Longtime Las Vegas Strip performer Terry Fator has received a pink slip from the Mirage; the “America’s Got Talent” ventriloquist began his run at Mirage in 2009. His Las Vegas show will end by July 2020.
Fator received a six-month notice of termination by postal mail from the Mirage on January 30, 2020. The letter stated that the Mirage is exercising its right to cancel Terry Fator’s show since the “average occupancy of the show has been less than 75% of theater capacity during any consecutive 12 month period.” That’s cold.
This means the long-running show is finished by July 30, 2020. However, Fator and his company, Puppet Boy Entertainment, could choose to end it sooner. Fator’s residency has been in trouble for quite some time. However, no one expected it to end so unceremoniously, with a cold letter from the Mirage. But that’s show business on the Las Vegas Strip.
Ironically, the Las Vegas Review Journal named Fator the “Best Las Vegas Strip Headliner” three years in a row, most recently in 2019. The good news is, Terry Fator and his cast of characters will take the award-winning show on the road, with several dates lined up playing at casinos nationwide.
Terry Fator’s Rise to Fame
Terry Wayne Fator won the million-dollar prize on season two of America’s Got Talent back in 2007. Hyper-critical American Idol Judge, Simon Cowell, surprisingly has referred to Fator as one of the “two most talented people on the planet.”
After winning America’s Got Talent, Fator took the stage on October 14 and 15 at the Las Vegas Hilton, on the same stage that Elvis Presley performed his long-running residency. Both shows sold out and were standing room only. An additional show was added to the Hilton schedule in December, to satisfy the demand for tickets.
The following year, The Mirage hotel and casino in Las Vegas, signed him as a headliner with an incredible five-year, $100 million contract. It’s been reported that Fator’s deal was one of the largest in Las Vegas history. Not only that, the theater was renamed the Terry Fator Theatre. But that sort of success never lasts forever.
Terry Fator’s long run at the Mirage surprised quite a few people; no one expected a ventriloquist show on the Las Vegas Strip to succeed in the 21st Century. However, Fator proved them all wrong; but like any gambler’s lucky streak on the Strip, all good things come to an end.
Fator’s Turbulent Love Life
Terry Fator married his first wife Melinda in 1991. At the time, Fator was the lead singer of a local band called “Texas”, and Melinda was a band-follower. Melinda left Terry, and Las Vegas, in January 2009, returning home to Texas. She filed for divorce a month later in Texas, and the divorce was finalized in 2010.
Perhaps this wasn’t a coincidence, but just one day after the divorce was finalized, 45-year old Terry married his stage assistant, 22-year old Taylor Makakoa.
While it seemed that Fator was the living embodiment of the show-biz cliché in which a newly minted celebrity trades in the wife who stood by him for years for a younger model, Fator dismissed the notion. “The marriage issues that were happening in with my first wife were happening for years before this,” he said. “I mistakenly believed success would fix those problems, but it only made them worse.”
Fator pitched a marriage proposal to his next wife, Angie Fiore, while onstage and still performing with, and married to, Taylor. After 4 years of marriage, Taylor and Terry divorced in 2015. He married Angie Fiore a few months later.
What Does the Future Hold for Terry Fator?
The world-acclaimed ventriloquist has a full schedule of casino shows lined up across the country, and works with a wide variety of charities, such as the American Cancer Society, Shriners Hospitals for Children, the Arthritis Foundation, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, the Nevada Blind Children Foundation, and USA Hockey.
Unless Fator has been extremely irresponsible with his money, the 55-year old performer’s future should be worry-free.
