VegasBeat — Timothy McDarrah: Stuart event serves up faked goods

Wednesday, June 2, 2004 | 10:36 a.m.

Madonna and Prince shared a stage in Las Vegas on Sunday night.

For real. OK, sort of.

The performers were actually a pair of celebrity impersonators, and the stage was at producer John Stuart's Legends Ranch at a party he tossed for attendees of the Celebrity Impersonators Convention going on this week at Imperial Palace.

But it was Madonna's real-life film crew that was tracking Material Mom impersonator and Las Vegas resident Coty Alexander. The crew is making a documentary of Madonna's current "Re-Invention Tour" and thought that, while in Vegas, maybe a Madonna impersonator would make for some good footage.

The crew was right. Where else can you see Madonna and Prince onstage, and Joan Rivers, Jack Nicholson, Whoopi Goldberg, Bette Midler, a male Cher, Rodney Dangerfield, Fran Drescher, Tom Cruise, Hank Williams Jr., Rod Stewart, Cyndi Lauper, Ozzy Osbourne and Kramer, among others, dancing up a storm?

Equally entertaining was Clonan O'Brien -- yes, Clonan -- who kept pointing to the horses in Stuart's stables and shouting, "Hey -- there's a Seabiscuit impersonator, there's a Secretariat impersonator!"

"Is this weird, or what?" said faux Marilyn Monroe Janet Valentine, as she watched Sammy Davis Jr. schmooze with Arnold Schwarzenegger and Shania Twain -- who in real life, as Lyndall Grant and Dianna Paige, were married at the Imperial Palace wedding chapel Tuesday afternoon.

Star add

Add Robert Duvall to the list of Hollywood stars coming to the CineVegas Film Festival.

He is the executive producer of "The Portrait of Billy Joe," which will be screened on June 16. Duvall will be with director Luciana Pedraza and the subject of the film, singer and songwriter Billy Joe Shaver.

The film fest runs from June 11 to June 19 at Brenden Theatres at the Palms.

Olympian chef

Aramark Executive Chef Jesus Cibrian has been appointed to serve as executive chef of the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens.

Cibrian said he was selected as a result of his extensive experience with high-volume food service. Aramark is the food and beverage vendor for the Las Vegas Convention Center.

During his Olympic stay, Cibrian will oversee 100 Aramark employees from around the world, who will be serving food 24 hours per day to as many as 6,000 people at a time. In all, it is estimated he'll oversee preparation of 2 million meals.

The buffet-style layout at the Olympic Villa will serve 200 to 250 items suitable for healthy lifestyles and will fulfill the athletes' special dietary requests.

Cibrian leaves for Athens on Friday.

Triumphant return

Talk about being a homecoming queen.

On Saturday an American Cancer Society benefit in West Hartford, Conn., will honor Las Vegas restaurant guru and Wynn Resorts exec Elizabeth Blau.

The fancy invitation says, "Blau's enduring passion and unrelenting energy has transformed the Las Vegas food scene from a bastion of buffets into a fine dining destination hosting America's top restaurants."

That's no exaggeration.

The event is co-sponsored by champagne-maker Perrier Jouet and will feature contributions from such influential food-and-beverage world individuals as chefs Daniel Boulud, Kim Canteenwalla and Philippe Rispoli, Tribeca Grill sommelier David Gordon and Culinary Institute of America wine expert Michael Weiss.

It takes place on the manicured 75 acres of the exclusive Renbrook School, the former home of Frederick B. Rentschler, founder of Pratt & Whitney Aircraft.

Road show

Rio headliner Ronn Lucas has long been sought after in the corporate market, recently performing for gatherings of such giants as Chevron, Lucent Technologies and American Airlines.

Last week Verizon flew Lucas and crew to the Bahamas, where he tells us he rocked their island convention.

"I guess I did OK, because they want me back next month. I'll tell you, taking money for this gig -- I feel like a pirate of the Caribbean!"

Old sport

Local infomercial producer Ben Kalb was pretty surprised to learn the identity of one of the recruits for his new abdominal product commercial.

"I hired a group out of Southern California to find random people to go on a monitored six-week program," Kalb told us on his cell phone from L.A. Monday night after he saw the Lakers dispose of the Minnesota Timberwolves to reach the NBA Finals.

"I had no input into whom they would select other than telling them the age range we desired. We did the on-camera interviews this past week. One of the testimonials turned out to be Kirk Dodge," who was a linebacker at UNLV and played in the East-West Shrine game in 1984 before going into the NFL for several years.

VegasBits

Film: Guy Ritchie and his wife, Madonna, were at Ice Las Vegas Thursday night filming segments of her tour documentary ...

Celebrate: Vintage husband-and-wife performers Lezlie Anders and Buddy Greco had a big barbecue at their ranch Monday afternoon with members of The Cast Inc., a group of local entertainers that raises money for former show-business professionals in need ...

Eat: Dennis Rodman had dinner Sunday night at Crustacean (Aladdin) while "Alias" star Melissa George was in on Friday ...

More to eat: Comic genius George Carlin had a late dinner Thursday at Chinois (Forum Shops at Caesars) ...

From Sun wires

From the land down under: A 20-year-old Australian was named Miss Universe 2004 in a two-hour pageant watched by hundreds of millions of television viewers around the world.

Jennifer Hawkins smiled as the outgoing titleholder, Amelia Vega of the Dominican Republic, slipped the crown on her head Tuesday night at a convention center in Quito, Ecuador.

Miss USA, Shandi Finnessey, was first runner-up.

Docu drama: Michael Moore's award-winning documentary "Fahrenheit 9/11" has picked up a U.S. distributor and will hit theaters June 25.

The film will be released by a partnership of Lions Gate Films, IFC Films and the Fellowship Adventure Group, which was formed by Harvey and Bob Weinstein specifically to market the film.

Moore's film criticizes President Bush's response to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and connects the Bush family with Osama bin Laden's.

The Weinsteins, who run Miramax Films, bought the rights to the movie from The Walt Disney Co., which owns Miramax and refused to distribute "Fahrenheit 9/11."