Monday, March 10, 2003
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

COLUMN: Norm!

Pressure builds for Caesars and Celine Dion to deliver big hit

Singer Celine Dion is "being touted as the biggest spectacle since the Rat Pack," according to Newsweek. AP FILE PHOTO

Celine Dion defies gravity in her show "A New Day" at Caesars Palace. A lot of will-she-or-won't-she questions are flying, too.

Will she reach out to the headliner community or be a lone wolf? Will she help kids and local charities?

Newsweek, in its March 17 issue, said Dion's arrival is "already being touted as the biggest spectacle since the Rat Pack."

At least one Las Vegas headliner is already questioning her commitment to Las Vegas.

"This lady is like an extraterrestrial," said the anonymous entertainer, "landing her spaceship here for a few years, sucking up all the oxygen and then flying away. You'll never see her showing up at other people's openers and that sort of thing. She's just not Vegas."

Another anonymous source, an executive with Mandalay Bay Group, was quoted, "If this thing isn't knock-you-out amazing, it will embarrass the whole city. They've got this so hyped that if it's not something out of this world, the media will be happy to tell everyone not to bother coming here."

"She's gonna come in with guns blazing," Harrah's headliner Clint Holmes told the mag. "But it'll be interesting to see if she'll enjoy doing this a year from now."

"That's not a knock," Holmes said Sunday by telephone. "To do it week in and week out for 40 weeks is an adjustment we've all had to make, the dry air and singing so many nights in a row. She may enjoy the heck out of it or it may be a grind.

"But she just got here. Let's give her a chance."

Leach spills beans

A confidential Robin Leach e-mail that criticized ABC's producers and his "I'm a Celebrity -- Get Me Out of Here" colleagues has ended up in The New York Times and this week's issue of People magazine.

In the e-mail, Leach expresses outrage that a producer, after a torrential downpour made life miserable, sent three bottles of massage oil "to cheer us up."

"I told them where to shove that and urged them to fire the sicko!"

He describes actress Alana Stewart as "a total living nightmare, a lazy complaining nonstop whining hypochondriac who never lifted a finger to help with anything (worse when pots of tea were empty or shower bag drained when she finished using them she not once even refilled them). Worse she even peed in the spot where we collected drinking water and washed our dishes."

Leach, the first evictee, said no tears were shed when Maria Conchita Alonso was booted. "She wasn't a team player."

Leach revealed that "Stuttering" John Melendez told Bruce Jenner to "sit down and stop posing like a fake."

The Scene and Heard

Contrary to reports, there are no plans to shoot any scenes at Green Valley Ranch for "Ocean's 12," the sequel George Clooney is again co-producing. The film will be shot entirely in Europe, according to director Steven Soderbergh. ...

That posse of eye-patched pals who wrote guest columns during my recovery last year are helping out again. Saturday's "Best of Vegas" awards show at Harrah's will include a raffle of their framed guest columns, plus their autographed eye patches. Proceeds will go to Opportunity Village and Golden Rainbow. Clint Holmes is emceeing the star-studded event, which starts at 2 p.m. Tickets: 369-5111. ...

Leach, who returns from Australia today, is on Ira David Sternberg's "Las Vegas Notebook" at noon Tuesday on KDWN-AM, 720.

The show will air live from Neonopolis, second floor. ...

Britney Spears canceled weekend plans to be at the Palms, a hotel insider confirmed.

Sightings

Cammi Granato, Sue Merz, Chris Bailey and Shelley Looney, members of the 1998 gold medalist U.S. women's hockey team, dining at Simon Kitchen & Bar (Hard Rock Hotel) on Friday with Mark N. Whyte of the local Merrill Lynch office. On June 1, the team plays the Las Vegas firefighters for the Las Vegas Outlaws Youth Hockey program. Bailey lives here and works for the local Merrill Lynch office.

The Punch Line

"Insanity runs in my family. It practically gallops." -- Actor Cary Grant

Norm Clarke's column appears Sunday, Monday, Wednesday and Friday. You can reach him at 383-0244 or norm@reviewjournal.com.