There is an unsettling feeling that you are being watched as you step into Tulara Lee's cool, shaded house on a sunny day.
And as your eyes adjust to the light inside, you realize that you are being watched -- by an elderly couple and a beautiful young dancer seated at a tea table in the Victorian-style living room, by the butler in the front hallway, by the bartender pouring drinks behind the counter in the family room, by a cook standing in the doorway, waving a huge butcher knife.
Gradually, even more faces become visible, silently peering out from the shadows. They are life-sized mannequins, the handiwork of Lee, who lovingly crafts them from wood and fabric as a hobby.
As she strolls past the group at the tea table, skirts around a large stone fountain and passes beneath a trapeze suspended from the ceiling of the living room, Lee quips: "Georgie said I should make friends."
"Georgie" is George Gilbert, Lee's grown son and partner in their unique mother-and-son stand-up comedy act. He's also the butt of many of her jokes onstage -- though he probably deserves the ribbing he takes, since he writes most of the material.
The two began performing together about 18 months ago, playing mostly conventions and corporate gatherings around town. They are now looking to expand their bookings.
"There aren't too many comedy acts out there, and nobody's doing a mother-and-son act," Gilbert explains as he follows his mother into the family room. "It's definitely different."
With his polite demeanor, wearing glasses and khakis, Gilbert could easily pass as a computer consultant or a banker. But he was raised on comedy, and since the age of 12, he never really considered pursuing anything else.
Before he was born, his parents -- Lee, a former dancer and her late husband, comedian Gil Gilbert -- performed in USO shows for American troops in the South Pacific, where they were voted as a top act. Later, they toured New Zealand, Australia, London and Hawaii with Frank Sinatra, and the U.S. mainland with Dan Rowan and Dick Martin (the comedic masterminds behind the "Laugh-In" TV show), Jack Benny and other big names. The pair billed themselves as a comedy variety act, and offered an usual brand of physical humor.
In one of their acts, which appeared in the Debbie Reynolds movie "The Daughter of Rosie O'Grady" (1950), Lee pulls an unsuspecting shy guy from the audience (husband Gilbert) and cajoles him into performing a series of unseemly, almost cartoon-like acrobatic stunts. In one scene, Gilbert "slips," onto Lee, and the pair flip-flops across the stage like a human slinky.
"They were considered one of the top variety acts of their day," Gilbert says of his parents. "One time they were playing Harrah's and they'd just come offstage and there was a knock at the door. They opened the door and it was Jack Benny, and he said 'This is the funniest act I've ever seen.' "
When their son was born, Lee and Gilbert were living in Chicago, where they often had to struggle against fierce snowstorms to make it to their bookings on time. "We come from the old days of show business where the show must go on!" Lee says. "Even if the audience doesn't get there."
But one night, as the couple sat impatiently behind a slow-moving snowplow, en route to a show with their 8-month-old baby in the backseat, they decided they had had it with the weather. "They said 'Enough of this. Las Vegas is becoming a big convention town,' " Gilbert says. "So they decided to move here."
During their first several years in Vegas, Lee and Gilbert continued to tour, and toted Georgie to shows, where they often let him stay backstage in the care of young comedian Goldie Hawn. "It was great because I got to see all the best comedians," Gilbert says. "I don't know that I really studied them but I must have learned something through osmosis."
When Georgie was old enough to start school, however, Lee and Gilbert cut back on their touring, and avoided performing at local casinos.
"They could have worked on the Strip," Gilbert says. "But then they'd be getting to bed just around the time I had to get up (for school) and they didn't want that. They wanted a family."
Lee and Gilbert worked hard to provide their son with a normal childhood, and never urged him into show business. "I just wanted him to do whatever he wanted to do," Lee says.
When Gilbert was in sixth grade, however, his music teacher announced that the class would be holding a talent show and everybody was expected to participate. "I couldn't play the piano, and I certainly couldn't sing or play any other instrument or anything," he recalls. "So out of the blue, I wrote down 'comedian.' "
With his parents' help, Gilbert rewrote some popular comedy material to make it reflect his age. "Like Henny Youngman's line at the time 'Take my wife, please!' It was 'Take my mom, please!,' " he says. "So I get up and do the routine and the teacher liked it so much, she kept me for the next class, which was great, because I got out of math, and math wasn't one of my best subjects."
Before long, Gilbert found himself onstage at the Disneyland Hotel, performing before thousands of people. The experience both terrified and thrilled him.
To keep him from rushing his punchlines, his mother bought him a yo-yo and told him to spin it before each final delivery. The trick worked -- until one day, it got lost in the shuffle backstage. "He came to me and said 'Someone's taken my yo yo! What am I going to do?' " Lee remembers, laughing. "It was like weaning him from a pacifier. So I said 'Just tell your joke and mentally do your yo-yo.'
"That was the end of the yo-yo."
After attending UNLV, where he studied communications, Gilbert moved to Los Angeles and began performing in comedy clubs. At shows, he often encountered friends of his parents. "(They) would say, 'You know, your mom should still be in comedy. She's great at it.' "
Gilbert agreed, and, during a visit home to Las Vegas one weekend, persuaded Lee to come out of retirement. The two began working on some material, and "before you know it, it was a double act."
Unlike many other current comedy acts, Lee and Gilbert avoid political topics, sexual innuendo and bathroom humor. Instead they joke about aging, marriage and their own idiosyncratic relationship.
During their routine, however, mother and son trade a volley of insults and barbs.
"He was the kind of kid I wouldn't let him play with," Lee says, recalling how she refused to enter Gilbert's room without first getting a tetanus shot.
"She's so mean the other parents used to send their kids over to our house to be punished," Gilbert retorts.
"If I wasn't home by nine she'd rent my room."
Offstage, however, the affection between Lee and Gilbert -- who lives with his wife only minutes away -- is palpable. "Actually he was a very good kid," Lee says of her son. "But he was quite shy."
"Still am," Gilbert replies, citing his parents as two of his most important mentors.
"We say we put the 'fun' in 'dysfunctional family,' but really there is no more functional family than ours."
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