Vol. 4, No. 6, June 2008
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Why Frankie Left Luxor
While the Strip regaled Frankie Valli on his 74th birthday as he opened the terrific Jersey Boys at the Palazzo, it was hard to remember that Valli had caused great controversy in 2005 by quitting in the middle of a three-week contract at the Luxor.
I got to ask him why he did that and that got him on a minor tangent about how the business of the Strip has changed. He had been forced to four-wall his appearances at the Luxor, an idea largely unheard of in the days of the Rat Pack. Worse yet, he couldn’t get any weekend dates. “I said, ‘What’s the sense of coming down there and working Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday and somebody else comes in Friday, Saturday and Sunday when all the people are in town?’” he recalled.
“It was a terrible mistake to four-wall. You don’t get the help from the hotel for advertising or anything. Even if you’re selling out, there’s no way to make money. We have to pay for all the advertising and the stagehands and the musicians and the sound and everything else.”
