Where I Stand — Brian Greenspun: One man carries the torch for young entertainers

Thursday, June 11, 1998 | 11:28 a.m.

"I REALIZED it's one thing to just go out and sing and another to really entertain people."

That sums up the discussion I had with a few friends the other night at the home of Phyllis McGuire, who, as usual, had invited the local social set to help her welcome the publisher of the ever-growing Vanity Fair magazine. When Phyllis puts out the spread, it is not only hard but foolish to say "no" because that's usually the best meal with the best company in town.

It was running into Wayne Newton and Steve Lawrence that prompted a conversation centering on the question of where the next generation of great entertainers was going to come from. With Frank Sinatra's death, the obvious "end of an era" remarks have followed. But does his death mean the end of an era of the kind of entertainment that thrills an audience to the point where the people never want to leave? It shouldn't.

So who and where are the young entertainers who will transcend tomorrow's generations? I don't see any. There may be some, but where are they learning to be good? My friend Jerry Lewis, one of the great ones, thinks it is hard for them to get good because there are too few places left for them to be bad. No more Catskills, no more Copas, no more Las Vegas lounges where the new kids learn how to be great by falling on their faces.

Will we return to the days when real talent could find a place in the sun? Where audiences can enjoy what live entertainment is all about? If you believe in life's cycles, then you know that day will come.

Until then, where are the great ones?

Elvis Presley, had he lived, would clearly have been the kind of entertainer who could have spanned the generations. Sinatra, of course. Sammy Davis Jr. had the magic but not the longevity. There are just a handful who made it big in the early days, and who continue to wow the live audiences, the bulk of which weren't even born when stardom hit. Tony Bennett comes to mind right away.

In truth, my peers had trouble singling out those few entertainers who possess the star and staying power that has been steadily disappearing with the passage of time. There is one man, though, who is continuing to make his mark, not only in the music stores around the world, but on the Las Vegas stage where talent really tells.

Those words on top of this column belong to Paul Anka, as do practically every music award and accolade available. For 40 years, Paul Anka has been a teenage heartthrob. Admittedly, some of those teenagers are well into their middle ages, but the emotions are the same.

Just as they screamed his name and cried to his songs in the '50s, they do so today. When Paul takes to the stage at the Mirage Hotel, he makes grandmothers swoon and feel like teenagers once again. He not only wins the audience with the first words from his mouth, but he holds them at fever pitch throughout the show.

He is a singer. He is a master songwriter. He is the consummate entertainer. And the fact that he has been those things for so long -- not for one or even two, but into a third generation -- makes him one of the very special people who have a gift and the willingness, the desire, perhaps even the need, to share it with their audiences.

It is not my purpose to review Paul's show. My words would never do him justice. But when he sings the songs he wrote with Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis Jr., well, it is their words, not mine, that tell the story.

Paul Anka has endured. The good news for him is that he was practically a baby when he burst on the scene in 1958. And that makes him still a very young man. The world, fortunately, will have many more years to enjoy this very talented entertainer.

The trick, however, will be for the Ankas of the world to find the way to replicate themselves so that future generations will know the absolute pleasure of being entertained as human beings should be -- not in the impersonal venues of a ball field or a multi-thousand-seat concert hall (those are fine from time to time) but in the place where the real talent must come to the top or die.

On the Las Vegas stage. That's where it isn't good enough to just go out and sing. That's where you have to entertain!