Vegas columnist blasts Danny Gans book!

In the Las Vegas news media’s first examination of Danny Gans’ posthumous autobiography, a veteran newspaper columnist is challenging the accuracy of the book, blasting it as a "grudge" and the attacking abilities of Gans’ co-author.

Las Vegas Review-Journal entertainment columnist Mike Weatherford's scathing column and supporting blogpost appears today-- on the six-month anniversary of Gans’ death by Dilaudid.

Weatherford challenges the facts in Chapter 34 of The Voices In My Head, claiming that he is the unnamed columnist who appears in the chapter, allegedly telling Gans on their first meeting that he was not his friend or fan, that Gans needed topless dancers in his show, and broke a promise not to review Gans' opening-night gala at The Mirage.

Writes Weatherford:

“The first mostly wasn't true. The second I can only figure was a joke... The third issue is fuzzier. I don't remember what was said about reviewing the gala.”

Weatherford attributes the jab in the chapter to the fact that he had given Gans’ Mirage opening a less-than-perfect rating.

“Gans' manager, Chip Lightman, called to raise hell about the letter grade, which was an A-. Apparently that minus sign bothered them. ‘The No. 1 show in town should be an A plus-plus-plus, you should like everything about it,’ Gans later told the Los Angeles Times.”

Weatherford gives a detailed blow-by-blow rebuttal of the chapter on the Review-Journal blog page. He also throws in a punch at Gans’ co-author, RG Ryan:

"I didn’t have room for the details, which if sloppy co-author R.G. Ryan had bothered to ask me about, might have kept the chapter out of the book to begin with.”

Weatherford characterizes the issue as “sad.”

His characterization of the chapter as a “grudge” gives promise that the book will be a no-holds-barred response to the local media who disparaged Gans’ talent, much in the style of fellow Strip legend Wayne Newton’s classic autobiography, Once Before I Go.

Weatherford’s blast is all the more extraordinary because the Gans book is published by the Review-Journal’s parent company. The publisher made a deal with Gans’ family in the days after his death on May 1st,, and perhaps coincidentally, its reporters did not follow up on or investigate the mysterious circumstances of his death at 52.

Weatherford, for example, never followed up on his column in which he reported that Gans was “down in the dumps” and “in unusually low spirits” the day before he died.

We at Tabloid Baby are still waiting our copy of the book from Amazon.con, which signaled a three-to-five week wait.