Airbrushing the stars, including yours truly
The question to Palm Restaurant General Manager Larry Close was simple enough. So was his answer.
“How does someone get on your wall?” I asked.
“Email me a photo,” he said.
Hmmm. I’d expected this exchange to turn out like the joke, “How do you get to Carnegie Hall?” Famously answered: “Practice, practice, practice.”
But Close, who operates the popular eatery and bar at The Forum Shops at Caesars Palace, was not kidding. Soon after that exchange last September, when the restaurant had finished a full-scale renovation (and had its walls stripped of its many celebrity portraits), I sent him the photo that runs with this column. He invited me in to watch as artist Steve Spector spun his magic on one of the pillars near the entrance, just right of the host stand.
Spector has been a contracted artist at the Palm since 1999, after connecting with Close through pure happenstance.
“I was working at the arcade at Excalibur, doing airbrush portraits outside where kids play the games, and these two young guys told me about the Palm Restaurant,” Spector said as he took a break from his artwork. “I found Larry, we talked and I’ve been with the company ever since.”
The current lineup Titled “The Journey,” the show was exactly that, buoyed by a tap segment from Turner’s son Aaron Turner, and a duet of the James Taylor-Carly Simon classic, “Mockingbird,” with his sister Denise TurnerCollins. WHO WAS WHERE
Bubba Knight, of Gladys Knight & the Pips (he was a Pip) at Turner’s show Saturday at South Point … Sasha Pieterse of “Pretty Little Liars,” celebrating her 21st birthday Friday night at the Cosmopolitan’s Marquee Nightclub. DJ Ruckus was the star in the booth that night. Pieterse was back at it Saturday, at Tao at the Venetian … Renowned letter-turner Vanna White celebrated her birthday with Pia Zadora at Piero’s on Saturday. Also in the fray: Floyd Mayweather Sr., who performed an impromptu rap medley … Actor DJ Qualls and comic Jim Jefferies, with a group of friends, celebrating Jefferies’ birthday Saturday at Marquee … TV and film actor (and sometime Blues Brother) Jim Belushi dining Wednesday at Estiatorio Milos at The Cosmopolitan. John Katsilometes’ column runs daily in the A section, and Fridays in Neon. He also hosts “Kats! On The Radio” Wednesdays at 8 p.m. on KUNV 91.5-FM and appears Wednesdays at 11 a.m. with Dayna Roselli on KTNV Channel 13. Contact him at jkatsilometes@reviewjournal.com. Follow @johnnykats on Twitter, @JohnnyKats1 on Instagram.