May 8, 2008
Working his way back to you: Frankie Valli gets some Vegas vindication
at the premiere of Jersey Boys
By STEVE FRIESS
It is hard to believe now, especially after the weekend that
just was, that only a few years ago Frankie Valli walked out
during a three-week contract at the Luxor and was declared by
at least one entertainment writer to have essentially ended
his association with Las Vegas once and for all.
Hard, that is, because on Saturday the town stood up and cheered
as the pipsqueak Italian from New Jersey with the priceless
falsetto blew out candles at one of the city’s most elaborate
and expensive birthday parties in recent memory.
Move over, Paris and Nicole. The nightclubs, for whatever
bizarre reason, may pay you to stand and wave on the anniversaries
of your unfortunate arrivals, but would anyone stage a multimillion-dollar
Broadway musical based on your life story and then have a major
resort-casino time the premiere of it on the Las Vegas Strip
just to honor you?
For Valli, there was no question that the moment was immensely
gratifying and somewhat unique for Las Vegas. Sinatra, Rickles
and Bennett never fell out of favor in such a way as Frankie
Valli and The Four Seasons seemed to and, thus, never had quite
this sort of a spectacular comeback as is seen with the triumphant
debut of Jersey Boys at the Palazzo.
Except don’t call it that. Valli’s not having any of this
“comeback” nonsense. “Every once in a while when we had a resurgence,
in the interviews people would ask, ‘How does it feel to be
making a comeback?’ and I would say, ‘I had no idea we left!’”
Valli said. “In all the ups and downs, there was never a shortage
of work. There’s all the work I wanted.”
Perhaps, but the wonderful Jersey Boys not only returns The
Four Seasons to the forefront of the pop-culture scene but also
restores our faith in the future of musical theater in Las Vegas.
If last week’s column pointed out how Steve Wynn must be driving
convention-travel innovator Sheldon Adelson bananas by planning
a huge new expo center, this week it must be noted that Wynn
must be utterly depressed that his vision for great Broadway
theater on the Strip has been realized not by his now-failed
picks Avenue Q and Spamalot but by arch-nemesis Adelson’s knockout
versions of Phantom and Jersey Boys.
It gets even better for Valli and The Four Seasons, though.
For this particular weekend, the quartet that never quite received
its proper due in the media trumped the legendary bunch from
Liverpool that did grab all the headlines way back when.
The rivalry between The Four Seasons and The Beatles was as
intense as anything between Britney and Christina (or Steve
and Sheldon, for that matter).
Yet this past weekend, in honor of Valli and his posse, The
Beatles took the back seat. The nation’s real Fab Four du jour,
the finalists on this season’s American Idol, flew in to see
the Beatles-scored Cirque du Soleil show Love at the Mirage
across the street from the Palazzo. But the red carpet—those
contrived events arranged for media access—took place at the
odd early hour of 4:30 p.m. even though Love didn’t start until
7:30 p.m. Why?
Undoubtedly because by 6 p.m., any Vegas entertainment reporter
worth their salt would be at the Palazzo for the star parade
preceding the Jersey Boys premiere.
I asked Valli about facing off with The Beatles again, this
time in Vegas, and he produced this zinger: “Except one is a
story and one is a jukebox musical.” In other words, Jersey
Boys is real theater; that Beatles thing is a rehash. I disagree,
but it also cut to the heart of what Valli thinks in general
about modern Las Vegas. During our chat, he bemoaned several
different ways the loss of the old Vegas but, unlike the wasn’t-the-mob-great
line that bores me to tears, he gave an actual, legitimate complaint.
Valli is nostalgic for the days of small theaters and cabaret,
noting that the quality of the entertainment and the show experience
itself was better when it was just 300 folks being serenaded
and when tickets were inexpensive. It’s just not the same when
Bette or Cher sing to 4,000 people, and that’s true. But smaller
venues and shorter contracts also meant more variety.
“It was nice when you went to Vegas and Sinatra was there
for two weeks and Dean Martin was someplace else for two weeks
and Sammy was in another place for two weeks,” Valli said. “And
you could go see all these people, and it was a personal experience.”
The changing business model is what led to the aforementioned
tiff with the Luxor in 2005. Valli, finally breaking his silence
on what happened then, said he walked away from the gig because
he had a four-wall deal—code for renting the room and taking
sole responsibility for filling it—and could only get dates
on weekdays.
“I said, ‘What’s the sense of coming down there and working
Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday and somebody else comes in Friday,
Saturday and Sunday when all the people are in town?’” he recalled.
“It was a terrible mistake to four-wall. You don’t get the help
from the hotel for advertising or anything. Even if you’re selling
out, there’s no way to make money. We have to pay for all the
advertising and the stagehands and the musicians and the sound
and everything else.”
Something tells me this isn’t a problem he’ll be having ever
again. Jersey Boys has immortalized The Four Seasons and somehow
turned their music into a contemporary sound yet again. And
Valli is clearly delighted after all those years of naysayers
and underestimation.
“If I had a dime for every time I was turned down …” he started
to say. But he didn’t finish, because the usual conclusion to
that is “… I’d be a very wealthy man.” And that he sure is.
And somehow, against all Vegas odds, he’s hot again.
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