Thursday, Sept. 2, 1999 | 12:48 p.m.
Amid the seductive scent of freshly baked bread wafting through Le Boulevard in Paris, a throaty gentleman carrying baskets of baked goods rides a squeaking red bicycle.
He slowly navigates his way through clusters of pedestrians, singing French songs in a resonant voice and excitedly introducing himself to startled visitors.
"I am Jean-Luc Almon," the baker/cyclist says in a heavy French accent. "I live in U.S. only a short time, only six months. I am from St. Tropez in the French Riviera. My mother and father owned a bakery, and now I own my own bakery in Paris."
The square-jawed Jean-Luc says the new Paris Las Vegas hotel-casino reminds him of home.
"I adore it here," he says. "We have the beautiful Paris sky and lovely ladies. There is love in the air in Paris!"
But, alas, Jean-Luc's tale is no more genuine than the simulated clouds above. He's a seasoned method actor working in character, one of several street performers who add a dash of panache to the long walkway of shops and restaurants at the Paris Las Vegas.
Jean-Luc's real name is Russ Thomas, one of two singing, cycling bread men (Michael Colin Reed is the other) who bedazzle guests walking through the $800 million hotel, which celebrated its grand opening Wednesday night. The bread men survived a grueling audition process, beating out 40 or so other would-be warbling biker/bakers for the chance to grace Le Boulevard.
"I would like to see some of my musician friends," Jean-Luc says. "We would like to sing the songs we used to sing back home in Paris!"
Jean-Luc works a carefully scripted act. He'll approach a young child and point to a tree, saying, "See the lights? Those are the home of elves, who come out only at night. They eat the bread crumbs off the ground and that's why it's never dirty in Paris!"
The bustling custodial staff might have something to say about that. But no matter; The kids buy into the story.
Jean-Luc is never alone in Paris. Le Boulevard is enlivened by a strolling accordianist, a street musician, jugglers, mimes, a crooning guitarist, steet artists and singing waiters and waitresses.
On Le Boulevard, and throughout Paris, authenticity and attention to detail abound. Security personnel are sharply clad in replica gendarme uniforms, and throughout the hotel guests are greeted with simple French phrases (expect to hear "Bonjour" at every turn) in somewhat unconvincing French accents.
As one employee puts it, "I use (the phrases) when I feel comfortable with them, but I'm still trying to get the hang of it." And even the hotel's administrative staff is adjusting to the application of multiple languages on the job; earlier this week a high-level employee answered the phone with a spunky, "Buenos Dias!"
(Could the next Park Place Entertainment project be El Tijuana?)
Structurally, the most identifiable landmark on the 2,914-room hotel rising up on a cozy 24-acre parcel on the corner of Flamingo Avenue and the Strip is the half-sized Eiffel Tower.
The 540-foot, 50-story tower (roughly 120 feet taller than Bellagio across the Strip, and 500 feet shorter than the original Parisian tower) was erected using 5,000 tons of steel and was architecturally designed by Bergman, Walls & Youngblood of Las Vegas. Structural design was contracted out to Martin & Peltyn of Las Vegas, with final assemblage handled by Schruff Steel of Phoenix.
The general contractor for all Paris projects (including scaled-down replicas of the Louvre, the Paris Opera House, the Arc de Triomphe and Hotel de Ville) is Perini Building Co. of Las Vegas.
The tower was illuminated during Wednesday night's grand opening, with the lights shut off at around 10 p.m. at the original Eiffel Tower and the lights in the mini-Eiffel Tower in Las Vegas switched on. The Paris Las Vegas tower, constructed in stages off site and finally completed in February, is home to the 11th-floor Eiffel Tower Restaurant and an observation deck atop the structure that gives a view of the Las Vegas Valley. Weddings and special-event parties are offered at the tower, open from 9 a.m.-1 a.m. daily.
The Paris tower is an indoor presence as well, with three legs ascending from the casino floor and through the roof. The casino provides typical gaming options with 80-90 table games and 2,100 gaming machines (including the irreverent Le Jacque Pot slot bank) and a sports book.
Paris also features a unique vintage poster gallery, the Re Society, where visitors can view a craftsman employing nearly extinct printing skills to operate a 100-year-old French lithography press. The 8-ton press is used to create replica vintage posters and is the same press used by French studios to create works by masters such as Toulouse-Lautrec and Cassandre.
Re Society President Carolyn Solomon says the press is the only one of its kind in the world operating in a resort casino, and master printer Vincent Smith relocated from New York to Las Vegas to run the gallery. In a news release announcing its debut in Las Vegas, Re Society boasted of a wide variety of remastered vintage poster recreations, ranging from Art Noveau goddesses of Alphonso Mucha to the bold geometric designs of European Art Deco to Hollywood classics such as the film "King Kong" and Charlie Chaplin.
Performing in the midst of this top-to-bottom duplication of Paris are the costumed employees -- or "Citizens of Paris," as the hotel prefers to label them -- who give Paris much of its character. The hotel has strived to capture the essence of French street entertainment and the strolling (or biking) performers tend to halt traffic and attract, if nothing else, quizzical expressions.
"What we tried to do was come up with acts from France, like accordion music, and get a genuine Paris feel for the property," says the fortuitously-named Suzanne Chabre, Paris vice-president of property marketing at Paris. "We looked at a lot of different things, both with music and visually. We wanted the accordion music because it's so identifiable with the mood of Paris, and we wanted the tradition of street mimes everyone associates with the city."
In the world of professional accordion virtuosity, Dimitar Trifonov is as authentic as it gets. Unlike Jean-Luc, the singing bread man, his story is not the essence of a fictitious character.
A native of Bulgaria, Trifonov has lived in the United States just a few months and was recruited by Paris talent scouts from Los Angeles, where he headed a group called the Zhena Folk Chorus.
"We played traditional folk music in three- or four-voice parts," Trifonov says. "I enjoy the accordion, and I think the people here will, too. I'm excited for the (hotel) opening and I hope to give the guests great pleasure."
There is one departure from authentic street performers, however: Like all the strolling entertainers on the Paris payroll, Trifonov does not accept tips. "We don't encourage them to take tips," Chabre says. "They're not living off tips because they're paid by us, so in that sense it's not like Paris. They are here for the enjoyment of our guests."
Trifonov doesn't mind.
"The casino pays me enough," he says. "Besides, we want them to spend their pocket money in the casino, not on me."
Artist Sjana Nanni, who has been painting murals and other artwork for Bally's for 15 years, sets up shop at various spots in the casino and recreates street scenes. She then sells her work to passers-by.
"I enjoy painting people as they are, throughout the hotel," she says while painting a landscape in oil paints near Le Village Buffet. "I float around, and I spend a lot of time and thought doing what I do. I like complete scenery art, and I can't think of a better place to work than Paris."
Over at Le Provencal, an Italian-style restaurant, diners are treated to a miniproduction show from seven singers -- three female and four male.
"We try to keep spirits light and give people a little change of pace while they're eating," says Heide Grippo, a former cast member of "Jubilee" at Bally's and once part of Siegfried and Roy's production. "Normally, in a nice restaurant this wouldn't work. But because of the outdoor-type atmosphere, people who are eating or people just walking by can get into it."
Greg Everton is a six-year performer with a wide range of skills who plays Prince Christopher in Excalibur's "Tournament of Kings," Everton juggles and incorporates a bit of pantomime into his sidewalk act.
"It's a diversion, something for free that people can stop and enjoy," he says. "I think when people walk into a casino, especially a new one, they don't like to feel like their pockets are being picked. It's good to have some complementary entertainment where they can stop and watch and enjoy a strolling artist."
One of the resort's true pantomimes (an art form that seems to forever prompt young children to cower and cry) is Richard Fausto, who until moving to Las Vegas three months ago was part of Paris' famed "Lido de Paris" on the Champs-Elysees, considered France's greatest private theater.
Most of Fausto's act is his own creation. He simulates two men fighting over a woman, and a customer, trying out a massage chair, who is frightened by the seat's vibrating action.
"Eighty percent of what I do I invented, and I am very proud of my craft," Fausto says. "This casino, the intimacy, is perfect for what I do."
Not that Fausto would ever favorably compare a Las Vegas casino to his home city.
"I would call it 'Americanization' of Paris," he says. "It went up very fast and is not real. It's like McDonald's, you know?"
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