Comedian David Swan fights cancer with laughter

By Jerry Fink (contact)

Friday, Nov. 2, 2007 | 7:41 a.m.

What: Benefit for comedian David Swan

Who: Tony Sacca will host the event. Performers include comedians Pete Barbutti, Cork Proctor and Peter Anthony, magician Jason Byrne and singer Corrie Sachs.

When: 2 p.m. Saturday

Where: Imperial Palace showroom

Admission: $30 donation; 889-3587, thecastinc.com

Also: Swan is selling his three-bedroom home on Raindance Way. The asking price is $ 310,000. Call Jilan Ricci at 496-9197.

Cancer is eating away at comedian David Swan, attacking everything but his sense of humor.

Since December 2003 the entertainer has lost a lung, bladder, kidney and prostate.

"I'm smuggling myself out of the country, a bit at a time," Swan, 68, says.

Swan, who gets chemotherapy every Tuesday, hasn't worked since May. Being idle is harder on him than the cancer. For almost 17 years he performed in two shows - doing comedy in Dick Feeney's "Viva Las Vegas" in the afternoons and reigning as the King in "Tournament of Kings" at the Excalibur in the evenings.

"When this first started happening I thought we should move back home," says Swan, who was born and raised in Swansea, Wales. "But my wife couldn't take the cold , wet weather."

So they decided to move to southern Spain , where Jan, his wife of 46 years, has a cousin.

"It's close to the United Kingdom. Flying to Swansea from Malaga is like flying from Las Vegas to Los Angeles. Lots of Brits are retired there. There are lots of pubs. Brits who haven't retired there frequent it for vacation. There are a dozen nightclubs there where I can do my stand-up act."

Before he leaves, Swan is trying to sell his home of 23 years in the Paradise Palms Addition . The CAST, a nonprofit group that helps veteran entertainers, will host a fundraiser for him Saturday at the Imperial Palace.

During his 52 years as an entertainer, Swan has shared the stage with some of the best, including Tony Bennett, Charo, Roy Orbison and Billy Eckstine.

He seemed born to go onstage.

"I was the classroom clown," Swan says. "Dad knew I was pretty gung ho about being a comedian. I didn't want to be anything else. I tried to play rugby. I tried to box, but my heart wasn't in it. I just wanted to get up onstage and make people laugh."

To appease his father, a plasterer, Swan became an apprentice painter and decorator. But he entered talent contests and joined a group of entertainers who would perform in the remote Welsh valleys on weekends. After serving in the army, he got a part-time job as a bingo caller in Swansea.

"I'd do my painting by day and put on a tuxedo at night and call bingo," he says. "Bingo is a lot different over there than here. British bingo is a lot faster."

Between sessions he did a little stand-up comedy and honed his skills until he felt confident enough to go to London, where he found an agent who sent him back to perform in the clubs in those remote Welsh valleys.

"The first time I did the concert parties I only made a pound," Swan says. "When I returned, I was making 25 pounds."

He moved up to larger nightclubs and theaters across the United Kingdom in the '60s. "Some of the showrooms there were bigger than the ones in Las Vegas," he says.

His career was thriving when he paid a visit to Las Vegas in 1978 and liked it. He moved here in February 1979 and worked in "Pin-Ups at the Movies," a topless revue with movie themes at the Sahara.

"We tend to talk fast in Wales so I had to learn to slow down and cultivate an American accent," he says.

When the show closed, Swan worked revues in Reno, Lake Tahoe and Dallas before landing at the Imperial Palace in Breck Wall's "Bravo Vegas."

"I was supposed to fill in for one of the acts for one night," Swan says.

But Imperial Palace owner Ralph Engelstad liked Swan. When "Bravo" closed, Swan opened for many acts and was the comedian in "Legends in Concert" for six years.

He left to play King Arthur at the Excalibur when the casino opened in 1990. The next year, he also joined the cast of Dick Feeney's "Viva Las Vegas" at the Sands and followed it to the Stratosphere and the Plaza.

"He's one of the most talented guys that ever worked for me, a real professional," Feeney says. "He just loves to do stand-up. He was doing the King, but that was a role. 'Viva' was a chance for him to do his material. He has a knack of telling a joke.

"His whole life is performing."