Larry and Shawn King, singing "Makin' Whoopee," at the end of the show.
Shawn King, on the Vegas stage.
This all started with dinner conversation, and after Larry King finished his first Strip headlining gig last night, I thought, this guy would be a hell of a dinner guest.
During that dinner, he would regale guests with stories of his more-than-50-year career, unrolling the anecdotes as if narrating his own autobiographical documentary. As we poked at appetizers, and the prosciutto and pears would be a lively starter as this fanciful meal takes place at Strata at Wynn Las Vegas, he would talk of being kissed by Marlon Brando at the end of his first interview with the rotund film legend. You’d laugh as he capped the story with, “And, you know, I can’t stop thinking of him!”
As the Caesar salad is set on the table, he relates his worst interview, with another film legend: Robert Mitchum. “It was all one-word answers, ‘Nope, yep, maybe, yep, yep, nope, yep, nope, yep, nope.’ What about some of the greatest directors you’ve worked with, like John Huston? ‘When you’ve seen one, you’ve seen ’em all.’ Twenty minutes felt like two hours, but afterward my producer said we need to book him again. The ratings went through the roof!”
How terrifically ironic, we would say!
During the entrée (striped bass with roasted orange fennel, confit tomato, basil and lemon olive oil), he would tell of his days as a teenager in Brooklyn, about how he and his lifelong friend Herbie Cohen convinced the principal of Bensonhurst Junior High that Gil “Moppo” Murmelstein (the nickname for Gil’s foppish hair) had died even though Moppo actually moved away for a year to be treated for tuberculosis and you raised $193 for a memorial. Moppo wound up being the namesake of a memorial award for service at the school, the principal calls The New York Times for coverage -- all of which unraveled as Moppo, blithe to the goings-on in his absence, returned to school very much alive. King would talk energetically of how Cohen, who would become one of the country’s great negotiators, told the principal that if the group were to be suspended -- a certainty, given the embarrassment that had befallen the school’s administration -- that they would tell the Times how three kids duped a junior high administrator into believing a kid had died without bothering to verify that fact. You might get lost through this tale, mesmerized by your delightfully seasoned piece of fish, but you laugh and shake your head anyway.
“True story,” King would say, amid wine-buffeted laughter, and inevitably someone at the table would call out, “You should really do a one-man show and tell all these stories!”
A variation of this has happened, and the person making that suggestion --in the form of a dare, we’re told -- happened to be King’s good friend Steve Wynn, who of course owns a big theater ideal for an appearance by King. So it was last night, as Shawn King (Larry’s 49-year-old vocalist wife) opened the show, and Larry, still spunky at age 75, did about an hour of stories and humorous asides, jokes and even advice (anyone new to broadcasting should go ahead and tell their audience if he or she is nervous, “Because then the audience is with you”). To a large degree, the event at a moderately filled Encore Theater served as a stage for the lovely Shawn, thin in stature and of voice and clearly giddy at the chance to perform in this sort of splendid theater on the Vegas Strip. She strode out as if dressed as her own action figure, wearing a pink top adorned with silver sequins, tight leather pants and matching thigh-high boots. She was careful not to perform too much fancy footwork on those ice pick-style stiletto heels, and often gripped the mic tightly with both hands. Shawn chirped through maybe 30 minutes of standards and Motown classics, singing with a video of Willie Nelson on the couple’s duet “I Give.” She had also planned to sing along to a video montage of figures who are special to the Kings’ lives, but, as she said, “The video didn’t make it here on the plane.” So instead, we imagined there was a video of famous people displayed above the stage, and my video montage included Don Rickles, Laura Bush, former Dodger manager Tommy Lasorda and Sasha Baron Cohen. It was great.
(As I think of it, the appearance by the Kings was a lot like those scenes from "The Dick Van Dyke Show", where the gang gathers in Rob and Laura’s living room to do a few minutes -- Buddy and Sally do a couple minutes of shtick, Rob does his fabulous physical humor and the impression of Stan Laurel, and Laura busts out the tights and dances the Samba, BUT I DIGRESS.)
Shawn, singing in good company
After the Charlie Chaplain-penned “Smile,” King ambled out wearing a blue dress shirt with tiny white polka-dots, blue suspenders, black jeans and leather loafers. For the next hour, roughly, he told a few tales of his youth and his career and took questions from the audience.
At this point, King got a quite laugh, unexpected to him, when he was asked by someone near the front who would be a fitting successor to him on “Larry King Live” (his contract runs through 2011). King mentioned Ryan Seacreast, a frequent fill-in host on the show, and the audience giggled. King asked, “Why’s that funny?” One answer: The idea of Ryan Seacreast putting questions to Dick Cheney, or Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, or anyone who is not an “American Idol” judge or contestant, is really danged funny.
King told some jokes, too, including (and remarkably) the one about a guy trying to get into a restaurant with a Great Dane. He tells his friend, who has a Chihuahua, that he’ll explain to the maitre d’ that he is blind and the Great Dane is a seeing-eye dog. He does this and gets in. The guy with a Chihuahua tries to get in and is told he won’t be allowed in with that Chihuahua. “They gave me a Chihuahua!” is the punch line, and if you think Bette Midler has been telling this joke more effectively (and with an effectively placed profanity) for years, you’re right.
King also told a story with a decades-long shelf life, a story about him and his buddies making a bet on a snowy November night that a Carvel ice cream shop in New Haven, Conn., served three scoops for 15 cents. They argue about where to find the least-expensive ice cream and one of them -- Herbie, I think -- mentions this shop in New Haven that does indeed serve three scoops for 15 cents. “That’s impossible,” young Larry says, so they make a bet on this disputed price and decide to head up to Connecticut. They pick up Howie “Hoo-Ha” Weiss (nicknamed for his odd singsong speaking pattern) for the trip, telling him only that they are heading out for ice cream. Much to Hoo-Ha’s dismay, they drive all the way from Brooklyn to New Haven, 2 ½ hours, in the November snow to find this place, and it does serve three scoops for 15 cents. They wind back through New Haven and find themselves at a campaign-closing rally for Mayor Richard Lee (an eight-termer, as it turns out, who died six years ago) and convinced the campaign staff that they had worked tirelessly as volunteers on the campaign. Mayor Lee meets them after the rally and informs them he’s never seen the kids before, and they head back to Brooklyn, where Hoo-Ha’s parents are irate that their son has been gone all night on what was supposed to be an ice cream trip. The boys explain that this trip was to New Haven to find the Carvel place that sells three scoops for 15 cents. The father, his anger lifting instantly, says, “That’s impossible!”
Long story, yes. Takes about 10 minutes to tell. But that’s how it is with King. He spins these tales, obviously aware of his resonantly hypnotic voice, and you can check out mentally or even physically for a bit. But, as we find out in a post-show check of King’s public appearances, this Carvel story has something of a history; he used to tell it with one of the main characters being legendary professional baseball Hall of Fame pitcher Sandy Koufax as one of the main characters. In the old version, Koufax is depicted as a close friend of King’s from their youth. But Koufax, who grew up near King, has disputed the account, primarily because (in an episode related in this 1991 Washington Post profile of King) he says he never met Larry King until after both had left Brooklyn and had never been to New Haven -- with Larry King or anyone else -- when King was using his name in the story. In the Post account, Koufax said he even called King to ask him about the story, and King, said Koufax, “just laughed.” Later in the Post piece, King says the episode was not a measure of his credibility, as he’d been telling the story for 30 years (nearly 50, now) with no harm done.
What to make of this? Well, Wynn told King from the audience during the show’s Q&A segment that he’d like to bring him back for an … Encore performance, as it were, if King wanted to do it. Provocative concept. Shawn would seem to be up for that, sure, but if they do bring Larry King back, make sure the dish is fresh.
Steve Wynn speaks at a memorial for Danny Gans on Thursday, May 21, 2009. Wynn was instrumental in furthering Gans' career and made him the headliner in the theater of his latest project, Encore, shortly before Gans died.
Stuff to note
I bumped into Chip Lightman, Danny Gans’ longtime manager, in the lobby before the show. Understandably, Lightman still seems to be affected by Gans’ death, but he did note that Gans passed in his sleep -- there are far worse ways to go out -- and left at the top of his game. … A note from the Gans’ tribute at Encore last month: Vegas icon Wayne Newton was not in attendance because of a misdirected event invitation to an old business mailing address for Newton. Too bad. I’m sure The Wayner would have made every effort to be there. … Wynn was seated with, and left with, the British woman he’s taken with, Andrea Hissom. … Warren Buffett sat in relative obscurity until King ID’d him from the stage during the show. Buffett was wearing a red shirt, matching the country’s debt . … Spotted walking through the walkway leading toward the Encore and Le Reve theaters after the show was Patriots QB Tom Brady. I asked him what he was doing at the hotel, and he just smiled and hurried along. … An example of one of the events King has unspooled that Moppo-is-dead story was at an event hosted by Orrin Hatch and his wife, Elaine, in Salt Lake City in May 2003.
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