Friday, Sept. 27, 2002 | 9:40 a.m.
Alan King's career flourished in the desert.
"The history of my show business career is built in and around Las Vegas," the 74-year-old comedian said recently during a telephone interview from his home in New York. "I came in December, 1949 opened the bill at the Flamingo for Tony Martin.
"When I first arrived there were tumbleweeds blowing down the Strip."
Although he often performs at corporate events and other private functions here, King hasn't performed his stand-up act at a Vegas casino in several years.
"The last time I performed was at the Golden Nugget," King said, noting it was after Wynn took over the venue in the '70s.
Tonight he will appear at Texas Station.
"They were the first to call me in years," King said.
That wasn't always the case.
King often performed at the Sands during an eight-year stretch in the '50s and early '60s. He was a regular at Caesars Palace for 20 years, doing engagements that lasted anywhere from eight to 12 weeks at a stretch in the '60s and '70s.
"I grew up, careerwise, in Las Vegas," King said. "Ed Sullivan saw me at the Sands, and I ended up doing his show 193 times."
During the height of Sullivan's power, one appearance on his variety show was enough to give an entertainer a boost that could last for years.
The doors opened wide for King, especially in Las Vegas, where he ran with members of the Rat Pack Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr.
"Probably the highlight of my life was being with Frank and with Nat King Cole and all the boys," said King, who performed with such legends as Lena Horne, Ella Fitzgerald, Carol Channing, Anthony Newley and Peggy Lee.
When Sinatra left the Sands and moved to Caesars, King followed him.
King said anything major that happened early in his career seemed to happen in Vegas.
"I became popular at the hotels," King said. "It was a great time. Some of my fondest memories are there. Vegas was still small enough that you knew everyone."
He was hot when the mob was in control.
"But I didn't know these guys," King said.
He was a Vegas regular when Howard Hughes came to town and began buying properties.
From 1972 to 1985 he co-sponsored the Alan King/Caesars Palace Tennis Classic, whose prize money rose from $50,000 to $495,000 during its 13-year run.
"We gave the first $100,000 in prize money," he recalled. "One newspaper said, 'Alan King, with his Las Vegas mentality, is going to destroy professional tennis.' "
Although King hasn't performed for the general public in Las Vegas in decades, he has been one of the busiest entertainers in the business elsewhere.
He has written six books, the latest ("Alan King's Great Jewish Joke Book") is scheduled to be released by Crown Publishing in October.
King has produced seven plays, acted in 25 films (including "Casino"), hosted the long-running "Alan King: Inside The Comedy Mind" on HBO's Comedy Central, serves as abbot of the New York Friars Club (a position held by Frank Sinatra for 20 years), is a philanthropist (founder of the Alan King Diagnostic Medical Center, a 13-story medical complex) and a political activist (he marched with Dr. Martin Luther King).
King is also an owner and member of the executive board of Kaufman-Austoria Studios, and is a founder of Manhattan's "Toyota Comedy Festival," now in its 10th year.
One of his most recent projects has been starring in an almost one-man, off-Broadway show, "Mr. Goldwyn," the story of MGM co-founder Samuel Goldwyn, who produced 86 motion pictures, including such classics as "Stella Dallas," "Hurricane," "Wuthering Heights," "The Pride of the Yankees," "The Best Years of Our Lives" and "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty."
But Goldwyn may be almost equally known for mangling the English language, with such phrases as, "Include me out."
King just finished performing in the play at the Promenade Theatre in New York. In 2003 he is scheduled to appear in the production in London for a four-month run.
Even though King has performed in Vegas countless times, he has never lived here.
"I'm a New York guy," he said. "I had my family there, and my kids going to school. When I was coming up, Las Vegas was not really a community. Now, it has become one."
He recently bought an apartment at Turnberry Place, where he will stay during his occasional trips to Vegas.
"My kids like it here," he said.
King says he likes what has happened to Vegas since he first performed here.
"It's great," he said. "Vegas has become a destination town. The powers that be have made it one of the great resorts of the world."
Still, he is a New York kind of guy.
"I'm glad to get there, and I'm glad get out."
archive
