Ray, master of ‘show’ and ‘business,’ dies at 86

Tuesday, Oct. 24, 2000 | 10:06 a.m.

Comedian Roger Ray, who once earned $10,000 for a five-minute performance on the "Ed Sullivan Show" and later made a fortune in Las Vegas in the sand and gravel business and through real estate investments, has died. He was 86.

Ray died Sunday of kidney failure at a Las Vegas nursing home, his family said.

Services for the Las Vegas resident of 34 years, who performed at several major Las Vegas hotels from the 1940s through the '60s, will be 11 a.m. Saturday at Davis Paradise Valley Funeral Home. Visitation will be 5-8 p.m. Friday at the same site. Interment will be in Paradise Memorial Gardens.

Ray was the longtime owner of Gornowich Sand and Gravel Inc. of Las Vegas.

"He was a product of vaudeville," said longtime Sun entertainment columnist Joe Delaney. "But not only was Roger a good comedian, he was a smart businessman who bought a bankrupt company and made it successful. With Roger, it was both show and business."

As a comedian, Ray's schtick was to pretend to play a marimba, only to stop and tell short, clean jokes.

"Most of what I did was sight gags," Ray told the Sun in a July 24, 1995, story. "I never became a star, but I worked with every star there was. There isn't a single, solitary place in the world of any importance that I haven't played."

In addition to Ed Sullivan, Ray appeared on the "Tonight Show" with Steve Allen, Jack Paar and Johnny Carson and the "Jackie Gleason Show." He played the London Palladium with Eleanor Powell and Radio City Music Hall.

Ray performed with Senor Wences, Fred Astaire, Joey Bishop, Carl Ballentine and Gene Kelly. Ray held a 100th birthday party for Wences at his Las Vegas home.

Born Robert L. Martinez on June 11, 1914, in Cleveland, Ohio, Ray began his show business career at age 9 by running away from home to join the circus, where he cleaned the elephants' stalls and clipped their toenails.

Ray was an Army veteran of World War II. After the war, he began playing Las Vegas hotels as an opening act for headliners.

He played the El Rancho Vegas with Sophie Tucker and later worked the Last Frontier, Flamingo, Thunderbird, Desert Inn and Tropicana. He was the top act in the Tropicana's "Folies Bergere" in the 1960s, when young magicians and future legends Siegfried and Roy were a supporting act in the show.

In 1967, a year after moving to Las Vegas, Ray bought Gornowich, a bankrupt sand-and-gravel business. Ray continued to invest in Las Vegas, buying prime real estate on Spring Mountain Road. He once bought 4 acres on Flamingo Road for $10,000 and sold it for $1.5 million.

Ray is survived by his wife, Clare Martinez; two sons, Donald Martinez and Robert Martinez, all of Las Vegas; nine grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. He was preceded in death by his eldest son, Billy Martinez.