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Gans friends share feelings, memories

Steve Rossi goes back to the beginning with Danny Gans.

And in Gans, Alicia Jacobs had a friend to the end.

Rossi’s introduction came in the late 1980s.

The former straight man in the legendary comedy duo Allen & Rossi was producing two shows — "Showgirls U.S.A." and "The Wacky World of Burlesque" — at the Holiday International, now Main Street Station.

Rossi and Marty Allen had gone different directions after a long partnership that included dozens of appearances on "The Ed Sullivan Show."

Rossi was filling in as emcee of his afternoon show "Showgirls U.S.A." one day because his female emcee called in sick.

While bantering with the audience at the $9.95 show (including two drinks), Rossi chatted up a handsome young man.

"He said his name was Danny Gans, and it was his first day in Las Vegas," recalled Rossi, who is in New York City rehearsing for a Broadway show.

"He said his baseball career didn’t work out, and he had been doing impressions for about three years. Said he had been doing corporate dates. I said, ‘Let me hear some of your impressions.’"

Gans reeled off some of his favorites and "just tore the place apart," said Rossi, who turns 76 on May 25, the day his musical comedy, "Don’t Leave It All to Your Children," opens.

Impressed with the response, Rossi said he offered Gans a contract that day, starting the next day.

Gans jumped at the opportunity and was a headliner on the show for about five months, Rossi said.

A few years later, when Gans returned to Las Vegas as the opening act for Joan Rivers at the Desert Inn, Rossi went backstage after the show to chat with his discovery.

"He told me he didn’t think he wanted to be an opening act. Twenty minutes a night just wasn’t enough."

A couple of more years passed, and Rossi learned Gans had got his wish: He was opening in the showroom at the Stratosphere. A three-month deal turned into nine months for Gans, who became an overnight sensation.

After three years at the Rio, he was lured to The Mirage by Steve Wynn, who signed Gans to an eight-year deal in 2000.

Jacobs, at the time an entertainment reporter for KTNV-TV, Channel 13, met Gans during an interview the week he opened at the Stratosphere in May 1996.

"(Gans’ manager) Chip Lightman insisted I see the show before I interview Danny." She sort of balked but agreed to watch the show. "He came out on stage in that dinky little theater and took my breath away."

During the interview, they discovered they lived a few streets apart at Spanish Trail. They hit it off and had been close friends since. "He was always giving me pointers."

A week before Gans died last Friday, they were having a telephone conversation about his new music video "What a Wonderful World" being produced by Hollywood director Brett Ratner. Jacobs said she wanted to interview him about it, that it would be "a fun story."

Gans then stunned her with a comment that came out of left field.

"He said, ‘When I die and you do my obituary piece, it will be the most brilliant work of your career.’"

She shushed him. She didn’t want to hear it.

Last Thursday, Jacobs was in tears, in the intensive care unit at St. Rose Dominican Hospital, Siena campus. She had just gotten the news: Her father, Ralph Berger, was on life support and suffering multiple organ failure.

Gans sent numerous text messages saying he was praying for her father. He had been texting like never before in recent months, she said. "I had this sense that he was on a mission of some sort. He seemed more motivated than usual. He had these brand new projects."

When her telephone rang at 4 a.m. Friday, and she heard Lightman’s voice, she expected to hear bad news about her father.

Instead, Lightman delivered the news that Gans had "passed away in his sleep."

Devastated, Jacobs took a statement from Lightman and headed for KVBC to break the news.

"It was about 6:30, 7. My cell phone rang, and it was my mother (Brenda). She said, ‘Oh my God, they just took your dad off life support.’"

When she went back to the hospital after filing her reports, her father had come back from the brink.

"He was sitting up and talking.

"I feel like Danny gave me my father back."

Norm Clarke can be reached at (702) 383-0244 or norm@reviewjournal.com. Find additional sightings and more online at www.normclarke.com.

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