Las Vegas Review-Journal (Sunday)
Zadora remembers first husband, Riklis
SOMEHOW, the marriage of starlet Pia Zadora and billionaire businessman Meshulam Riklis was favorable to both parties.
“He would go lecture at Yale or Duke, speaking as a successful businessman — he was a brilliant businessman, who knew how to make money — and he had a great sense of humor,” Zadora said while seated in a darkened booth Friday night after a performance of her “Pia’s Place” show at Piero’s Italian Restaurant. “He’d say, ‘Do you know who I am?’ And they would go, ‘Noooo!’ And he’d say, ‘Do you know who Pia Zadora is? I’m Mr. Pia Zadora!’ And everyone cheered.”
The billionaire who was a fixture on the Strip while owner of the Riviera died Friday at a Tel Aviv, Israel, hospital. He was 95. The man known as “Rik” by his closest friends was famous as Zadora’s first husband (the two were married from 19771993) and as the owner of the Riv during its heyday in the 1980s through the early ’90s.
Riklis turned the Riv into one of the most successful — and for a time, the largest — hotels on the Strip. He brought the groundbreaking production shows “Splash,” “Crazy Girls” and “An Evening at La Cage” to the Strip. He also bankrolled “G.L.O.W.: Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling,” a syndicated TV show starring female pro wrestlers.
Riklis is largely credited with creating a golden path for Zadora to win her Golden Globe award for New Star of the Year for her 1982 role in “Butterfly,” which he had co-produced. The billionaire financed a junket for members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association two months before the awards at the Riviera. Zadora wound up winning the prize, beating out Kathleen Turner and Elizabeth McGovern.
Zadora had already embarked on a busy stage career by the time she met Riklis when she was 19. He tracked her down backstage during a touring production of “Applause.” He was 49 at the time. The couple would have two children, Kady and Kristofer.
Kady was the inspiration for the name of Kady’s Coffee Shop, the Riv’s 24-hour cafe.
Looking back on her time with Riklis is “a surreal experience,” Zadora said. The couple’s opulent lifestyle became something of a fable. During their marriage, Riklis bought the Beverly Hills mansion Pickfair Manor in January 1988 from Los Angeles Lakers owner Jerry Buss for nearly $7 million.
“I really didn’t know myself back then; it was a very crazy time, and I was (sighs) all over the place,” she said. “I didn’t have time to assess or breathe or evaluate. It just doesn’t seem real. It’s like waking up from a dream.
“Maybe I’m in denial, for the right reasons.”
Riklis showcased the young Zadora onstage and on the marquee at the Riv. The two were the focus of continual tabloid coverage for their May-December romance.
“I came from a very skewed childhood, where my father was not very present and
I had a mother who was a Momma Rose type. I was always onstage, traveling,” said Zadora, who lives in Las Vegas with her current husband, retired Metro detective Mike Jeffries. “It was a frenzy. He made me feel grown up. He was a father, a husband, and he just embraced me and I trusted him.”
Riklis assembled an effective business model for Las Vegas production shows at his Riviera fiefdom. “Splash” ran for 22 years, ending in 2006. “An Evening At La Cage,” which brought long-running headliner Frank Marino to the Strip, ran for 24 years, ending in 2009.
“We were the first hotel to have two shows running at the same time,” said Marino, who was discovered by Riklis at Sunrise Musical Theater in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, during a “La Cage” performance when he was just 17. “What was funny was, we would visit family in Las Vegas on occasion. It was honestly a dream come true to headline in Las Vegas, with all the glitz and glamour. I’m very lucky to say it did happen, and he made it possible.”
Riklis’ death has thrust Zadora back into the international spotlight.
“When I Google him now, he’s better known as Mr. Pia Zadora,” Zadora said. “It’s weird how the whole thing happened. It was like I was his face, his front. A lot of people thought I was exploiting him, but he had me out there, too, for himself.”