Saccadelic, baby! Tony Sacca’s TV show defies the skeptics

Karen Zekan

Wednesday, June 16, 1999 | 9:39 a.m.

Three months, tops.

That's all the critics were giving Tony Sacca's idea for a Las Vegas-based entertainment TV show in 1986.

Never mind the celebrities he planned to bring on, the interviews he wanted to do, the local hot spots he'd feature. No, Sacca's half-hour show was doomed from the get-go, critics told him, because it would only air locally. "And nobody took Las Vegas television seriously back in those days," Sacca remembered. "It was a joke."

Maybe so, but Sacca's delivering the punch line today.

This spring's Nielsen ratings prove that Sacca's "Entertainment Las Vegas Style" -- now in its 13th season -- does indeed have an audience. And, despite its late-night presence and the vast number of other channels viewers could tune into, the numbers showed that Sacca's was the program of choice for a healthy 7 percent of Las Vegas households in its KTNV Channel 13 time slot.

(In addition to airing on Channel 13 at 12:35 a.m. Saturday night/ Sunday morning, "ELVS" is broadcast locally Saturdays at 10 p.m. on UPN affiliate KCNG Channel 25, and midnight on KFBT Channel 33. Oddly enough, one of the show's competitors at midnight, "The Jerry Springer Show" on Channel 13, also serves as its lead-in -- feeding viewers to "ELVS" -- when it airs at 12:35 a.m. on Channel 13.)

"ELVS" has profiled more lounge acts and production shows than Sacca can remember, and aired interviews with hundreds of celebrities who have passed through town over the years, from actor Anthony Quinn to singer Tony Orlando to rock legend Mick Jagger.

But what Sacca will tell you with the greatest pride is that, through it all, he's kept his show free of the sensationalism other producers use to jack up their ratings. An entertainer himself for more than 30 years, Sacca says the winning combination is highlighting each guest's accomplishments in a show that offers "positive, upbeat programming.

"We've come a long way," Sacca says, looking back on his creation that has grown in 13 years from a locals-only broadcast to a nationally syndicated program that reaches an estimated 36 million households.

"It's only been in the last couple years that people started believing in me. For a long time the ratings never showed as strong as we knew they were. Everybody I'd see would say they watched the show and loved it. I'd get letters, this, that. So when the meters came on, that's when the whole thing changed."

The "meters" he's talking about are a big deal to Las Vegas TV people these days. On Oct. 31, Nielsen Media Research added Las Vegas to its list of communities it studies in determining who in America is watching what, when.

Approximately 300 electronic meters -- the minimum Nielsen places in a particular market -- have been affixed to Las Vegas television sets and are monitored 24 hours a day to measure viewership. A show scores ratings points if the meter registers that a particular channel was watched for at least five minutes of each quarter hour.

But enough about ratings.

Sacca gets a kick out of doing his show. Period.

And who wouldn't?

Through it he's met some of the world's most celebrated legends and had opportunities the rest of us could only dream about -- such as the night The Temptations granted him an interview and then indulged him as cameras rolled by singing along with him.

The role of interviewer, though, trails on his list of credits amassed over more than 30 years as an entertainer.

Beginnings

Sacca grew up the son of a butcher in South Philadelphia.

"When I was a boy, my father was so intrigued with the guys who played accordian," Sacca said. "He wanted somebody in the family to play music. So he got my sister to try the accordian. She dropped it. He encouraged my (identical twin) brother and I to pick up an instrument. I picked up the guitar. My brother liked the drums."

And with that, The Sacca Twins were born.

They were 12 when they got their first paying job -- $25 for a sorority party. An older kid in the neighborhood had heard them practicing and got them the gig. After that, they took any job they could get.

"We worked go-go joints, played background music. We did motorcycle joints -- those places scared the hell out of me," Sacca said. "We would do anything. At that age, if anybody wants you to work, you say yes to anything."

Sacca went into the U.S. Marine Corps at 19, and then back into the entertainment business when he got out a few years later. He studied voice at the Philadelphia College of Performing Arts and worked for a while with his brother at a club in Wildwood, N.J., hosting an oldies review. Then the brothers took their show on the road.

They played Sheraton, Hilton and Ramada hotel chain nightclubs and performed on cruise ships before landing a month-long contract at the El San Juan Hotel in Puerto Rico that developed into a three-year stay. And it was then that the idea of performing in Las Vegas started bubbling.

"Siegfried and Roy had come down to see the show. Siegfried says to me" -- Sacca pauses, adopting his best German impression -- " 'You guys are great! Great! You should come to Vegas!' "

And so, in 1981, Sacca did.

He wound up working at the original MGM hotel-casino -- another month-long contract that lasted three years.

"It sounds really easy, but I got to tell you how difficult it was. I didn't have anybody in the business who could call up and say, 'Hey, can I book my son at your place?' I did it all on my own. But you can't give up. You can't get discouraged. I've learned that if you don't believe in yourself, no one else will."

TV beckons

The television idea came up about the time Sacca decided to leave the stage behind. But the road to success didn't get any easier. Naysayers were everywhere -- from the critics to potential sponsors. But Sacca was determined to make it happen.

Sacca and his brother hosted the show its first six months, calling it "Live from Las Vegas." But that would soon change -- as would just about every facet of the program over the next three years. Sacca next went solo and called it "Tony Sacca's Live from Las Vegas." Then it was "The Tony Sacca Show." Then "Celebrity Magazine." "Entertainment Las Vegas Style" has stuck the past three years.

Staying afloat meant getting creative. He wound up starting his own advertising agency to sell spots on the show and six years ago bought his own production company. But in the past three years things have really seemed to come together. "ELVS" is now syndicated. The ratings are up. Life is good.

"I think you have to keep changing to make it work," Sacca said. "Thirteen years ago the critics used to just kill me. I went from singer, lounge performer, to TV. It's taken a long time to get where we are now, a lot of hard work."

And a lot of experience, which spoke for itself last week.

Hangin' with Tony

Tap great Maurice Hines could grant Sacca only 10 minutes for an interview between shows at the Flamingo Hilton, where he is doubling as choreographer and host for "The Great Radio City Spectacular" starring the Radio City Rockettes precision dance team.

In show business, 10 minutes means 10 minutes.

And, when all was said and done, Sacca pulled off the interview in nine. That was the easy part. Transforming Hines' dressing room into a well-lit, mock studio in a matter of minutes was another story entirely.

Cameramen Elton Young and Hayden Lane had the challenge of hauling 100-plus pounds of equipment as quickly as they could down a maze of hallways, past the hotel-casino's kitchen and employees' cafeteria before making it to the stairs leading up to Hines' door.

Sacca's wife, Darlene, orchestrated the production as the travel cases popped open and Young and Lane set to work. Lights were put up, reflective umbrellas positioned and a spaghetti bowl of electrical cords neatly laid out across the carpet.

They checked the sound, camera angles, lighting. Sacca, meanwhile, was preparing out in the hall. He stole a few seconds to introduce himself to a gracious and fit Hines as he passed by in black T-shirt, baggy pants and black stocking feet.

It's a personal moment for Sacca -- he's wanted to meet Hines since seeing him perform in an off-Broadway show more than 25 years ago. Sacca mentions a song he helped record years ago for a writer in New York, which was passed on moments later to Hines for a show.

Hines disappears around a corner. Sacca moves over to the cameras and takes his seat, pouring over hand-written notes -- last-minute reminders of things he'll want to ask. The crew tests Sacca's mini-microphone, hooking it inconspicuously onto his black blazer's lapel. They check the cameras one more time, and then Hines comes in.

Hines seems at home -- after all, it is his dressing room. Eye glasses, a water bottle, framed family photos and an array of show prep items are set out on a dressing table nearby; four pairs of dance shoes are in a row beneath a rack of red, black and white suits.

Sacca starts the conversation with an interesting tidbit -- he's heard that Hines needs only a 20-minute nap between shows to stay fresh till the night's done.

"A dancer's life is always disciplined," Hines says. "There's nothing like dance to keep you in shape."

They talk about "Luck be a Lady," a new number he's choreographed for the Rockettes. He admits he's tough as a choreographer; he praises the dancers for being able to do exactly what he tells them.

The interview touches upon Hines' life as a dancer and growing up black, surrounded by racism everywhere but on the stage where he, his father Maurice Sr. and brother Gregory found dancing stardom.

Start to finish, the interview took only nine minutes.

Back at their studio, it will be Andy Turner's job as segment developer to edit the interview down to about six minutes.

The rest of the "ELVS" family includes Ginger Frantzen, who gets the footage from artists' managers and promotion companies to include in the show's "What's Up" calendar hosted by Lori Leland. Ralph Galli edits the entire "ELVS" show.

Darlene Sacca lines up the acts, interviews and organizes the broadcast ("B-Roll") footage that's interspersed between interviews. And every Monday night, from 8-11, she's in the audience at the Holiday Inn Boardwalk hotel-casino's Lighthouse Showroom to catch her husband's stage show.

From the set to the stage

It's a musical review of classics from the '40s, '50s and '60s, and he calls it "Tony Sacca with Passion" -- the "Passion" being showgirl beauties Jill Shaw, Robin Berry and Tammy Georgine, who sing and dance with Sacca on stage.

There's usually a few empty seats in the house; that's how it goes with Monday night performances. Sacca doesn't mind. He loves the stage, music and the Las Vegas scene.

He closes both his television and stage shows by singing a song he wrote years ago about his adopted hometown: "Las Vegas -- The Greatest Town Around." He sang it on David Letterman's show and was pleased when the city included it in its 100-year time capsule sealed in 1986.

(That is, after they made him change a line about the city's lights being "so bright like fire in the sky" because it reminded them of the deadly MGM fire. The lights in his song now are "so bright they stand so high in the sky.")

"I love this town and the people I've met. They've given me inspiration, and I think that's what makes our show work," Sacca says.

"As many times as I've been depressed about the show, and getting sponsorship, and finding ways to keep it on the air, I always think about what the celebrities have said when I ask them to give some words of advice to young kids growing up. They always say, 'Never give up the dream.' "

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