PENN’S MAGIC MAMBO, TELLER’S BIG BET AND STRIP MAGICIANS FIGHT FOR HOUDINI’S MEMORABILIA
In less than 96-hours, rebel magician Penn Jillette will reveal his fancy footwork on the new Dancing with the Stars show with pretty partner, Kym Johnson—and here’s the first photo of them together!
Viewers will vote on his amazing dedication of five-hours a day, seven days a week rehearsals in a Summerlin dance studio since he signed on for the hit ABC-TV show at Christmas. Penn, who towers in at 6’6” has actually dropped an amazing 50-lbs since starting the mambo magic maneuvers! He will continue performing at the Rio resort casino here with silent partner Teller while doing the live broadcast of the Dancing shows in Hollywood. The three-hour time difference back to the East Coast permits him to hop a private jet right after the telecasts and be back here in time for their 9 p.m. shows. He will maintain an impossibly crazed commute back and forth several times a week for the run of the new dance-season.
Penn’s wife Emily is leading the cheering squad for her husband. She’s got all Rio employees wearing “Vote for Penn” buttons during his tenure on Dancing. She’s even set up a Web site at CafePress, cafepress/dwts, urging fans to vote for him and buy support t-shirts!
Emily told me, “He has worked so hard on this, it’s truly amazing. He has done everything possible, his very best, to go all the way to win.”
In fact, Teller is so convinced of that upset that he’s actually placed “a very substantial bet” for his partner’s outright win! But Penn knows he faces an incredible challenge with his blonde Australian teammate.
“There’s a 12 inch difference between us,” he commented. “She’s only 5’6” so we’ve had to adapt the dance styles—she stretches and stands tall and I shrink down and bend lower than normal. We sort of meet in the middle but we still burn up the floor. To impress the judges we’re even throwing an extra cha in our cha-cha-cha!”
Vegas has another strong connection with the new series—gorgeous Priscilla Presley, once married to Elvis, will also be competing on the show with dance partner Louis van Amstel.
Fan favorites Kristi Yamaguchi and tennis champion Monica Seles will also be sizzling with the sambas and charming with the cha-chas when the show begins again on Monday and Tuesday with two two-hour specials and a chilling double-elimination for the first time right on the second night!
Meantime, both Penn & Teller will battle other Strip headliner magicians, including Criss Angel, and David Copperfield at the weekend auction of Houdini’s memorabilia. Several of the great magician and escape artist’s sensational devices, including his traveling show trunk, shackles, handcuffs, straight-jacket and escape crates and his personal writings come under the auctioneer’s hammer. They are part of an incredible two-day auction at the Palms casino resort from the Anthony Pugliese Pop Culture Collection of 850 extraordinary movie, music, television, and political memorabilia collected over some four decades and stored in a Florida vault. It is hailed as one of the world’s best and most valuable collections of premium museum memorabilia. You can check on everything there today—from Madonna’s wedding dress, to John F Kennedy’s humidors, to John Lennon’s Abbey Road suit, to a Gone With the Wind parasol and the gun used by Jack Ruby to kill JFK assassin Lee Harvey Oswald. The mind-blowing auction gets underway with bidders checking in by phone and internet from around the world on Saturday. The showdown for the magicians will be on Sunday, and Luxe Life will have the front-row report early next week.
Click here for our full auction rundown from our Monday column.