Legally blind juggler enlivens 'Radio City Spectacular'

What: "The Great Radio City Spectacular," including comic juggler Nino Frediani.

Where: Flamingo Las Vegas hotel-casino.

When: 7:45 p.m. dinner show Saturday through Thursday; 10:30 p.m. cocktail show Monday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday (dark Friday).

Tickets: Dinner show, $52.50 and $60; cocktail show, $42.50. (All prices include tax and tip.)

Information: Call 733-3333.

When comic juggler Nino Frediani rejoins the cast of "The Great Radio City Spectacular" Sunday after an eight-month hiatus, it will be a bittersweet reunion.

The show, with its high-kicking Rockettes, rotating guest-star hosts and specialty acts, will close permanently July 31 after a five-year run at the Flamingo Las Vegas hotel-casino.

Frediani, who is legally blind, took a respite from the revue to perform in Palm Springs, Calif. He has been part of the show for most of its run, and even while he was away he remained connected to it through his juggler-son, Romano, 26, who substituted for him.

The Portuguese-born juggler has been entertaining audiences for most of his 61 years -- in his early days in circuses and on streets in Europe, then as the opening act for some of the top performers in the world. For the past 20 years he has been rooted in Las Vegas and is said to have the longest-playing speciality act in town.

He spent almost 14 years with "City Lights," another revue at the Flamingo, before it was replaced by "Radio City" in 1995.

He will rejoin singer Susan Anton for the show's final performances. Anton was the guest star when the show opened here, and for the 18 months preceding that when it was on the road. She returned June 17 for the revue's month-long swan song.

Paige O'Hara, perhaps best known as the voice of Belle in the 1992 Disney film "Beauty and the Beast," worked with Frediani and the Rockettes as one of the rotating guest stars, on and off, for two years.

O'Hara said that she loves and respects Frediani, who is a diminutive 5 feet, 4 inches tall and 130 pounds.

"Everyone loves him," she said, "producers, corporate people -- everyone. He works so hard and is so disciplined. He is a consummate performer. Like myself, he believes every single performance really counts. He gives 100 percent."

O'Hara described Frediani as "a wonderful person and a great juggler and comedian."

Frediani is also a man of many contradictions. Although he has no formal education (his parents taught him to read and write) he can speak eight languages: English, Japanese, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, French, German and Greek.

Although Frediani is a kind and gentle person (he erected a small chapel in his back yard for worship) he is a former amateur boxer and soccer player. He was born in Portugal, but that was only because the circus happened to be there that day.

"I was born in dressing room No. 5," he quipped.

Frediani could just as easily have been born in France, Germany, Italy or any one of hundreds of other countries. There are very few he has not visited -- "except for a few islands, like Fiji," Frediani said. "I would like to play Fiji some day."

Juggling by Braille

The most stunning irony in Frediani's life is the juggler's near-blindness. "I have atrophy of the optic nerve, which doesn't allow me to drive or play golf," he said.

The genetic condition will not result in blindness, but Frediani is extremely nearsighted and must wear thick magnifying glasses when he engages in his favorite pastime, reading. He has some peripheral vision but everything beyond a few feet in front of him is a blur.

The condition shaped his act. While most jugglers toss a lot of objects into the air as high as possible, Frediani goes for speed coupled with comedy and audience participation.

He is billed as the world's fastest juggler.

"I created a fast act, juggling only three objects. And I didn't want to throw things too high. I keep the objects close to my body," Frediani said.

That is a challenge during the audience participation part of his routine, in which Frediani throws four rings to people and they throw them back. He catches them around his neck.

Although Frediani has many offers to perform his specialty act in other venues when "Radio City" closes, he is uncertain about his future, a feeling he says he shares with many Las Vegas entertainers in this day of corporate takeovers and big-budget shows that seem to be squeezing out the little guys.

"My personal feeling is that I don't like what's happening in Vegas," Frediani said during a recent interview at the Green Valley residence he shares with his second wife, Kinuko. "Vegas was built on good, inexpensive accommodations, free food and free entertainment. We made the money with the (slot) machines. That's how they built Las Vegas. That format lasted from the '40s, almost 60 years, so they must have done something right."

Now the town is filled with overpriced shows, he says. "How would you like to be a family of four (that) comes from Oklahoma and wants to treat the family to a show? It's going to cost you $500. It's ridiculous for an hour-and-a-half show."

And, Frediani said, many of the performances aren't worth the money.

"I went to see a show a few months ago. I'm sitting in the audience and when the show starts, it's awful. The audience started out sitting up straight and as the show progressed they started sliding down in their chairs. I was embarrassed as an entertainer to see the audience sliding down."

Frediani said that Las Vegas "has gone cheap, but cheap in the wrong way. They spend millions on big shows, but then cut the speciality acts to save money." The speciality act, he added, is a dying art form, which is regrettable.

"When 200 Japanese or French or Filipino people go to see David Cassidy (in 'At the Copa' at the Rio hotel-casino) -- which is a concept show that involves a story and dialogue -- they don't understand it," he said. "There is nothing visual for them. I do my act in Japanese and it's the highlight of the show.

"I don't understand it. The hotels are bringing in these shows aimed at a certain class of people, a certain market, while every place else in the world wants Las Vegas type entertainment -- except Las Vegas."

While Las Vegas seems to be exporting its local entertainers, Frediani would prefer to stay here. "I bought my first home here, back in 1982. I have dogs, roots. I'm not with the circus anymore. I feel more at home in Las Vegas than anyplace else in the world," he said.

Juggling history

Whatever Frediani will be doing in the future, it undoubtedly will involve juggling. It's in his blood. He said that the tradition began with a troubadour named Francesco Frediani, who was born in 1650 in Florence, before Italy became a country.

"It is said that we are the longest-running family of circus entertainers in the world," Frediani said.

They were among the first to create a semblance of a circus in 18th-century England, laying down a large ring inside which the Fredianis performed acrobatics, clowned and entertained the crowds. "My grandfather built his own circus and created the three-man-high equestrian act," Frediani said.

The act involved one man standing on a galloping horse and two men standing on his shoulders, one on top of the other. The three men were Frediani's grandfather, great uncle and father.

"They were the first and last to do the three-man-high column with ... no rigging. My father was on top. They're still in the Guinness Book under 'Human Achievements' for that trick," Frediani said.

He said that the act was a major hit at the time. "They were like Siegfried & Roy."

The post-World War II years were lean for most Europeans, but even more so for circus people because they had no government to turn to for help. Frediani remembers, as a child, working as a street juggler in Italy, Spain and France, passing the hat on the streets and in pubs.

By the time he was 8 years old Frediani was juggling, doing acrobatics, flying on the trapeze, riding elephants and working with horses. After the war his grandfather retired and the 11 grandchildren went separate ways, starting their own circuses or revues.

"We started a variety show, like vaudeville. There were only two jugglers (in the show), my cousin Ugo and myself. We eventually did 'The Ed Sullivan Show,' " Frediani said.

In 1954 the movie "Trapeze" was shot in Paris and starred Burt Lancaster, Tony Curtis and Gina Lollabrigida. Frediani's family, and most other circus people in the area, were hired to appear in the film. In 1957 Frediani's father retired from the circus; Nino Frediani struck out on his own.

Circus tents fold

"I was in a small circus in Switzerland, this was about 1958 or '59, when an agent from Paris caught my act," he said. "He thought I would be an easy act to book -- I had three clubs, three balls and three rings that I could put in a suitcase."

For most of the 1960s Frediani was an opening act for some of the most prominent entertainers in the world -- Tom Jones, Shirley Bassey, Nina Piaff and Charles Aznavour, to name a few.

"One of my first openings was for Petula Clark and Jacques Brel. Petula Clark had top billing," he said. Frediani prospered with his specialty act.

"They liked the comedy I did and they liked that I could stretch the act out when the star was late," he said. "I was a flexible act. They could put me in a car with just a suitcase. If someone had a teeterboard act they would have to travel by bus."

For much of the 1970s Frediani's career took him to nightclubs and variety theaters throughout the world, including Eastern bloc countries such as Hungary and Romania. He also worked in China, Hong Kong, Korea, Japan, Thailand and New Zealand.

He was in Tel Aviv during the Six-Day War between Israel and Egypt in 1966. "I was working with Danny Kaye, Barbra Streisand and Sammy Davis Jr.," Frediani said. "When the war ended there was a three-week celebration, like the Super Bowl. There was dancing in the streets, free taxi rides."

Frediani has appeared in two Royal Command Performances at the London Palladium, and in 1967 he was with Bob Hope entertaining American troops in Saigon.

Vegas bound

His destiny led him to Las Vegas in 1980 when Ronald Reagan became president and the value of the dollar doubled, decreasing the value of currency in other countries. Frediani was playing at a club in Rhodes, Greece, when the owner said he could not afford to fulfill the contract.

Frediani called his agent in Los Angeles, who said she had an opportunity for him to appear for six weeks in "City Lights," which soon would be opening. She asked Frediani to send a tape that she could forward to the producers, but when she got it she inadvertently erased it.

The executives were desperate for an act to replace one they didn't like, but were unwilling to take a long-term chance on someone they didn't know. They agreed to a one-week contract.

Frediani said that he arrived two days before the show was to open and auditioned the next evening. Nervous and suffering from jet lag and the extreme heat of the desert, Frediani said he couldn't keep anything in his hands.

"I apologized to Dick Lane (the Flamingo's entertainment director). I told him I don't normally drop things but he ... tells me he is not going to have an act that drops everything. He said, 'If you don't do good when we open tomorrow I will replace you immediately,' " Frediani said.

He continued to practice but could not do the act he had done for years.

"I came early to the theater the next day and start practicing and still I could not keep anything in my hands. I'm in my dressing room, the overture starts. I'm really shaking. Then I remembered hearing Bob Hope telling someone who was really nervous during the USO tour in Saigon to take two deep breaths, very slow, and after the second time just go on and do a perfect show."

Frediani took two deep breaths and knocked the audience dead in the both shows that night.

At 1:30 a.m., following the second show, Lane gave the juggler a yearlong contract and he ended up staying seven years. A year after he was released from the show hotel-owner Baron Hilton learned of it and demanded that he be re-hired. "I stayed another six years, till the show ended," he said.

When "Radio City" was chosen to replace "City Lights," the new producers didn't want anything to remind them of the old show and did not hire Frediani, who began working in Japan, where he met his future wife.

"Radio City" opened in February 1995. In November Frediani received a call from the president of the Flamingo asking him to join the show.

"I said, 'The producer doesn't want me,' and he said, 'I made him an offer he couldn't refuse. If he doesn't bring you back, I don't extend the contract for the show,' " Frediani said.

While the juggler has performed in some of the most exotic places in the world with some of the most famous entertainers, he says that all of that pales in comparison to the most memorable event in his life.

"The most emotional thing I ever experienced was when I became an American citizen in 1997," he said.

Although Frediani's juggling future might be up in the air, he is determined to continue the family tradition that began around the time Sir Isaac Newton discovered gravity when he was hit on the head by an apple.

Presumably he was not juggling at the time.

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