SPECIAL CELINE DION FAREWELL EDITION
100,000 ROSES PETALS FALL AS CELINE SAYS ‘AU REVOIR ‘ AND REVEALS FOR FIRST TIME SHE TRIED TO STOP THE CAESARS SHOW FROM EVER GOING AHEAD! HER HUSBAND PROMISES A RETURN TO VEGAS 2 YEARS FROM NOW! …. CELINE VOWS NEW BABY PLANS AFTER WORLD TOUR…
“This is not an end,” said Celine Dion as her final night came to its teary finish, “but a beginning of the rest of our lives. The show changed our lives and tonight we celebrate a journey, a passion and a new life.”
In an extraordinary special edition of Luxe Life:
*Celine reveals for the first time she tried to stop the Caesars show from ever happening
*She vows “we’ll be back” with a new show for Vegas.
*Celine still dreams of being an actress and maybe her next project with Dragone would be a movie!
*She hopes for a new baby after the upcoming year-long world tour.
Celine Dion’s record-breaking final show began 26-minutes late at 8:56 p.m. It ended at 11:03 p.m. as 100,000 rose petals fell onto the Canadian songbird, her husband, Rene Angilil and their 7-year-old son, Rene-Charles—along with her dancers and musicians—as they said “goodbye” for the last time. At 11:06 p.m. the three-minute standing ovation ended and she walked off teary-eyed as the $400-million grossing, near 5-year-run of “A New Day,” with its sold-out performances to nearly three million people, ended with show 719!
But even before leaving the theater at 1:20 a.m. yesterday, Rene promised me, “We will be back. She will perform again in Vegas. We’re definitely going to take off for a year after the upcoming world-tour. I’ve made the promise to her we’ll try for a new baby. And then we’ll return to Vegas to perform again. Yes—maybe 2009 or 2010!”
Caesars Palace president, Gary Selesner commented, “We will always keep an empty room ready for her to return whenever she wishes. They are always welcome here. They are an important part of our family now—and will be forever.”
This week 39-year-old Celine “rests and relaxes like a normal mom; stay in the house, cooking in the kitchen and making my own coffee once I’ve slept in for three days. Play Christmas music and get ready for a family Christmas, decorate the tree, bake with my child and celebrate New Year’s. Tomorrow morning I am back to reality for a while before we start a new life again.”
Then January 2 she takes a vacation and then begins rehearsals and wardrobe and rundown preparations for the one-year-long Taking Chances global adventure that kicks off on Valentine’s Day in South Africa with a charity concert for Nelson Mandela. Some of her musicians and dancers will be going with her in addition to her son, her oldest sister and mother. Meantime, this morning workers will already be at The Colosseum starting the makeover before Jackie Cheung’s Chinese holiday celebrations, and then readying a new stage for Bette Midler’s arrival on February 20 to be probably followed by Cher in early May after planned late-April rehearsals.
“I told Bette,” said Celine, “to change the stage. It’s tough, difficult and very hard on the body because it was sloped forward so everybody in the audience got perfect views from wherever they sat. It has to go now, though.”
Famed movie director Steven Spielberg, Mindfreak magician Criss Angel, Grammy winning writer-producer David Foster, Cirque du Soleil founder Guy la Liberte and Oprah Winfrey’s best friend, Gayle King were in the audience for the last show (Oprah cancelled out at the last moment due to a bad cold that prevented her flying in).
Mega-stars Tom Cruise and wife, actress Katie Holmes saw it the previous night. Celine picked up the tab to fly in more than 100 of her family, friends and office staff from her Montreal hometown for the finale—including her 80-year-old mom who drove to work with her daughter.
Said Celine, who lost her father in November ’03, “I asked her when we drove together if she remembered the first show on March 25, 2003 (the week the Iraq invasion war began), and if she thought she would be here five-years later. She said no, but she made it and I know my dad is also here tonight. So the good thing is that my mother is here for the last show and I didn’t lose my shoes like I did on the very first night when she was watching me.”
For the first time, Celine surprisingly revealed that she’d actually tried at the last moment to stop the show from ever happening in the first place.
“I got pregnant and I realized I didn’t want to do the show. I’d had that life before and now I wanted more success as a mother rather than as a singer. I asked my husband to stop the project but he said it was too far along, too much money had been spent and committed, and too many people are at work. It was the hardest moment of my life… all I wanted before Rene-Charles was born was to succeed at my music and perform… but when he was born I wanted to face a new dream of being a mother not a singer. It was so hard; by December 2002 everybody had moved to Vegas. I wanted to stop it but it was too late!”
Said AEG/Concerts West president John Meglin, which runs the Colosseum: “Hard-to-get $225 top-price tickets for the closing night were offered by scalpers for $5,000 and at close to $2,000 on the e-Bay internet auction site earlier this week. Tickets for this last year were selling so strongly we could have gone on for another year or two—who knows how long? There was no slow down whatsoever in her ticket sales. It is amazing to watch somebody go out at the very top.”
If you were among the hundreds who missed her final show, don’t fret my pet, because tonight 200 movie theaters across the country will broadcast the last performance in a unique two-hour screening. In addition, a two-hour TV special—fed by satellite from Vegas with yours truly offering commentary and insider insights—will air across Canada. The new Celine DVD released on Thursday also contains the entire New Day show, which she taped over five-days last January.
“We had cameras everywhere for it,” said Celine. “I wanted people to see everything and how hard it is.” She revealed that they even had to put black bars over certain “nude shots” where they captured her doing the between act quick-costume changes at the side of the stage.
“Obviously you get undressed to change. You don’t think about it. The cameras well protected me. I’m a mom so there’s nothing in there that shouldn’t be. It’s safe for all the children. What you see is not what you get—there is so much more to the show and we give it all to you,” she laughed. In fact, for the closing show she changed into six different outfits!
Harrah’s entertainment chief, Gary Loveman kicked off the on-stage gala saying, “This is a momentous night. We are very sad, but at the same time very proud. To leave at the height of a show’s success is a historical event. She brought a tremendous level of prestige and panache to everything.”
John Meglin added: “This was the biggest contract ever negotiated in Vegas show-business history—an investment of over $300-million. A lot of people questioned if it could ever be successful in spending on this magnitude. But if you’re going to gamble, Vegas is the place to do it.”
Harrah’s didn’t own Caesars at the time of the Dion deal, and Loveman reflected: “I thought when we were buying Caesars it was enormously risky to think of one individual selling 4,000 tickets day in and day out. I was so skeptical and yet it became successful beyond imagination.”
Said Celine’s manager husband: “She changed the face of Vegas—and now many superstars are doing the same thing.”
Caesars president Selesner confirmed that: “To be honest, Caesars at the time had become dowdy and lost its brand and appeal. Celine changed all that. The show was a catalyst for the property. People started coming back to us. The tips to employees got bigger. We got bigger investments to add a tower, to bring in more and better restaurants. She changed everything and brought Caesars back to life. Caesars Palace began to turn around. She became the focal point of its re-birth. The brand is back and Caesars is stronger than ever. We thank Celine and Rene for helping restore this great brand to what it is today. Each employee of Caesars today is saddened but also exhilarated.”
Celine explained how the entire show began: “We were simply coming to Vegas on December 31, 1999 to welcome in the year 2000. I was looking forward to two years off, a break to relax and have a baby. I remember we went to see “O” and I was just glued to my seat. I remember saying that if I ever came back to show-biz, this was something I would do. We go backstage and congratulate the cast. Franco Dragone had created “O” and he wrote a letter to thank me for meeting the cast and said, ‘perhaps one day we could meet and dream together.’ So we did eventually meet, and from the first moment we talked very fast about doing a project the size of “O.” The meetings with everybody were really fast and suddenly we all agree and Franco goes to work. But then I got pregnant and I realized I didn’t have a proper life before and I knew I wanted more success as a mother than a singer. I told Rene to stop the project. But the next day he came back to me and said too much money had been spent, too many people were working, and we had to go on with it. It was the hardest moment of my life but I am so happy Rene took the gamble—he has always been a gambler. Before my son all I wanted was to succeed and perform and express myself in music. Now Rene-Charles was born and I had to face a new dream. But by December 2002 everyone had moved to Vegas and in 14-months it went from being a hole in the ground to a theater with twice as many seats as Cirque shows have.
“So we opened on March 25, 2003 and I will never forget during the 40-second costume change backstage we lost my shoes and I came back with bare-feet. They found the shoes after four-minutes, but I made jokes about it and people thought it was part of the show. The most emotional night was when my father passed away in November 2005. They all told me I didn’t have to do the show but I wanted to do it. I told the audience it was a special but difficult day: “I lost my dad this morning but I’ve insisted on coming because my dad was and still is my no.1 fan since I was a very little girl and I know my dad would have wanted me to be here on stage with everybody. We always think we are so strong but I will give everything I have as I dedicate it to my dad.” People were in pain like me. It was awful, but now every night I always do a little sign up through the roof of the Colosseum because I know he is watching.
“When we began the show I was having real problems coming back into showbiz because I wanted to be mom. People who know me well know my family is my priority. I’d been passionate about performing, but my dedication was to be a mother. Rene taught me to see beyond a dream and convinced me that our families would be fine if I continued performing every night. Nothing would be lost or taken away. I wanted a home and a career—and Vegas gave us the best of both. I could sing without feeling guilty and my son knew I was always coming back home the same night. We could be artists and make sure family would be perfect, too. I realized I had the stability here for my son and that was the main thing. We love Vegas. We are not moving. We are keeping our home here.
“One of the best days of my career was here in Vegas was the night my son wanted to come and see me. He saw me on stage for the first time and he finally accepted me as a singer as well as his mother. Finally I can perform, as I am free—and now the best is yet to come. This is a new beginning so just think that A New Day is re-forming itself and we’ll be back, I promise. I hope Franco and I can do something together again sometime. It has to be something different and something to bring us the pleasure of working together again. He says I would be a wonderful actress, so maybe we can do that together in a film. It was a wonderful adventure. I’ve thanked him for seeing something great inside of me, and making the dream possible. He bought the best out of me and it was a wonderful and difficult thing. I was extremely fortunate to work with Franco and I hope to work with him again. The key to this show’s success is that everybody involved had an important role to play and it changed our lives. We became a family. We lost people we loved. We gave birth to some new ones. But it was far more than a show just about music, songs and dance. I’ll miss it because although it was a dream for five years, it was also a lifetime.”
Right from the first song of the night the audience gave Celine standing ovation and she chatted with them almost every time between the songs: “What an emotional evening! Thank you for this amazing welcome. I started late this evening to elongate the evening because today is a new day. Today everything has its meaning. It’s not an end but a beginning of the rest of our lives. It is extremely emotional for everyone on the stage. More than five years ago we had a dream, but I have to say back then the energy was not positive and we thought the dream was not possible and unachievable. At one point it was like feeling the Titanic was going to sink again. We were not well received. The vibe was not positive for us. They said we could build a stage but we would not find it easy to make a show happen. But it is amazing what love and passion can do. Most of us had left our families behind to give ourselves to the show every night. The dancers gave it soul—we had the best people from around the world. Franco shared the dream with us. We believed in the wonderful people of Caesars, and then Harrah’s came with us and gave us their wings and in the end it was worth it. I was amazed about everybody’s talent and extremely in shock night after night, week after week and year after year that you came. You were here for us every night for five years. Thank you, because it was such an honor.”
Celine also thanked her husband for encouraging her to do the show over her objections and then she explained why, wrapped inside her gown’s bracelet, was an odd piece of string.
“My son gave me a seven foot tall congratulations card in which he’d written, ‘Merry X-mas.’ He was using string to tie it into a bow and so I wore it tonight. I took him and said, ‘Rene-Charles, you are the meaning. You are the new day.’ Now it is hard that we have come to tonight and I can’t think of it as an end. I have to think of it as a beginning. Some of you have followed me faithfully for 25 years now, and so you know it is difficult for me to put emotions into words because I’ve used music to express myself, as music is part of everybody’s life. We’ve had five years of shows, but from the beginning of the concept through to tonight is seven years—it has become, for me, magical. I offer you a Christmas song because Christmas has always been for me very special—hoping we can find the most precious thing of the child in all of us; health, happiness and peace on earth.” With that she sang Nat King Coles’ “Christmas Song” and, as a Santa rode by on a bicycle, she simply said, “I love you all”—and she walked off stage.
Early yesterday I asked Celine to compare her emotional and physical state between the very first show five years earlier and the last show this night.
She told me: “I grew tremendously. Five years ago I was extremely fragile. I had no idea what the stage was going to be. Nobody knew. It was a very, very difficult stage to perform on. Physically it was very hard, very hard. We took a chance. It was very difficult and for the first two years was very bad for my back. The body finally adjusted to it. Physically it was not the right thing to do, but I said let’s go for it. I had to find a way to deal with it. We took the chance. Emotionally I got somewhere that I am so proud of it. Five years ago I was unable to express my emotions. I was just wanting to be a mother. I was a singer. When you talk to your husband and your son you don’t use songs. I grew tremendously. It’s given me a lot of stability. I am now very grounded. I am still going for it and I am so much better now.”
I wanted to know if she was going to leave a note in her dressing room for the ladies that will follow her on stage.
She told me: “When I met with Bette she asked me if there was anything she should know. She’s a wonderful and talented performer. She does not need any advice coming from me except to fix the stage. That baby has to go. It’s now time for them to fix the stage. I’ve warmed it up for the last five years—it’s hot, and she’ll be fine.”
My ABC Radio News producer, Al Mancini asked Celine what was going through her mind in the final two hours: “I was very tired the last three weeks. I had to pace myself. Tonight I was emotionally invaded, so it was very important for me to stay happy, stay calm, breathe slowly. Don’t push too much. Tonight was not about singing; it’s about embracing happiness and success. I kept telling myself, ‘just enjoy, don’t lose my strength, don’t cry…’ We’re not sure what the future holds after the tour. I don’t think we should refuse that ‘maybe’ about returning to Vegas.”
Celine told us that two of her biggest fans are one California lady who’d seen her show more than 100 times and an elderly man who saw it over 60-times.
“He touched me. I gave him a rose that night and I said ‘I love you.’ I appreciate their love, but he reminded me of my dad.”
Two German fans returned for the final two shows, having watched the debut five years earlier, and another thousand fans from all over Canada traveled in for it.
In addition to the 100,000 rose petals that fell, creator and director Franco Dragone gave her a huge flower pot containing 719 roses—one for each night of the shows she performed.
(Incidentally Elvis Presley still holds the Vegas record for 837 shows from July 1969 through December 1976)
“She could have gone on easily for another year —or two,” summed up John Meglin. “We were still selling out every night, so who knows how long she could have continued—maybe forever.”
In a private moment at the back of the theater, I got to congratulate her husband. Rene showed me the blinged-out poker bracelet he’d won along with $1.3 million three days before the show ended.
“It was symbolic” he said. “It’s always good to go out on a high note. Celine did —and I have, too. As the Caesars president said, I have enough in life but I really wanted to win this. I ran to Celine’s dressing room to show her, I was so proud. It was a fitting and appropriate way to recognize the big win for everybody involved.
“We are not leaving, though. We are coming back here. Give us the year for the tour and then give us a year off. We’ll try for another baby and then we will come back again. Celine will definitely star again in Vegas—this is our home and we aren’t leaving.”
Harrah’s CEO Gary Loveman confirmed: “There have been discussions already. There aren’t many stars that can fill this theater. Celine has been our extraordinary success story, so stay tuned.”