DEALING WITH COVID AND 'THE GREAT UNKNOWN'
Steve Connolly, Murray the Magician with Dani Elizabeth, and Travis Cloer.
By Norm Clarke
This was life before Covid-19 for Las Vegas entertainers Steve Connolly, Travis Cloer and Murray Sawchuck.
For 24 years, Connolly has been one of the city’s most popular Elvis tribute artists.
Sawchuck, who goes by Murray the Magician, has been a fixture on the Strip since 2010, after reaching the semi-finals of NBC’s “America’s Got Talent.”
Cloer played Frankie Valli during the eight-year run of the Las Vegas production of “Jersey Boys” at The Palazzo and Paris.
Life as they’ve known it has been in limbo since last March when the pandemic shut down the Strip, including entertainment, the industry that helped Las Vegas on the global map.
CONNOLLY EYEING OPTIONS
Six months later, Connolly said he’s coming to grips with the possibility of “what it means if (Las Vegas) doesn’t come back.
How long that might be is “the great unknown,” said Connolly.
They’ve been burning through their savings. “Obviously it’s changing my entire future. I’m putting resumes together for different jobs.
“I’m looking at teaching art at the college level. I’m a painter. I have a painting in the Conrad West Gallery (in Las Vegas). Titled “Elvis Life, Dealing Kings,” the painting shows a female card dealer, with one of the players dressed as Elvis.
A Boston native and raised Catholic, he spent much of his early years in churches, restoring 700 statues.
“I painted God on the ceiling of one church. I sold a painting to another church,” he said. “I just sold a ‘Spirit of the King’ Elvis painting to a Colorado man.”
Painting and music were his passions. He joined a band and when it broke up, it turned into a blessing. “Elvis happened as a fluke,” he said. Within a year he was getting about 70 bookings and he was known as “The King of the East.”
Then he took his Elvis act to Las Vegas.
“I got booked for 700 shows a year,” said Connolly, who had headlined at the Four Queens Hotel and Casino for six years before the shutdown
Taking advantage of the free time due to the Covid-19 crisis, Connolly has been assisting daughter, Kerry, 19, break into the music business as a singer and songwriter.
He recently spent 10 days at a Burbank recording studio with Kerry and his son, Brandon, 25, “holed up working 10 hours a day recording tracks. My daughter has written 50 songs since winning an award at age 11 in a school talent show. We were able to record 10 songs of the 15 we brought down. I played bass and my son played guitar.”
Kerry received high praise from the recording studio owner. “He said, ‘Steve, this is amazing. She’s going to be the next Taylor Swift.’”
This isn’t the first time a pandemic has rocked Connolly’s family.
A century ago, “My grandmother’s sister died of Spanish Flu,” he said. “One of the big issues was people weren’t wearing masks. So we haven’t evolved much.”
SAWCHUCK TOOK DAD’S ADVICE
Murray Sawchuck was all of seven years old when his father gave him a lesson on how to weather a financial storm.
Sawchuck’s uncle Bob, “my mother’s brother,” had given the youngster $100 as a birthday gift.
“My dad said ‘we should open a bank account’ and we went to a bank in Vancouver,” said Sawchuck.
His dad changed his mind on the way.
“He said, ‘we should have money in two or three banks so you’ll always have money somewhere. If you put it all in one bank and the economy goes south, you won’t lose it all.”
Sawchuck took his father’s advice to heart.
“Since that day, that’s how I survived,” he said.
2020 was not a good year to have all of one’s eggs in one basket.
His father would be proud. Forty years later and Sawchuck’s still diversifying his portfolio.
“The minute this (coronavirus lockdown) happened, I switched all my focus to television and my online presence. You-Tube, Facebook and TikTok,,” he said.
He’s been producing weekly videos on his YouTube channel for several years, with almost two million subscribers and over one billion views. He filmed his seventh season for The CW Masters of Illusion which has been airing this summer. He just filmed via social distancing another show for CW called “World's Funniest Animals” and he just finished writing a Children’s book called “At Nighttime We Are All The Same Size.”
A long run of headlining in Las Vegas helped him assemble a classic car collection that includes a 1969 Grand Prix Pontiac and a1973 Corvette Stinger.
Sawchuck’s father passed along something else: “My father always did his own landscaping and I’ve always loved it.”
Two weeks ago, Sawchuck opened Dirt2Dreams, a landscaping company in a partnership with his girlfriend, Dani Elizabeth, the host and lead dancer of “Crazy Girls,” based at Planet Hollywood.
The guy can multi-task.
Rocked by the pandemic, Las Vegas faces “a tough road back,” he said.
The new Las Vegas might resemble “a rebirth of the 60’s” with small lounge shows leading the way “because it’s lower overhead.”
It won’t be a magical recovery, he said.
As a result of the lengthy disruption, it will take a while to bring back sellout crowds, he said.
“Never in my lifetime did I think we’d see this,” he said.
CLOER TAKING IT ‘DAY BY DAY’
Travis Cloer’s moment of clarity arrived with the March winds.
Las Vegas entertainment venues went dark almost overnight.
“My entire source of income has vanished,” Cloer said.
“That was pretty humbling. It made me more resourceful. It made me realize maybe it’s time to expand my skill set,” he added.
He’s not the only entertainer faced with re-inventing himself.
With the showrooms closed on Las Vegas Boulevard and beyond, he needed to find a new audience and a fresh source of income.
After teaming up with Broadway veteran Christian Hoff, they put together live shows and took it on the road.
They performed at drive-in theaters in Ventura and Escondido. “We were out there doing what we love to do,” said Cloer.
Hoff won a Tony Award in 2006 for Best Featured Actor a Musical for his portrayal of Four Seasons co-founder Tommy in the original Broadway cast of “Jersey Boys.”
Cloer and Hoff are performing a special livestream on Friday (Sept. 18) at The Space. Accompanied by a four-piece band, they will sing all the great hits from the 1950s through the 1970s. It cost $25 to access the show, which starts at 6 p.m. West Coast time.
Cloer said his wife, Jen, is “a jack of all trades. She’s a health and wellness consultant, a dance teacher, a model and she’s in the middle of getting a nursing degree.” They have a daughter, Andi, 8, and a son, Rowan, 6.
He continues to write music and share videos online.
“It’s been very cool to do that. People look to artists in their time of need,” said Cloer.
“Everybody’s turning to online to lift them up through this time. That’s what’s keeping me going. The people need their souls uplifted.”
“We’re taking it day by day,” said Cloer.
“I don’t want to look too far down the road. That’s when it’s scary,” said Cloer.