For Mark Hellerstein, ventriloquism has been a lifelong endeavor. In fact, he’s been involved in this art for more than 60 years now. It all started back when he was a young man of about 10 years old.
A Lifelong Love of Ventriloquism
Mark was visiting his local library back in the early 1960s, looking for a book on magic when he happened upon a book written by Paul Winchell: the famous mid-century comedian and ventriloquist. The book brought back memories of Winchell’s show, which Mark had watched until around the age of 5. He checked out the book and his passion for ventriloquism has yet to fade over the ensuing six decades. In high school, Mark won the Colorado Stars of Tomorrow contest.
But Mark didn’t immediately pursue full-time work in this field, instead finding success elsewhere. He attended the University of Colorado and graduated #1 in his class with a perfect 4.0 GPA. He then earned the highest grade out of 38,000 participants across the United States in the November 1974 CPA exam. Later, as the President and CEO of St. Mary Land & Exploration Company, he helped grow the firm from an $80 million private company to a $2.5 billion top performing public company. He was named Ernst & Young national Entrepreneur of the Year.
Taking the Leap into Full-Time Ventriloquism
All throughout his career in the oil industry, he continued to practice his technique nearly every day. He always planned to retire from the business world relatively early to further pursue his passion and that’s exactly what he did in 2006. But at that point, despite his decades-long obsession with ventriloquism, he’d performed only several hundred times. However, he was able to get up to speed quickly due some quality tutelage from an industry legend.
Learning from Sammy King
The late Sammy King was known among ventriloquists as “the best 12 minutes in the business.” As a novelty act, he performed 26,000 shows at venues across the world in front of more than 10 million people. He opened for the likes of Cher and Tony Bennett in Las Vegas. Mark met him in 1997 and almost immediately became his best student. King helped to teach him about the finer points of comedy, acting and reacting, and creating an act. The two collaborated on more than three hours of material over the years.
Puppetry and Ventriloquist Work in Denver
Over the past two decades, Mark has performed more than 3,000 times across the greater Colorado area. He does everything from educational children’s shows to adult comedy at parties and corporate events. He most often performs at schools, preschools, libraries, birthday parties, and camps, but is also available for other parties and events. Mark combines audience participation, music, storytelling, comedy, surprise, and variety into a fast-paced act runs 45 minutes. Community Resources Inc., which provides several thousand presenters for schools within the metro Denver area, named Mark “Presenter of the Year.” Click here to contact Mark or to book a performance.