Friday, Oct. 18, 2002 | 9:13 a.m.
What: "Dr. Scott's 'Outrageous Comedy Hypnotist.' "
When: 7 p.m. Mondays.
Where: Riviera's Le Bistro Theatre.
Tickets: $23.05.
Information: 794-9433.
Chiropractor Scott Lewis is a juggler.
The 39-year-old doctor juggles careers in medicine, infomercials, book writing and clinical hypnosis for weight loss and quitting smoking.
But one of his greatest passions is entertaining.
Mondays, Lewis stars in "Dr. Scotts Outrageous Comedy Hypnotist " at Riviera.
Lewis would be hard-pressed to make a choice between the medical profession and entertainment.
"I like the balance," he said during a recent interview in his office at Desert Inn Medical Center, where he works with a group of physicians. "My goal is to be able to do both, and I think Vegas is one of the only towns that you can."
How do people react when they learn he is an entertaining doctor?
"I get some surprise," Lewis said. "But people just accept it as Vegas. Anything can go." Lewis was born in Orange County, Calif., where he grew up wanting to be a magician.
"I always had an interest in performing," he said. "But I was a horrible magician."
Just before Lewis started college he was involved in a car accident and received therapy from a chiropractor for back pain.
"My dream was to be a performer, but I thought chiropractics would be a good career to have," Lewis said.
He attended the Los Angeles College of Chiropractics and practiced in Southern California for a year before moving to Las Vegas in 1987 to fulfill his dream of performing.
"I had met an Oriental magician at the Magic Castle in Hollywood (a club for professional magicians)," Lewis said. "He needed an assistant, and I thought 'This is it. He's going to teach me how to make doves appear like Lance Burton does.' "
Burton was appearing in "Splash" in Las Vegas and Lewis joined him.
"I was a horrible assistant," Lewis said. "I only lasted a month."
He parted ways with "Splash," but not with Las Vegas. He remained and continued to pursue his dual goals of health and entertainment.
"I put together a comedy magic act, but it didn't go anywhere," Lewis said.
He began to gain an interest in hypnotism for use in his medical practice, not for the stage.
"I loved the power of the mind," Lewis said. "I was treating a lot of patients with lower-back pain, and with weight problems. I was 40 pounds overweight myself.
"I had heard about how effective hypnosis was, clinically, and it inspired me to use it in work with my patients."
Taking a dose of his own medicine, he lost 40 pounds.
He learned to perform hypnosis at the Milton H. Erickson Foundation in Phoenix, one of the top institutions in the world for teaching the subject.
Lewis' medical practice began to flourish. He became the chiropractor of choice for many showgirls, and he used his clinical hypnosis techniques to help people lose weight and stop smoking.
He became involved in the infomercial industry at a time when the industry was heavy into selling exercise equipment.
"I produced a tape set called 'The Break-Through Formula,' " Lewis said. "It consisted of four audio tapes that used hypnosis techniques to motivate people to use the exercise equipment they bought."
Worldwide, he sold 150,000 sets.
Lewis was working on an infomercial in Malaysia two years ago when he decided to test his hypnotic talents onstage.
"I had always wanted to, but I was afraid," Lewis said. "There are so many variables. You have to have enough people to choose from, enough good subjects."
He worked on his act at the Pan Pacific Hotel.
"I knew how to hypnotize people," Lewis said. "I did it clinically for years. It was just taking that step of putting it onstage, to see if people would respond in the same way.
"It wasn't as difficult as I thought it would be."
After six months in Malaysia, Lewis returned to Las Vegas with renewed enthusiasm to be an entertainer.
In February he opened at Riviera's Le Bistro Theatre, subletting it from Marlene Ricci for a 7 p.m. show on Mondays.
He has been drawing large crowds ever since.
"I would like to do more shows," Lewis said.
But Le Bistro Theatre shares space with several different acts, and for now he said he has to be content with a single, one-hour performance.
Meanwhile, he is adding yet another career to his long list -- that of show producer.
He and Robert Allen are co-producing a show that will debut at Le Bistro on Oct. 28. "Shock" will hold down the 10 p.m. time slot on Mondays.
"The show will be anchored by comedy magician Robert Strong -- an Amazing Johnathan-type magician."
The show will include the macabre and the gross, with people inhaling balloons through their noses and out through their mouths, eating glass, driving nails up their noses, lying on a bed of nails and other acts.
"There will be a lot of rotating acts," Lewis said. "They are not for the faint-of-heart."
Meanwhile Lewis will continue dividing his time among his varied interests (he's looking for overweight subjects to work with in a weight-control project).
Of his onstage hypnosis, Lewis says it's an educational experience.
"I try to demystify hypnosis so people won't be afraid of it," he said. "They aren't going to be unconscious or knocked out. When you are under hypnosis, you are not in a trance. It is merely intense concentration and focus."
He says he is very respectful of the volunteers who join him onstage.
"I don't humiliate them," he said. "Well, I do make them cluck like a chicken." It is merely intense concentration and focus."
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