Monday, April 5, 2004 | 11:40 a.m.
VegasBeat appears Sunday through Friday in the Las Vegas Sun. Timothy McDarrah can be reached at [email protected] or at (702) 259-4096.
It's "Vegas Gone Wild!"
Young Las Vegan Jennifer Worthington is now a business partner of Joe Francis, a part-time Vegas resident and full-time purveyor of the trashy soft-core "Girls Gone Wild" video series of young women exposing themselves.
The two are going to open a "Girls Gone Wild"-themed eatery in Las Vegas, the details of which were first reported Sunday in The New York Times.
Worthington is best known as the associate producer, with Jerry Bruckheimer, of the movie "Coyote Ugly," and she owns the New York-New York bar of the same name.
Francis is free on $165,000 bail due for Florida criminal charges for allegedly using underage girls in his racy videos, and the Federal Trade Commission is after him for allegedly billing customers for unordered videos.
But as he fights the charges, it's business as usual. Francis has put together a handful of partners to open a chain of "Girls Gone Wild" restaurants. The group has put up $30 million and plans to open its first "Girls Gone Wild" Cantina and Dance Club in Times Square this fall.
Then locales in Vegas, Miami and New Orleans are next. A Las Vegas venue has not been determined yet.
Mutual friends originally put he and Worthington together. Worthington was in meetings in New York on Sunday and was not reachable.
"The name is now a lot more than our DVDs," Francis said. "It is evolving into a brand, one that we want to capitalize on."
Besides the restaurants, he is planning to release dance music CDs and has struck a deal with MGM, in which videos will be the genesis for a reality television show or, more likely (because of the racy content), a reality movie.
Ironically, Francis has an active lawsuit against the MGM Grand hotel. He claims he was roughed up by security guards there after the Billboard Awards in December, when he stopped to watch a comedian jump into the Rain- forest Cafe fishtank in a publicity stunt.
The MGM security troupe thought Francis was part of the outrageous stunt carried out by Hard Rock headliner Jeff Beacher, but Francis maintains he wasn't.
Sam's celebrates
There was no red carpet. No paparazzi. No Ben Affleck.
Even so, the locals casino Sam's Town had some 25th-anniversary events over the weekend. The celebration began Thursday when company boss Bill Boyd shook the hands of about two dozen employees who have been with the hotel and casino for its entire quarter-century run.
The moving ceremony took place after entertainer Dennis Bono taped his weekly radio show inside Sam's Town Live, where guests Wayne Newton, Oscar Goodman and Anthony Curtis paid tribute to Boyd, and Lt. Gov. Lorraine Hunt presented Boyd with a special proclamation.
Afterward, we spotted "Ba Da Bing" (Desert Passage at Aladdin) producer Ben Morgan huddling with Boyd exec (and 25-year man!) David Aiello. Some kind of a deal in the works? Dunno -- neither would tell us what they had been discussing.
Imitation, flattery
Our lead item on this page last Monday was about new electronic tracking systems that some casinos have installed to monitor wagers by gamblers.
Our first sentence was: "Even George Orwell would have had a tough time conjuring up something like this."
On Sunday, in the paper across town, there was a column in the business section of our six-day old item, with this first sentence: "Big Brother is watching."
If you are going to play catch up, folks, can you at least be original?
New star
Vegas resident Jeffrey Shulman, the 29-year-old president of Shulman Media (among its properties are Card Player magazine and CardPlayer.com), is traveling in some pretty rarified circles these days.
After he left the "Celebrity Poker Showdown" Bravo taping at Palms on Saturday he hooked up with model Christy Devine and friends Chris Masterson ("Malcolm in the Middle"), his brother Danny Masterson and Laurie Prepon (both of "That '70s Show"). The group hit Light (Bellagio).
Other Bravo poker players included Matthew Perry, Norm Macdonald, Star Jones, Richard Kind and Willie Garson.
VegasBits
Young: Actor Sean Astin ("Lord of the Rings") popped into the opening party Friday night for Preferred PR & Marketing's new office on South Jones Boulevard. He is a cousin of Preferred partner Michele Tell. Also making the scene: entertainers Frank Marino and Mac King and dozens of local television and media types ...
Mealy: Harry Connick Jr. and his model wife, Jill Goodacre, had dinner Saturday night at Bradley Ogden (Caesars Palace). Connick is in town for today's filming of the "Will & Grace" season ender, which we reported on last week. Also at Bradley Ogden on Saturday: Perry and gal pal actress Shawnee Smith ...
Dine: Sandra Bullock, her new boyfriend, Jesse James of the Discovery Channel show "Monster Garage," and her sister Gesine Bullock Prado, a lawyer who runs their Fortis Films production company, had dinner Saturday night at Aureole (Mandalay Bay). Local filming on "Miss Congeniality 2" begins this month. Also at Aureole: former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown ...
Power table: NBC talker Carson Daly, Hard Rock Hotel scion Harry Morton, Beacher, the band Korn, DJ Lethal and John Otto from Limp Bizkit and fighter Tito Ortiz were sitting together at Simon Kitchen and Bar (Hard Rock Hotel) late Friday night after the Ultimate Fighting Championship at Mandalay Bay Events Center ...
Champions: Queen bandmates Roger Taylor and Brian May and Brit scribe Ben Elton -- who penned the London musical "We Will Rock You" -- had lunch Friday at Olives (Bellagio). They then spent much of the afternoon in the stores along Via Bellagio. After that they camped out much of the weekend at the Theatre des Arts at Paris Las Vegas, getting a feel for the Vegas home of "Rock You," which opens a Vegas production in August ...
Miss you: Several readers have inquired about KVBC Channel 3 anchor Jim Snyder, who has been off the air a lot lately. Rest assured, he is fine. He has been on jury duty for the last three weeks in a civil matter. Deliberations started Friday.
From Sun wires
Wayne's world: He was a cowboy, a Green Beret, a jet pilot and a detective during his long acting career.
Now, John Wayne will grace a postage stamp.
The United States Postal Service unveiled its annual "Legends of Hollywood" commemorative postage stamp Saturday night in Beverly Hills, Calif.
This is not the first time Wayne's likeness has appeared on a stamp. In 1990 he was pictured on one of four 25-cent U.S. commemorative postage stamps honoring classic films released in 1939. The stamp featured Wayne as the Ringo Kid in "Stagecoach."
Bad medicine?: Ozzy Osbourne filed a complaint with the state medical board, accusing a Beverly Hills doctor of overprescribing addictive drugs to him.
Osbourne says the drugs led to his disoriented behavior on the reality TV series "The Osbournes," the Los Angeles Times reported.
Authorities asked Dr. David Kipper to turn over copies of Osbourne's medical records and scheduled a meeting with the British singer and his wife, Sharon.
Osbourne filed the complaint in early March, claiming Kipper had him take excessive quantities of Dexedrine, Valium, Zyprexa and other medications.
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