My Night as a Tropical Showboy: A Unique Memoir of a Vegas Journalist
At 2 a.m. Tuesday, the Tropicana in Las Vegas closed for the final time in nearly 67 years, ostensibly to make way for a new ballpark. To honor her legacy, I want to share an interesting memory of Tiffany on the Las Vegas Strip that no other reporter in the world has. For that matter, no one else.
"Seven standing ovations!" Janu Tornell reminded me of the routine she had rehearsed for me all week.
It was September 2008, just two years into my six-year stint as a humor columnist at the Las Vegas Review-Journal. In my weekly series, "Fear and Loafing," I try out various jobs that only exist on the Las Vegas Strip, spending about a week training and interviewing people who actually do the work.
I've allowed this column to put me in all sorts of uncomfortable situations in the hope of writing good articles and providing good lessons to the real people who make Vegas tick behind the scenes. The 176 real jobs I've tried include cleaning windows at the top of the stratosphere, trying to stand completely still like a Venetian statue, and dancing at Trop's "Folies Bergère" live show.
Performance Skills
One of the questions I'm often asked after publishing one of my columns is, "Did they really ask you to do this?"
To be honest, the producers of Folies Bergère turned me down at first. I explained to them how this would be a natural next step after Chippendales: The Show had just allowed me to use the stage in Rio to impersonate a man.
One day, they changed their minds. It's no coincidence that it comes just a day after it was sadly announced that the show would be ending within a year. "Folies Bergère" and the only other showgirl show still running on the Las Vegas Strip, thanks to competition from five different Cirque du Soleil shows and superstar residencies from Celine Dion and Cher "Jubilee!" moved to Bally's (now Horseshoe). Many people are the same as before.
Without much time, "Folies Bergère" obviously doesn't matter.
However, the showgirl solved the problem "on her own". Tonell was worried that I would trip or make a mistake and ruin the show for the 500 or so people in the audience. So she spent hours of her unpaid personal time helping me get ready for eight minutes of the show's big production, "Cancan."
During our one-on-one meeting on an empty stage at the Tiffany Theater, Tornell told me that she grew up in Las Vegas and was famous for her role on the 2005 reality show Survivor. Famous for starring in "Palau". Former Cuban showgirl but never intended to follow in her footsteps.
“My mother was dancing in Havana before Castro came in,” she said. "That's how she came to America. But that's not what I wanted."
It wasn't until six years later that a friend arranged an audition for her.
It was a coincidence," said Tonell, who was working as a fashion show model in Los Angeles at the time. "But I loved being on the show. I could wear a nice outfit, have a glamorous job, and only work four hours a night. "
The "Folies Bergère" takes its name from the first concert hall in Paris, which opened in 1869 and featured dance performances in elaborate female costumes, although the concert hall upstairs was no longer so elaborate.
A spinoff of Tropicana opened in 1959 and went off the air 50 years later, making it the longest-running Vegas production ever. Tonner danced in it for the last 14 years of his life.
One Night in Paris
"Now come to the table," Tonell instructed me during the final rehearsal.
It's not easy to go anywhere when you're wearing living room curtains, 5-inch heels, and a 3-pound headpiece that's ready to fly off, adding a touch of topless to your showgirl act.
"Do you really think girls walk like this?" Elaine Serario, entertainment director at the Tropicana, interjected.
With just a few hours left until my live debut, the entire cast came together to serve me - and their entertainment. By the way, this is not the first time that beautiful women have surrounded me pointing and giggling. I think about that afternoon in fifth grade when Debbie Lee took the hot lunch out of my hands on the playground.
For the record, Ms. Lee was 5 inches ahead of me. Coincidentally, this is the same benefit as my showgirl and my colleagues enjoy it. The minimum height of the protagonist in "Folies Bergère" is 1.75 meters.
“You’ll often find yourself standing on one of these stairs,” Serario explains.
Extinct Species
Beginning with the opening of the Copa Girls at the Las Vegas Sands Hotel in 1952, showgirls have played an important role in the Las Vegas entertainment industry and remain an official symbol of the city. Two 50-foot-tall neon versions even greet drivers on the Las Vegas Strip and Main Street downtown.
But after Bally’s “Jubilee!” was canceled in 2016, the real showgirl disappeared in Las Vegas, never to return.
You know those people you see on the Las Vegas Strip, taking selfies, and then asking you for a $50 tip? I am more of a real showgirl than they are, and that's because none of them can claim to have ever danced in a real showgirl show on the Las Vegas Strip.
"It's over!" Tonel screamed in a low voice. "Wave now!"
show time
We're performing live right now, using high heels to draw a giant semicircle in the middle of the stage. Fortunately, despite the sonorous sound of Jacques Offenbach's "Orpheus in Hell," the audience couldn't hear Tonner's stage direction (I had to look it up because I know ShopRite's Can-Can Bash The topic may be incorrect). .
Although my moves were carefully choreographed, they were less a series of dance steps than careful avoidance of the rows of high-kicking dancers, unicyclists, and somersault acrobats that passed before and after me.
At times, I was one of nearly 50 people crammed onto the stage, and luckily Tonelle and her commandos were never more than 15 feet away from us.
Dancer Aaron Shanley guides me over the edge of the stage with his red-gloved right hand and then lets me take the final step: the third step of the central staircase.
Other than a little wobble when I walked, my big moment went smoothly. Well, two older ladies in the front row pointed at me, one of whom had a distinctly "O" shaped mouth. But for the most part, no one in the audience seemed to notice anything particularly wrong.
As we celebrated backstage after the show, Tonell thought about the most likely reason.
"You're great," she said, "Hey, it's Vegas!"
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Source: www.casino.org
