Sunday, March 5, 2000 | 9:27 a.m.
Kate Maddox's column appears Sundays, Tuesdays and Fridays, only in the Las Vegas Sun. Reach her at [email protected].
In all fairness to the performer who will soon be starring as Dean Martin in "The Rat Pack is Back" at the Sahara, Rick Michel has done a lot more than merely understudy previous Dean, Steve Apple.
Michel, who describes himself as a comic/singer/impressionist, was actually the "Rat Pack" sub for Martin, Frank Sinatra and Joey Bishop. The former star of a multitude of local comedy and big band shows, Michel said it was prompting from "Rat Pack" co-producer David Cassidy that really helped him nail down the original job at the Desert Inn production of the show.
Michel was performing with the Gene White Orchestra at a function at the Bellagio as Frank Sinatra. The crowd, which included Cassidy, loved it and Cassidy yelled out for Michel to "do Dean!" Michel switched gears and started doing his Martin impression. Cassidy was impressed and although the show was already cast at that point, he wanted Michel to have a piece of the action.
During the course of the show's run at the Desert Inn, Michel subbed for Bobby Caldwell -- who played Sinatra -- about a dozen times and he also took over for Apple a few times. And when the show was in a pinch, Michel even filled in as Joey Bishop.
Needless to say, Michel feels like he could probably save the new production a couple of bucks in the understudy department.
Life does go on for some of the wanna-be brides not selected by cad Rick Rockwell on Fox's ill-fated "Who Wants to Marry a Multimillionaire." Well, that is if you consider getting on with it a trip to the "Howard Stern Show" to take off your clothes for money.
On Thursday morning four of the "brides" showed up at Stern's broadcast in New York to hang out with the shock jock -- who had invited the gang down after they called into his show a couple of days earlier.
After the usual flirty banter that Stern engages in with most of his female guests, the negotiations began. Stern and his crew get a kick out of seeing if they can get women to take off their clothes on the air, and they'll do whatever it takes to reach their goal.
After some initial protests, two of the "contestants" finally decided that the price was right and got down to business. For 7,000 bucks the girls got naked. (The two other girls opted out of the game and stayed clothed.)
This item probably falls under the make-your-own-joke category and please feel free to insert yours at any time. My mind is leaning toward a "looks like Rockwell picked the wrong girl" kind of thing, but we could also work with the "these girls will do anything for money" angle or something along the lines of "how many broke, still-single brides does it take to screw in a lightbulb..."
Or you could just assume that these girls are trying to make the best of a horrible situation and trying to snag their own 15 minutes of fame while still walking away with some cash. On second thought, there's no way to spin this one -- it's just plain bad.
The Vegas-based movie "3,000 Miles to Graceland" has added more names to the cast. Christian Slater, David Arquette and rapper Busta Rhymes are slated to join stars Kevin Costner and Kurt Russell when filming starts on the action/comedy later this month.
Arquette will be joining his wife, "Friends" star Courteney Cox Arquette on the set -- she co-stars as Russell's love interest. Rhymes' last movie was 1998's "The Rugrats" animated feature -- the rapper lent his voice to one of the characters. Rhymes also had a small part in director John Singleton's 1994 film "Higher Learning."
Auditions for Elvis impersonators for "3,000 Miles" took place this week. More than 300 Elvi turned out to compete for roles as extras in the movie. The plot focuses on a casino heist that takes place during an Elvis impersonator convention.
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