The 10 Most Influential Acts in Las Vegas History

influential acts

These 10 entertainers have left—and some continue to leave—an indelible Las Vegas legacy.

By CHRIS CARNEY | January/February 2011

Photo: Joey Bishop, Frank Sinatra, and Dean Martin of The Rat Pack

Las Vegas has long been synonymous with great entertainment. From gambling to burlesque, magic to impersonation, Las Vegas has a long and steady history of producing laughter, smiles, and yelps of joy. By most measures, Las Vegas can claim Entertainment Capital of the World. In honor of the 100th anniversary of the city’s incorporation, Nevada Magazine has compiled a list of the 10 most influential acts in Las Vegas history—in no particular order but alphabetical. We have purposely chosen entertainers that span a wide range of styles, eras, and personalities so that readers can come away with a better understanding of the history, heart, and soul of this city in the desert.

Celine Dion
Celine Dion’s presence on this list may engender doubtful mutterings and irritated scowls from some Las Vegas purists who pine for the days of Old Vegas, but a short look at her domination of the Strip in the 2000s makes her influence undeniable.
In 2003, the Canadian songstress began a residency at Caesars Palace that would, over the next five years, gross a staggering sum and dominate the Vegas landscape. Not only did “A New Day” shoot the bar for Vegas shows into the upper atmosphere, it altered the way entertainers worldwide performed. To really entertain, Dion implied, performers needed an extravaganza of lights, dance, and sound.
It was in Las Vegas that she went from performer to entertainer, and on March 15, she returns to the Colosseum that Caesars originally built for her. Her legend is sure to grow.
Cirque du Soleil
Another relative newcomer to Las Vegas, Cirque Du Soleil has—from “Mystére,” through “O” and “Zumanity,” and culminating with the recent unveilings of The Beatles “LOVE” and “Viva Elvis”—come to dominate the Strip as no other entertainment entity has before.
From its humble street-performer origins in Montreal, Cirque has grown into an entertainment juggernaut with nearly $1 billion in yearly receipts. It has been estimated that on any given night, five percent of Vegas visitors attend a Cirque show.
The production company’s influence is so pervasive that visitors now plan trips to Vegas around Cirque, and the premiere of such a show draws a cavalcade of movie stars and other notables.
Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis
Some consider 1950s Las Vegas the city’s heyday. Sin City was edgy and hip, glamorous and hedonistic, and populated by mobsters and starlets. It was on the stage of the legendary Copa Room at the Sands where the hottest acts of the day performed. Few acts can be said to be more Vegas than the musical comedy duo of Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis.
Vegas made Martin and Lewis, then it broke them. In 1989, after decades of animosity, the original dynamic duo of the Strip reunited during one of Martin’s last run of shows. While other entertainers made more money, earned more fame, and had longer runs, Martin and Lewis can rightfully claim to be among Vegas’ founding icons.
Elvis
It is 1956, and 21-year-old Elvis Presley has just performed his first show on the Vegas Strip. Though it may be impossible to imagine today, Vegas pundits of the day dubbed the crooner a “bore.”
This kid from the South wouldn’t return to Vegas for 13 years, and when he did, it wasn’t to perform, but to film the hit movie, “Viva Las Vegas.” The town that had snubbed him came to adore him as it adopted the film’s theme song as its own.
Vegas embraced Elvis, and he repaid that love with more than 800 straight performances at The International in the 1970s. Legend has it that when Elvis was in Las Vegas, half of the visitors to the city took in his show. That makes Elvis Presley not only the King of Rock, but also the King of Vegas.
Frank Sinatra and The Rat Pack
Call it the “swingers effect,” but there is something about Frank Sinatra that transcends generations. Old Blue Eyes is as cool, suave, and hip today as he was in the 1960s when he was The Rat Pack’s Chairman of the Board.
All the rave when they descended on Las Vegas in 1960 to film “Oceans 11,” The Rat Pack would grab a hold of Las Vegas and not let go for the better part of a decade.
Comprised of Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., Peter Lawford, and Joey Bishop, The Rat Pack was famous for impromptu guest appearances at each other’s gigs. So beloved were these shows that fans would flock to Vegas, often sleeping in their cars, just to catch one of their performances.
Les Folies Bergère
No act in the history of Vegas has been more responsible for popularizing the naughty nickname Sin City than “Les Folies Bergère.” This infamous burlesque show, wherein dozens of beautiful, topless women pranced and preened onstage, may seem tame today, but in the late ’50s, during the height of the Red Scare, it truly made the “better folk” of the country see crimson.
Imported from Paris two years after the Tropicana opened its doors in 1957, “Les Folies Bergère” was, until its sad demise in 2009, the longest continually running show in Vegas history. It titillated, embarrassed, and opened the minds of millions. No trip to Vegas was complete without a visit with these high-stepping beauties.
Liberace
Glitz, glitter, and gaudy costumes have long been a staple of Las Vegas, but no entertainer in the city’s history of flamboyant excesses comes close to matching Liberace for sheer extravagance.
Revered as Mr. Showmanship, Liberace was the highest-paid entertainer in the world from 1950 to 1970. His residencies at Riviera and later the Hilton set the bar for the city’s future performers.
Despite critics’ harsh evaluations of his musical ability, fans adored the over-the-top performer. He played for President Harry Truman, Queen Elizabeth II, and millions of fans worldwide all while dressed in costumes so garish as to make a matador blush.
While the world seems to have moved on—Las Vegas’ Liberace Museum closed in October, and Liberace impersonators have joined the endangered species list—his indelible influence can be seen on stages across the world.
Merv Griffin
By the time Merv Griffin came to Las Vegas, first in the 1960s and permanently from 1970 into the 1980s, his singing and acting careers had become dim memories. His mark on Vegas would be made in other ways.
One of the first media moguls, Griffin’s résumé shames others who claim the title. Among his brainchildren were “Jeopardy,” “Wheel of Fortune,” and “The Merv Griffin Show.”
At the height of his popularity, Griffin brought his talk show to Caesars Palace, where a rotating stable of Vegas notables became frequent guests. These daily visits into the homes of millions created a fascination among Middle Americans for all things Vegas, and tourism to the city soared. Other entertainers may have dominated the box office, but without Griffin, their showrooms and wallets would have been a lot emptier.
Siegfried and Roy
Say the words entertainment and Las Vegas, and invariably images of Siegfried and Roy and their magnificent white tigers dominate the imagination. While other legends can lay claim to the nicknames the Chairman, The King, or Mr. Las Vegas, few can compete with this magician duo’s longevity, popularity, and influence.
These German born émigrés were an inseparable team for 50 years, performed 5,750 shows together, and in 2000 were a notch below Steven Spielberg as the ninth highest-paid celebrities.
Siegfried and Roy seemed eternal until that fateful day of October 3, 2003, when their tiger, Montecore, attacked Roy onstage. Miraculously, Roy survived. In 2009, the duo performed one last time, capping a career unlike any Vegas has ever seen, or will likely see again.
Wayne Newton
Only one man has earned the nickname Mr. Las Vegas. And that man is the incomparable Wayne Newton.
Best known for his hit “Danke Schoen,” Newton has entertained millions from many generations. From the time he first stepped onto a Vegas stage at age 16 until today, nobody has performed more times than Newton. Truth be told, with 30,000 solo performances to his name, it is unlikely that any entertainer will ever come close to surpassing him.
So iconic a figure is he to the culture of Las Vegas that the city named the road serving McCarron International Airport after him

HONORABLE MENTION
Numerous deserving entertainers were invariably left off this list. Here are a few close calls that deserve a shout out:
Cher
Clint Holmes
Danny Gans
Don Rickles
Lance Burton
Penn and Teller
Tom Jones
Tony Bennett

LASTING LEGACIES
Although most of these icons are no longer performing, their spirit lives on in Las Vegas in these attractions and shows:
Big Elvis—Bill’s Gambling Hall & Saloon
“The King” starring Trent Carlini—Hilton
“The King Lives!”—Hooters
“Liberace Music & Memories”—Saxe Theater
“The Rat Pack is Back”—Plaza Hotel
“Sandy Hackett’s Rat Pack Show”—Riviera
Siegfried & Roy’s Secret Garden & Dolphin Habitat—The Mirage
“Sinatra Dance With Me”—Wynn Las Vegas
“Viva Elvis” by Cirque du Soleil—Aria Resort

Elvis impersonator Trent Carlini currently performs nightly (dark Tuesday) at the Las Vegas Hilton.