Domenick Allen and Leigh Zimmerman have it covered, A to Z

By John Katsilometes

Saturday, Dec. 10, 2011 | 2 a.m.

Domenick Allen toured with Liberace as a teenager, starred as the nefarious Simon Prescott on “Days of out Lives,” fronted the rock band Foreigner for a time, has mastered just about any instrument you’d care to hear (he unleashes a blistering sax solo on “Urgent”) and is known to pop awake in the dead of night to write music playing in his head.

Leigh Zimmerman has performed in some of the greatest Broadway and London West End productions, including “Will Rogers Follies,” “Chicago” and “The Producers.” She was so great in the role of Ulla in the latter production that Mel Brooks himself preferred her to Uma Thurman in the film adaptation of the stage show, but Thurman was selected mostly because, hey, millions of film fans recognize the name Uma Thurman.

But Zimmerman was cast as Ulla in the Las Vegas production at Paris Las Vegas, one of the great stage performances in recent memory. And it is in Vegas where Allen and Zimmerman have become rightfully known as one of the city’s more artistically dynamic couples.

Oh, they’re married, these two. That should be noted. They met 20 years ago, when Allen was performing on a cruise ship and Zimmerman was celebrating her parents’ 50th anniversary with dozens of family members.

To observe these two in action, and that is always time well spent, check out the benefit show at Suncoast Showroom today at 2 p.m. and again at 7:30 p.m. The show’s centerpiece is Allen’s classic-rock band VINYL, and the performance is a benefit caps the hotel’s Toys for Tots drive. Anyone who brings an unwrapped toy to either show gets a 2-for-1 buffet coupon from the Suncoast. Tickets are $15.95 (absent fees) and can be purchased at any Coast Casinos box office, by calling 702.636.7075, or at the Suncoast website.

Allen and his band plan to roll out a heavy dose of the rock ’n’ roll. Reflective of his keen sense of humor, Allen’s news release promises “famed anthems” from such rock acts as Foreigner, the Beatles, Aerosmith, Bon Jovi, the Doobie Brothers and the like, ending the list with, “and, of course, Ludwig von Beethoven.”

Oh yeah, I saw LVB’s 1997 tour. Awesome laser show.

At the Suncoast, Allen and Zimmerman plan to team on a down-tempo cover of Led Zeppelin’s “Black Dog” playing into the Peggy Lee version of “Fever.” The couple’s daughter, Cayleigh, will join her father for a cover of the Bryan Adams-Bonnie Raitt duet, “Rock Steady” and she will also play a piece by Beethoven and sing “God Bless America” to open the show. A choir led by longtime Vegas lounge performer Denise Clemente will join the afternoon performance for “All You Need Is Love” and John Lennon’s “Happy Christmas (War Is Over).

Allen and Zimmerman talked of the show, their careers and relationship during an appearance this week on “Kats With The Dish,” joining co-host Tricia McCrone and I in the studio at UNLV’s Greenspun Hall. In one of the more fascinating exchanges (and there were many, as I continually misidentified Allen’s former rock band as Kansas, Journey and Three Dog Night) the couple remembered Leigh’s near-miss for the film role of Ulla, for which Thurman was chosen.

At the time the film was being cast, Zimmerman was portraying Ulla in the London production of the musical, working with stage and film star Nathan Lane.

“I have some twisted memories of all that,” she said during the broadcast on KUNV 91.5-FM. “I screen-tested, and the producers and the director and everybody were very much on my side.”

“And Mel! Mel!” Allen said, leaping in with a verbal solo by invoking the name of Mel Brooks, the writer and producer of “The Producers” stage show. “Mel called her up and said, ‘Look, I’m doing the best I can for you and I’m pushing you for the film.”

“The difficult thing is, then the studio steps in and they want a big, marquee name, and how well you test absolutely doesn’t matter,” Zimmerman continued. “They had Matthew Broderick and Nathan Lane, lots of names, but they wanted the big, marquee names, so I didn’t get the part.”

But it was not a lost opportunity. Soon after the film was cast, Mel Brooks again called Zimmerman and Allen in London. He told her he was bringing “The Producers” to Las Vegas. He had one woman in mind to play the part -- Zimmerman.

“They literally made her an offer she could not walk away from,” Allen said.

“I had finished 2 ½ years of the show in London and was really ready to move on,” she said. “I had my fill of Ulla.”

But Brooks had other ideas -- and a lot of money. As they say, that’s showbiz, and Vegas has been made the better for it.

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