Variety (November 1954)

66 VAUDEVILLE Wednesday, November 17, 1954 iami Beach Continued from page. 64 tentatively, for th huge, new , Fontainebleau. Largest resort ho- tel of its kind here will boast- a lay- out tlwit allows for expansion from intimery to a bumper crowd cafe as large as any in the area. Opening: sh w mid-December 'HI probably have Vaughn Monroe and the Richard Haymain orches- tra,, with the Lecuona Cuban Boys following 1 .for a four-vyeek run; in January. There may be inclusion of some single draws if the unit idea can be Worked in’with their appearances. Premiere, week— Dec! 18 to 24—will be a busy one with press-radio-tv personalities and feature iters - columnists flown in on a junket, plus possibili- ty of se ve r a i Holly Wopcl 1 u th in ar ies in attendance, to add glamor to the proceedings.' Sabs Souci The Sans Souci Hotel is almost ‘set . with its one-act, , one-show iglitly. policy. Arthur 'Blake tees off Thanksgiving—he's an assured draw in this spot via-sock, biz done' in previous . engagements—to be followed by Joel Grey, Joyce Bry- ant. Myron Cohen, Larry .-Storch and -others. ’’ the same budget bracket. Downtown Nautilus Hotel man-: agemenl has decided to concen- trate on comedians lor. its Drift- wood Room. Larry Storch opens the December holiday time, with -joey Bishop and Phil Foster fol- lowing. Expected t.o be added are Jack Carter and for change of pace Lillian Roth, with return then to comics , under the weekly change policy. The Di. Lido Hotel, last, year’s “.new” hotel, will relight its big Moulin Rouge Club with a Wally cWanger line of dancers and show-, girls installed, plus a talent lineup still to he booked^ Be$ Kalmus, vet Manhattan disk jockey and en- tertainer, is in charge of the. robni hnd wiirdouble on her own mid- night airer as - well as helping the shows. Up ;North. Beach way in the swank Bal Harbour sector, the new Balmoral Hotel is. setting up the type of entertainment, featured in Gotham’s St. Regis, Plaza, et ail... Owners Charles Martel! and Harry Toifel (former' Sains Souci co- owner) have'.Monte PrpSer acting as entertainment, ■■consultant,, he in turir contacting such acts as Hilde- garde and Jack: Whiting, Patti Page, Genevieve and Fernanda Monte!. Their heaviest artillery, however, is aimed at Eddie Fish-ex’. They would like to book him in for their, official opening around Dec. 21. or - else for a, February date, their barrage of inducement in- cluding transportation and mainte- nance of his entire Coca-Cola tv company and payment of ( cabl.e. charges for .telecasts., in addition to his fee. for a one week ideal. The fact that evei-y-other operator in town able. to. afford the skyhi-gh figures—and there are several— has bid for the Fisher talents hasn’t deterred. Martell and Toffel from entering into negotiations. Hildjegarde & Jack Whiting: will premibre' the show season at the Zsakiety * oy*i "In a revue that rivala the best on highway 91, all season .Don Tahnen, satirical comedian carries a good wallop and winds d solid act in a begoff.” BOB CLEMENS DON TANNEN Hits Vegas Jack Pot Currently (Until Nov. 17th) THUNDERBIRD LAS VEGAS "Glad to see you hit the. Jdckpot on your first Laf Vegas appearance. You were great. Am looking forward to your return engagement soon.” HAL BRAUDIS, Thunderblrd Producer THANKS, MR. BRAUDIS Personal Dir Club; Dates':' JACK DAVIES NAT DUNN 48 West 48tlr St„ New York, N. Y. 1650 Broadway, New York, N. Y. PLaza 7-1880 new Balmoral Hotel here Christ- mas Eve. The inn opens formally on Dec. 18 with the Erpil Coleman orchestra and the La Playa Sextet. Shows will be inaugurated the fol- lowing week. The inn has .also signed Peggy Lee to follbw Hilde- garde & Whiting, with Genevieve to come in on Feb. 18 for two weeks. Additional competitive head- aches for nitery operators are the large group of oceanfrorit hotels which play, one-nighters through the week, utilizing acts in the ter- ritory or passing through. There is a considerable group of. talent now living in south Florida who make a route, of these situations, with the run enabling them to re- peat dates every two weeks or so. A late addition may be the Casa- blanca. The Club Morocco in this hold seats well .over 500 . and re- ports have the management * turning to. the two-week .booking policy of former seasons, with first show to include Myron Cohen arid Betty arid Jane Kean. Booking of Cohen into this location before hi appearance at the Sans Souci is, indicative of the owner’s think- ing—they want acts that are faves here, come winter season, and from experience they are* taking no. chances on some of the newer faces. All of which leaves a book- ing pi’oblem for the big talent agencies in New York—the ; intro- duction of musical units will cut. into usage of many of the, comics and singers who played here regu-, larly. in. the past decade. It's ob- vious that. the . big three, the Copa City. : Beachcomber and Latin Quarier, will offer & limited field; for the supporting and middle-; bracket performer, concentrating as ihey:must cn top r-arnes to meet the challenge bf the hotels for the patronage: the hotel and' night club business in th e east ^during the last se veral years. The Dunes, located, on the western edge of Las Vegas’ “Strip” area bf resort hotels; is his fii’st operation here. Cbstry Acts Unjustified? Backing his belief that the high cost of many acts is unjustified, Gottesman has hired. London’s Rob- ert Nesbitt as producer of the Shows. Nesbitt has done most ,of the big revues and. girl shows in London for the last several years. He plans productions with casts of around- 50, including 28 chorus, •girls. They'11 work on the biggest stage in Las Vegas—a setup 65'x35- which is being constructed by. Jo- seph Vasconcellos Iric., of Burbank, which built and installed the stage setups for Radio City Music Hali and the NBC-TV Studios in Bur- bank. “L think that people who come to Las Vegas want .to see good en- tertainment,!’ Gottesman empha- sizes. “This doesn’t necessarily mean big film or stage names who are getting fabulous salaries. We 1 think we can provide excellent en- tertainment, through our produc- tions, which will be the last word in' color, grandeur and spectacle. Production to Be Stressed “We’ll buy name talent on occa- sion—if they fit into the production that Nesbitt is working on. But names for the sake of names are out. We want to build shows and we’ll run each, one eight weeks.” Gottesman also expects to op- erate the hotel itself on; a different basis, catering to the general pub- lic “rather than letting the casino dictate” on room reservations. “People come to Las Vegas for a vacation,” Gottesman says. “As far I ais, they are Concerned, it’s another resort, which has—in addition to- the usual features—^legalized gai bling. If we run the. Punes^like a regular resort hotel without mak- ing any special concessions to, the bigtime players, i think we'll get ; iore than enough business, just ; ' as I think we’ll do fine with an ’ . entertai merit policy that features , J entertainment rather than nannies, who collect more than they offer.” 1 Suburbia ma Continued from pa&e 1 stigma, which in that era was as- sociated with the cafes that dotted the countryside. According to cafemen, the pros- pect of suburban niterie.s will be bigger in years to come. Most of the families that moved in follow- ing the war are those who had small children, for whom the Wide open spaces were desirable.. These kids are now growing up, many of them now buy records, and in a few years their allowances plus aifterschool jobs will' enable them to take a date to these night Clubs. This Cafe development is in keep- ing with the other facets of the drift to. the suburban areas, such as department stores. Boon to Agencies .. This drift to the wide, open spaces is also paving a boon to the talent agencies. In N; Y. thei-e aren’t enough spaces that will buy record names. Many tunesters are foi’ced to spend a lot of time on the road for the sirinpie reason that they can’t showcase in the metrop- olis. The suburban night' club cor- rects this condition for them. The city-slicker bonifaces are conscious,of this development, but can do littie about it: In New York the parking problem Is so. acute . that even the highpriced. parking lots re frequently filled Up. With the cops getting tough on overtime, a $15 ticket may. be clamped on the heap when suburbanites are on an evening out. Fortunately there seems to be a fair division of talent between the urban and ‘ subui’ban clubs. The outskirts go for the. disk names, but the urban cafes seem to design shows for the more mature cliff- dwellers. They find that comics or the established singers suit their purposes better. The suburban entertainment de- velopments seem to be a better break for-th operatpi’s. For ex- ample, on the matter of rent or pui’chase of land, they get better lower prices. They can control parking and they can build capacity so that they can hit"a profit with good weekend business. In recent months there have been a lot of new operations in the Long Island area of New York. The Regency House is an addition to Manhasset; The Golden Slipper has been added to the scenery at Glen Cove, and the- Paraglide is new to Hempstead,. L< I. In addi- tion, there are more established spots, such as La Vie en . Rose, Amityville; Casa Seville, Franklin Square, and a lot of others. Spots are also springing up in Westches- ter County, and northern New Jer- sey Is loaded with these develop- ments. Nitery owners, like operators of other businesses; can no longer wait for business to come to them. They’ve got to follow the centres of population and set up shop there. 50% Interest in Plush fVVV^ Chicago, Nov. 16. A group of Chicago cafe owner are pooling resources to construct a plush hotel with night club and gambling casino in Reno. Site selected Is that of the Prima Donna apartment building, directly op- posite. Harold’s Club. The Chicagoans are putting up about $1,000,000 Of the $2,000,000 costs for ari aggregate 50% owner- ship. Hotel is to be an eight-story structure with 108 rooms. In the venture are Singapore Restaurant co-partners Tommy . O’Dorinell, Frank Howard and T o m ni y Dowries; Silver Palm cafe owner Ross Miller; Chicago businessma Charles Ross, and others whose 'names have not yet been made public. SPIKE DRAWS 55,000 TO CANTON SHOW; 15G FEE Pittsburgh, Nov. 16. Spike Jones drew 5.5,000 into the Cantori .(O.) Food Show in a five- day period last. week. Jones played two shows daily for a $15,000 fee. Attendance, marked a new high in the history, of this show, an annual at the Canton Muni Aud. Jones opened last night (Tues.) at the Syria Mosque, here, for $2,500 guarantee against a 60-40 Split in his favor for each show, He, winds up. here tomorrow (ThUrs). He’ll play a series of one-nighters in the midwest before preeming at the Lake Club, Springfield, 111., next week. COMEDY MATERIAL All Branches of Theatricals FIIN-MASTER THE ORIGINAL SHOW-BIZ GAG FILE (Tho Service of the STARS) First 13 File! $7.00-AII 35 issues $25 Singly; $1.05 per script. • 3 Bks. PARODIES; per book. ,110 a • MINSTREL BUDGET . ....... $25 o • 4 BLACKOUT BKS., ca. bk. . $25 • • BLUE BOOK (Gags for Stags! $50 . o HOW TO MASTER THE CEREMONIES $3.00 GIANT CLASSIFIED ENCYCLOPEDIA OF GAGS, $300. Worth over a thousand No C.O.D/S BILLY GLASON 200 W. 54th St., New York 19—Dept. V Circle 7-1130 GABY de LYS Sensational Subtle STRIPPER EXOTIC PRIMA BALLERINA • Fox, Indianapolis',. o Gaiety, Detroit. . ... • Folly, Kansas City. o Mayfair, Dayton • Palace, Buffalo... Nov. 4-10 o ,.. Nov. 11-17 o Npv. 19-23 e Nov. 25-Dec. 1 e Dec. 2-1 o Contact ICK HENRY ' ., N. Y, JU 2-001$ To the Messrs. MILTON PRELL arid BILL MILLER: Thanks, for a wonderful Eleven Weeks at the SAHARA. Cab Special Material Sam J. Park TOMMY FORD COMEDY CLASSICS Currently GAY HAVEN, Detroit Representative: PAUL KALET Shelton Hotel, NYC ROBERT LENN Currently PALACE, New Personal Management FRED K. Opening Jan. 28 CONRAD HILTON HOTEL, (Thanks MERRIEL ABBOTT) STEELE, Gen. Motors Bldg., New York