Las Vegas Sun

March 29, 2024

Columnist Lisa Ferguson: Fatherhood is serious business for Saccone

It's been said that comedy is tragedy plus time. But the phrase hit entirely too close to home for Mike Saccone.

Five years ago the comic moved to Las Vegas with his two young daughters and wife Karen -- a former catering manager at Los Angeles' renowned Spago restaurant -- when the missus landed a job at Bellagio.

Saccone, who in 1989 won the $100,000 Comedy Grand Champion prize on "Star Search," regularly performed in Las Vegas, so settling his family here seemed like a good idea.

"We loved Vegas, and the fact that I could work in town," says Saccone, who performs Tuesday through July 19 at Palace Station's Laugh Trax. His wife also "loved her job. Everything was great."

Then tragedy struck: Karen was diagnosed with lung cancer. Saccone recalls, "It was like some bad movie, when they look at each other and go, 'This is fantastic. Nothing could possibly go wrong.' Boom! ... It's that curve in the road that you don't see coming. You have this assumed future and, in fact, we were never happier."

Together the couple pursued her treatment, visiting doctors throughout the country. Sadly, eight months later, 43-year-old Karen lost her battle with the disease in May of 2000.

Besides dealing with the loss of his wife of 17 years, Saccone suddenly was faced with the prospect of raising his daughters -- Sophia and Lahna, then ages 4 and 9 -- alone. Also necessary was a shift in focus for his comedy career.

Saccone, a Kansas City, Mo., native, got his start in 1980 making audiences at Midwestern cowboy bars laugh before moving to New York and later Los Angeles to further his career. During his post-"Star Search" heyday, he made the rounds (and decent bucks) performing at college campuses.

He put his days as a road comic behind him shortly after his wife's death. No longer could he live out of a suitcase while performing in cities from coast to coast -- he was desperately needed on the homefront.

It turned out the family's decision to move to Las Vegas was a good one: "I am able to work in town quite a bit and not travel, which is really almost out of the question at this point, because it's just me and the girls," Saccone explained recently from his northwest valley home.

Saccone has carved a niche for himself locally, performing regularly at area comedy clubs, as well as filling in during the comedy portions of such topless production shows as "Showgirls of Magic," "Crazy Girls," "Skintight," "X" and "Midnight Fantasy," when those shows' regular comics are out.

"I do a lot of last-minute stuff," he says. Recently, he warmed up an audience before a taping at MGM Grand's Studio 54, of ABC Family cable network's revival of "Dance Fever." "They called me literally an hour before shoot time and said, 'Can you come down?', " Saccone says.

"I call myself 'The Vulture of Comedy,' swooping in and picking the bones of the dead," the 44-year-old jokes about his replacement-player status. "I'm liquid comedy -- pour me out in whatever dose you need."

Though he's in the business of jokes, Saccone approaches his job with seriousness. "The task ahead of me is not just about me, or earning a living. It's about, 'OK, I really have to hit a home run so people will like me in town, work me in town for the obvious goal, which is to stay in town with the kids.

"The goal is so much more clear. It's way different than, 'I want to be famous,' or, 'I want to be on TV.' The goal is, 'I need these jobs so I don't have to go to Cleveland or Pittsburgh' ... That is what drives me to go out and make 'em laugh hard."

Saccone's versatility as a performer might be a reason he was chosen as a subject for an upcoming TV documentary. For the past five months he's been tailed by a camera crew shooting footage for "Say Something Funny," in which the on- and offstage lives of six stand-up comics from around the country will be profiled. No air date or network has been selected for the documentary, which is still in production.

"They come to the house and tape me and the kids, and follow us to a birthday party. Then they go down to the show on the Strip and follow me there," he says of the filming process. "They're interviewing all of my friends and relatives. It's really kind of wild."

But, more likely, it was Saccone's can-do attitude in the face of personal tragedy that wowed the filmmakers.

"You look at the kids and go, 'This is what I have to do,' " Saccone says of his inner drive. "Many parents have done much harder jobs to keep their family afloat. I'm not the only guy in the world who's had to deal with this ... I'm still kind of lucky that I get to do a job that I enjoy doing."

Out for laughs

Rich Vos, one of the housemates featured on the NBC reality show, "Last Comic Standing," is scheduled to headline The Improv at Harrah's Sept. 16 though Sept. 21.

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