Comedian Shayma Tash performs Sunday, May 3, 2014, the final night of the Riviera Comedy Club. The Riviera closed its doors at noon May 4.
A view of the Riviera Comedy Club on Sunday, May 3, 2015. The Riviera is closing at noon May 4.
Shayma Tash is performing a character familiar to anyone who has watched QVC or seen Tash’s standup act: The home-shopping lady.
In this role, Tash plucks a purse or wallet from an audience member in the front row. Then she proceeds to itemize its contents as if performing an on-air sales pitch.
Tash targets a woman named Ashley, who is from Oakland, and asks for her purse. “You might be wondering about how I to carry this bag. Am I going to get the carpal tunnel? No! It comes with its own strap — for free! — and if you pull here, you can make it longer! I wish that was true for my husband, Stu!”
The crowd on this, the final night at Riviera Comedy Club, is loose and bubbles with laughter.
Tash continues her scavenger hunt. “Let’s see, we have … chocolates! It’s Halloween in this bag! And, wait … a reserved sign! Which has been stolen!”
It was one of the little white cards place on tables at the club. Ashley had put that in her handbag, and certainly she was not alone. The performance by Tash and the night’s headliner, Michael “Wheels” Parise, marked the final ticketed show in the 60-year history of the Riviera. The famed hotel-casino was set to close forever at noon today.
The history of entertainment at the Riv is as rich as any hotel-casino to ever conduct business on the Strip. It is where Liberace debuted at the hotel anointed as “The New High in the Sky” in April 1955. The pianist headlining at the Clover Room commanded a then-sky-high weekly salary of $50,000.
Joan Crawford served as the official mistress of honor at the hotel’s opening, and the list of legends to take the stage at the Riv includes Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Barbra Streisand, Liza Minnelli, Jack Benny, Sid Caesar, Don Rickles, Alan King, The Beach Boys, George Burns, Milton Berle, Tony Bennett, Louis Armstrong, and, in later years, the likes of Charo, Joan Rivers and David Brenner.
The hotel was home to some of the more-storied production shows ever in Las Vegas, Jeff Kutash’s “Splash” (closed in 2006) and the Norbert Aleman productions “An Evening at La Cage” (closed in ’09) and “Crazy Girls.” “La Cage” made a Las Vegas star of Frank Marino, who has since become a force in “Divas Las Vegas” at the Linq Hotel.
“Crazy Girls” is reportedly headed for Sin City Theater at Planet Hollywood, and the famous “No If Ands Or …” statue is said to be following.
Steve Schirripa became a Las Vegas legend as the hotel’s entertainment director. Schirripa was hired at the hotel on May 4, 1986 — 29 years ago today — and worked in either a full- or part-time capacity until 2010. He actually got married at the Top of the Riv to his wife, Laura, on April 22, 1989. They are still married.
“I’m really proud of my time at the Riviera because at the time I started there, it was really one of the nicest hotels on the Strip, and we had as much or more going on than anyone,” Schirripa said in a phone conversation today.” No other hotel would have allowed me to do what I did at the Riv.
“I started with ‘The Sopranos’ when I was at the Riv, still as a consultant, working deals over the phone. The president of the hotel at the time, Bob Vannucci, was the Last of the Mohicans in making big decisions without any bureaucracy. We had 21 production shows going every week, and if we wanted to book Paul Anka, we did it.”
He zealously lavished his lounge budget (at $2 million a year in the mid-1990s) to good use by bringing such great locals acts as The Lon Bronson All-Star Band into the hotel’s open lounge, Le Bistro Theater. That room rocked with a variety of acts (including lounge vet Jerry Tiffe and the Jazz on Monday performances) from 4 p.m. until 3 a.m., and everyone was paid good money for great music.
In its closing days, Dirk Arthur returned his magic show, filled with exotic cats, to the Riv’s Starlite Theater. The Riv also trotted out some uniquely inspired, if short-lived, productions. “Matsuri,” a troupe of Japanese acrobats, was one. “Ice From Russia,” a skating spectacular, was another.
Both were in the classically appointed but deteriorating Versailles Theater, which was renovated for the anticipated return of “MJ Live” and “The Rat Pack Is Back” until the closing of the hotel was made official in February.
The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority spent $182.5 million on the property and is knocking it down to build a new convention center on the Strip as part of its $2.3 billion Las Vegas Global Business District.
Naturally, comedy has been at the fore of the Riv’s entertainment lineup. The stars streamed in — and in his book “Born Standing Up,” Steve Martin recalls that his final performance as a working standup was in the early 1980s at the Riviera showroom in the days before “Splash” took over.
The Riviera Comedy Club, a user-friendly haunt with fine seating and sight lines and a reliably mirthful rotation of club comics, has long been one of the best values in the city.
The comics who graced the stage in their early careers included Jimmie “J.J.” Walker (a mainstay through most of the room’s run), Ellen DeGeneres, Rita Rudner, George Wallace, Richard Belzer, Kevin Pollack, Joe Rogan, Kevin James, Damon Wayans, Rob Schneider and countless others whose photos grace the club’s walls.
Parise drew the hot card to close the show, recording his performance for an upcoming CD. The longtime sidekick of Andrew “Dice” Clay tossed in a little local color, advising the nearly packed crowd to do some home shopping in Las Vegas.
“I swear, I bought a home at the top of the market, in Seven Hills, for $780,000,” he said. “Today, you can get that same house for $1,800 on Craigslist.”
Afterward, as Parise grinned as the audience slowly left the theater, one of the ushers, John Needham, dutifully reset the chairs even as the club had hosted its final performance, as he said, to “let the room close with dignity, with the respect she deserves.”
“How about this,” Parise said. “I’m doing comedy for almost 30 years and performed here 20 years ago with Schirripa. I’m glad I was the one to close that place. We went from (Don) Rickles to Wheels. We went full circle, brother.”
Asked for a favorite story about the Riviera, Schirripa remembered a time in 1995 when The Beach Boys were booked at the hotel’s ballroom to celebrate their 35th anniversary.
“Bob Vannucci, he authorizes a radio campaign that announces that Brian Wilson is going to show up for the show at the Riv,” recalled Schirripa, knowing that Wilson was estranged from the band in those days and was rarely seen onstage.
“So we do the show, and who shows up? Brian Wilson! And we had John Stamos on drums. It was incredible, 3,500 people rocking out in the back room of the Riv.
“Those were the days, my friend. The Riviera was one of a kind.”
Follow John Katsilometes on Twitter at Twitter.com/JohnnyKats. Also, follow “Kats With the Dish” at Twitter.com/KatsWiththeDish.
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