Monday, Oct. 30, 2006 | 7:28 a.m.
Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gorme hearken to an era of entertainers for whom every night is magic, every audience is hot. And Saturday night was truly a spirited evening as the showroom legends closed the Stardust showroom, the last performance in a room that has been home to a vast array of acts that has included "Lido de Paris," "Enter the Night," Wayne Newton, George Carlin and "Headlights and Tailpipes."
The Steve & Eydie shtick was sharp and tailored to a packed house that included Boyd Gaming Chairman Bill Boyd, who introduced the duo prior to the show by saying that Steve & Eydie were the ideal performers to play the old showroom's final show.
"We're closing another hotel that's what we do," Lawrence, remarkably nimble at age 71, said early in the show. "We've closed more hotels than Steve Wynn has built."
Lawrence also remarked that they had to rush through the show to vacate the premises, "Because Mr. Boyd has a wrecking ball out in the parking lot." Then he shot a quick glance and a grin to Boyd in the audience.
The evening began with a 15-minute highlight clip of Steve & Eydie's career. They were shown performing for President Reagan and with the superstars of their era Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr., Dean Martin, Bob Hope, Perry Como, Johnny Carson, Steve Allen and Judy Garland among them. The show was a medley of classics woven with the couple's well-honed marital interplay. (Example: Gorme, still sharp onstage at 75, said she has been spending a lot of time on the computer because "it's great to come home to a hard drive")
For those who missed out on the Rat Pack era, the performance recalled the period where entertainers knew how to talk to a crowd, wear fancy clothes, sing on key and finish big. We likely won't see the likes of Steve & Eydie or the Stardust again.
NoteMart
What's great about Vegas is you might find yourself in line for a show and the person in front of you looks just like Shecky Greene - and it is Shecky Greene. With Frankie Avalon, taking in the Stardust finale. Another classic figure, onstage at the piano, was longtime Sinatra music director Vincent Falcone ...
Over the weekend the marquee at the Sahara bid a sad farewell to the Stardust, "a neighbor for 50 years," and welcomed any of the Stardust's loyal customers to play and stay at the Sahara ...
Summon the strolling accordionist: Another Vegas institution to keep an eye on is Battista's Hole in the Wall, on East Flamingo Road across from Bally's. The classic Italian restaurant's long-term future has been in limbo since it was purchased in August by Harrah's. Battista Locatelli opened the restaurant in May 1970 ...
The symmetry of Station Casinos executives (and brothers) Frank Fertitta III and Lorenzo Fertitta extends even to bodily injury. As Joel Stein writes in the new issue of Business 2.0 magazine, "both brothers are wearing leg casts after having knee surgery performed on the same day, by the same doctor, in the same hospital, for the same injury - Frank's from soccer, Lorenzo's from sparring." That's mixed martial arts sparring; the story (3,900 words worth) writes about how the Fertittas revived the formerly concussed Ultimate Fighting Championships into one of the fastest-growing forms of athletic competition in the world. The story also humorously refers to the brothers as the "Extreme Kennedys." (They have since recovered from their injuries, which were to opposite legs) ...
It's not all acquisitions and mergers for Harrah's: On Saturday the Harrah's Senior Coalition, an effort in which Harrah's employees team with Las Vegas senior citizen organizations, nonprofits and government agencies, provided about $100,000 in labor and materials to restore and upgrade facilities at the Las Vegas Rescue Mission. The effort was part of national "Make a Difference Day," an effort to boost such philanthropic efforts ...
Irrelevant information that is, nonetheless, interesting: Ivanka Trump, daughter of real-estate mogul Donald Trump and who Saturday night celebrated her 25th birthday at Pure at Caesars Palace, is 5-foot-11 ...
Suh-weet: A colleague passes along the vanity plate SUGRQUB on a black Scion parked Sunday at Paymon's Mediterranean restaurant on West Sahara Avenue.
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