Trent Carlini rehearses "The Musical History of The King starring Trent Carlini" Dec. 28 at the Sahara. Carlini began performing as Elvis on the Strip in 1992. Photo by K.M. Cannon.

Cirque du Soliel's multimillion-dollar Elvis show won't open until November 2009 -- Project CityCenter has to be built first -- but local producer Joey Battig already thinks he knows what to expect: "Fluff and puff and goofy Elvises coming down from the ceiling."

That's why Battig believes there is room to get a foothold on the Strip ahead of Cirque. Last weekend he opened an old-school Elvis Presley tribute starring Trent Carlini, one of the most highly regarded impersonators in a cottage industry known for a few of its own goofy Elvises.

"We just want the truth," Battig says of his new surrealism-free revue at the Sahara with a truth-in-advertising title: "The Musical History of The King starring Trent Carlini."

Carlini worked on the Strip in "Legends in Concert" during the '90s. More recently, he fronted his own show at the Las Vegas Hilton until the hotel's new owners decided to spend big on Barry Manilow as the new master tenant of the house Elvis built in the '70s.

"After leaving the Hilton where Elvis performed, there was just nowhere to take the show," Carlini says. Instead, he moved his family to Fort Lauderdale, Fla., and spent most of this year fishing and spending time with his four children, ages 2 to 13.

"When I left, I didn't think anyone was going to miss me," he says. "I literally cut myself off. Shut off my Web site, shut off my phone numbers. I didn't want any interruptions at all."

Carlini was fed up with a Las Vegas that reveres Elvis as an icon, but had turned the corner on serious-minded tributes. A '70s jumpsuit model often appears with Mayor Oscar Goodman or in other city promotions, but you can't find one in a ticketed show beyond "Legends."

The King's original fan base is retirement-aged, no longer the Strip's hot demographic. Had he lived, Presley himself would be 72 on Monday.

But the music staged made a comeback when "A Little Less Conversation" was used in the movie "Ocean's Eleven" and the "Las Vegas" TV show. A non-Cirque group of French Canadians staged a theatrical hit called "The Elvis Story" with a sincere biographical approach.

For his part, Carlini's modest-budgeted "The Dream King" offered sincerity and a credible live band, and was keeping up its attendance numbers when it closed in late 2004 to make way for Manilow.

The new show is "no less than what was at the Hilton," Carlini says, adding that it comes complete with a 12-piece musical ensemble. But what really drew him back to town was the promise of going beyond that.

Battig was "very persuasive," Carlini says. "He's got some great ideas. He wants to focus this even more."

The producer, working as partners with Ennis Jordan of Big Horn Entertainment, sold Carlini on the goal of gradually increasing the production value as the show gathers steam. The two envision a day when they can re-create the backdrop of the "Aloha from Hawaii" TV special, or reproduce musical numbers from the "Viva Las Vegas" movie.

"We're the raw diamond right now, and we're polishing it," Carlini says of the show that shares the Sahara's downstairs theater with the Scintas.

Born in Chicago to Italian parents, Carlini spent much of his youth in Italy. As a teenager, he performed and recorded songs there, where roots and rockabilly were more popular than in the United States.

His Elvis career sprang from a stint in a rockabilly band called the Ambassadors. Accolades from several tribute events drew the attention of John Stuart, the producer of "Legends" which Carlini went on to close from 1992 through 1996. "In those six years I perfected the one segment of Elvis' career (but) I didn't want to be that cliche of Elvis that they wanted me to be: 'Thank ya, thank ya very much,' " he says.

He struck out on his own with what most would view as a major comedown: "The Dream King," a tiny lounge revue performed to recorded music in the now-demolished Boardwalk casino.

Carlini claims he "truly loved" the Boardwalk, which "gave me that experience to be up in your face. I think one of the most successful things I've ever done was that little show." But he made the jump to the Hilton in 2000, first to the casino's cabaret venue and then the stage the real Presley played.

Carlini says he has no Kingly delusions himself. "When I walk off the stage, that's it. I'm done," he says. "I don't care to indulge in what his habits were or act like him or drive the same cars he had. For me, that's frivolous."

Though Carlini has staged workshops to share the techniques of Elvis impersonation, late nights of rehearsal for this new venture seemed to have caused him to blank out on the specific secrets of his success. "Still to this day, I have no clue of what I do that really makes it different," he says. "I know that I have a great deal of integrity and a great deal of passion for what I do.

"Sometimes it takes an entire life just to know yourself a little bit. How can you know someone else's life, especially when you don't have him in front of you?" he muses. "I just try to focus on the man musically and his personality from what I see, and from what others have offered to me."

He is sure of one thing. "I think this (phenomenon) is going to bury me -- and a lot of other people."