TAKE FIVE: JEFF TRACHTA

Wednesday, Oct. 4, 2006 | 7:50 a.m.

What: "Jeff Trachta - Live!"

When: 3 p.m. Saturdays through Thursdays; dark Fridays

Where: The Rio's Masquerade Showroom.

Tickets: $19.95 to $25.95; 777-7776

Jeff Trachta has traded the small screen for the big stage and bright lights of Las Vegas.

For eight years, he starred as Thorne Forrester on the CBS soap opera "The Bold and the Beautiful."

Last week, he opened a one-man show at the Rio, taking over the afternoon spot vacated by ventriloquist Ronn Lucas.

Trachta sings, dances and does impressions in "Jeff Trachta - Live!" It's billed as a "one-man show with a cast of thousands."

One-man troupe

"It's a one-man show, but it seems much bigger," Trachta says. He uses technology to "clone" himself onstage. "My opening number is 'Ain't No Mountain High Enough,' and I'm backed by a gospel choir of 117 people - all of them me. I do a tribute to boy bands like 'N Sync. I become the whole group, and we all dance together. I actually hired 'N Sync's choreographer to teach me their moves."

Among his impressions: Presidents Bush, Nixon, Ford and Reagan; Larry the Cable Guy; George Burns; Joan Rivers; Popeye; and characters from "SpongeBob SquarePants," "South Park," "Family Guy," "All in the Family," "Bewitched," "Gilligan's Island," "The Honeymooners" and "The Andy Griffith Show."

Rare visits to Vegas

He first came to Las Vegas in 1993; he and several other soap opera stars made a special appearance at the Dunes shortly before it was imploded. In 2003, he headlined a Christmas show at the Rio. "I have not been back since then," he says. "I was doing 'The Price Is Right Live' (at Harrah's Reno), which is ironic because now it's playing right down the street at Bally's with Todd Newton as the host. I quit 'Price' after I wrote a show for corporate events, which was a tremendous success."

Road to Rio

It started on a cruise ship. "A year or so ago, I got a phone call from my friend, comedian Chris Rich. She asked, 'Have you thought about doing your show on a cruise ship?' In the last year, I became king of the cruise ships If you have great success they'll fly you in; so I was flying all over.

"So many people on the cruise ships said I should be in Vegas. So I taped one of the shows I did on the ship and had it sent to the Rio. Well, timing is everything; they were in the process of looking for a replacement for the afternoon performer. I was in Maui, doing a show on a ship, when I got a call from my agent who said the Rio wanted me to fly up and do a showcase for them. That was in June."

TV or not TV?

"This is what I want to do. This is the most fun and it's really for me. I've picked my favorite songs, I'm doing my favorite characters. I'm doing some stuff that I've been doing since I was 5. It's in my DNA. Honestly, my real purpose in life is to entertain. It's so different from TV, a difference of night and day. I can't compare being on a soap opera to what I'm doing now."

Act of desperation

Here's a tidbit for trivia buffs. Trachta tried to throw some work to his good friend Mark Cherry, who had been a writer for the hit series "Golden Girls."

"He was a top writer and then things dried up on him. I told him I would hire him to write for me, but he said no, he would not take money. He said, 'just let me direct you when you get your own show in Vegas,' " Trachta says.

"So he came to my cabin at Lake Arrowhead (Calif.), and while he was there working on a skit for me, he was working on this pilot he had for a new TV series. He asked me what I thought of the pilot. I said, 'Your hungry days are over.'

"It was 'Desperate Housewives.' "