CHRISTMAS IN VEGAS—BY WAYNE NEWTON!
The last time I chatted with “Mr. Las Vegas” I took the opportunity to talk about Christmas in Vegas, and he wrapped it up with a Christmas wish for Luxe Life readers.
Robin Leach: What do the Holidays mean to you as an entertainer who often works during them and as a married man with family?
Wayne Newton: I have worked through them practically all of my life. In some instances, it is another day on the job. The other side is you have to be aware that some people who don’t have children, or children that are of age, they want to come to Las Vegas and Vegas has to cater to that, too. It does bring home what it is that the holidays are about.
RL: What does Christmas mean to you?
WN: Christmas was one of the saddest days of my life when my brother told me there was no Santa Clause.
RL: But you must have dressed up as Santa for your own family?
WN: I have never done that, but I have hired people to do that for me. It is interesting because when my older daughter was five or six we hid out on the landing upstairs, and it was one of my pilots, and he put on the Santa outfits and we pretended like we were checking the North Pole and all of the time zones to see where Santa was and then he walks in and ate the cookies and he started going he-he-he, and my daughter looked at me and I said Santa has got a problem tonight. It truly brings out the kid in me. It is one of my favorite times of year and I think that mainly because people are starting to realize the true meaning of Christmas and people are nice to each other—something that should last the whole year, not just that one segment of time.
RL: Have you ever done an actual Christmas Day show with the troops?
WN: Yes I have. In fact, we were in Afghanistan on Christmas two weeks after our coalition forces had freed their country.
RL: Do you have one joyous happy memory of a holiday visit to the troops? Do you get behind the line and serve turkey?
WN: Oh yes; as a matter of fact, we were in Iraq and I took Paul Rodriguez, Neil McCoy, the Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders and Miss USA and myself—we were all in line serving turkey to the troops and this one soldier looks at me and says, “you have no idea how thrilled we are that you are here.” I said, “well thank you,” and I talked to them about how thrilled we are to be there for them. He said, “I am not sure you understood what I meant; I meant if you weren’t here, they would be feeding us camel.” So that is one I will never forget.
RL: Wayne, let’s go back to the early days of you entertaining downtown when you were a teenager. Now, 48 years you have spent in this city, but what was Christmas like yesteryear in Vegas as compared to what it has become today?
WN: Well, back then Christmas was a time when all the showrooms closed down. Vegas wasn’t big enough to support keeping them open. You could shoot a cannon off and never really hit anybody. So the showrooms were closed down under the pretense that they were doing maintenance or cleaning, but the truth was that there was a lack of people. Then on the 26th the town started to jump again and we would go through New Year’s and then it would cool off again and go through the middle of January in terms of people coming here until about April. Those were terrific times, but not like today where the town is large enough by itself to support the number of performers that are here. It was almost a thing where you could do a Christmas show years ago, but people just wouldn’t come out; they would stay home with their families. But now, not only do we have tremendous amounts of traveling people visiting Vegas for the holiday season, but a lot of locals come out, too. It has all changed for the good.
RL: Do you cook the turkey yourself?
WN: Not a chance. Having come here so young, I can’t even boil water. When I did that scene in the “Vegas Vacation” movie where I am cooking spaghetti, I was laughing the whole time because people will come up to me and ask about my particular recipe for spaghetti and I can’t cook at all and I never have. If I had to cook to survive, I would have starved a long time ago.
RL: Now are you like every other American man after turkey dinner that you take 40 winks?
WN: I do and I must tell you that not only do I look forward to that, but also I look forward to the day after because of all the leftovers.
RL: On Christmas day do you do gifts around the tree early morning or do you start Christmas Eve at midnight?
WN: We start Christmas Eve at midnight, but since our youngest came along we open her gifts, not the ones from Santa, obviously. We open those family gifts early before she goes to bed, then the adults open theirs and then we open her gifts from Santa on Christmas day.
RL: What’s your holiday greeting for everybody this year?
WN: My greeting is that I wish everybody what I wish myself and that is: happiness, health, and love with your family.