It’s a mid-week night of the wild, the wicked–the wanton! Ghouls, goblins, skeletons and spooks will be out in full fright-night force and at every event of our only-in-Vegas Halloween hell-ebration there will be outrageous outfits and crazy costumes.

Even reformed Paris Hilton will be back in town for her haunted happening, going head-to-head against XXX-adult-rated actress, Tera Patrick. Only in Vegas, folks!

It’s the wildest and most decadent day of the year. Vegas nightlife goes into sexual over-drive to ensure Halloween is celebrated here like no other place on earth. The emphasis is on the outrageous and the provocative as partygoers plot their crazed costumes to win big bucks. As promised, here are our LUXE LIFE photos of how Mindfreak magician Criss Angel kicked it all off last night at PURE nightclub in Caesars Palace.

If there’s one entertainer in town who embraces the Halloween festivities more than any other, it’s definitely macabre magician, The Amazing Johnathan. The crazy comic appears nightly at the Sahara, and his party tonight is definitely not for the squeamish or faint of heart!!!

Think of that if you have to squish your way through City Morgue body-bags at his converted warehouse. Last time they actually contained moving human parts hanging in the maze of a haunted house with ghouls arising from creepy coffins – all created in his deathly-darkened storage facility. He’d even rigged a trick elevator to simulate a terrifying 20-floor freefall! The screaming scary-looking guests (dressed up as everybody from naughty near-nude nurses to scandalous spiked-heel senoritas) loved it all, including such fellow magicians and Strip entertainers as Criss Angel, Carrot Top, Nathan Burton, Anthony Cools and Psychic Tanya as a sailor girl. Incidentally, five revelers dressed up looking like Criss, and two others as Carrot Top doubles!

Johnathan introduced a sword-swallowing girl and her nose-drilling mate who “killed” the crowd with their freakish carny sideshow, but the two lip-locked knockout cuties who did a decadent dance defying description brought the dead back to life!

Fellow magician David Copperfield got this year’s advance look on a personal tour and admitted to being startled by some of AJ’s dark-humor paraphernalia. In-between getting his haunted house ready for the 3rd annual Halloween party, AJ told me: “We have two warehouses back to back and one of them is going to be the party and the other is going to be the haunted house. We have redone everything. I just built an elevator that looks pretty real. You get on it and it drops what seems like five stories. People have ridden on it and they thought it was real so far and they screamed. There are a lot of people coming along with a lot of rock bands who love hanging in Vegas. I have built some scary stuff, but right now I am trying to figure out what terrifies people and I have a pretty good idea about that, and it is all going into this warehouse. It is not a kid’s haunted house. I have people crawling on the floor and the floor drops from underneath them. It doesn’t look safe, but it is, and it is very scary.”

The personification of macabre arrives in the form of gothic guru Marilyn Manson in a freak-show concert of black-fueled nightmares at the Pearl in The Palms.

The black-eye-shadowed red-lipsticked pancake-powdered musician is here promoting his sixth album titled with a macabre message, “Eat Me, Drink Me.” Manson this year abandoned his seven-year long-term relationship but short-lived marriage with sexy- striptease goddess of burlesque, Dita Von Teese. They have been hurling darts and daggers back and forth while he took up with 19-year-old model actress, Rachel Word. She will be with him here in Vegas. She’s featured in his recent video for “Heart Shaped Glasses” and will appear in his new Phantasmagoria movie.

As morbid as he looks, I once had dinner with him in a West Hollywood restaurant and found him, as the former Brian Warner, to be a quiet well-spoken normal Ohio individual, bewildered by all the attacks hurled at him from religious groups and conservative politicians. His dark and demonic after-party will be held atop the Fantasy Tower in the MOON nightclub. Where is Alice Cooper this year?

To plan your party hit-list schedule effectively here’s a run-down of our favorite Halloween Horror Highlights:

*Paris will purr like a pussycat when the older of the Hilton sisters hosts a $20,000 prize money sexy or scary costume contest at the new LAX nightclub in the Luxor. She guarantees a thrilling chilling night of spooktacular festivities complete with grinning ghosts and merry monsters.

*Porn-queen Tera Patrick showcases her lacy lingerie line while celebrating Taolloween at TAO nightclub in the Venetian. The porn princess will also perform a guest DJ set!

*The 41st Beaux Arts Ball runs till dawn at Studio 54 with Chippendales star, Bryan Cheatham and Fantasy’s singer-mc, Stephanie Jordan hosting. Expect cast members of such Strip shows as Jubilee, Phantom, Folies Bergere, Sirens of TI, Toni Braxton’s Revealed, 40-Deuce’s Royal Jelly and Tony Danza’s Producers to trip the light fantastic!

*Nightclub czar Victor Drai has a Greek God and Goddess theme going at his TRYST playground in the WYNN with $15,000 in prizes, while at his original Drai’s After-Hours, he’ll turn the basement club into a Stairway to Hell after-hours bash with a $5,000 costume contest.

*My model actor friend, Tyson Beckford will host a hospital industry Halloween in the Cirque du Soleil Beatles Revolution lounge at the Mirage.

*Beacher’s Madhouse comedy impresario, Jeff Beacher will bring Leonid The Magnificent, Tiny Kiss and Tiny Brit with him for wicked wildness at the new She-Devil dominated Diablo’s Cantina in the Monte Carlo.

*VH1’s Book of Love winner Jes hosts the costume ball at the Poisoned Hearts Ball in Poetry above Chinois in the Forum Shops at Caesars Palace.

*The Hard Rock has turned its Body English nightclub over to Godskitchen and DJ Roger Sanchez, with one costumed winner grabbing the $15,000 prize.

Beware! Halloween is officially upon us and that means Vegas really gets into the sensual swing of mayhem and madness with a freak show out-pointing anything anywhere else on earth–even more so than any other time of the year!

*Our The Beauty of Magic Planet Hollywood headliner, Hans Klok appears with TV talk show host Ellen DeGeneres today. The high-speed illusionist will perform two of his lighting fast tricks for her Halloween special on stations coast to coast.

*The booming new-construction Chinese gaming enclave of Macau is looking more and more like Vegas everyday, but one day in the near-future both its visitor count and gaming revenues will surpass Vegas statistics. Gaming and gambling activities in Macau just posted gross revenues of US $7.363 billion in the first nine months of 2007, which exceeded that for the entire 12 months of 2006. Now Cirque du Soleil confirms reports it will unveil its newest production there next year at The Venetian, and it will be a completely new show–not a copy of something we already have here on our Strip!

Incidentally, I keep hearing rumblings that Cirque will move a very large portion of its Montreal-based team here to a new downtown arts district site. On-going conversations with City officials have been “so positive and responsible” that the announcement might well be made early in the New Year.

*NBA Hall of Fame Superstar, Dr. J - Julius Erving–dressed in a Hulk Hogan costume, drinking Grand Marnier while dancing with friends at The Beatles Revolution Lounge at The Mirage over Halloween festivities! Also there, music maestros Fall Out Boy and Daft Punk who partied until closing time pre-dawn.

*Academy Award-winning actor Nicolas Cage treated his family to dinner delights at BOA Steakhouse in the Forum Shops of Caesars Palace.

With unfair news coverage and leaks swirling around magician David Copperfield, Luxe Life, as promised, will replay my last interview with him. He explains the magical qualities of the island chain he purchased in the Bahamas that’s now the center of a storm of allegations. We’ve also got our insider’s private up-close look at Britney Spears and how she can bounce back all the way to the top again, plus the first anniversary celebrations of entertainer Gordie Brown at the Venetian. I’m off to celebrate Day of the Dead in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico while we film a TV celebrity sports invitational special so we’ll have a full bonus four day rundown of everything happening right through until Sunday night.

A brand-new multi-media website with daily breaking news updates for all the luxury lifestyle secrets of Vegas, plus all the latest celebrity happenings. Stay tuned for all the exciting details. You can catch our Luxe Life daily headliner teasers every morning on the Rick Dees 93.3 FM radio show in Los Angeles and our weekly Luxe Life wrap-up on the ABC radio network.

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URGENT BREAKING NEWS:

Robert Goulet, the legendary star of stage, screen, television and recordings, was pronounced dead at 10:17am today. He had been suffering from a rapidly progressive pulmonary fibrosis, a condition that is most often fatal. Most treatments are ineffectual. The only successful treatment is lung transplantation. Mr. Goulet had been in intensive care at Cedars Sinai since October 14, 2007.

At the time of his death his wife of 25 years, Vera Goulet, who has been with him constantly since his hospitalization, was holding his hand until his last breath. Also present were his two sons Christopher and Michael along with his longtime friend and family physician Dr. David Kipper.

He is survived by his wife, his two sons, his daughter Nicolette, and his two grandchildren Jordan and Solange. The family is grateful for all of the support from his friends and fans but requests that their privacy be respected at this difficult time. Details of his memorial service will be forthcoming.

BREAKING NEWS:

Cirque du Soleil founder Guy LaLiberte committed a whopping $100-million donation this morning to launch a poverty-fighting program to give everybody acccess to water.

He announced the gift at Cirque headquarters in Montreal, with Prince Albert of Monaco and Oxfam and Royal Bank of Canada officials who will also support the cause.

The huge donation is a 25-year committment from Guy and the field activities of the new One Drop Foundation will be financed by donations from Cirque’s employees in Vegas, Macau and Montreal. International partners and Canadian companies and the public will also assist with donations.

“No one can remain indifferent” said Guy “when we know that at least every eight-seconds a child dies from a disease caused by drinking contaminated water. We want to mobilize people everywhere in the world to find sustainable solutions to the problem of acccess to water and to adopt better practices for the use of this prescious resource.” Prince Albert added: “Water issues transcend the boundaries of countries and affect the whole of humanity”

Guy who recently purchased triplex apartments atop the new MGM City Center on the Strip and is in talks to move parts of his Cirque Canadian headquarters to downtown City of Las Vegas property intends to base the new One Drop Foundation at its international headquarters in Montreal.

BREAKING NEWS:

Troubled pop-princess Britney Spears is today in make it or break it mode as her new album Blackout officially goes on sale in stores across the country. It’s her first studio album in four-years and if her newest single “Gimme More,” now number eight on the charts, with over 500,000 copies sold in a month, is any indication she might just salvage her name, reputation and career—despite an almost year-long, sad and sullied spree of harrowing headlines. The high-energy dance-pop music might just resuscitate her career, jump-start a planned tour and join the ranks of her previous four no.1 albums that have sold over 75 million copies.

However, today is a much bigger date on Britney’s calendar because the family court judge overseeing her fight against ex-husband Kevin Federline over their two young babies will issue his decision about their 50/50 custody battle. Yesterday, per court-orders, Britney and Kevin attended a near day-long joint parent counseling session, but last night she was partying way into the early hours at Winston’s club in LA, hanging out in the bathroom and changing her clothes twice!

Britney’s excessive party problems really began last New Year’s Eve here at the PURE nightclub in Caesars Palace when I watched her collapse in a champagne fueled celebration get carried out just 45 minutes after counting down the New Year. The tabloid train-wreck tribulations continued year-long and crescendoed shortly after Labor Day when her MTV Video Music Awards opening number at the Palms resort here was soundly trashed by cadres of critics.

Today’s headlines though are screaming that she gave Dallas Cowboys star, Tony Roma a lap-dance in a Los Angeles nightclub at the weekend where she misplaced her cell-phone! TV-host-DJ Ryan Seacrest on his LA radio show said he’d actually watched it and described Britney’s lap-dance as “very frisky.”

Personally I’d like to thank Britney for including a shout-out to my old TV show Lifestyles of the Rich & Famous on her new album—and on Thursday, with the help of one of her longest and closest associates, Luxe Life will explore just how she can regain super-stardom all over again!

BREAKING NEWS:

The New Year’s Eve plans for troubled actress Lindsay Lohan to host at LAX nightclub in the Luxor—first revealed here in Luxe Life—have now apparently gone up in smoke, according to US Magazine. It would be the second time in less than six-months that the newly released from rehab star has pulled out of a PURE hosting gig.

The young star had agreed to host the Dec 31 bash to make up for the 21st birthday bash that PURE nightclub at Caesars Palace had planned for her at the Memorial Day weekend start of summer. Instead she wound up at the Malibu Promises rehab center and then onto the tougher, restrictive Cirque Lodge clinic in Utah.

Last night Lindsay’s rep said, “Lindsay will no longer be hosting New Year’s Eve in Las Vegas. She will continue to focus on her work and sobriety.” She remains contractually obligated to PURE to host a major event as she was pre-paid for the original hosting gig and caused the club’s owners to rack up incredible promotional expenses before her last-minute cancellation.

“That deal remains in place and both PURE and Lindsay will wait until the time is right to do it properly,” said an insider