Columnist Kate Maddox: ‘Crazy Girl’ arouses national publicity

Kate Maddox

Sunday, Dec. 19, 1999 | 10:03 a.m.

Kate Maddox's column appears Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays, only in the Las Vegas Sun. Reach her at kmaddox@vegas.com.

The life of a showgirl isn't all glitz and glamour, but it's certainly a profession that has captured national interest lately.

Tammie Rankin, one of the stars of the "Crazy Girls Topless Revue" at the Riviera, is the focus of two profiles -- one in the February/March issue of Complete Woman magazine and another that is scheduled to air on the E! Channel sometime in late Jaunary.

Rankin, a 23 year-old student at UNLV, decided to take the plunge into topless dancing after realizing that she needed money for tuition. Despite the objections of her "very religious" family, Rankin took the job and now claims to love the showgirl life.

At 5-foot-8, 120 pounds, Rankin personifies the voluptuous image that America generally affixes to a Vegas dancer. But the magazine and TV show really wanted to get a behind-the-scenes look at how a young student balances her day-to-day duties with her working evenings -- which she partially spends "dressed" in leather chaps and a G-string.

Rankin's profile for E! will be part of a one-hour special profiling Vegas showgirls. Half of the show tracks the reunion of some of the original dancers in the Folies Bergere -- who recently celebrated their 40-year anniversary of the show -- and the other half will be all about Rankin.

Despite the flux of elaborate productions that have taken the Strip by storm in recent years, there obviously is still a nationwide fascination with one of Las Vegas' valued treasures.

Along those same lines, the A&E channel spent about three hours interviewing local showgirl legend Kay Krantz for a television special tentatively titled "The Love Chronicles," which is scheduled to air sometime next year.

Krantz, who has lived here since the '50s, recalled some of her stories about dancing at the Riviera in the early days and partying with wiseguys and the members of the Rat Pack. She still refers to that era of Las Vegas as "the good old days, when the town was still small enough that everybody got to rub elbows with everybody else."

James Caan is in town for about a month shooting a new movie which is tentatively titled "Lucky Town."

Caan and some cast members spent the majority of the week shooting scenes at the Showboat hotel-casino. At this point there are very few details floating around about the storyline, but sources tell me that Caan plays a professional poker player in the movie. Young actress Kirsten Dunst -- who made her major film debut at 12 in 1994's "Interview with a Vampire" and whose most recent film, "Dick," was a spoof on Nixon and the Watergate era -- plays his daughter.

Most of the cast and crew will be staying at the Showboat throughout the Las Vegas shoot, and the hotel was happy to convert their Mardi Gras Showroom into a phony poker room for some of the scenes this week. The movie crew also spent time shooting in some of the hotel rooms, at the roulette tables and in the bingo room.

The cast and crew move onto the Olympic Garden for the next on-location scenes. One of the characters in the film plays a stripper -- so what better place to film than in one of Vegas' most notorious adult clubs?

Partyers invited to the Stardust's private New Year's Eve affair will get a very special musical treat when the clock strikes midnight, bringing the millennium to a close.

The legendary Guy Lombardo Orchestra, which introduced the world to the version of "Auld Lang Syne" that we all know -- and sing -- each and every year, will be performing live in the hotel's Stardust Ballroom.

The Lombardo Orchestra played its first New Year's Eve gig in 1929 in New York City, and ever since their version of the year-end anthem has been famous the world over.

If you aren't one of the lucky revelers who get to hear them play on New Year's Eve, catch them the next night when tickets to the dance concert are available to the general public.

And from the random files, pop icon Boy George narrowly escaped a fatality this week when a 660-pound mirrored disco ball fell from the ceiling during rehearsal for a British concert.

George, who survived a serious heroin addiction as well as the '80's fashion trends, was treated for shock and bruises and released from the hospital. The flamboyant George said afterwards, "It would have been both ironic and glamorous to be finished off by a 4-foot glitter ball."

Just one of the job hazards of being a career party-boy.