ENTERTAINMENT

This magic man soars

Boyish Lance Burton is the top illusionist in a town that showcases the world's best. It all started at a potato chip factory.

By Alanna Nash

When he first went to Vegas in 1982, magician Lance Burton -- who includes doves, geese and a parakeet named Elvis in his show -- poked good-natured fun at Siegfried and Roy's royal white tiger act by featuring "Butterball, the Royal White Turkey" onstage.

No offense taken, or intended. After all, when he was 12, growing up in a working-class section of Louisville, Burton watched Siegfried and Roy on the old "Merv Griffin Show" and was inspired to pursue a career in magic. He now works out side-by-side with Siegfried Fischbacher on the treadmill at the gym. And on the night of Roy Horn's near-fatal attack by one of their tigers, Burton was one of the first people at the hospital.

"Before Siegfried and Roy, you had magicians doing 10-minute spots in Vegas," Burton says. "They were the first to do a full-time show. Their original act was brilliantly constructed psychologically, so the audience would think, 'Aha! I've got them!' Then it was, 'Wait a minute; I wasn't expecting that!' Two hundred years from now, there will be a list of great magicians, and Siegfried and Roy will be at the top."

Put Burton on that list as well.

In the wake of the mauling that sidelined Siegfried and Roy last year, audiences are finding out what the world of magic has known for years: Burton, 44, is the pre-eminent Las Vegas entertainer of his kind. "What's On" magazine has recognized him as such for the past five years, placing him ahead of the flamboyant German duo and David Copperfield. By the time his 13-year contract with the Monte Carlo Resort and Casino runs out in June 2009, Burton is expected to have earned more than $110 million.

If just winning over the audience is the ultimate trick, as Burton himself declares, he achieves it nightly. In his 90-minute show, which "Entertainment Today" magazine has named the No. 1 family magic act, the most obvious example occurs when Burton brings a group of kids onstage. The illusionist, who has donated millions to children's charities, is a natural with youngsters. One boy left the magician speechless. "He had this little English accent, and his name was Miles," Burton recalls. "I said, 'How old are you, Miles?' He said, '5.' I said, 'Do you have a girlfriend?' He said, 'No.' So I said, 'Do you want to meet one of the girls in my show?' And he said, 'No. We can't afford one of those.' The audience howled. Out of the mouths of babes, you know."

Burton was just such a child, volunteering to be a magician's assistant when he was 5. One Christmas he attended an employee party at the potato chip factory where his mother worked, and a magician pulled out a silver dollar from behind his ear. "That was the most wonderful revelation in the world," Burton says. At age 20, he won the gold medal for excellence from the International Brotherhood of Magicians in 1980, the first year the medal was awarded. Two years later, at 22, he was the youngest person and first American to bring home the Grand Prix award as "World Champion Magician" from the International Federation of Magic Societies.

By then, he had already headed west to find his fortune. ("I drove out there in a broken-down car with a leaky radiator -- just me, my tuxedo and seven doves.") Within a week, he appeared on "The Tonight Show." Johnny Carson, a frustrated magician, watched the 21-year-old in rehearsal and let him do an unprecedented 12-minute routine.

His reputation soared, and demand for Burton eventually landed him his current 13-year contract in Las Vegas. The Monte Carlo signed Burton by letting him design every aspect of his $27 million theater. He won over crowds easily. "He brought a different intensity to magic," says Stan Allen, publisher of "Magic" magazine. "He was flawless. Yet there was this little boyish grin going on that let you know he didn't take himself so seriously."

And he doesn't hide an accent that sounds like a Dixie-fied Jack Nicholson. He maintains his conservative values -- no drinking, drugging or gambling. In 1993, he was briefly married to magician Melinda Saxe, and he has a college-age son from a prior relationship.

When he first hit it big, he built his parents a lavish home on his grandfather's farm in Russell Springs, Ky. Even though he's designing a house in Nevada, he says he'll move back to Kentucky one day. "There's city people and there's country people," Burton says. "I like living in the country. If it hadn't been for that Christmas party long ago, I'd probably be driving a tractor."

At 21, he wowed Johnny Carson on The Tonight Show.

For his 1997 special on NBC, a straitjacketed Burton was padlocked in a cramped, water-filled chamber.