CityCenter stage to feature guitar

Not all the news out of the CityCenter project has a Heartbreak Hotel ring to it.

For some time now, there have been rumblings that the theater for the Elvis-Cirque du Soleil show will feature a guitar as a design element.

A guitar-shaped ceiling? No, said MGM Mirage exec Bobby Baldwin, when I asked him more than a year ago

Now comes word that when CityCenter opens late this year, the stage will be shaped like a giant guitar.

Elvis fans will recall that Presley, and after his death, manager Tom Parker, sent a huge arrangement of red roses in the shape of a guitar to Ann-Margret, Elvis' co-star in "Viva Las Vegas," on her opening nights.

WYNN ON '60 MINUTES'

Charlie Rose, in his "60 Minutes" interview on Sunday with Steve Wynn, got the hotel magnate to open up on a couple of topics that many a reporter has been warned to avoid: Wynn's eyesight issues and his infamous temper.

Asked about the genetic eye condition retinitis pigmentosa, Wynn said "I was born with this recessive and rather rare condition that has diminished my vision since childhood, night vision when I was very young and periperhal as you get older."

And, yes, said Wynn, it "can be a source of great anxiety." He accepts that he is "face to face with the threat, the menace" and that "I won't be able to see this some day in the future."

Of his temper, Wynn said, "I wish that I was a more considerate person and to the extent that I demonstrate consideration for other people at my age, I wish I had gotten to that point earlier."

Wynn acknowledged that he has talked to the Dali Lama about his volcanic side.

"He says to me when you get angry," Wynn said, pausing. "I'll do an imitation. When you get angry, when you lose your temper, when you think that you should shout and react in a poor way to other people, it is a result of a false sense of yourself -- an inflated sense of yourself that is worthless."

Wynn was at his self-effacing best.

When Rose asked him about accidentally poking a hole in Picasso's "Le Reve" painting, which had been sold for a record $139 million but not delivered, Wynn referred to himself as "the Clouseau of collectors," a reference to the bumbling French inspector played by Peter Sellers in "The Pink Panther."

Wynn deflected talk about being the visionary who turned Las Vegas around.

"I've been given too much credit for that really. If you look at Las Vegas in the 1980s, there hadn't been anything built since 1973, new."

The city, he said, "was in a time warp and as so often has been the case in the valley of the blind, the one-eyed man is king. All of a sudden I looked like a rocket scientist."

The only point in the interview where Las Vegans undoubtedly sat up and shouted "what!" came when Rose talked about Wynn selling the Bellagio and the rest of his Mirage Resort properties in 2000.

"By then Las Vegas was calling itself the entertainment capital of the world," said Rose, who was only off by, say, about 50 years.

ENCORE FOR BEYONCE

Steve Wynn has been promising he was going to be adding big-name entertainment to his Encore Theater.

We hear he's got a four-night deal with R&B superstar Beyonce and talks have been going on with 1980s icon George Michaels.

One of them could be in the theater by late May or June.

Beyonce, the former lead singer of the girl group Destiny's Child, won five Grammys in one night in 2004, the year she went solo.

Michaels was a chart topper as a member of the British duo Wham!, which had five No. 1 hits between 1984 and 1987. After going solo in 1987, Michaels had six more No. 1 hits, including "Faith" and "Father Figure."

SIGHTINGS

Carlos Santana, handling ribbon-cutting honors Tuesday at the new Joint at the Hard Rock Hotel. ... Iconic rock 'n' roll legend Leon Russell, dining Monday with friends at Joe's Seafood, Prime Steak & Stone Crab (Forum Shops at Caesars) ... The Duke of Marlborough, John Spencer-Churchill at Bartolotta at the Wynn on Tuesday night. ... At Hash House A Go Go on Tuesday: former UFC fighter and mixed martial arts fighter Frank Trigg, with his wife, and at another table, former NBA All-Star Spencer Haywood.

THE PUNCH LINE

"Navy SEALs -- what incredible marksmen. They shot the three pirates without hitting the captain or any of the parrots sitting on the pirates' shoulders." -- Jay Leno

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