VegasBeat — Timothy McDarrah: Newlyweds treated to stirring reception

Friday, May 14, 2004 | 10:20 a.m.

Sandra Bullock, in Las Vegas to film "Miss Congeniality 2," ended up starring in something else last week -- a Pennsylvania couple's home video of their wedding.

After Diane and Ed Grambo of Scranton exchanged vows May 6 at The Venetian, they walked through the lobby to the reception in a hotel ballroom.

Apparently in a state of wedded bliss, they stumbled past barriers and onto the "Miss Congeniality 2" set.

But instead of being angry, the cast and crew broke into applause for the newlyweds, according to hotel public relations manager Mary Ann Price. Bullock, Miss Congeniality herself, gave the bride a big hug and joked with the groom about buying his new wife plenty of jewelry.

The whole scene was captured by the wedding videographer.

"Now we have a movie star in our wedding to remember all our lives," the bride said afterward in a statement released by the hotel.

The film ("Miss Congeniality 2," not the wedding video) is scheduled for a spring 2005 release, and is mainly being shot on location in Las Vegas.

More Vegas TV

Call Bravo the Las Vegas network.

On Saturday night it premieres "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas," starring Johnny Depp and Benicio Del Toro. Sunday brings a new two-hour special called "Las Vegas Live."

"From the Rat Pack and Elvis to Celine Dion and Siegfried & Roy, Las Vegas has presented the greatest headliners of all time," according to an announcement for the program.

The show looks at the history of live Vegas entertainment and features interviews with Wayne Newton, Gladys Knight, Penn & Teller, Blue Man Group, Debbie Reynolds, Don Rickles, Rita Rudner, Lance Burton and Dion.

Then the first of 12 two-hour episodes of a second season of "Celebrity Poker Showdown' starts May 27.

Matthew Perry, James Woods, Sean Astin, Dave Navarro, Jennie Garth, Angie Dickinson, Jeff Gordon, Wanda Sykes, Jerome Bettis, Star Jones, Mena Suvari, Travis Tritt, Maura Tierney, Norm McDonald, Penn Jillette and Hank Azaria are among the stars contending to win $500,000 for their favorite charity.

The series was filmed this winter at the Palms.

Express yourself

Several performers from "Zumanity" will appear at the Las Vegas Pride Festival on Saturday.

The show's Mistress of Seduction, Joey Arias, will be there, along with Jacobo Espina, the self-described "enigmatic force of male and female energy," homoerotic pas de deux dancers Bernard Gaddis and Kevin Gibbs and beefcake Alex Castro, who will perform his striptease act from the Cirque show.

Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman is also scheduled to make an appearance.

Festivities kick off at noon at the Las Vegas Event Center (formerly known as All-American Sports Park) at Sunset Road and Las Vegas Boulevard.

More Forum

A new shopping mecca called The Pier at Caesars, modeled after the Forum Shops at Caesars, is being built in Atlantic City.

The seaside New Jersey resort is looking to beef up its nongaming attractions in an attempt to better compete against nearby tribal casinos, and to follow in the successful footsteps of Las Vegas.

Winner

Local talent executive and entrepreneur Kim Flowers has been named Small-Business Person of the Year by the Nevada Small-Business Administration for Style Entertainment, an umbrella company under which she owns and operates the Las Vegas John Robert Powers franchise, a talent management business.

She is the also the personal manager for several rising young stars originally from Las Vegas, including A.J. Trauth from the Disney Channel's "Even Stevens" and young supermodel Jessica Miller.

In 1996 Flowers opened John Robert Powers in Las Vegas, and became the first black woman to own and operate a franchise of the internationally recognized talent school company. Eight years later, Flowers now owns and manages the Las Vegas and Reno branches, in addition to those in Pasadena, Calif. and Jacksonville, Fla.

VegasBits

Calm: After their own show's taping Wednesday, Howard Stern sidekicks Robin Quivers and Fred Norris and several show stylists attended the 10:30 p.m. performance of "O" (Bellagio) ...

Talk: Stern producer Gary DellAbate and comic actor Eddie Griffin ("Undercover Brother") were chatting it up at the hot nightspot Venus (Venetian) on Wednesday night. Stern, meanwhile, took his girlfriend, Beth Ostrovsky, to Aureole (Mandalay Bay) for dinner ...

Report: There's a great story in the new Playboy about the excessively aggressive (and increasingly violent) tactics that some Vegas wedding chapels use to stay competitive in the $600 million industry. It was penned by Las Vegas Weekly editor Scott Dickensheets and writer Kate Silver ...

Feel the noise: The former lead singer of Quiet Riot, Kevin Dubrow, had dinner Wednesday at N9NE (Palms) ...

Wait and see: Organizers are promising all kinds of celebrity attendees at the Alzheimer's fund-raiser that honors Wolfgang Puck at The Mirage on Saturday night. The media tip sheet advertises Enrique Iglesias, who is scheduled to perform, as well as Leonardo DiCaprio, Tobey Maguire, James Caan, David Schwimmer, Ethan Suplee, Paula Abdul, Robin Leach, Dickinson, Mark Wahlberg and some of the world's most acclaimed chefs, including Paul Bocuse, Daniel Boulud, Alain Ducasse, Thomas Keller, Nobu Matsuhisa, Charlie Palmer, Alessandro Stratta and Charlie Trotter.

From Sun wires

Keys to movie: Alicia Keys will make her film debut in a Halle Berry-produced biopic about piano prodigy Philippa Schuyler, her publicist said.

The yet untitled film details the life of Schuyler, the only child of George Schuyler, a renowned black journalist and author, and Josephine Cogdell, a white artist and writer.

Riding a wave: "American Idol's"Jasmine Trias is riding a huge wave of Hawaiian support. The Oahu resident finished in the top two, helped by a surge of voting from her home state.

Hawaii's 1.25 million population completed a total of 1.23 million calls in the two-hour voting period after Tuesday's show, a large portion of which were for "Idol", says Kevin Laverty of Verizon. Though island votes helped Trias, they make up only a small portion of a national total that regularly tops 25 million.