VegasBeat — Columnist Timothy McDarrah: Dinner a (100) grand affair

Friday, Jan. 9, 2004 | 5:11 a.m.

VegasBeat appears Sunday through Friday in the Las Vegas Sun. Timothy McDarrah can be reached at tim@lasvegassun.com or at (702) 259-4096.

WEEKEND EDITION January 10 - 11, 2004

Generations ago, $100,000 was a grand figure.

When Joe DiMaggio became baseball's first six-figure man in 1949, it was front-page news.

Nothing was richer, the ads used to say, than Nestle's $100,000 bar.

These days the figure is still impressive -- it is the top entrance fee to a fancy Las Vegas charity dinner.

A $100,000 table (which seats eight) at Jan. 24's Nevada Ballet Theatre "Woman of the Year" tribute to Celine Dion is thought to be a record figure for a Las Vegas charity event, NBT spokeswoman Corinna Ryan said.

But you do get more than a chicken dinner for your hundred grand. The table purchaser (and guests) will receive a gourmet meal at a future date with Dion in her Caesars Palace dressing room, a round of golf at the exclusive Cascata course in Boulder City, a gift bag filled with knickknacks bearing the Celine logo, a Cartier trinket and a weekend suite for the event, the Black and White Ball 2004.

No one has yet bought the single $100,000 table. But most of the people on the 100-member Dinner Committee could likely afford it.

Among the notables: Steve Wynn, Perry Rogers, George Maloof, Sig Rogich, Joyce Mack, Susan Fine, Mark Juliano (his wife, Jacqueline, is the evening's Honorary Chair), Tom Kaplan, Irwin Molasky, Glenn Schaefer, Steve Schorr, Dan Van Epp, Larry Ruvo, Melissa Warren, Jackie Gaughan, Frank Fertitta, John O'Reilly, Terri Monsour, Tim Cashman, Sharon Bader, Tony Alamo, William McBeath, Mike Ensign and Cirque du Soleil creator Guy Laliberte.

Less-expensive tables are also available, starting at $3,500.

"The Sopranos" actor and Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band guitarist Steve Van Zandt taped his nationally syndicated "Underground Garage" radio show from the KKLZ 96.3-FM studios on East Tropicana Avenue last week.

Van Zandt was in town for the Consumer Electronics Show. The broadcast airs tonight at 10 p.m. on KKLZ.

"George Knapp's Las Vegas Files," the national investigative television show that the veteran KLAS Channel 8 reporter has created, is ready for a look-see.

Knapp is hosting a cocktail party Jan. 19 for NATPE (National Association of Television Programming Executives) attendees. Knapp and producers Richard Chapman ("Live From Baghdad") and Tom Matthews ("Mad City") hope to sell the show to a syndicator at the convention.

People magazine style reporter and "Today" show correspondent Steven Cojocaru has quit the magazine and is coming to Las Vegas -- for a week.

He'll also be at NATPE, looking to sell his talk show, "The Insider."

Also up for grabs at NATPE will be "Vegas Live! With Clint Holmes and Sheena Easton." Producers are going to focus first on selling the ever-improving morning talker to stations in some of Vegas' top feeder tourism markets, such as Phoenix and San Diego.

Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez checked into Bellagio late Thursday night, minus the large entourage that accompanied the couple on their most recent visit to Vegas last weekend. At press time there were no reports of them being wed, but in Vegas you never know (ask Britney Spears).

Biohazard bass player and singer Evan Seinfeld was married to adult film actress Tara Patrick on Friday at the Little White Wedding Chapel.

The couple told friends that they wanted to walk in Britney Spears' footsteps down the aisle.

"A lot of people are saying that this week," chapel owner Charolette Richards told us after we made a joint appearance on a BBC radio show discussing the Spears-Jason Allen Alexander debacle.

"My business is through the roof because of all this," Richards said.

Nice to see that someone came out ahead from all that hoopla.