CLEVELAND — Legend, icon, "Mr. Entertainment," "The Midnight Idol," and "Mr. Las Vegas" — no other name is so synonymous with the entertainment capital of the world than Wayne Newton.
He's recorded and released an astounding 165 albums in his career, and performed live in front of more than 40 million people during a record-setting run of 25,000-plus shows in Las Vegas alone.
Not to mention, he's been performing since he was about 6 years old, and is still touring today! His "Up Close And Personal Tour" arrives here in Northeast Ohio at MGM Northfield Park on Saturday, Oct. 12.
"I decided to do a show that talks about the people that helped me along the way and made sure that I stayed on the straight narrow, and we have lots of video footage showing those people and they were great stars," Newton said in a recent Zoom interview. "I mean, you name it, almost Presley, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr."
But did you know Mr. Las Vegas has some pretty deep connections right here in Cleveland?
"Coming to Cleveland brings back an awful lot of memories, too," he explained, "because my wife and family is from Cleveland, and so Michael Stanley was my brother-in-law for a period of time."
Yes, Mr. Las Vegas and Mr. Cleveland were actually brothers-in-law. Another Cleveland connection: Bob Hope asked Newton to take over as chairman of the USO Celebrity Circle, and he's made 16 overseas journeys thus far to active war zones.
No surprise, this icon has no shortage of other jaw-dropping stories. I quizzed him on a few rumors I've heard over the years.
True or false: Wayne Newton can play 13 different musical instruments.
"That is true," he confirmed, "and I do not read and know the music. It happened because we started in the lounges doing when I was 15 — six shows a night, six nights a week, 40 minutes on, 20 minutes off, and I was the only singer in our group. And so you can't sing that much, and I kept developing instruments to give me vocal relief, and so to date, it's added up to 13."
True or False: Wayne Newton and Elvis Presley were once unknowingly simultaneously dating the same woman.
"That is true," he admitted. "I met Elvis for the first time. I was doing a 'Bonanza' episode as a guest star. I felt somebody tap me on the shoulder, and I turned around and it was God, it was Elvis. And he said, 'Do you know a girl by the name or blah, blah, blah?' I said, 'Well, yes, yes I do. In fact, we're dating.' And he said, 'So are we.' Luckily, we both started to laugh and became instantaneous friends for the rest of his life. In fact, she married Wink Martindale and they have been married 40, 47 years today."
True or False: Wayne Newton was an honorary pallbearer at Frank Sinatra's funeral.
"That is true," he said. "He looked out for me when I was in the lounges, and whenever he was doing a special show to raise money in Vegas for the university or a different charity, he always made sure there was time on that show for me to perform, which I never understood, because there was a major age difference, and his wife told me years later that that was Frank's way of looking out for me to make sure I survived this industry."
True or False: He was once an onscreen villain in a James Bond movie.
"That's true," he told me. "I played a professor — actually a preacher — who was selling drugs on television. That was part of my character. I love playing characters that are not me, because what happens (is) when they write Wayne Newton in the script, then they write things that Wayne Newton wouldn't do or say, and so I look forward to doing stuff that I don't play myself in."
Someone once said, "Las Vegas without Newton is like Disneyland without Mickey Mouse," and that couldn't be more true. Still, we're glad he's going to be leaving it briefly to join us here in Cleveland on Oct. 12, which is really his second home, as far as I'm concerned.