Nicolas Cage, who won an Oscar for his star turn in "Leaving Las Vegas," is heading back to town.
He is about to complete a deal to play legendary poker player Thomas Austin "Amarillo Slim" Preston in the big-screen version of Preston's memoir, "Amarillo Slim in a World Full of Fat People" (HarperCollins), which comes out this week.
A flamboyant gambler and promoter, Slim won the 1972 World Series of Poker. He is equally well known for stunts such as playing billiards legend Minnesota Fats at pool using a broomstick, taking on Wimbledon champ Bobby Riggs with a skillet in table tennis and rafting down Idaho's River of No Return in freezing weather just because Jimmy "The Greek" Snyder bet him that he couldn't.
According to New York Magazine gossip Marc Malkin, who reports on Cage's involvement in the upcoming issue, Cage is negotiating to buy the film rights to the book and would serve as a producer, in addition to playing Slim.
Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman presents Mary Vail with the 2003 Clark County Volunteer Mother of the Year award this afternoon at the Gold Coast Hotel and Casino.
Sevilla, the Desert Passage space where Charo performs, quietly filed for bankruptcy last week, joining its host casino, Aladdin, in the financial doldrums.
Fortunately, Charo's show will go on. Despite the fact the facility allegedly used her box office take to pay its own bills and not the salaries of her 22 cast members, she will continue.
She has so far spent more than $200,000 of her own money paying her cast to keep the show afloat.
When she returns from a cruise ship engagement May 8 she will "four wall" the show, meaning that she will rent the space and serve as her own producer.
Sevilla marketing manager Joe Reynolds did not return phone calls seeking comment Thursday and Friday.
Which one doesn't belong? Along with all the high-end restaurants participating in Bon Appetit magazine's food fest around the Hard Rock Hotel pool Friday, guests will also see Sammy Hagar peddling his wares.
The one-time Van Halen frontman also owns Cabo Wabo Tequila.
He created what he calls "Vitamin T" to serve at his Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, nightclub, and the popular brand is slowly going national.
The global gossip kingdom was all atwitter last week over whether or not Enrique Iglesias still had his famous mole.
VegasBeat first reported April 4 that Iglesias was making the Vegas club rounds the previous night, "sans mole."
Our source was on the money: Friday the BBC had new photos of him on its website and was reporting the mole was officially gone.
The Muterspaw Championship Tennis Tournament wraps today at several valley courts.
It is a junior event near and dear to Andre Agassi. The tourney is named for two of his Las Vegas childhood pals, Jason and Josh Muterspaw. Both had a love for the game and tragically lost their lives at early ages.
Josh died of cancer in 1994 and Jason was killed in a car crash in 2000.
"We hope that the Muterspaw Championships will encourage junior players to become the models of sportsmanship and dedication that Jason and Josh exemplified," Agassi told VegasBeat.
Did the independent Las Vegas magazine put one over on UNLVino -- and the scholarship fund that is the event's beneficiary, the William F. Harrah College of Hotel Administration?
On page 111 of the magazine's May/June issue, there is a full-page ad for the annual benefit, which took place at the end of April.
In exchange for the ad, which normally costs $5,000, the magazine got a prominent booth, signage and other notice at the UNLVino bash April 26 at Paris Las Vegas.
Hard to get response to an ad promoting an event that had already happened.
"Early copies of the magazine were distributed at the event and the UNLVino people were very happy to be in the magazine," the mag's publicity veep, Melissa Papock, told VegasBeat.
UNLVino director Mohsen Azizsoltani didn't return several messages seeking comment on how happy he may have been.
"If there were magazines there, they must have run out of them mighty early, because I didn't see any there," said a guest at the event who does business with Southern Wine & Spirits of Southern Nevada, the prime presenter of the event.
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