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Tags: News / Donny and Marie / Shows / Music / Flamingo / → All Tags
Donny and Marie: Back Tonight, Plus Extra Shows For April
Marie Osmond is a trooper. Not only are she and Donny back at the Flamingo tonight after missing a mere six shows in the wake of her son’s death, but they’re also scheduling new shows running April 13-17 (which was meant to be their vacation) to make up for the dates they cancelled.
According to Johnny Kats, Marie’s looking forward to working again, finding it “cathartic”. Let's hope so.
Tickets are available for all dates, and cost $99 and up.
[Photo: Las Vegas Sun]
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Pregnant Women and Vegas: Do They Mix?
Would this ruin your Strip view?
We’ve all seen those signs in bathrooms around Vegas warning us that drinking alcohol while pregnant can lead to birth defects (like that’s going to stop someone who’s already halfway through their Eiffel Tower). But now we come to think of it, we’ve never seen a pregnant mother in a casino, or on the Strip. And while we’d normally assume it’s because they’re busy nesting or satisfying their cravings back home, now we have another theory – could it be because they’re not welcome?
@momlogic tweeted us yesterday about this rather extraordinary story that saw a pregnant model being banned from a lingerie fashion show being held at Blush, purely because she was up the duff.
Wynn’s argument was this:
Tags: Vegas Celebs / News / Frank Marino / Divas Las Vegas / Imperial Palace / Drag / Gay Vegas / → All Tags
Official: Frank Marino Is Twice As Important As Frank Sinatra
Starting to feel a bit sorry for Frank Sinatra here. Not only has Matt Goss nicked his singing kudos, what with all the “new Sinatra” quotes flying around, but now Frank Marino has eclipsed him on the Strip’s Walk of Stars.
Marino opened his drag show Divas Las Vegas last night at the Imperial Palace (when we say “opened”, we mean “officially opened” – it’s been in previews since October), and to celebrate, official Vegas peeps presented him with a slab for the Walk of Stars to go outside the casino.
Not bad. He’s already got a star, outside the Riviera, where his An Evening at La Cage ran for a mammoth 23 years. He’s also got a key to the city (in his own words, “I swear it’s to the back door,”), and a road named after him – Frank Marino Drive (again, in his own words, “it goes both ways”).
Tags: Barack Obama / News / Video / Celebs in Vegas / Cashing Out / → All Tags
Obama Hearts Vegas (And So Does His Mother-in-Law)
It’s official: Barack Obama loves Vegas. We know this because he just told us during his smackdown with the Chamber of Commerce and the LVCVA at Aria (which turned into less of a smackdown than we expected – seems like the attendees were too busy filming O on their camera phones to make nasty faces at him). From the horse’s mouth:
Before I go any further, let me set the record straight. I love Vegas. Last night I hit a flush on the river* and cut the deficit in half
He said what he meant when he said people shouldn’t be blowing their college funds on a trip to Vegas, was that, um, people shouldn’t be blowing their college funds on a trip to Vegas. See? He was speaking in literal terms. It’s just that, because he’s normally so full of all these flowery images, it passed people by. That’s his story, anyway, and he's sticking to it.
Tags: Katie Price / Jordan / Alex Reid / Weddings / Wynn / News / Planet Hollywood / → All Tags
Katie Price and Alex Reid's Wynn Wedding: Where They Done It
Katie buys the ring. The hat? We blame jet lag
Remember the charming couple we told you to keep an eye out for yesterday morning as they arrived in Vegas? Remember how we said they might be here to get married? Well they’ve only gone and done it, haven’t they?
After sexyman Norm Clarke tweeted this afternoon that the word on the Strip was about the Price’s impending nuptials, we sped our way down to Planet Hollywood, where she and lovah Alex Reid were shacking up.
Tags: Celine Dion / News / Bette Midler / Music / Shows / Caesars Palace / → All Tags
Celine Dion's Heart to Go On - And On - At Caesars. Again
Caesars really are rolling out the names right now. Good old Norm Clarke’s been murmuring about a return to Caesars for Celine Dion over the weekend, and last night, we heard the goss straight from the horse’s mouth (which, btw, is in no way a reference to Celine, or other Caesars hottie Matt Goss).
As we were waiting to file out of the Colosseum after Bette Midler’s final farewell concert, we got talking to an usher who told us that Bette might be gone for good, but Celine was set to return, most likely at the end of the year, or, if not, at the beginning of 2011. Not for a full-scale, permanent residency, but “for a couple of years, on a regular basis, like Cher.”
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Forget Bette: Bill Clinton's Taking Over The Colosseum Next Month
Another day, another unveiling for Caesars Palace. And this time it’s serious - Bill Clinton no less.
Clinton will be knocking out a one-off speech, Embracing our Common Humanity, at The Colosseum on 22 February. He’ll be covering “the challenge of globalization, emphasize our growing interdependence, and point the way toward a common future based on shared goals and values”.
Tags: Matt Goss / Caesars Palace / News / Video / Shows / Sexy Men / Music / → All Tags
A New Dawn, A New Day At Caesars For Matt Goss
We give him Ten out of Ten. Bros fans will get it.
Wow. WOW. We are just coming down from the high that Matt Goss kindly left us with when he performed in the garden at Caesars this morning. What’s that noise? A mixture of our ears still ringing, and the Bros megamix on our iPod. What’s that smell? Um, that’d be us in a couple of days, seeing as we’ve taken a vow of no washing since the Gossmeister touched us. Twice. Oh yes.
As we said on Monday (told you!), now that Matt’s stint at the Palms is over, Caesars have snapped him up. From March 12, he’ll be performing every Friday and Saturday at the new Gossy Room - formerly known as Cleopatra’s Barge. That’s right. He’s so good, they’re renaming the room and refurbing it to make it “a little less Egyptian, a little more retro” as Gary Selesner, Caesars President, told us at the press conference this morning.
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Is Caesars in Denial About One of its Guests Getting Mugged?
Careful while crossing these late at night, folks
Not great news for Caesars – a guest was mugged and abducted while walking back to his room on Friday night, and his room was ransacked by the culprits.
It’s not like it happened on the premises – he was kidnapped while crossing a footbridge connecting Flamingo and the Strip as he was walking back – but we’re not sure that Caesars is dealing with it in quite the right way.
Tags: Interviews / News / Elvis / Elvis Impersonators / → All Tags
What Would Elvis Think of Elvis Impersonators? Here's What
Norm Clarke, Sam A Thompson, Loanne Miller Parker, Dick Grob and Armand Thomas
As well as being accosted by various Elvi at the Las Vegas sign last weekend, we also got some proper, OMG-is-this-really-happening Presley action when we attended the CVA’s Elvis media forum on Sunday at the Bellagio.
Norm Clarke was presiding over a panel consisting of two of Elvis’ security guards - Dick Grob and Sam A. Thompson - Loanne Miller Parker, widow of Colonel Parker, and Armand Thomas, Director of Creation for Viva Elvis.
We’ll give you the goss on Cirque reshaping Viva Elvis and the delightful Loanne’s views on Vegas down the line (suffice to say, the CVA should really get her on board as a Vegas ambassador) but for now, we’re going to let you in on our private – yup, one on one - conversation we had with bodyguard Sam Thompson (who's now Chairman of the Public Utilities Commission of Nevada) after the forum.
Still smarting from our triple-Elvis overdose at the sign on Friday, we asked him what he thought the King would have made of all the impersonators around today. Great minds think alike – turns out he actually asked the man the same question a year or so he died. (Yes, Elvis impersonators were around back then – who knew?) This is what he said:
He had a quote: he said “emulation is the sincerest form of flattery”. He really felt flattered that people took the time to emulate him. He didn’t like the fat, 40-year old impersonators and attacks like that - he was human like everybody else - but in terms of people emulating his music and his moves, he was fine with it.
He also reckons that Elvis would love Viva Elvis – more on that another day. But not all the impersonators are off the hook. He went on to say:
I don’t think he would have liked the proliferation of the bad Elvises that are around now, or Fat Elvis. Things like that go beyond the point of flattery – you’re doing it for self-aggrandizement. Most of us abhor those kinds of people and I think Elvis would too.
So there you have it. FYI, Sam also shook our hand. Which, if you think about it, is basically the same as getting a handshake from Elvis Presley, albeit once removed. So if you see someone wandering round the Strip with a right hand that doesn’t look like it’s been washed since Sunday, come say hello, ok? And we’ll pass The Touch Of Presley onto you.
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Not a Good Way To Start off The New Year
A shootout at the Federal Building this morning has left a court officer and the suspect dead, and a second officer in a serious condition.
The shooting happened at 8am today in the lobby of the courthouse and was caught on here by a guy on jury duty. See it here (if we ever get caught up in a shootout, we’re praying for the same kind of froideur).
This means that the Strip is currently closed on both sides between Bonneville and Fremont, as are 4th-6th Streets. Traffic is being diverted.
[Photo: LVRJ]
Tags: Harrah's / Planet Hollywood / Hotels / News / → All Tags
Harrah's Makes a Play for Planet Hollywood
While the rest of us were sleeping off our turkey coma this weekend, Harrah’s was coming one step nearer to Strip domination with an application to get its hands on Planet Hollywood, which is currently managed by Starwood Hotels and which is struggling under a hefty $860m debt (well, if they will keep rolling out ridiculous upgrades to people who’ve only paid $72 a night…).
According to the Review Journal, CEO Gary Loveman emailed employees to tell them that it was putting in a bid.
What will this mean? For a start, Harrah’s would have total control over the area between Flamingo Road and Harmon Avenue – all 126 acres of it. For another, it’d add another 2500 rooms – about 10% of its current haul – to its books. Also, those of you who earn and use Starwood Preferred Guest points here won't be able to do that anymore.
Judging by the comments, Las Vegas Sun readers are none too happy, and we have to admit that we’re a little wary. We liked our upgrades and fistfuls of vouchers at Planet Hollywood. And we like how roomrates all over the Strip are going in favour of the tourists at the moment. Let’s hope a monopoly wouldn’t spoil that.
[Photo: BrettMM]
