them, and even passing himself through the middle of one. As he
performed and polished the act in Canada, Europe and Asia, he began to
amass dozens of awards. That pedigree, in turn, helped him to make his way
onto the Las Vegas stage. The strategy Mr. Electric had taught him could just
be the jolt of energy his career -- and his personal life -- needed.
In 2015, the one thing everyone was consumed with was social media. Facebook
was still growing by bytes and bounds. It had been followed in fast succession by
Twitter, Tumblr, Pinterest, Instagram and Snapchat. Even MySpace had been relaunched
just a couple of years earlier.
Murray was no stranger to social media, and had a personal page on the original MySpace
in the early 2000s, around the same time he had arrived in Las Vegas to hold down the
afternoon slot at the New Frontier Hotel and Casino on the Strip. Back then, he was splitting
his time between Vegas and Los Angeles, where he performed at comedy club open-mic
nights and took acting lessons.
“I really wanted to get on TV,” Murray said, “and at the time, there were two people going on in pop
culture that really caught my attention: William Hung and Dane Cook. Hung was this guy who tried
out for ‘American Idol.’ He was a horrible singer but he put so much energy into his performance that
everyone just fell in love with him. He was all over TV. Meanwhile, I had a ton of magician awards but no
one knew my name.
“The other guy was Dane Cook,” Murray continued. “He was this massively successful comedian, selling out
arenas -- even Madison Square Garden! And the thing I noticed about him was that he had really gotten his
start on MySpace, using it to promote himself. So, I decided to try and copy both: auditioning for reality TV like
Hung and using MySpace to promote my act like Cook.”
While Murray took his magic act from the Frontier to other properties, including the MGM Grand, he kept auditioning
for TV, finally landing a gig on the celebrity episode of “Blind Date,” a reality show. That led to appearances on “Reno
911,” “Celebracadabra” and others.
Top Left - Ryans' World YouTube star
- at 8 years old Ryan earns $28 Million a
year.
Top Right - YouTube star Fusetube.
Middle Photo: Dani and Murray perform
during the lockdown outside.
Along the way, he expanded his social media presence, with accounts on Facebook, Instagram and YouTube. But, none had
ever done much for his career. His YouTube channel, where he posted videos of past performances overseas and on cruise
ships, had fewer than 20,000 subscribers -- and who knows how many of those were actually watching his videos, much
less buying tickets. However, while his career on the Strip and TV was booming there was little need to worry about
“likes.”
He made appearances on “Last Comic Standing,” a reality show for stand-up comedians; the national
sensation, “America’s Got Talent,” where he famously made a full-scale steam train engine vanish from the
stage in front of celebrity judges Sharon Osborne, Howie Mandel and Piers Morgan; and as a recurring
expert on magic artifacts and history on the long-running hit, “Pawn Stars.”
On Sin City’s Strip, he was the resident magician at the Tropicana Las Vegas, arguably THE most
famous casino in a city full of famous casinos, performing in a venue operated by the Laugh
Factory Comedy Club (also famous), one of the very same Los Angeles clubs he used
to compete at to get onstage for open-mic nights. And, he had married his on-stage
assistant.
If he wasn’t on top of the world, he was pretty darn close. But, life is nothing
but change, and it can be nearly impossible to stay at that peak for any
length of time. Incredibly, Murray did for three years. Then, just like a
magic trick, it all seemed to vanish in a puff of smoke. His job: gone,
after the Tropicana rented out a showroom to another magician
who insisted no other magic acts be allowed on the property. His
wife: gone, when after learning some of the magic trade from
Murray she decided to strike out on her own.
But, the one trait that has always kept Murray going, no
matter how bad things might have seemed at the
time, was his work ethic. And that’s what brought
him to Jackpot, and to Cactus Pete’s.
“Then, one night while I was up in my
room, I was reading through some
comments on my Instagram page
and I saw one from someone
claiming that he could make
my videos go viral,” Murray
14 JUNE | 2020
PHOTOS: Left photo - Murray celebrates One
Million YouTube hits with co-producer Seth
Leach.
Bottom Left - at home Murray performs
during the lock-down for his Social Media
channels.
Bottom Right - Working on a project with
The Property Brothers.
JUNE | 2020 15