THE MEN WHO MADE LAS VEGAS

–the 10TH IN a 12-part series by BYRON CRAFT

MR. LAS VEGAS - WAYNE NEWTON

He was a shy fifteen year-old just off the bus who became one of America’s most celebrated entertainment icons. Today, no other performer has seen, for fifty years, the view from center stage in the city of mercurial possibilities. A lot has come and gone since Wayne Newton first set the entertainment world ablaze. When Elvis Presley was still driving a truck, Wayne was ten years his junior and had already sung before a president, toured with a Grand Ole Opry and released his first record. While the Beatles were still scrambling for fame, Wayne, two years younger than John Lennon, was playing Las Vegas and appearing on the Jackie Gleason and Lucille Ball television shows. In a business that is volatile and success sometimes short lived, he had performed live to more than 40 million people. Wayne Newton epitomized the talent, glamour, and energy that has become Las Vegas. It is little wonder that the entertainment capital of the world dubbed him “Mr. Las Vegas.”

Carson Wayne Newton was born in Norfolk, Virginia, to Evelyn Marie “Smith” and Patrick Newton, who was an auto mechanic. His father was from Fredericksburg, Virginia, and of Scottish/Irish-Powhatan descent, and his mother, from West Virginia, was of German-Cherokee ancestry. Wayne was just four when he settled on his life’s ambition. His mother and father had taken him to see a Grand Ole Opry road show and he watched, wide-eyed, as Hank Williams and Kitty Wells performed. When it was over, he said to his mother, “That’s what I want to do.” “What?” she asked. “That,” he answered, pointing toward the stage.

While his father was in the U.S. Navy, Wayne spent his early childhood in Roanoke, learning the piano, guitar, and steel guitar. He was a natural. He learned to play all three instruments by ear, and by the time he was six, he was doing a daily radio show before going to school.

On weekends, Wayne and his older brother, Jerry, appeared with the Opry road shows that came through Virginia and Tennessee and performed before movies at a local theater. When performing in those days, Wayne had to bleach his naturally black hair blonde, so he would be more acceptable to the public.

By the time that Wayne was in first grade, they had performed at a USO show for President Truman. When he was eight years old, the brothers, as the Rascals in Rhythm, appeared on the ABC-TV’s Ozark Jubilee and auditioned unsuccessfully for Ted Mack’s Original Amateur Hour. “There are two people I know of,” Wayne Newton says with a laugh now, “who flunked Ted Mack’s Amateur Hour auditions: Elvis Presley and me.”

The disappointment was a minor setback in a childhood that included serious health struggles. Wayne Newton had severe bouts with asthma. His illness forced his family to move from Virginia to Phoenix, Arizona. The dryer climate helped him to recover and he was able to continue his career. The stamina that would see him through this, and many other difficult periods in his life, he attributed to his mother and father who overcame their own poverty stricken backgrounds.

Throughout the rest of his school years he performed on local TV shows, in addition to his own TV show in Phoenix. In the spring of 1958, toward the end of Wayne’s junior year in high school, a Las Vegas booking agent saw a local TV show, the Lew King Rangers Show, on which the two Newton brothers were performing, and took them back for an audition. Wayne and Jerry arrived in Las Vegas with only twenty dollars between them, but the tryout led to a two-week gig at the Fremont Hotel and Casino that lasted for 46 weeks. Their popularity blossomed, and in due course, they played other clubs in Vegas for five years, doing six shows a day, six days a week.

To keep the workload from taking its toll on his voice, Wayne had to find creative ways to preserve his talent. “I kept learning to play new instruments, simply to give me some vocal relief,” he later recalled. A talented multi-instrumentalist, Wayne Newton now plays thirteen instruments, many of which he has worked into his act.

Four years after their arrival in Las Vegas they performed on The Jackie Gleason Show. Wayne would eventually perform on Gleason’s show twelve times over the following two years. “The Great One” was the first of many show business legends to become a mentor for the young Wayne Newton. Lucille Ball had him as a guest at least a dozen times on her show.

Numerous other entertainment icons such as Bobby Darin, Danny Thomas, George Burns, and Jack Benny lent Newton their support. Bobby Darin produced and engineered his first record hits, Heart, Danke Schoen, Red Roses For A Blue Lady, Summer Wind and Dreams Of The Everyday Housewife.

Nevertheless, it was Jack Benny who helped make sure that in a day when lounge singers didn’t move up to Vegas main showrooms, Wayne Newton did. Benny hired Newton as an opening act for his show. Wayne turned down thousands of dollars in the lounges to work for Mr. Benny in the main showroom for $1,500 a week, a slot he filled for the next five years.

He had another hurdle to overcome in Las Vegas and that was headlining a main showroom. Wayne managed it with courage and an overwhelming fanbase. After his job with Benny ended, Newton was offered a job to open for another comic at the Flamingo Hotel, instead Wayne Newton asked for, and was given, a headline act. The owner of the Flamingo was so taken back by his request that he said, “Yes.”

But there was a catch. He offered Wayne Newton the headlining slot in November. “In those days,” Wayne recalls, “you could shoot a cannon in November and not hit a single soul on the Strip. There just wasn’t any business at that time of year. The odds-makers had predicted I was going to flop. The only thing that none of them counted on was the local people. The night we opened, the locals came out in droves and totally supported and saved my career, for which I will always be grateful.”

In 1972, Wayne Newton’s recording of Daddy, Don’t You Walk So Fast sold over one million copies. Wayne, of course, had other records of achievement and those were all the hotel attendance records he broke year after year. He has been synonymous with Las Vegas ever since.

In 1999, Newton signed a ten-year deal with the Stardust Resort & Casino, calling for him to perform there 40 weeks out of the year for six shows a week in a showroom named after him. Orchestrated by his business partner, Jack Wishna, this “headliner-in-residence” deal was the first of its kind.

In 2000, Wayne Newton was elected to the Gaming Hall of Fame. By 2005, in preparation for the eventual demolition of the Stardust Resort & Casino, Wayne’s contractual deal was, from all reports, amicably terminated.

Newton began a thirty-show stint that summer at the Hilton. His last show at the Stardust was on April 20, 2005. During a break in his onstage performance, he announced to the crowd that night that he wanted to spend more time with his wife and new daughter as the main reason for canceling the contract. Newton said the Boyd family (owners of the Stardust) made him a very nice offer to stay on past the demolition of the hotel and casino and to play in other Boyd venues, but Newton declined citing, “another deal in the works for Vegas,” but he did not mention the Hilton specifically.
News crews were expecting his final performance at the Stardust to end on time, so they could make their 10pm and 11pm broadcasts, but the show finally ended at approximately 11:30, thus eliminating the possibility. Mr. Las Vegas went on at 7:30 that night, and sang nearly his entire repertoire and songs of other Vegas mainstays, as well. The Stardust permanently closed its doors to the public on November 1, 2006. The last dice thrown at a Stardust craps table was by tourist Jimmy Kumihiro of Hawaii. The slot machine betting was officially halted at 7:30 in the morning. Just before the casino was officially closed at noon, the Bobbie Howard Band led the customers out the doors for the last time, in a conga line, to the tune of When the Saints Go Marching In and the hotel casino complex closed after a 48-year run of continuous 24-hour operation.

The stunning production of Wayne Live, which brought him numerous honors, also coaxed reviewers and feature writers to tout it as “The Las Vegas Experience.” Wayne Newton’s show became the standard by which future concerts were judged. It was full-blooded American entertainment. For many years running, Wayne was voted “Entertainer of the Year” by both Nevada Magazine and Casino Player Magazine. He was hyped as consistently offering the tops in entertainment value. In 2005, Nevada Magazine wrote, “Maybe we ought to retire this category. For the eighth straight time, Wayne Newton was voted “Best Entertainer.” The street leading to the front of Las Vegas’ McCarran Airport has been called “Wayne Newton Boulevard” for over 20 years.

Wayne Newton “gave back” to his fans, and to the world, in thanks for his success. His American patriotism was at the very core of his beliefs. He entertained the troops in every major confrontation our country has been in since Vietnam and he was there twice. One of his biggest honors was announced in October of 2000 when Bob Hope and the USO passed the torch naming him the “Chairman of the USO Celebrity Circle.” From 2001 through 2004, he had taken sixteen USO tours overseas. He was the first performer to entertain our troops in Afghanistan and Iraq. This prompted President George W. Bush to honor Wayne at a private White House reception. Wayne has always believed, “Entertaining for our men and women of our armed forces overseas has been one of the highlights of my life.” The U.S. Defense Department bestowed upon Wayne its highest civilian award for being the only American entertainer to perform in all of these theaters of operation.

The wide appeal, the patriotism, and the selfless service, has made Wayne Newton a favorite of his countless fans. He is one of the most widely acclaimed and honored entertainers in history. Wayne has been the recipient of many prestigious awards, some of which include, “The Secretary of the Navy Public Service Award,” “The Air Force Scroll of Appreciation,” “Bob Hope Award for Excellence in Entertainment” from the Medal of Honor Society, “Medal for Distinguished Public Service,” the “Jimmie E. Howard Award,” “The AM Vet’s Silver Helmet Award in the Americanism Category,” “The USO Spirit of Hope Award,” “Founders Award of St. Jude’s Hospital,” the “VFW Hall of Fame Award,” the “Humanitarian Award of the American Cancer Society’s Cancer Research Center,” “The L.A. Lupus Loop Award,” the “American Legion’s Exceptional Citizen Award,” and, in 2008, he accepted the “Woodrow Wilson Award for Public Service” which is displayed at the Smithsonian Institute.

Wayne Newton’s courage and energy is not reserved just for the stage. On November 29, 2007, Wayne Newton was interviewed by Larry King on CNN. Among many of the topics covered during the question and answer period, Mr. King asked: “You had a rough time, did you not, with Johnny Carson?” Wayne proceeded to explain the destruction of his friendship with late talk show host Johnny Carson. It started with a string of jokes told by Carson questioning Newton’s masculinity.

There was no mistake about Wayne Newton’s masculinity by then. As a child performer his singing voice did boarder on the falsetto, but as an adult his voice had deepened, and physically, he was a large man that pumped a lot of iron.

At his wit’s end, after a year and a half of Johnny Carson ignoring his messages and peaceful pleas, Newton finally paid an impromptu visit to Carson’s office. “I went to NBC, Burbank, and walked down the halls into his office, and Freddy De Cordova, his producer, was in the office with him. And I walked in, unannounced; I said to Freddy, I said, “Would you excuse us, please?” He was so shocked that he did get up and leave. And I said to Mr. Carson, I said:

"I don’t know what friend of yours I killed, I don’t know what child of yours I’ve hurt, I don’t know what food I’ve taken out of your mouth, but these jokes about me will stop and they’ll stop now.

. . . or I will kick your ass."

“Johnny Carson was a mean-spirited human being,” continued Newton. “There are people he has hurt that people will never know about. And, for some reason, at some point, he decided to turn that kind of negative attention toward me, and I refused to have it.”

Newton told King that, while the gay jokes didn’t ultimately hurt his career, they did stop. He also said that Carson had a hand in allegations that he was tied to the mafia, which resulted in his name being on a hit list, as told to him by the FBI.

“All of that emanated from Johnny Carson’s influence,” Newton told Larry King. “I’m just an Indian boy from Virginia. I don’t know about that kind of stuff.”

Over the past few months, Mr. Las Vegas has been embroiled with his neighbors over opening his home to the public. Wayne Newton’s estate is a lavish wonderland complete with African penguins, sweeping crystal staircases, and a memorabilia collection that is unparalleled. There is a Frank Sinatra champagne glass, Nat King Cole’s watch, Steve McQueen’s Rolls-Royce, a Johnny Cash guitar, and much more. Newton said the estate is so magnificent that he’s turning it into a tourist attraction in a project many have dubbed Graceland West. Newton wants visitors to Casa de Shenandoah in Las Vegas to tour select parts of his 10,000 square foot home amid the plush white carpets, gold trimmed doors, impressionist paintings by Renoir and 17th-century antiques collected from all over Europe. The keepsakes are a reflection of some of his longtime friends and associates who helped make him famous, including Sinatra, Elvis Presley, Bobby Darin and Jack Benny. “This is ‘The Dove,’” Newton informed visitors, showing off a beat-up guitar case from a row of instruments. “Elvis gave it to me at Graceland four months before he died.”

A proposed theater next to the home would show a documentary about Wayne Newton’s public life, and on some evenings, Newton himself would take to the stage to belt out the songs that made him famous.

This past June, Newton gave 200 rescued lovebirds a place to call home when he welcomed in the 200 lovebirds into his 40-acre Casa de Shenandoah. This known animal lover also boards 54 Arabian horses, dozens of peacocks, African penguins, wallabies, sloths, and a number of different types of birds. The birds’ vibrant blue and green coloring made for a beautiful addition to Casa de Shenandoah.

The blonde-starlet headliner of Las Vegas’ Peepshow at the Planet Hollywood Hotel and Casino, Holly Madison, paid a visit to accept a special gift from Newton: a pair of sloths that the starlet named “Costa” and “Rica” so visiting children can remember their birthplace. The pair can be seen at Casa de Shenandoah in their purple house aptly named: “Holly’s SLOTH house”.

Wayne said he and his wife decided to share their home because they love the forty acre estate so much. “The attraction would be both a tribute to Las Vegas performers and a peaceful haven in a city of neon lights and 24-hour casinos,” he said.

“I’ve heard people say that we are building a monument to myself. Get serious. I’m not that important.”

The Men Who Made Las Vegas is a twelve-part series by Byron Craft, chronicling the growth of Sin City and the men who made it possible. SLV

Issue 66 featuring: Eufrat, Jade Bryce & Jessamyne