Las Vegas Sun

March 19, 2024

Circus action with Incredible Shrinking Jeff Beacher at MGM and Flying Wallenda at Caesars

Jeb Bush speaks at GOP Lincoln Day Dinner

Steve Marcus

2014 Miss Nevada Ellie Smith performs the national anthem during the Clark County Republican Party Lincoln Day Dinner on Wednesday, May 13, 2015, at the Orleans. Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush spoke at the event.

Updated Wednesday, June 24, 2015 | 7:46 p.m.

The Kats Report Podcast

Melody Sweets and Lijana Wallenda

John Katsilometes and Tricia McCrone talk to "Absinthe" performers Melody Sweets and Lijana Wallenda. The pair will appear in "Melody Sweets' Big Top Circus and Burlesque Show" June 26.

Henderson Sisters Win at 2014 Miss Nevada

Ellie Smith and Amy Smith embrace after the sisters won the 2014 Miss Nevada and Miss Nevada’s Outstanding Teen Pageants, respectively, at the Las Vegas Academy of the Arts Theater on Sunday, June 1, 2014. Launch slideshow »

The Kats Report Bureau at this writing is bracing for a barnburner of a weekend, though the actual burning of a barn seems not in the offing.

First off, the Miss Nevada America and Miss Nevada Outstanding Teen competitions are this weekend for the first time at Reynolds Hall in the Smith Center for the Performing Arts. The Miss Outstanding Teen Pageant is set for 7 p.m. Friday; Miss Nevada is 2 p.m. Saturday (for tickets, hit the Smith Center website ticket link. Dana Martin, a Miss Texas America and wife of Smith Center President Myron Martin, is a member of the Miss Nevada Board of Directors.

I am honored, and a little anxious, to be serving as one of the judges for this year’s pageants. Having covered all of the Miss America Pageants at Planet Hollywood from 2006-2013, I well understand how much pressure these contestants experience during the competition and how much work is required to reach the state finals. It’s an enormous honor to contribute to this pageant.

Elsewhere, I’ll be rambling around Caesars Palace, the Venetian (for Human Nature’s sound check experience), T Spot in Tuscany Suites and Golden Rainbow Ribbon of Life set for 1 p.m. Sunday at Tropicana Theater. More on that fundraiser in an upcoming column; tickets are $45 and available at the Tropicana website).

Meantime, let’s rake some column matter:

• In column writing, as in fashion, sometimes it’s best to start with the accessories.

Mayweather-Pacquiao Fight

Floyd Mayweather Jr. connects to the chin of Manny Pacquiao late in their fight Saturday, May 2, 2015, at MGM Grand Garden Arena. Launch slideshow »

Thus, we have caught up with the Jewelers of Las Vegas and the sparking adornments set aside for boxing champ and noted rich person Floyd Mayweather Jr. The undefeated pugilist and famous fashion plate is reportedly still pondering the purchase of a $16 million timepiece and matching necklace procured for him by Leor Yerushalmi, son of company founders Mordechai and Vicki Yerushalmi and a top exec in the family business. This set was made available to Mayweather in April as he finished training for his May 2 bout with Manny Pacquiao at MGM Grand Garden Arena.

Similar to an opponent who has been poleaxed by a Mayweather combination, this set of jewelry is staggering. The watch is part of a set that involves a diamond cross and matching necklace made entirely of 3-karat diamonds. The Jewelers staff designed the neckpiece, and the watch is a one-of-a-kind timepiece made by Jacob & Co. That piece is called “The Billionaire,” as Mayweather’s goal (along with retiring undefeated in the ring) is to earn $1 billion in prize money. Mayweather has made a few visits to the Jewelers’ flagship store but has not yet picked up the set.

As Yerushalmi says, “We have it, and it’s his if he wants it.”

Alex Pettyfer at Beacher’s Madhouse

Alex Pettyfer at Beacher’s Madhouse on Friday, April 12, 2014, in MGM Grand Las Vegas. Launch slideshow »

• Jeff Beacher is looking more and more like a man ready for the beach. The club operator of Beacher’s Madhouse at MGM Grand and an impressively proficient promoter, Beacher has dropped 100 pounds since October, from a high of 397 pounds to 295. Beacher is still shedding, too, as two months ago he underwent a gastric sleeve procedure, a relatively new variation of gastric bypass that reduced leaves the stomach as a tube rather than a sack. Beacher also has been dieting and working out and cut back significantly on his partying lifestyle.

“I basically had a mini-mental breakdown and decided that I had to be healthier for my body and my brain,” Beacher said during a phone conversation today. “I’m doing everything more moderately, on a personal level, and have drank just one time in the past six months. I had been under a lot of stress, but I am feeling a lot better now.”

Beacher said he is not allowed to speak of any reported changes in the productions at Beacher’s Madhouse, where the Jabbawockeez are to reopen their show later this summer with daily 7 p.m. performances. There also is talk of a new production being booked into the space, a 9 p.m. show, but, again, Beacher is not confirming or denying anything.

He’s probably on a treadmill somewhere. And wait for more fitness-related news from Beacher by the end of next week. It’s a groovy idea.

• It’s not quite true that Lijana Wallenda learned to walk the high wire before she learned to walk on the ground. But it isn’t a stretch to say that by the time she was walking on the ground, she also was walking the high wire.

Or, more accurately, the low wire.

Wallenda's Grand Canyon Tightrope Walk

 Nik Wallenda walks across a 2-inch wire 1500 feet above the ground to cross the Grand Canyon for Skywire Live With Nik Wallenda on the Discovery Channel, Sunday, June 23, 2013 at the Grand Canyon, Calif. Launch slideshow »

“There was always a low wire in our backyard 2 to 3 feet off the ground,” Wallenda said during the latest episode of “Kats With the Dish” co-hosted by Tricia McCrone and airing 8 p.m. Friday on KUNV 91.5-FM. “I don’t remember how old I was when I started walking the wire.”

Wallenda, a seventh-generation member of the legendary Flying Wallendas family of high-wire acrobats, has trained The Frat Pack artists in “Absinthe.” She also has appeared as a swing performer in the production and is to be featured on the wire again Friday night in the “Melody Sweets Big Top Circus and Burlesque Show” at the Spiegelworld Tent at Caesars Palace.

The show starts promptly at 11:59 p.m., or thereabouts, and proceeds are to benefit the UNLV College of Fine Arts (tickets are $20 in advance, $25 at the door and available at this website.)

Wallenda has taken part in two major high-wire stunts with her similarly adventurous brother, Nik. The two spanned a pair of cranes in Detroit (where Lijana spent 11 minutes longer on the wire than expected for a technical malfunction) and walked across Charlotte Motor Speedway before the Bank of America 500 NASCAR Nextel Cup in October 2012.

More recently, on April 29, Nik Wallenda walked along the new Orlando Eye observation wheel in Florida, the largest such wheel on the East Coast. Wallenda made his way down from the top of the wheel to its center, where he walked along the six-inch “eye” at of the wheel as the attraction slowly rotated. As Lijana Wallenda noted during the radio interview, Las Vegas does have a comparatively impressive observation wheel — the High Roller at the Linq Promenade, which is more than 100 feet taller that the Orlando Eye, and also happens to be the tallest such wheel in the world.

“(Nik) walked the Orlando Eye recently and broke a world record, and that’s the big Ferris wheel there,” Wallenda said. “And I’m like the Linq (High Roller) is taller. I could break his record. We’ve gotta get a little sibling rivalry going.”

The link to the Linq, and also to great stunts on the Strip, is further reinforced by the fact that the Wallenda family was long friendly with Evel Knievel. The motorcycle daredevil performed one of the more famous and astonishing stunts ever when he crashed while clearing the fountains at Caesars Palace in 1967. Caesars Entertainment owns Caesars Palace and the Linq Promenade, and “Absinthe” is a Caesars Palace show … this is not so crazy, right?

Follow John Katsilometes on Twitter at Twitter.com/JohnnyKats. Also, follow “Kats With the Dish” at Twitter.com/KatsWiththeDish.

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