Clinton — Will there be chimps?

  I was distracted enough this morning that news of Bill Clinton coming to speak at the Colosseum at Caesars Palace — posted on The Political Eye by Ben Spillman — didn’t seem as funny as maybe it should have.
  After all, President Obama stood on the Colosseum stage last May for a political fundraiser, so this was probably something along those lines.
  But then, independent blogger Richard Abowitz pointed out, this isn't promoted as a fundraiser or a benefit for Clinton’s foundation. It appears Clinton will indeed become a (paid) Las Vegas “headliner” with his speech about “Embracing a Common Humanity.”
  And just months ago, I had written that Leonard Cohen and Larry King were the oddest Vegas marquee billings you were ever likely to see.
  Clinton is poised to join Ronald Reagan on a very short list of former or future presidents to see their names on a Las Vegas marquee. Here’s a column I did a few years ago on Reagan’s semilegendary appearance (pictured):

October 17, 2004 Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal
Schlatter recalls Reagan chimp show
 
  George Schlatter was set to receive an award in Las Vegas last night, but it wasn’t for teaming the chimps with the future president in Las Vegas.
  Schlatter is synonymous with the ’60s TV phenomenon “Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In,” surely enough to earn the “Uncle Miltie Television Pioneer Award.”
  The producer also has long-standing local ties through TV specials including “Sinatra: 80 Years My Way” in 1995 and “Caesar’s Palace 30th Anniversary” in 1996.
  Before Schlatter launched his TV career by booking guest stars on “The Dinah Shore Chevy Show,” he was a talent buyer and producers for Ciro’s nightclub in Hollywood and two Las Vegas casinos: The Last Frontier and the Silver Slipper.
  He’s happy to take credit for his role in developing the 1950s lounge scene by booking the Mary Kaye Trio at the Last Frontier’s Gay 90s Bar.
  Schlatter didn’t fare so well with the Gabor Sisters, Zsa Zsa and Eva. “The first show was packed. The second show, even the waiters didn’t stay in the room.”
  But it was Ronald Reagan’s one and only Las Vegas engagement in February 1954 that has become a famous footnote in Las Vegas entertainment history.
  Not much has been written about the actual act, but Schlatter remembers well.
  Determining that Reagan’s act needed some, uhm, help, Schlatter turned to Gene Detroy & the Marquis Chimps to tie in with Reagan’s movie comedy “Bedtime for Bonzo.”
  Schlatter had used the chimps at Ciro’s, and knew the act had to run 22 minutes, because the chimps were trained that way. But after timing Reagan, hotel owner Jake Kozloff issued the mandate, “Cut the monkeys to 15 minutes.”
  Schlatter and Detroy determined the only way to do this was to start the chimp act in the hall, then move them onto the showroom stage. “It worked pretty good,” he recalls. “About the third night, the monkeys are now used to it. About the fourth night, a guard says, “Mr. Reagan has some friends arriving, we want to hold the show.’ “
  But the button already was pushed. By the time the chimps were let onstage, they were in their post-show “play” phase. “They go out onstage and it’s a zoo. They’re swinging form the lights, they’re in the orchestra. One of them sat down at a table and drank a bottle of Jack Daniels.
  “It’s absolute pandemonium. The audience is hysterical. You never heard screams like that in a saloon in your life. Ronald Reagan says, `I can’t follow that.’ ’’
  Kozloff liked it so much he cut Reagan’s act to allow the chimps their full 22 minutes.
  Alas, there’s no documentation of the story. Newspaper ads of the day didn’t bill the chimps; Schlatter thinks Reagan’s agent, Lew Wasserman, might “not have wanted him in an ad with chimps.”
  Schlatter’s secret and future career were safe. “Today, if you had live chimps loose in a saloon, it would have been in every paper in the world.”