VegasBeat — Timothy McDarrah: ‘View’ visit brings Joy to Las Vegas

Wednesday, Feb. 11, 2004 | 10:34 a.m.

The last time we saw Joy Behar was about a dozen years ago. She was about to go into a broadcast booth at WABC 770-AM radio in New York, where the comedienne hosted a midmorning radio show.

Your VegasBeat author was a regular on the morning drive-time show that Guardian Angels Lisa and Curtis Sliwa hosted immediately before hers.

Our next get-together will be in Las Vegas. Behar is in town this week as co-host of "The View," the popular ABC network daytime talker.

Starting Monday "The View" is taping a week's worth of shows poolside at Caesars Palace.

"I am so excited to come -- all of us are, Barbara (Walters), Meredith (Vieira), Elisabeth (Hasselbeck) and Star (Jones)," Behar told us Monday from her New York office. "We like to change the venue from time to time, and Vegas is so much more exciting than Los Angeles or anyplace else we could have gone.

"Also, I have a bit of a gambling gene in me, so I can't wait to get there. Plus, it is a lot warmer there than it is here in New York, and the shopping you have out there! Forum Shops, here I come!"

Behar said that she and Walters are arriving in Vegas on Thursday so they can go to Elton John's debut at The Colosseum at Caesars Palace on Friday night.

Then, she said, all the girls are going to see Bette Midler at MGM Grand Garden Arena on Saturday night.

Also, despite her new figure -- she is a proud pitchwoman for the Jenny Craig diet program -- Behar said she will not wear a bikini on set, even though she'll be taping at the Caesars pool.

"I look good, but c'mon now," she said, "there is a national television audience watching!"

Music fight

A little bit of a bidding war has broken out to host this year's "World Music Awards."

The awards show, broadcast for the last 10 years on ABC from its Monaco venue, might be coming to the United States this year, as venues in Los Angeles and Las Vegas have expressed interest. Last year organizers said that the telecast was seen in more than 160 countries with an audience approaching 1 billion.

Two of the show's three executive producers, Melissa Corken and G. John Martinotti, live in Monaco. The third, Rick Garson, lives in Vegas and has ties to several film and television projects, including his role as co-producer of "Vegas Live! With Clint Holmes and Sheena Easton."

Jet setters

"Zumanity" (New York-New York) star Joey Arias is performing in New York tonight -- he jetted back for a special performance at the 10th anniversary bash of the famous cross-dressing cabaret Bar d'O.

Guests expected at the celebration include Star Jones and David LaChappelle, who will both fly back to Vegas with Arias on Thursday.

Arias has a show that evening, LaChappelle is putting final touches on the Elton John show he is creating at Caesars Palace, and Jones is coming for "The View."

Wynns honored

The Elton John opening is not the only big event in Las Vegas on Friday night.

Steve and Elaine Wynn are being honored at a private fund-raiser at The Stirling Club.

Teenage blues singer Renee Olstead will perform for the invited guests, including James Caan, and George Hamilton will emcee the event and a live auction.

Cartier, Hummer and Don and Jeffrey Soffer, principals of Turnberry Associates, are sponsoring the swanky soiree, which benefits the Inner-City Games/Afterschool All-Stars and Research for Retinal Degeneration.

VegasBits

Serenade: Audience members Clint Holmes, Bill Fayne, Lenny Lopez and Martin Nievera sang "Happy Birthday to You" Monday to Bootlegger Bistro manager Ruth Catalano during Kelly Clinton's weekly "Celebrity Karaoke" festivities ...

Packers: "Frank, Sammy and Dean -- Hear and Now," a new version of the popular Rat Pack tribute show with Steve Lippia (Frank Sinatra), Rick Michel (Dean Martin) and Doug Starks (Sammy), plays at 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday at the Cannery. Starks is among the six finalists for the lead in "Mr. Bojangles: The Ultimate Entertainer," which is expected to tour the nation starting this spring ...

Close: Lutece, the venerable New York temple of fine French dining, announced it would close Saturday after serving a final Valentine's Day dinner.

Ark Restaurants, which purchased the restaurant from founder Andre Soltner in 1994, opened a second Lutece in 1999 in Las Vegas' Venetian Hotel. It is not closing.

"It does very well there," Ark president Michael Weinstein told today's editions of The New York Times.

The New York restaurant had struggled to meet expenses since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. The restaurant may also have alienated longtime patrons when it tried to update its menu of traditional French cuisine several years ago, Weinstein said.

Soltner presided over the restaurant for 34 years after its opening in 1961. With Soltner at the reins, Lutece thrived. It was ranked by the Zagat guidebook as America's best restaurant for six consecutive years in the 1980s.

Tourist: Harrah's headliner Mac King, wife Jennifer and daughter Elizabeth were doing the tourist thing on his day off Monday. Among other activities, they checked out magician Tony Blanco at the Excalibur's Court Jester Stage ...

Patrol: The first of three episodes of "City Cops: Las Vegas" airs at 8 p.m. Thursday on The Learning Channel (Cox cable channel 33). "Find out how cops from the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department confront danger beyond the casinos and battle gangs and drugs in the city's darkest corners," the show's promotional announcement reads ...

From Sun wires

TV chef sued: Celebrity Chef Rocco DiSpirito is in a legal food fight with the people who say they financed his television restaurant and who are accusing him of mismanaging the eatery, which they say has lost more than a half million dollars.

A group called China Grill Management says in court papers that it put up more than $3 million so DiSpirito could open Rocco's on New York City's 22nd Street, an Italian restaurant that was the site of NBC's reality series "The Restaurant."