Viva the memories and the Elvis 45s

Playboy Playmate and "Fantasy" star Angelica Bridges has a potential treasure chest on her hands, and she didn't even know it might be valuable until this weekend.

When Bridges was a kid, her mom handed down a collection of 45s -- all Elvis records.

"I would go down into my basement with my roller skates, and I had poles I could wrap around. And I would listen to Elvis records and roller skate," the 2001 Playboy cover model told me this weekend when we chatted about the new "Viva Elvis" show. "That was my first memory," she said.

I told her not to eBay those 45s.

"Nobody would want them, right? They're not gonna have a good sound, are they?" she said.

I told her, "You never know."

My mom used to own a Sun label Elvis 45, in poor condition, and it was appraised in the thousands of dollars.

"Oh my God," Bridges said. "OK, well then. I'll keep them. I had no idea they were worth that much. We have a bunch in storage."

Yes, in storage they sit, she said -- along with her Shaun Cassidy vinyl.

IF ELVIS WERE ALIVE, HE'D BE ...

Since "Viva Elvis" is swinging anew at CityCenter, I've been wondering where Elvis would be performing in Vegas if he were alive at age 74.

Some celebrities ponder my hypothetical.

"I think he'd be over at the Greek Isles," jokes Chris Phillips of the Monte Carlo headliner Zowie Bowie (who cites Elvis as his "100 percent inspiration").

Jokes aside, Phillips supposes a real possibility: "I think he would have his own hotel."

I asked Harrah's headliner Rita Rudner whether Elvis would be headlining the Sahara or the Riviera. She didn't take to my supposition.

"I feel he would be at the MGM Grand Garden arena," Rudner said, then snarked: "Rumor has it he was very popular."

"Survivor" host and TV producer Jeff Probst, in town for Friday's opening of "Viva Elvis," took my alive-Elvis question quite seriously.

"If Elvis were still alive, he would certainly have a reality show" on VH1, Probst said. "And he would have been married a couple of more times, I'm sorry to say.

"And he would be doing a comeback with the lead singer of REO Speedwagon."

If Probst were pitching such an alive-Elvis show to VH1 in 2010, this is how he'd sell it:

"I'd say, 'It's Elvis in his one-bedroom apartment, and he's making a comeback.' I would watch that right now."

Ultimately, the show would chronicle Elvis sitting on a couch all day.

"What else is he going to do? He's gonna sit around and talk about the good ol' days.

"We'd all be watching," he said. "I mean, that great piece of (video) tape of him in his white suit, kind of losing his mind -- and you still love him!"

Probst is too young to have seen Elvis in person. But when Probst was a teenager, he came to Vegas and met a different type of Vegas icon.

"I was walking with my dad when I was about 16. We were ahead of my mom and my two brothers. And two really attractive women came up and started walking next to us. And I thought, 'Whoa, I love Vegas!'

"And they said, 'You guys looking for some fun?' And my dad said, 'No.' I said, 'Dad, what what?!' He said, 'Jeff, I'll tell you about it later.'"

ONLINE: HAPPY NASCAR DAYS

Check out my VegasLand blog online to see a NASCAR schedule of when Kurt Busch, Tony Stewart, Kyle Petty and scores of other NASCAR stars make appearances around town this week.

Doug Elfman's column appears on Sundays, Mondays, Tuesdays and Fridays. E-mail delfman@reviewjournal.com. He also blogs at reviewjournal.com/elfman.