|
TRICKSTERS AND HUCKSTERS: SHOW BIZ ARCHETYPES
by Addison De Witt
“The Megalomaniac and The Crowd Pleaser” Part I
(Note: Some names have been changed to protect the innocent from the potentially litigious.)
“Mr. Pryce will see you for dinner tomorrow night.” It was as if Zeus had summoned me to Mt. Olympus. “Mr. Pryce will see you for dinner tomorrow night.”
It took a moment for me to realize what those words meant. In a few short hours, I would be flown from Los Angeles, where I live, to Las Vegas, in a private jet, whisked by limousine to the newest mega-luxury hotel on The Strip, ensconced in a 6,000 square foot “villa” with my own private pool, and escorted to dinner with Jeff Pryce, the universally acknowledged King of Las Vegas.
Perhaps Emperor would be a better word. In less than two decades, Jeff Pryce had taken an investment in a shabby downtown Vegas casino and turned it into a multi-billion-dollar empire. With three major luxury hotels to his name on The Strip now, and more in the planning stages, Jeff Pryce had become a huge force to be reckoned with, the “Donald Trump” of Las Vegas, if you will.
And like Mr. Trump, Jeff Pryce was hardly a shrinking violet. It was impossible to enter one of his hotels or casinos without hearing his voice on the loudspeakers welcoming you to new heights of luxury and entertainment. His face was everywhere – beaming from the TV screens in each of the many thousands of hotel rooms he owned. His PR staff worked overtime to develop a cult of personality around him. It was said that Jeff Pryce oversaw even the smallest details in the planning and building of his properties, right down to the weave of the carpets and the stitching on the drapes.
Sure, there’d been rumors over the years about “mob connections” and shady dealings, all hotly denied. He was said to have all the politicians in Nevada in his pocket. But there was no denying he was good for Las Vegas. So Jeff Pryce was a given a wide berth to wheel and deal and spread his own special brand of magic up and down The Strip.
Jeff Pryce took perhaps his greatest pride in having brought what he considered to be world-class entertainment back to Las Vegas. The days of the Rat-Pack and big-time headliners were a thing of the past. But thanks to Jeff Pryce, they’d been replaced by high-end circus acts with lavish production values that were sold out for months in advance.
Yet that wasn’t enough for the King. He had become bored with his success, and was anxious to scale new heights. When James Hillman states in Kinds of Power, “The ambitious are said to have an ‘appetite’ for power. Mighty figures in myth like the Norse giants and the Greek Titans, and the huge creatures in fairy tales and Disney cartoons...all have humongous appetites. They want everything in the world” (P.132), he could easily have been talking about Jeff Pryce.
Jeff had been in love with Broadway musicals since his first exposure to the New York theatre as a young man in the 1960’s. After reaching new heights with every other aspect of Las Vegas entertainment, Jeff was determined to bring Broadway to the strip. Literally. But not a revival or a touring production. Not a show on its way to Broadway. Jeff Pryce wanted a new show. He wanted to make Las Vegas the “new” Broadway.
His first step was to hire one of the few genuine living legends of musical comedy, songwriter Harry Turner, to write a happy, funny and, most of all, hummable score for a lavish and brand new old-fashioned musical, “the kind of show they don’t make anymore.”
In the 15 years since his last Broadway hit, Harry Turner had been spending his time accepting awards, overseeing revues and revivals of his shows, buying and selling and redecorating his various homes, even dipping his toe into television. And all the while waiting – for a great idea, a great new collaborator, a great producer to bring him back to Broadway. With all the revenue from his hit songs and scores, Harry could justifiably rest on his laurels. But retirement was a dirty word to Harry. He wasn’t getting any younger and he knew he had at least one more great musical in him. Finally, his salvation came in the form of Jeff Pryce.
True, Las Vegas wasn’t Broadway. But then, Broadway wasn’t Broadway either, anymore. Not like it was in Harry Turner’s heyday. Only revivals and overblown, over-hyped London imports seemed to be succeeding now in New York. The Great White Way no longer seemed hospitable to the Harry Turner kind of musical. But Jeff Pryce was willing to gamble on a premise that Harry had always known in his heart: That the audience for a big, splashy, old-fashioned, crowd-pleasing musical comedy was still out there, just waiting for its comeback. And that very audience was descending on the new family-friendly, theme park-ish Las Vegas in droves.
So not only was Jeff Pryce going to buy himself an authentic, original Harry Turner musical, he was going to build himself a genuine Broadway-style theatre to perform it in. Not a redecorated showroom or huge arena, common venues in Las Vegas. But a real, state-of-the-art proscenium theatre, built from scratch, from the ground up, to house a show (as yet unwritten) which Jeff Pryce expected to run for years.
Jeff Pryce sent his private jet for Harry and made him an offer he couldn’t refuse. This show was going to be the most lavish spectacle that Broadway or Vegas had ever seen. No expense would be spared. The greatest design talents from both worlds would be assembled. A huge cast, wearing costumes gorgeous enough to make Ziegfeld blush. A gargantuan stage, capable of never-before-seen stage effects, large enough to hold a flying plane, a sinking ship, a crashing train. Whatever the imagination would allow. It would be the most extravagant Jeff Pryce production yet.
The only thing missing was an idea. But not for long. Harry Turner was so dazzled by Jeff Pryce’s Las Vegas that it occurred to him to set the new musical right there. In a flash, everything came together in Harry’s head, he could suddenly “see” the show: A young girl from the midwest comes to Vegas with big dreams of “making it”. The lyrics positively flowed out of him, and in short order he had written a new song that would be the highlight of the show and could serve as an anthem for the city of Las Vegas itself. Harry Turner was inspired and his enthusiasm was infectious. When Harry played the song for his new boss, Jeff Pryce couldn’t get the tune out of his head. If only Frank Sinatra were alive to record it!
Song ideas continued to pour out of Harry. In no time, he’d written five or six of them, but with only a vague notion of a plot. It was time to hire a book writer (“book” being musical theatre parlance for “script”, as in story, structure, characters and dialogue). And that, dear Reader, is where Yours Truly enters the story.
I’d once had a very pleasant collaboration with Harry Turner which, though brief, left me with fond memories and my name in the index of his autobiography. But I hadn’t heard from Harry for several years, so I was surprised to find myself summoned out-of-the-blue to his luxurious Mandeville Canyon “ranch”.
Harry greeted me warmly, spoke glowingly of Jeff Pryce, described the sketchy premise of the show and, with a youthful exuberance belying his sixty-plus years, sat down at the piano and performed the songs he’d written. It’s always a unique treat when a songwriter sings his own songs for you, but when Harry does it he makes you feel like you’re a lucky guest at the best party in town. He unabashedly adores his own work and his elation is infectious. And make no mistake about it, the songs were terrific – tuneful and witty, each bearing the unmistakable Harry Turner signature.
What they needed was a plot to connect them. Normally, when writing a musical, the story comes first and the songs arise naturally out of plot and character. But in this case, a story would have to be devised to showcase the songs. I was instantly caught up in Harry’s joyful approach to his work (“We’re gonna write a show!”), and I gleefully jumped into the (metaphorical) sandbox with him and started to play. Just like Eros of myth, Harry’s impish, even childlike enthusiasm shot a musical comedy arrow into my heart. And it didn’t escape my attention, by the way, that we were going to be paid, and by a man with deep pockets and a reputation for profligate spending.
Too good to be true? Will I be flying high in April, just to be brought down in May? Will Vegas become the new Broadway, or will The Strip be another Boulevard of Broken Dreams? Stay tuned for Part II of “The Megalomaniac and The Crowd Pleaser” in the October issue of Headline Muse, in which Yours Truly has several bizarre and unforgettable encounters with the King of Las Vegas himself.
(Back to Columns index)
|
