ULTIMATE RAGS TO RICHES STORY AS MGMS NEW $100 MILLION STAR ADMITS PRODUCERS TOLD HIM HE’D NEVER GET A VEGAS GIG
Three Las Vegas producers must be beating themselves up right now. Individually each one told singing-ventriloquist-impressionist Terry Fator that he’d never ever make it in Vegas. Now he’s celebrating a $1 million win on NBC-TV’s America’s Got Talent and he’s just signed a megabucks five-year deal to star in his own showroom at The Mirage!
“They told me I had a lousy act. They told me I wasn’t handsome enough for Vegas. They told me people didn’t want a singing impressionist with dolls. I’ve proved them totally wrong and I’m thinking seriously of inviting them to opening night on the Strip next Valentines Day,” he laughingly told me.
Terry, who had just flown in from the David Letterman show in New York was recruited for the Academy of Country Music’s radio tour in connection with the weekend’s country music awards show at MGM. He performed his impressions of Garth Brooks and Brooks & Dunn and then took time to chat with me. “It’s funny, I was turned down regularly for 10 years by Letterman until this Mirage contract. I got every turndown and reject letter, whichever way I knocked on his door. Now I’m making more money than he is!” he laughed. “It’s amazing”.
The 42-year-old new superstar admitted that producers here in Vegas even told him to dump the dolls and stick to playing dinner background music with his Texas band. “It was the lowest point of my life. I was never more miserable,” said Terry, who admitted he was living off his wife’s paycheck from a vet’s clinic because the band was sometimes splitting $750 a night seven ways! “It was pretty grim in those days to make just $250 in a week, but it did get up too $20,000 a year on the country fair circuit, but as you remember there was one night when I only had one 12-year-old child in the audience.
“That was when I wanted to quit, give up and just end it. But Melinda, my wife wouldn’t let me. She told me that the hard work would eventually pay off and it did, thanks to her believing in me. Terry admits that if they hadn’t won America’s Got Talent they’d be broke as they’d maxed out their credit cards, borrowed money from friends and were both jobless. The irony is that the night he won the TV talent show was exactly nine months to the day he’d heard Danny Gans at The Mirage and promptly switched to having his dolls do the singing celebrity impressions!
It’s a meteoric rags to riches story and now as Luxe Life first exclusively reported he will even get his own 1,265 seat Terry Fator Theater. Over the weekend I introduced him at the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation charity dinner in The Venetian. He confirmed he’ll do five shows weekly at The Mirage and there’s an option for it to run for a total of 10 years.
Terry admits his life has completely changed overnight and although he’ll keep the Dallas home he bought his wife from the America’s Go Talent paycheck he’s now looking for a Vegas manse to call home. Here’s our exclusive one-on-one interview:
RL: How does it feel for all the dreams to suddenly come true?
TF: It is unbelievable. It doesn’t seem possible that all of this stuff could happen to me. I feel like such a normal person and when you have struggled and worked at something for 25 years, after 20-22 years you get to thinking okay I think this is about as good as it is going to get. You really settle in. My life completely changed in the span of a year. Last year I was doing shows on stages at fairs, shows for elementary schools and now I am a superstar on the Strip. Everyone involved is so happy as well and to be able to move from the Hilton to The Mirage and have the blessings of the previous casino, they all congratulated me and when you can accomplish your dreams and not burn bridges and hurt people, it is sweeter deal.
RL: Karma always comes around.
TF: It does. I try to treat people the way I want to be treated and if we do that then people want to root for you. We have already been looking for a new home in Vegas, My wife and I have a real estate agent that is showing us houses and we are so excited about moving here. I have lived in Dallas my whole life, but I never had a problem with moving to Vegas, I knew if I was going to be a real headliner here, I would have to, so it has been in the back of our minds, now it is in the forefront. Come February I am going to be here all the time.
RL: When you heard the news the Mirage contract had been signed and that it was final, did you have emotions?
TF: I was on the road, it was kind of one of those things where you don’t really know what happened. I called all of my friends that Friday when you broke the story and I was like hey I’m the new headliner at The Mirage and I was so glib about it. I woke up Sunday morning and I thought holy crap I’m a headliner at The Mirage. It hit me then that I was taking the Danny Gans theater, it was now the Terry Fator theater and my image would be plastered all over Vegas. The reality hit me on Sunday. I called my road manager, and he goes Terry you sound really different, did it just hit you what really happened? I said yeah. I was bouncing off the walls all day.
RL: How did you celebrate? Quiet dinner with the wife?
TF: I didn’t even see her until Monday so when we got here we went and got champagne. We haven’t officially celebrated yet, but we did get champagne and toasted, but I think the celebration is in living it. When I get home to Dallas next weekend, we will go out for a really nice dinner. Things have been going too fast and I have been too busy. For me, that is good. I would much rather be working than not. I am one of these guys, if you gave me a month off, after a week I wouldn’t like it.
RL: So you stay on at the Hilton for a while?
TF: Three dates a month through December. I am going to honor all of those dates. I believe they are very close to being sold out all the way through the year. If they are not sold out, they are close. They have treated me so well. They said they will give me a fantastic send off; they are happy for me and proud of me and then the transition. The last gig there is Dec. 21-22. We are going to do that. They are going to start gearing for me at The Mirage. Once Danny is out, they will be getting things ready. The Mirage is going to let people know that I will be at the Hilton until then. The Hilton will then let people know I’m going to The Mirage as of Feb. 14, all as you said! That is unusual for Vegas, but we have made a marriage and I couldn’t be more pleased. I will be doing one show a night five times each week. I cannot physically do more than one show a night. It is so taxing on my voice.
RL: So will you be like Danny and not speak during the week?
TF: No, You will never get me to shut up. I love to talk, I love people. For 20 years many shows I did 28 shows in 30 days with no breaks at all. As long as I keep the show to 90 minutes I have never had a problem with my voice. I have never missed a show in 25 years.
RL: Do you have any miserable gigs left over to fulfill?
TF: No all of those are done. I did every single one of them. If it was contracted before America’s Got Talent, I did it and I did it for the same amount of money we agreed on and I am finished with all of them now. It is all good gigs booked afterwards. They felt lucky to get me, because they were paying so little, and now they have thousands and thousands of people to come see it, they must have made a lot of money off of it and I am happy about that.
RL: How does this change your life? What is the message to others in the trenches?
TF: Never give up your dream, but you have to couple that with hard work. Dreaming is wonderful, but if you are not prepared when the dream fulfillment comes along, then you might as well not be dreaming it. I coupled intense work with dreams and often I would give up and my wife wouldn’t let me.
RL: You have a long haul a head of you.
TF: I do. I want to be in Vegas for 20 years. A number of people have done it before me, so that is what I am counting on. With the $1 million we won, we bought a $300,000 house. It was like pulling teeth to get my wife to agree to that because it was out of our price range. I said no, we need to. Now is a good time to buy something even more spectacular in Vegas. It is a good time to buy here in Vegas and if you were still doing Lifestyles of the Rich & Famous, I know you’d want to film what we get here.”
I told him I just might even re-launch the show just to tell his story and show off his new home! Luxe Life will continue to chronicle Terry’s amazing story right the way through to next Feb. 14 and his glittering opening night gala at The Mirage!