'Small town girl' from Darien starts business in Las Vegas

Gracie Fulljames remembers walking into Baker School as a young girl. It seemed like such a huge place, a big, white school with big, red doors.

Baker School has long been turned into a town park, and what seemed so big long ago can't hold a candle to the corpulent excesses of Las Vegas, the place she now calls home.

The "Darienite once removed," as Fulljames calls herself, retired and left town in 2003 with her husband in search of a more laid-back lifestyle. The bright lights of Vegas found them and she found herself settling there, and starting a business as a talent manager overseeing some of the country's biggest and most popular celebrity impersonator and musical acts.

"This was the furthest thing from my mind," she said. "I can't believe it. Half the time I have to pinch myself."

The small-town girl started her own company, Fulljames Entertainment, in 2005 and since then has been making her mark on the famous Las Vegas Strip marketing impersonators such as Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, and Frank Sinatra.

It all started rather unexpectedly for her. Born in Darien, Fulljames attended Darien Public Schools until the ninth grade, when she decided she wanted to go to a private school. Unbeknownst to her mother, she wrote a letter and submitted an application to St. Luke's School in New Canaan and received a full three-year scholarship at a time when very few girls attended the school.

After graduation in 1974, Fulljames attended Pine Manor Junior College, where she majored in English and art. There she caught the creative bug and came home to Darien, where she married her husband Greg and embarked on a career as an illustrator for instructional computer books, as well as designing humorous greeting cards.

She prided herself on being a stay-at-home mom for her son Brandon, she said, and immersed herself in Little League and other programs in Darien.

Then September 11 hit. Her husband, an investment banker in New York City, decided at age 48 that he had had enough and wanted to retire. With Brandon gone away to college in 2003, the couple decided it was time for a change. They wanted a more laid-back lifestyle in a warm climate and searched the southern states before settling on the suburbs off Las Vegas.

She never thought to enter the world of entertainment, but she had a friend in Phoenix, a former Stamford resident who moved there to pursue a career as a Frank Sinatra tribute artist. He invited her to a convention where she helped man a table handing out pamphlets. The rest is history.

"There was Dolly Parton and Tina Turner and Oprah Winfrey impersonators coming up to me. I was in entertainer's heaven," she said. "My eyes just bulged out. I told him it looks like fun and I wanted to do it. He said he couldn't pay me, and I said `Pay me? I'll pay you.'"

Fulljames said the Las Vegas entertainment circuit is so cutthroat that it's very difficult for an entertainer to break into the work. It's not uncommon, she said, for an act to spend $10,000 on an outfit, and to put in countless hours of practice and still not be able to find work. Therefore, she said she built her business with the goal of helping out those who might not otherwise find an agent.

"In this town people are so used to being screwed," she said. "It's a matter of trust and that's why I think people are coming to me."

One of her favorite moments that she can recall is when she was able to book a Jimi Hendrix impersonator at a basketball game at the Staples Center in Los Angeles. She said he got up in front of the crowd and played the National Anthem on the guitar, just like the real Hendrix did at Woodstock. Afterwards he received a standing ovation, and walked right past her and gave her a heartfelt thanks.

"I love to see the faces of the crowd and the faces of my talents because it's their dream came true," she said. "They've worked so hard to get here. I won't make a million dollars from this, but I love what I do."

Fulljames will return to the Darien area in two weeks when two of her acts will be featured in the New York area. On August 29, Paul Salos, a Frank Sinatra tribute artist who was a finalist on America's Got Talent, will play a show at Feinstein's in New York City. Then, on September 1, Bobby Brooks Hamilton, son of Motown singer Jackie Wilson, will perform Motown hits from the 50s and 60s at Feinstein's.

"Bobby looks and moves just like his father," she said. "He was at a funeral with Smokey Robinson and they told him he even talked like him. He exhausts me. I always say dance at your own risk at his shows."