John Katsilometes
Shayma Tash is performing a character familiar to anyone who has watched QVC or seen Tash’s standup act: the home-shopping lady. In this role, Tash plucks a purse or wallet from an audience member in the front row. Then she proceeds to itemize its contents as if performing an on-air sales pitch.
Tash targets a woman named Ashley, who is from Oakland, and asks for her purse. “You might be wondering about how to carry this bag. Am I going to get the carpal tunnel? No! It comes with its own strap — for free! — and if you pull here, you can make it longer! I wish that was true for my husband, Stu!”
The crowd, on this, the final night at the Riviera Comedy Club, is loose and bubbles with laughter.
Tash continues her scavenger hunt. “Let’s see, we have ... chocolates! It’s Halloween in this bag! And, wait ... a reserved sign! Which has been stolen!”
It was one of the little white cards placed on tables at the club. Ashley had put that in her handbag, and certainly she was not alone. The performance by Tash and the night’s headliner, Michael “Wheels” Parise, marked the final ticketed show in the 60-year history of the Riviera. The famed hotel-casino closed forever at noon Monday.
The history of entertainment at the Riv is as rich as any hotelcasino to ever conduct business on the Strip. It is where Liberace debuted at the hotel anointed as “the New High in the Sky” in April 1955. The pianist headlining at the Clover Room commanded a then-sky-high weekly salary of $50,000.
Joan Crawford served as the official mistress of honor at the hotel’s opening, and the list of legends to take the stage at the Riv includes Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Barbra Streisand, Liza Minnelli, Jack Benny, Sid Caesar, Don Rickles, Alan King, The Beach Boys, George Burns, Milton Berle, Tony Bennett, Louis Armstrong, and, in later years, the likes of Charo, Joan Rivers and David Brenner.
The hotel was home to some of the more-storied production shows ever in Las Vegas, Jeff Kutash’s “Splash” (closed in 2006) and the Norbert Aleman productions “An Evening at La Cage” (closed in ’09) and “Crazy Girls.” “La Cage” made a star of Frank Marino, who has since become a force in “Divas Las Vegas” at the Linq Hotel.
“Crazy Girls” is reportedly headed for Sin City Theater at Planet Hollywood, and the famous “No If Ands Or …” statue is said to be following.
Steve Schirripa became a Las Vegas legend as the hotel’s entertainment director. Schirripa was hired at the hotel on May 4, 1986 — 29 years ago Monday — and worked in either a full- or part-time capacity until 2010. He actually got married at the Top of the Riv on April 22, 1989. He and his wife, Laura, are still married.
“I’m really proud of my time at the Riviera because at the time I started there, it was really one of the nicest hotels on the Strip, and we had as much or more going on than anyone,” Schirripa said in a phone conversation Monday. “No other hotel would have allowed me to do what I did at the Riv.
“I started with ‘The Sopranos’ when I was at the Riv, still as a consultant, working deals over the phone. The president of the hotel at the time, Bob Vannucci, was the last of the Mohicans in making big decisions without any bureaucracy. We had 21 production shows going every week, and if we wanted to book Paul Anka, we did it.”
Schirripa zealously lavished his lounge budget (at $2 million a year in the mid-1990s) to good use by bringing such great locals acts as the Lon Bronson AllStar Band into the hotel’s open lounge, Le Bistro Theater. That room rocked with a variety of acts (including lounge vet Jerry Tiffe and the Jazz on Monday performances) from 4 p.m. until 3 a.m., and everyone was paid good money for great music.
In its closing days, Dirk Arthur returned his magic show, filled with exotic cats, to the Riv’s Starlite Theater. The Riv also trotted out some uniquely inspired, if short-lived, productions. “Matsuri,” a troupe of Japanese acrobats, was one. “Ice From Russia,” a skating spectacular, was another.
Both were in the classically appointed but deteriorating Versailles Theater, which was renovated for the anticipated return of “MJ Live” and “The Rat Pack is Back” until the hotel’s closing