Saluting man behind Burton’s curtain

Anyone who knows certain blinged-out magicians in Las Vegas also knows their blinged-out manager.

But Lance Burton had one too.

Burton’s story has certain parallels to Siegfried & Roy’s. Both worked their way up from 10-minute variety act in a showgirl revue to making millions in their own custom theaters.

In both cases, proactive managers helped them make the jump. With Siegfried and Roy it was Bernie Yuman, a flashy, sunglasses and pinky-ring kind of guy who intercepted every phone call and micromanaged the duo’s every press dealing.

With Burton it was Peter Reveen, an affable Australian who worked the poofy hair and goatee, but stayed in the background and did not tout his own accomplishments unless asked about them.

Turns out they were many.

The 77-year-old Australian who died last week was “the godfather of modern hypnotism,” says Paris Las Vegas hypnotist Anthony Cools. “He was the guy who brought it to the stage the way it’s known today. He is probably one of the most respected names in hypnosis, period.”

Cools grew up in Canada, where Reveen was “larger than life,” selling out theaters weeks at a stretch. Watching TV ads for Reveen started him down his own road. “I was a kid and I thought, there’s no way this could possibly be real, to control people like that. ... I want to learn how to do that.”

But Reveen also loved magic and reinvested much of his earnings into the frustrating and expensive realization that he was not equally loved as a stage magician. So he lived that dream through Burton.

The two met as fellow variety acts in the Tropicana’s “Folies Bergere” (where Reveen did mentalism). Burton swung his own deal to open his first show at the Hacienda in 1991. But Reveen soon came on to land an NBC special, then some even bigger fish.

Reveen courted the original Monte Carlo investors, who were looking for options to traditional headliners, remembers Burton’s longtime publicist Wayne Bernath. “Peter said to Lance, ‘I have four gentlemen who would like to build you a showroom in a new hotel.’ ”

“Lance was ready, the town was ready, and Peter was the person to make it happen,” says comedy-magician Nick Lewin, a longtime friend of Reveen.

Nothing ever lasts, and at some point in 14 years, Burton’s show leveled off while the rest of Las Vegas kept growing. Reveen had been in declining health when Burton closed shop in 2010.

But what these two achieved? Siegfried, Roy and Yuman did it first, so it’s not quite a one-of-a-kind story. But it is one I don’t ever expect to be writing again.

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