The finale of the Imperial Palace’s
first "Be A Legend" Celebrity Impersonator Karaoke Contest takes place
Sunday at 5 p.m. in the Legends in Concert showroom. The 12 monthly winners will
compete for the "Legend of the Year" title, earning a week-long spot
in Legends in Concert and $1,000.
Second place will receive $500 and third place
$250. Admission is free and open to the public. The 2005 contest gets underway
Feb. 17 with a format change to a quarterly competition. Additional dates are
May 19, Aug. 18 and Nov. 17.
While Wayne Newton was negotiating his
2005 Stardust dates, he taped his E! reality television series, The
Entertainer, at the Las Vegas Hilton. The TV show’s top prize, according
to the E! web site, is a chance to become a featured performer in Wayne Newton’s
Las Vegas show. However, nowhere in the E! publicity does it mention, as it does
in local newspaper ads, that the performer chosen to be The Entertainer
will "headline at the Las Vegas Hilton!"
Was this done in case Newton and Boyd
Gaming couldn’t work out 2005 dates? "Definitely," says an insider,
"but the Hilton decided to offer the contract anyway." The show airs
on Sunday at 10 p.m. on E!
Another bizarre twist concerning the
ultimate outcome of the TV show came by way of a publicist’s press release
claiming that his client was "starring" in The Entertainer"
and the winner would be "Las Vegas’ next headliner and a $1 million
contract to star at the Las Vegas Hilton." An E! publicist told The Full
Monti via telephone that the winner will, in fact, "perform in the Las
Vegas Hilton’s main showroom — after performing in Wayne’s show — for a
year with a contract worth more than $1 million."
Naturally, the Hilton’s PR boss Ira
David Sternberg couldn’t comment on the value of the contract, but did say the
performance part was correct.
Capitalizing on Las Vegas’s centennial
celebration, the Las Vegas Walk of Stars committee has released the names of 100
future honorees with hopes that they, or someone associated with them, will pay
the $15,000 to purchase a star. Representatives of Liberace and Frank Marino (he
paid for his own) have written checks for their respective stars. Both will be
enshrined in front of the Riviera Hotel on Feb. 1 with Liberace at 10 a.m. and
Marino at 2 p.m.
The list was missing entertainment icons
Siegfried & Roy, talent bookers Bill Miller and Jack Entratter, and other
impact performers such as Bobby Darin, Engelbert Humperdinck, Tom Jones, The
Treniers, Sonny King and Frankie Avalon, but included The Beatles, Elton John,
Roy Clark and the Scintas. It also included numerous embarrassing name
misspellings.
Artist LeRoy Neiman’s original Las Vegas
oil painting will become the official poster of the Las Vegas centennial. The
84-year-old artist will be on hand at a First Friday event downtown on Feb. 4 to
unveil the poster that features a showgirl, Vegas Vic, the Welcome to Las
Vegas sign and various gaming scenes. "I consider Las Vegas my second
home," the New York resident said at a recent Grand Central Station event
sponsored by Bon Appetite and the LVCVA in New York. The Paris Hotel has a LeRoy
Neiman suite with a spectacular view of the Strip, an artist’s easel and
original Neiman paintings.
The hottest sports stars and the hottest casino game will
be getting together when the Palms hosts a celebrity poker tournament featuring
a dozen of the top NASCAR drivers. The $100,000 Texas Hold’em tournament
begins Monday at 7 p.m. with the field narrowed down to six drivers for the
finals next Tuesday at 6 p.m. Featured players will be Michael Waltrip, Kyle
Petty, Kevin Harvick, Jeff Gordon, Jimmie Johnson, Ryan Newman, Dale Earnhardt
Jr., Elliott Sadler, Casey Mears and Dale Jarrett.
