Columnist Kate Maddox: Hutton finally headed home

Kate Maddox

Friday, Nov. 17, 2000 | 9:55 a.m.

Kate Maddox's column appears Fridays, Sundays and Tuesdays. Reach her at kmaddox@lasvegassun.com.

Lauren Hutton snuck out of town Wednesday. The actress had been staying in a deluxe suite at the Venetian since her Nov. 6 release from University Medical Center following her Oct. 21 motorcycle crash.

Hutton, who was still wheelchair-bound due to extensive surgery on her left leg, reportedly flew back to New York City so she could receive additional medical treatment at Lenox Hill Hospital.

The model-actress is expected to have a lengthy recovery period, which will include extensive physical therapy, according to one source.

Unfortunately, Hutton's departure on Wednesday meant that she missed Thursday night's special dinner honoring the Venetian's nine emergency medical technicians -- two of whom aided Hutton immediately following her crash.

But Hutton didn't miss the opportunity to thank her two personal heroes.

Hutton recorded a heartfelt videotaped message for the EMTs, which was played at the dinner.

Hutton, who no doubt will be back on a motorcycle as soon as she is able, also wanted to be home today for another reason: It's her 56th birthday. New York pals were apparently planning a welcome home/get well soon/happy birthday celebration.

OK. I don't know who or what the "BattleBots" are, or what they do, or what kind of person spends his or her free time building remote-controlled robots, but I do know that the show's fanatics will be here this weekend.

The popular Comedy Central program pits homemade robots against one another in fights to destruction. Starting today the All-American Sports Park will be ground zero for the battling 'bots and their inventors.

Even Jay Leno will be there. Leno created his ultimate fighting machine, Chin-Killa, and debuted it on "The Tonight Show" earlier this month. I guess he's a fan.

More than 140 robots will compete throughout the weekend and the matches will air during the show's second season, which begins on Comedy Central (Cox cable channel 74) Dec. 12 at 10 p.m.

And another factoid: The co-creator and owner of the "BattleBots" is Trey Roski, the son of multimillionaire real-estate mogul Ed Roski. The elder Roski owns the Silverton and recently purchased the Las Vegas Hilton. Roski also co-owns the Staples Center and has a stake in both the L.A. Lakers and L.A. Kings.

The younger Roski apparently just enjoyed watching robots bash each other, so he started his own TV show.

C2K sources are scrambling after the announcement Wednesday that the family of Danielle Heird, the 21-year-old who died from an Ecstasy overdose in July, is filing a lawsuit against C2K, H&H of Nevada and the Venetian.

One former management employee insists the club was not trying to profit from drug users by raising the prices of bottled water (which is popular among Ecstasy users), as alleged in the lawsuit. In fact, the insider says the prices of water were raised (to between $4.50 and $7 a bottle) to discourage the druggies from frequenting the club, not the other way around. He also insists that in the 10 months that C2K operated under the management of Silver Hammer, less than 20 calls were made to paramedics and no drug-related arrests were ever made at the club, even during a 90-day undercover investigation by Metro Police officers.

That said, the tragedy here is that one person died from ingesting an illegal substance, and the family is looking to hold someone responsible. Expect a lengthy court case to follow.