Michael La Rocca battles the odds to leave a legacy

Kirk Baird

Friday, Oct. 20, 2000 | 10:13 a.m.

It was similar to passing a brutal car accident on the highway as emergency workers tend to the victims: You don't want to watch, and feel guilty for doing so, but you just can't help it.

So there I was on a recent Thursday night at the World Trade Center to see "The Michael La Rocca Show," one of La Rocca's two productions running at the hotel. The other show is the recently created "Amen," a musical celebration of spirituality from film and theater involving four other cast members.

The "Michael La Rocca Show," however, is a one-man production featuring songs, dance numbers and some banter with the audience.

There was only one problem on this night: no audience to banter with, save an elderly gentleman stoically sitting in a booth before the show, two crew members tending to lights and sound, and me.

It was scarcely enough to counter the empty feeling of the 100-seat showroom. But La Rocca remained upbeat backstage a few minutes before the show. "It's just going to be two people tonight. Does that bother you?" he asked politely.

He simply was giving me the option of whether there was a performance that night or not.

"I'm already here," I muttered, trying to mask my feelings of pity and disbelief.

But true to the showbiz axiom "the show must go on," La Rocca bounded on stage, burst into song, finishing to the applause of, well, no one.

It can't get any worse, I thought.

La Rocca, looked at the other patron. "It's OK to applaud," he coyly suggested. "I can't," the man replied, as he held up his right hand -- a club.

"Well, you can bang on the table with your other hand, can't you?" La Rocca asked.

With that, the man said yes and began to slam his left hand on the table. Guess I was wrong.

The whole thing played out like something from the first season of "Twin Peaks": strange, otherworldly but oddly vexing. I couldn't take my eyes off the stage and kept wondering what would happen next.

To his credit, La Rocca didn't hold back for the hour and 15 minutes he was on stage -- his energy level never dipped below that of a supernova.

At the end of the show La Rocca settled into my booth, with few signs of exhaustion on his face.

"I'm enjoying what I'm doing and I hope whoever is in the audience, whether it's two people or 102, will be enjoying it the same way," he said.

An occasional motivational speaker at junior highs and high schools, it's difficult to discern if this is La Rocca's way of being positive or if the paltry crowds really don't get to him.

After all, it's got to be disheartening to be on stage and see mostly empty seats.

"I guess at the World Trade Center I'm so used to small audiences it's become customary for me," he said. "So I don't get sad about that anymore. I used to. "It's sadder when people don't show up at all and we have to cancel (the show), which does happen some nights."

At this point, I couldn't decide whether to feel sorry for him or to embrace his positivity, which was so potent Norman Vincent Peal would be impressed. Still, I couldn't get over the fact that on this night La Rocca performed to an audience of two.

What good is an entertainer if there's no one to entertain? I thought.

La Rocca explained to me, however, that wasn't the case.

It seems after the show, he talked to the other patron to thank him for coming to see the production. As it turned out, the gentleman was visiting Las Vegas with his wife, when she began to have heart problems and had to be hospitalized.

"Maybe this is a little way for him to breath a little bit, ease his tension and think about some other things before he had to go back to the hospital," La Rocca said.

It was at that moment I was struck by some Zen-like revelation: It didn't matter to the elderly man that he and I were the only people in the theater, and it didn't matter to La Rocca. So why, then, should it matter to me?

Daydream believer

Talking to La Rocca it's easy to get caught up in his dream. He's infectious and sincere, with a good-natured streak; whether borne of naivete or stubbornness is never really certain.

Born and raised in Buffalo, N.Y., the 42-year-old talks about his plans to leave a legacy by becoming a "Las Vegas legend," all without a trace of irony in his voice. It's all part of his 10-year plan, he said.

With only six years left, it would seem time is of the essence, but La Rocca maintained he's on schedule.

His first-year goal was to have his own showroom, which he did six months after arriving in Las Vegas in 1996 at the Debbie Reynolds hotel-casino.

A little more than a year later, after that place closed, he signed a contract with the World Trade Center, opening the day after Christmas.

After impressing then-owner Leonard Shoen, the late founder of U-Haul International Inc., La Rocca was given an upstairs banquet room to make as his showroom.

He began to design his theater and, using castoffs from other showrooms, such as chairs, tables and mirrors from the Aladdin and fabric from the Sands for the walls, the room opened April 14, 1998. (Eighty-six years to the day of the Titanic sinking, La Rocca reminded.)

"The hotel was kind of vibrant at that point," La Rocca said. "Mr. Shoen was still alive at that time. He had a lot of gusto to move forward and the money to do things -- he had given us quite a few thousand dollars to do some advertising."

With that, he was able to complete his second goal: "I wanted the name of Michael La Rocca known within Las Vegas. Now I'm in the papers all the time," he said. "People have seen or heard the name."

But Shoen became ill, and as his health declined, so did business. On Oct. 5, 1999, the 83-year-old Shoen died after driving his car into a power pole, nearly taking the life of the hotel with him.

His family wanted little to do with the property and looked to immediately unload it. The budget was tightened, so there was no room for advertising La Rocca's show.

Considering the property gave up its gaming license and is far enough away from the Strip to be of little notice to tourists, there was little in the way of motivation to see the production.

Now La Rocca said he averages about 30 patrons a night for both shows. With an advertising budget, though, he said he could remedy that. " 'Amen' is just not catching on well. Something about the flavor of it with the spiritual theme," he said. "I think if we had some advertising for it, that people may venture in.

"So we have to go out and hunt for sponsors to pay for advertising dollars. I've sent out a lot of packages, but no major sponsor has stepped forward yet." But La Rocca's not one to complain.

He simply goes about doing what he can to make things better. He wakes up early, works out, comes home and spends most of the day as a "one-man office." This involves everything from working on publicity and soliciting support from local businesses and individuals to answering phone calls and writing thank-you letters.

Usually by 4 p.m. he takes a power nap and then eats a quick bite before driving the 45 seconds it takes him to get to work.

If it seems a lot for one man, La Rocca is perfectly content to do it this way -- "reinventing the wheel," he called it -- and he's not getting rich in the process.

The hotel provides the room free of charge and pays the electric bill, and provides La Rocca unlimited use of the copy machine.

There is no salary; he, his assistants and cast members make a percentage off the ticket sales and donations. Even amenities such as free meals are gone. For La Rocca that means periodic stretches of eating nothing but ramen noodles, and the occasional cry for financial help to his parents.

But they don't mind, he said.

"They believe in the dream," he said. "They're very supportive."

Impossible dream?

"It's a wonderful thing to be inspiring the young people to go forward with their dreams and goals. I don't think anything we want in life is unobtainable if we truly want it bad enough," La Rocca said.

Overcoming obstacles to meet those dreams is something he is fully aware.

Openly gay, La Rocca vividly remembers the day in 1982 when a hotel entertainment director told him he didn't want him in his showroom.

" 'Michael should be in a line show with all the other gay guys,' " La Rocca said the man told him. " 'I want a guy on my stage who's got a hairy chest, gold chains and two girls on either side with big boobs.' "

Devastated, La Rocca left Las Vegas, but not before vowing to return and achieve his dream of stardom.

He returned to Buffalo and began to make a name for himself in theater productions. The Miss America pageant noticed and hired him as host and producer. In 1986, after two years of running the Miss New York pageant, he went to Arizona to turn around its beleaguered Miss Arizona production.

In 1995 La Rocca and a friend created an entertainment-variety series seen only in Arizona, which they hoped would be syndicated throughout the U.S. After nine weeks, however, it was cancelled.

Soon after La Rocca returned to Vegas, this time determined to succeed.

After a brief stint at the Bourbon Street casino, he went to the Debbie Reynolds before landing his current job at the World Trade Center.

From the Debbie Reynolds to the World Trade Center? If it seems like he's working his way down the ladder, La Rocca has a different view.

"I have my own showroom," he said. "There are a lot of entertainers who would like their own showroom but wouldn't be willing to suffer through this part of it. "It doesn't really bother me. I've got to keep my eye on the prize."

The question remains, however, will he ever win that "prize."

La Rocca said he has no doubt.

"I had two people watching here tonight, but I'm a Vegas star for all intents and purposes," he said. "I'm starring in my own show and my name is in all the papers. My dream is there already. The level is not there yet, but I'm living the dream."

And who am I to ruin it?

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