Gambling Times - Player's Guide

On the Wayne
The Katz Meow
By Bobbie Katz

Many years ago, Sammy Davis Jr. said to Wayne Newton: "When people come to Las Vegas, there are two things that people have to see - Hoover Dam and Wayne Newton, and not necessarily in that order."

Well, it seems that little has changed around these parts. Each year, thousands of people flock to see Hoover Dam and Wayne Newton--not necessarily in that order. In fact, if anything, the big old dam is beginning to pale in comparison to the floodgates that have opened where Newton's career is concerned.

That includes the offers for interviews, movies and TV that just keep pouring in (Newton expects to make a major announcement in the coming weeks). All this activity has coincided with the fact that, last year, the beloved entertainer, who long ago earned the moniker of "Mr. Las Vegas," signed a deal with the Stardust Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas that is rumored to be one of the most lucrative and (dams aside) concrete deals in show business history.

Besides performing at the hotel 40 weeks a year for the next 9 years (his 10-year contract started on January 24, 2000), Newton also has the theater named after him and he has been given total creative control over what he does. It has left the entertainer feeling a lot like a kid in a candy store -- one that's walking out with an armload of "PayDay."

"This past year has been amazing," Newton exclaims. "If it's possible - and I know it sounds cliché - it's better than I ever dreamed it could be. It's such a joy to go to work --this last year passed quicker than any year of my life. I'm totally and completely relaxed. I'm not a worrying kind of guy by nature; I'm the optimist who took his last dollar and bought a wallet with it. But this is wonderful for me because I'm the kind of person who needs to be grounded. I'm not a floater; I don't need to be in an airplane headed somewhere. I love the places traveling takes me and I love the experiences of it but I just hate it and I hate the packing and unpacking."

Besides now having time for himself, he makes the distinction that he also has the ability to make time for the things in his life that he wants to do. In a sense, this gig is like Newton's own version of "Vegas Vacation" (in which he appeared). Besides absolutely loving his profession, having as much fun on stage every night as the audience has in their seats, for the first time, his salary doesn't depend upon his working. If he falls ill and is unable to perform, he stays home. But that's not the only good news.

"I have the opportunity to explore other areas of my career," Newton says. "I think if this kind of stability gives me anything, it's that I've done enough in my life that I'm capable of now deciding what it is I want to do versus what I want to try. I believe that I finally have what's most important to me - the stability of being home as well as having the best there is to offer in terms of what I do for a living."

"By being in one place as opposed to being on the road, I'm able to handle that one area of my life that is most difficult for me and that's compromise," he adds. "If I could change anything about me, it would be that I wouldn't be so much of a perfectionist. Because the theater at the Stardust has the quality it does, that takes care of a great deal of my frustration right there. People can see me in a way in which I want to be represented."

Besides feeling truly blessed, which includes being happily married to his beautiful wife, Kat, the down-to-earth consummate showman believes that everything is happening now for two reasons. First, he says, he has developed a certain maturity that he didn't have before and, second, he has withstood the test of time.

Now 58, Newton was 15 when he began performing in 1959 with his brother, Jerry, in the lounge of the Fremont Hotel. His first solo headliner booking came in 1963 at the Flamingo and after that, he settled in and became a mainstay in Las Vegas entertainment, earning the moniker "Mr. Las Vegas" and logging in some 25,000 performances in the city by February 1997.

"I never took the 'Mr. Las Vegas' title seriously because I had nothing to do with that happening other than I stayed five minutes longer at the fight," Newton smiles. "When other people decided to leave Las Vegas, I still stayed. Vegas has always been my home, so I took the title as the great compliment that it is. Las Vegas and I grew up together and matured at the same time."

Of course, both had their growing pains. Newton, who admits he's "had ups and downs of the kind that would destroy a great many people," has come through it all in tip-top shape. His most recent widely publicized problem, filing for bankruptcy in 1995, a situation he says was brought on by bad contractual agreements, is behind him now. He was supposed to have completed his reorganization in 2001, but he worked almost 52 weeks a year and got his debt entirely paid off three years ago.

"When your feet are to the fire, the whole world watches you," Newton muses. "And if you succumb to those things that are out to destroy you, which in many cases are of your own making, people say, 'Isn't that a terrible thing that happened to him?' But when you can survive it and come out of it with a positive attitude, I think that people look at you in a different light. There are two things I know to be painfully true and they are that life is mountains and valleys and if you only climb on sunny days, you'll never reach the top of the mountain."

Newton admits that the times he thought about "hanging it up" were the times that he didn't have a choice as to whether he hung it up or not. "In the down times, or the valleys in your life, when the whole world seems like it's going to hell, that's when you need to pull yourself together the most," he philosophizes. "That's when you really have to pull yourself up by your bootstraps and realize that falling down is not a crime. I've always had a great deal of faith in the man upstairs and in the American public. And my belief in myself never faltered."

Revealing that he came within 24 hours of losing everything, Newton maintains that it wouldn't have devastated him. He had created his fortunes and says he would simply have gone out and created more, obviously being a lot smarter about things the second time around. Newton has always had a certain security about himself and knows that what he does for a living is not who he is but that who he is accounts for what he does. The truth is that he feels he's "just a guy," but one of the few who gets to do what he likes to do in life. And he's come to realize that it's not the success at the end of the tunnel that's the ultimate fun, it's the ride.

Still, after going through a period of about 10 years where he was afraid to wake up in the morning because he didn't know what fire he was going to have to put out that day, he finds it a joy to wake up and realize that the world is not going to come to an end.

"I don't know what I've done to feel this good and have this many good things happen," Newton remarks. "I'm afraid to tell you how happy I am because it sounds corny. But I would go through everything I've gone through twice again to end up where I am today. And yet I can't really say I had anything to do with it. I believe destiny is choices - there's a road here and a road there and one will take you one way and the other will take you to a different destiny. I believe I've finally made some good choices. I want this feeling I have right now to last forever. Just let me have that and I'll be a happy person."

And he's one that will be busy making Stardust memories for others to enjoy for many years to come.

Back to Events and Places | More Bobbi Katz Columns | Mail this Article to a Friend

Visit Poker Player and sign up for the newsletter.

Join the thousands that get the inside scoop on poker and gambing.