News
Andy Martello: A Marengo Comedy Treasure
- Published on January 05, 2012
- By Betsy Wolfe Stemple, Writer
Growing up in Marengo, Andy Martello was a self-proclaimed “smart alec” who loved old-time comedy movies and cartoons. This former Riley School student and 1988 graduate of Marengo Community High School would end up in Las Vegas as a full-time performer and comedian.
Growing up in Marengo, Andy Martello was a self-proclaimed “smart alec” who loved old-time comedy movies and cartoons. This former Riley School student and 1988 graduate of Marengo Community High School would end up in Las Vegas as a full-time performer and comedian.
Andy got his first taste of the stage at 10 years-old when his father, then a speech and drama teacher at Prairie Ridge High School, had him audition for a child’s part in Bye Bye Birdie. He learned juggling and by age 15, won a talent contest and performed for pay. After graduation, he attended Ringling Bros. Clown College where he learned more skills: stilt walking, clowning, and his trademark plate-spinning and fire-eating. After touring the world with Ringling, he worked with other traveling shows and circuses.
In 1989, Ringling Bros sent him to perform for President George Bush Sr. at the White House Press Corp annual dinner, themed “Political Circus.” Since then, Andy has been on the Bozo Show six times, the first season of Last Comic Standing, and opened for Gladys Knight. He’s worked events for companies like Microsoft, Coca-Cola, Ford, Toyota, and Harley Davison, performed the blues with Buddy Guy, and was beaten, killed, and disposed of while playing a gangster in the TV documentary Taking Out Al Capone. Andy recently kept plates spinning for a controversial national political commercial. Andy lived in Carol Stream IL until March 2007 when a micro-burst storm destroyed his apartment.
“[I’d] been thinking about moving, but when this huge storm destroyed my home, it looked like a good time to move to Vegas,” he said.
Which he did, further pursuing his comedy career and not looking back. In 2010, he became a Las Vegas headliner as part of the comedy magic duo, Spike & Hammer. He currently performs full-time as the announcer in the Live Vegas version of The Price Is Right, while taking other gigs in the evening.
“I’m a comedian who happens to juggle,” he said. “I use all my others skills to produce the comedy.” He also writes an opinion column for the North Las Vegas Voice and is working on his first book. For more information, visit Andy’s website: andymartello.com.
