I love to do the voice. I didn’t have any Elton in my show, so I said, “That’s the guy. That’s the person.”
Who drops out to make room for him? You can’t lose Winston the Impersonating Turtle!
Nobody. I actually shortened all of the other people, and it’s gonna get to a point where I can’t do that anymore or I’m gonna be doing 30-second routines. Eventually, I’m gonna have to take somebody out of the show. It’s hard because I just want to keep adding, and you fall in love with a character or a routine and you don’t want to take them out. I’d miss them.
Sometimes within the intricacies of this art, does the doll become more important than the ventriloquist in the public’s mind?
Yes and no. That’s true, and I think that was something that I believe I heard that Edgar Bergen really had a problem with — he didn’t like that Charlie, and I believe Paul Winchell was the same way, he didn’t like the fact that the puppets were more important. I don’t really care. It doesn’t bother me if the puppet gets the credit and the accolades.
For me it’s different because I’m not just a ventriloquist. I’m also a singer and more of an entertainer. One of the things that I’m doing is regular impressions myself. If you want to make Winston the Impersonating Turtle the star of my show and everybody’s talking about Winston, I don’t care. It’s just that I started really having so much fun doing regular impressions myself.
People also are shocked and surprised that I can sing, which I think is hysterical because every one of my puppets is singing. They’re doing impressions, yet I’ll do one by myself and they go, “Wow, I didn’t know he could do that.”
I do about six songs by myself in the new show. I do Ed Sheeran, John Legend, Passenger, Tony Bennett and Dean Martin. I also do Terry Fator. I sing a song for the military; that’s my own voice. I’m sure that I’ll do more in the future, but right now I just enjoy it.
Is it tougher being a ventriloquist today versus before when there were lots of vocal stars, whereas today there are fewer and fewer?
That’s a really good question. I don’t think it is. I think talent and comedy are always gonna work. If you’re good at what you do and you’re funny, you can get an audience to watch you. I probably would’ve never made it had it not been for “AGT.” I could not get anyone to even look at me. As soon as they saw that I was a ventriloquist, they would toss my stuff in the trash. They told me this afterward.
“AGT” gave me an opportunity to show what I do for millions upon millions of people all over the world, and they liked what they saw. I really think that if you’re good, funny and entertaining, it really doesn’t matter what era you’re in — people are gonna find you eventually.
Are there less and less recognizable voices today?
Definitely. It is weird, isn’t it? You think of Rich Little, and he had all of these big, crazy voice characters that he could do. It is much harder now. That’s a really good question, but luckily for me, I do singing impressions, so there is always gonna be a wide variety of singing vocalists out there. I’m the only one doing ventriloquism, which is why I got the big contract in Las Vegas.
I feel eventually someone else will come along who can do it. That’s when I’ll hopefully be 80 or 90, and I can hang up the mantle and just do it a few times a year. I always said that I want my life to be like Edgar Bergen. He got up, he did a show in Las Vegas, he went home, he put Charlie away, and he never woke up.
He went straight to heaven, and that’s how I want my life to be. I want to do a show, I want to go home, and I want to die in my sleep with my wife next to me dying with me so we can go together. I don’t ever want to be without her, and I don’t want her to be without me. That’s the perfect way to go. I want to have done a show the day that I pass away because that’s what I love. I love performing.
It’s remarkable that you have 15 years on the Strip and probably more after that, but I always remember the story you first told arriving here of when at one summer tent show, you had just one kid there in the front row all by himself.
Yeah, that was unreal. The rest of the tent was empty. And, if you look at this now after eight years on the Strip, it’s incredible. Piers Morgan once said on “AGT” that I’d never play to just one person ever again. It came true, and I couldn’t be happier.
