Vol. 4, No. 8, August 2008
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Everything That Goes Around
Mr. Las Vegas says entertainment is cyclical
Oh, and along the way, he scored hit records like his signature song “Danke Schoen” in 1963. But despite his growing popularity, he never left Las Vegas or the casino entertainment scene.
As a child, Newton suffered from severe asthma which caused his family to migrate from Virginia to Phoenix. But his experience as an entertainer pre-dates that move. By the age of six, he was performing with his older brother on Grand Ole Opry road shows and actually performed for the president.
But it wasn’t until a Las Vegas talent scout spotted a local Phoenix television program with the Newton brothers that he came to Las Vegas and began performing in lounges. A two-week engagement at the Fremont casino turned into a five-year gig, and Newton’s career was off and running.
Newton returns to Vegas this month, working MGM Grand from July 31 through August 6. It’s the first of three weeks booked through the end of the year, and something of a return for the entertainer most identified with Las Vegas.
Lounge Lizards
It’s those years in the lounges that prepared him for the headlining gigs on the Strip, says Newton.
“The lounges were the training ground for the young performers coming up,” he says. “Don Rickles, Shecky Greene and many other performers got their starts there. It was amazing the kind of training and exposure one could only get in the lounges. And this is gone for the most part. It doesn’t exist anymore.”
Even after moving up to headliner status—at the Flamingo, where he sought and received top billing—Newton says it was constant performing.
“We did two shows a night, seven nights a week in those years; three shows on weekend nights,” he states. “My longest run, when I was working for Howard Hughes hotels at the time, I did 36 weeks without a day off.”
Today’s performers, who have trouble getting up for one show a night, can’t match the experience gained in those years.
“Even doing one show a night now, most acts find it very difficult to do,” says Newton. “No one trains for that anymore. It’s the Olympics of entertainment. It takes training, perseverance, dedication and discipline to keep that kind of schedule.”
The camaraderie felt by all performers on the Strip in those days has disappeared, according to Newton. The days when the headliners used to join the lounge acts for late night impromptu jam sessions is over. But Newton hopes to revive it at one of his MGM weeks later in the year.
“That type of ‘community’ is pretty much totally gone,” he says. “When performers did those third shows, they drew acts up and down the Strip. So it was a real community. Even if we had a big band or some backup singers, it was still a relatively small group. It didn’t involve 100 or 200 people the way it does today. But today, everyone does shows at about the same time, so there’s none of that visiting other performers happening to any great extent.
“I do believe that will come back someday. We’re going to plan doing something like this at MGM Grand—a special show for the performers in Vegas.”
Cycles of Entertainment
As someone who has been a part of the entertainment scene in Vegas longer than most, Newton has seen it all. But like the demolition of older hotels and the construction of new ones, the changes in the entertainment scene are not all bad.
“The entertainment business has been cyclic for many years,” he explains. “When Vegas got off the ground, it started with the headliners and did very well. Then for many years, production shows were dominant. When Siegfried & Roy broke out of the production show and moved to their own headlining show, we had about seven or eight hotels that employed magicians or illusionists. When Danny Gans got his own room, we were kind of inundated with impressionists. Then came the Cirque shows. And now we’re moving back to the headliners.”
While Newton recognizes the skill and talent involved with the Cirque-style shows, he questions how long they will last.
“All production shows, Cirque or not, are in some ways a little impersonal,” he says. “And once people see them—as much as they enjoy them—I’m not sure they’re going to rush back to see them again.”
The move to dedicating showrooms to one or two stars is indicative of the trend back to headliners.
“They’re doing a good job in terms of mixing headline talent with production shows,” he says. “I think this is the wave of the future. But I think the days of the headliner doing a two-hour show with just a big band behind them could be a thing of the past.”
Newton questions whether there are enough headliners, however, to satisfy this trend.
“I’m not sure we have enough headliners to fill the showrooms because the training ground has closed down,” he says. “There’s no place for the performers to learn their trade. They can only do it now through television or recordings. And even those are more fleeting than they were in the past. On television years ago, you had Gleason and Ed Sullivan and Bobby Darin and Dean Martin…the great variety shows that catered to performing talent. We no longer have anything like that.”
The days of private ownership of the Las Vegas casinos has also passed, says Newton.
“Howard Hughes had some trouble with the regulators for owning multiple hotels when he first came to town,” says Newton. “He had about five hotels. But today, now that publicly traded companies are allowed, we’re looking at monopolies of maybe three big organizations that pretty much own the whole town. There are only a few hotels remaining that are privately owned. So the Howard Hughes era was the beginning of this trend.”
In addition to Hughes, Newton cites three visionaries who really changed Las Vegas.
“The three biggest changes for Las Vegas would have been Howard Hughes, Kirk Kerkorian and Steve Wynn. Those three men have had the biggest impact on where the town has gone in my lifetime.”
While Newton doesn’t like to see the implosion of some of the venerable hotels, he can understand why it happens. He was playing a long contract at the Stardust prior to its demolition.
“I left the Stardust about a year before it was imploded,” he explains. “I saw it coming. Having been in Vegas as long as I have, I can now recognize the signs, so I went to Mr. Boyd, who owned the Stardust, to ask if I could move on, because I still had three years left on a 10-year contract. I didn’t want to be there for the implosion. He was very understanding and let me out of my contract.”
But it wasn’t just the implosion of the Stardust that impacted him personally.
“Every demolition certainly pulls at my heartstrings, especially when they imploded the Aladdin, where I was a partner for many years,” he says.
It’s all for the better, however.
“It’s a double-edged sword,” he says. “You realize that those are times we are never going to see again. These were great hotels. But I also understand the need to compete. These hotels in Las Vegas have to become true destination resorts unto themselves. About 10 years ago, MGM Grand was the third largest city in Nevada! So changes need to be made.”
Las Vegas-Bound
Newton says he has never been tempted to leave Las Vegas to pursue his career. While he toured for a few weeks every year, he was committed to the 30 weeks annually when he performed in Vegas.
“We were appearing in rooms that were made to be showrooms,” he says. “The production values and the sound values were things that were really important to me, then and now. So we could count on quality sound, light and production every night.”
Because of his choice to remain in Vegas, he became something of an icon in the town.
“In the years that I was headlining in Las Vegas, it was a very interesting town,” he says. “It was a small town. You knew everyone, from the people you were working for to the people who came to your shows. As Las Vegas continued to grow, I became synonymous with the town and it with me. I was having some hit records and was still doing my 30 weeks a year in Las Vegas. Sammy Davis once said to me that people who come to Las Vegas want to see Wayne Newton and the Hoover Dam. I’m not sure that was much of a compliment, but it was certainly true back then.”
But it was more than simply a healthy place to live for Newton. Las Vegas is home.
“This town is one of the most unique towns in the world,” he claims. “This is not to downplay Atlantic City or any other town that has gaming. But this is the only town built to be what it is. It started out as a gaming town with adult entertainment in mind and it continues to be, with no apologies.”
And he likes the people.
“People who live in Las Vegas are some of the most interesting and wonderful people in the world. If people like you, they are true blue. If they don’t, just leave them alone. There’s no gray areas. Almost completely opposite of what you might expect this town to be. You always know where you stand.
I think the people who came here are the true descendants of the people who came across the desert in the covered wagons… very strong and committed people.”
Newton still lives in the same house he has called home since the 1960s on the east side of the valley. His 50-acre ranch is a landmark for visitors.
“It really is a testament to the longevity we’ve enjoyed here,” he says contentedly. “We have the ability to come home and live a normal life and go back every evening to the fantasy world.”
