Donny Osmond to host another Danny Gans memorial run

Donny Osmond will once again host the Danny Gans Memorial Champions Run For Life when it on Saturday, October 9, 2010.

The event benefiting the Nevada Childhood Cancer Foundation will be take place at the Paseo Verde Park in Henderson, Nevada, where Gans lived and died unexpectedly on May 1, 2009. It includes a 5K run, a fun run and walk, live entertainment, food and plenty of family fun.

Donny and the Nevada Childhood Cancer Foundation will raise money to benefit the children of the Southern Nevada community that have been diagnosed with cancer and other life threatening and critical illnesses.


After the day of competitions, Donny will introduce the Champions Run for Life. Children who are fighting their own battles for life will get a chance to shine as they run, walk, or wheel themselves around a specifically designed course. This is a very special moment for them as they are honored for their courage with the day dedicated to them.

Donny Osmond hosted the first memorial run last year, less than six months after Gans' drug-related death at 52. Danny Gans produced Donny and his sister Marie's Las Vegas comeback show at the Flamingo.

Click here for more information and here to register for the race.

Meanwhile, Gans' souped-up and vintage car collection will be auctioned off September 23-25 at the Mandalay Bay.

Keepers of Danny Gans' secrets gather

The Las Vegas Strip did not dim its lights to mark the first anniversary of the passing of the man who was the entertainment and gambling mecca's greatest homegrown superstar, but there were some who took time to remember the life and legacy of Danny Gans.

Norm Clarke tells us that friends and colleagues of the late musical impressionist gathered yesterday afternoon at his grave at Palm Memorial Park on Eastern Avenue. About a dozen people attended the 2 p.m. tribute, and it is that story-shifting inner circle, the ones who hold the secrets of his life and death, whose names stand out. Among them:

Chip Lightman, his longtime manager who says he received a phone call from Gans' wife Julie in the early hours of May 1, 2009, telling him that Gans had died hours earlier;

...Alicia Jacobs, the beauty queen-turned-television entertainment reporter for local station KVBC-TV, who touted her close friendship with Gans and was the first person Lightman notified of the death that morning (around the same time that paramedics arrived at Gans' Henderson estate);


...R.G. Ryan, who collaborated on Gans' posthumous autobiography, The Voices In My Head, and who's refused to comment on the controversy regarding the timeline of Gans' demise or the drug use that led to it; his assistants and members of his band and crew.


Gans' wife and family packed up and moved from Las Vegas to La Cañada Flintridge, California, outside Los Angeles shortly after his death, which occurred about three months after he opened at Steve Wynn's Wynn Las Vegas hotel and casino.

Donny Osmond to host Danny Gans memorial run in October

While Las Vegas hustlers rush around town getting more talent to appear at a cynical Michael Jackson birthday "tribute" at the end of August, at least one good man has not forgotten the great local entertainment legend Danny Gans, who died tragically eight weeks before the controversial music star.

Donny Osmond has announced he will host a benefit run for the new Danny Gans Memorial — Champion’s Run for Life-- on October 1st.

October is Danny Gans' birthday month (he was born October 25, 1956).

The 5K running race-- and walk (including one for kids) will begin at the The District at Green Valley Ranch). There will also be a raffle, prizes, food and entertainment-- including some from Donny, we'd hope.

Registration is $35. Proceeds go to the Nevada Childhood Cancer Foundation.

Donny Osmond and his sister Marie have seem their careers revived as a hit act at the Flamingo on the Vegas Strip-- thanks in great part to Danny Gans, who produced the show. Donny delivered an emotional eulogy at Danny Gans' memorial at what was Gans' Encore Theatre.

Danny Gans was well-known for his philanthropy. His website continues to urge fans and well-wishers to donate in his memory to the Nevada Childhood Cancer Foundation.

The memorial run begins at 7:30 a.m.

For more information, get in touch with race director Carolyn Battin at 702.480.1917 or the NCCF at 702.735.8434.

The Jackson tribute show takes place at the Palms Hotel on a Saturday afternoon. It is being produced and promoted, somewhat inexplicably, by New York Times reporter, local blogger, Gay Vegas author, hearing-impaired music critic and comp queen Steve Friess, who went to great lengths to prevent coverage of Danny Gans' untimely passing and has gone to equal extremes to remind the three-figure ticket buyers that he has no respect for Jackson as a human being, and wrote that his death was "the best thing that could ever have happened to Michael Jackson’s music"-- which is why his tribute show is called "The Michael Jackson’s untimely death was the best thing that could ever have happened to Michael Jackson's music show."

Steve Friess sends us a photo of himself. We think he's in love with us in a gay way. Meanwhile, the Danny Gans mystery is entering its FIFTH week.

Someone sent us a nice photo of Steve Friess (left) and you won't believe who!

The Las Vegas civics-boosting, casino-beholden comp queen, Gay Vegas ("Vegas as a queer fantasyland? You bet!") author and freelance writer attacked us in public a few weeks ago when we emailed him privately to ask why no local journalists were investigating the mysterious death of Strip superstar Danny Gans... he tried to have our site shut down when we ran his photo... he actively attempted to stop us from covering the Danny Gans story in collusion with his "husband" the executive producer of Gans' close friend and legend spinner, beauty queen-turned-TV entertainment reporter Alicia Jacobs... and he admitted being involved in a conspiracy to spread false rumours about Danny Gans' death simply to throw us off the scent.

He threatened and harassed us every time we ran a picture of him or his "husband," so for weeks, we've been using facsimiles whenever we run a story on Steve Friess, while asking you to please send us in a nice Steve Friess photo so we don't have to keep using shots of Paul Lynde, Liberace, Peter Allen, Charles Nelson Reilly or Richard Deacon.

And now someone has sent us a photo and giving us her blessing to use it:

Steve Friess.

We're not making this up. We got an email at the Tabloid Baby office this afternoon from stevefriess@aol.com, titled "a gift from me to you."

We were hoping it was the Danny Gans toxicology report, but it was this note:

"I know you've been wanting an authorized photo. And I happened to see a cool little show last night at the Liberace Museum and they happened to have a Tussaud's wax figure on loan there. So here you are. Use it to your nasty conspiratorial irrelevant gay-baiting/hating heart's desire. Sorry it's a little blurry, my camera's not behaving right these days."

...and this photo:


We thought, hey, Steve Friess has a sense of humour! Until we saw that he'd x-rayed our heart and concluded that we are gay-baiting and hating! Then our note of appreciation was returned because Steve's blocked our email access and ability to reply! It seems that Steve Friess gives, but he won't receive (and to think we took him for a power bottom!)

What is it with this guy?

We think we've figured it out. Either Steve was on an amyl nitrate poppers bender, deep in a K-hole or had too many Cosmos when he sent the giddy email-- or he's flirting with us because he loves us. And in a gay way. Sorry, Miles, but the evidence is there. The teasing comments... the insults... the photos!

We only wish the little minx would spend more time looking into the Danny Gans case and less time bothering us.

Tomorrow begins Week 5 of the Danny Gans mystery and no one, in the Las Vegas news media from the rootin' tootin' Review-Journal editor in the cowboy drag to Richard Abowitz, Steve's competitor at the Las Vegas Weekly, gives a hoot. We'd figure today's issue of the "alternative" weekly might at least mention the fact that the promised two-to-four week wait for toxicology tests on Gans is now four to twelve weeks, but instead we get more Gans tribute-- and this time it's a week old.

Abowitz, the hipster Penn Jillette fan who publicly called us insane for asking questions about the Gans case before the officials hand over the answers, has taken an elite public stand against deigning to touch the Gans story, so it was surprising to see him in the Weekly this morning with a piece on the Gans memorial that took place a week ago, and not only buying but promulgating the evangelist Christian idea that the angels simply carried away a great man:

"Gans... believed in immortality and eternity. He just never thought they came from a performance on a Vegas stage. But according to his preacher, Gans felt eternity came from his religion and how he lived his life up until the last of it no matter how long or brief."

Four weeks of hosannas. What would Penn Jillette think? When's someone in Vegas going to pick up one of the threads in the story of the year? With every passing week, it's more evident that the Vegas media is not only lying down on this story, they're bending over. Sorry, Steve. There we go again.

Danny Gans photo: Las Vegas Sun

Danny Gans & Las Vegas media update: Photos of Gans' children at the memorial, twitterings and talk of a curse

Las Vegas Review-Journal entertainment columnist Norm Clarke has posted a collection of photos of Danny Gans' children, taken by a school friend of Gans at the entertainer's memorial service on Thursday. The photo gallery include quotes from their eulogies at the event held at the Encore Theatre at the Wynn Las Vegas complex on the Strip. Son Andrew Gans, who plays college baseball, referred to his father as his "angel in the outfield"; daughter Amy, 14, said her daddy "is now performing in the heavenly Danny Gans Theatre... on the biggest stage of all."

(Click here to see the slideshow)

The Memorial Day weekend would have been an opportune time for the Review-Journal (or the Las Vegas Sun, for that matter) to use all the material it has not printed since Gan's untimely, mysterious death on May 1st, and lay out an extensive feature on Gans' death, its repercussions, implications and its unanswered questions. The only material to make the paper has been Norm's report that Whoopi Goldberg walked off stage during an audience medical emergency during the first show in Gans' theatre since his passing.

Norm followed up with a column on Sunday that made reference to a "curse of the Encore Theatre," which was first noted in this site on May 1st and referred to here on Saturday morning. The story got some legs on at least one Vegas forum:

"Is the Danny Gans former theater cursed?

"Gamblers are very superstitious people. So are Thespians and theatrical patrons, for the most part. If there weren’t a 'curse”' on that theatre before, there probably is now. That sort of story circulates like wildfire and now any and every excuse to claim support for the 'curse' will be used to do just that. It’s kind of unfortunate really. Ganz was a real professional, the kind of guy who would have insisted that 'the show must go on' without him. But who can combat the sensationalism inherent in a story like this one?..."

In a strange twist, Norm's story on Whoopi Goldberg's walkoff was based on a "twitter" from Alicia Jacobs, the controversial beauty queen-turned-local TV entertainment reporter who was a longtime close friend of Gans.

Jacobs twittered that Whoopi walked off without leaving the audience "blindsighted" (corrected by Norm to "blindsided') Norm later mentioned that at least one other audience claimed Whoopi did indeed say goodnight when she left the stage about an hour into her act.


Twenty-three hours later, in what seems to be an attempt to mend fences after what could have been inaccurate reportage, Jacobs twittered, again apparently from the audience, that Whoopi was a "class act" for walking onstage Saturday night and saying, "I love you, D.G."


With talk of "curses" and spirituality and a lack of any other coverage-- economic, medical or otherwise-- the Las Vegas news media continues to avoid covering the facts surrounding the mysterious death of Danny Gans while clouding them with distractions-- and once again, Alicia Jacobs is in the middle of it all.

photos Laurie Pollock-Smith/ Las Vegas Review-Journal

Who will be the new Danny Gans?

The Las Vegas Review-Journal posts a blurry photo of two contenders for Danny Gans' "Mr. Vegas" title (and pretenders to Danny Gans' throne?), Carrot Top and Criss Angel, at Danny Gans' memorial in what was his showroom.

The show goes on: Whoopi Goldberg moves into Danny Gans' theatre tonight

The show goes on at the Encore Theatre. Whoopi Goldberg is moving in tonight.

Danny Gans is gone. The memorial service has taken place. And by the time the toxicology report is released by the Las Vegas County Coroner's Office, the results will be an afterthought, of little consequence to the town, an asterisk to a piece of history as relevant as the last casino to be imploded to make way for a skyscraper.

And that's how the power brokers and media elite want it.

And no moss is growing in the Steve Wynn's Encore Theatre, where Gans had begun a longterm, multimillion dollar engagement three months ago, and was struggling with disappointing ticket sales when he was found dead in his bed on May 1st.


Goldberg, the comedian, actress and talk show host will be the first headliner to perform in the Encore Theater since Gans' death.

She performs tonight and Saturday.

Said Goldberg:

“I got a call from Steve (Wynn), who said, ‘Do you want to do the Encore?’ and I said, Sure, yeah.'"

The program for Danny Gans' memorial

More than 1,000 friends, fans and colleagues joined in the Encore Theatre on the Las Vegas Strip for music, memories, tears and laughter in the memorial for Danny Gans. Speakers included Gans' boss Steve Wynn and his estranged wife Elaine, Mayor Oscar Goodman (who declared May 21st Danny Gans Day in Las Vegas), pastors Gary Morefield and Benny Perez Donny Osmond and Gans’ children, Andrew, 19, Amy, 16, and Emily, 14.

Said Wynn:

“I marveled at the remarkable ability this man had to entertain.

“The Dalai Lama says, as an observation, if you experience enough of life you will come to the conclusion the only way to live a happy life is to make happiness for other people. I believe that to be true, and I can say with confidence that our friend Danny Gans had a most successful life.”

Danny Gans' son says family knew of no health problems

Danny Gans' wife and kids say they have no idea what killed the beloved Las Vegas entertainer at 52, and insist he had no serious health problems.

In what he billed as "the first interview granted by a family member since Danny Gans' death," (although a New York Times reporter interviewed Gans' children and even got their photo earlier this week), Las Vegas Review-Journal columnist Norm Clarke spoke to Gan's widow Julie and son Andrew after the memorial service at the Encore Theatre.

Said Andrew: "We knew he had high blood pressure but was taking something to control that, and he had to watch what he ate."

"So what about the reports that his father wasn't feeling well prior to his death and seemed to be sending signals to close friends that he was aware something was seriously wrong?

"'There are some bad...' he said, searching for the right word, 'rumors out there.'"

Thank the Las Vegas news media and its overly-respectful, hands-off approach. Gans' manager Chip Lightman and his close personal friend beauty queen-turned-TV entertainment reporter Alicia Jacobs told Norm last week that the musical impressionist had high blood pressure and family history of heart problems. On May 14th, in a teasing item that has not been followed up on or retracted, Norm wrote: "No one's willing to discuss it, but there's an insurance issue involving Danny Gans and his deal with Encore at Wynn Las Vegas that suggests Gans had concerns about his health."

Norm teased his upcoming interview yesterday afternoon in Twitter postings:

"Coming up: the first interview with Danny Gans family. I just left the reception in the Margaux room at Wynn Las Vegas..."

"In my exclusive interview with Danny Gans' son, Andrew, he's adamant: The family had no inkling of medical problems. Not once? 'Never!'"

"The story will be posted in a few minutes on http://www/normclarke.com. I saw him walking by himself & we chatted for more than 10 min."

"His sister, Amy, 21, was unbelievable during the memorial. She got her dad's humor genes. The family wore red and black, Danny's colors."

Norm also twittered that bronchitis kept Andre Agassi from speaking at the memorial and added in his column:

"At Gans' memorial: entertainers Donny and Marie Osmond, Siegfried Fischbacher, Rita Rudner, Criss Angel, Clint Holmes and Kelly Clinton, Earl Turner, Carrot Top, George Wallace, and The Scintas. Spotted at the reception held by the family in the Margaux room at Wynn: KVBC-TV, Channel 13 entertainment reporter Alicia Jacobs, former Gov. Bob Miller (Andrew Gans attended Bob Miller Middle School), entertainer Gerry McCambridge, and Mitch Fox, host and producer of Nevada Week in Review."

NY Times photo

3 pm: The curtain falls for Danny Gans



.

Gans memorial will go on with no answers about what caused his untimely death at 52; Vegas journos waste column inches questioning public invites

The memorial tribute to Danny Gans will go on at the Encore Theatre later this afternoon without most people having any idea of what caused the gifted musical impressionist to die suddenly at age 52. A spokeswoman for the Clark County Coroner's Office told TabloidBaby.com minutes ago that the results of toxicology reports on the late superstar are "still pending," and suggested that they won't be known until early next week, "after the holiday" at the earliest.

As a footnote we'd like to point out that our team members have spoken to several spokeswoman for the coroner in the past week or so, and to a person they have been more than professional: courteous, helpful and charming. This is not a fawning note-- they really do stand out.

What also stands out is the attitude of more than one Las Vegas columnist when it comes to the free tickets to today's Gans memorial that were handed out to members of the public. We were astounded yesterday when comp queen and Vegas writer Steve Friess (left) called the idea "strange," and referred to the ordinary folk who'd attend the tribute as "seatfillers" as if they were paid stand-ins who fill in empty seats at award shows to make the room look full. We saw it as smart and generous way to allow the common man to pay tribute to the Everyman superstar (limited seating, great demand, makes sense)-- especially after the panic over the public storming the gates at the event or his secret funeral.

Yet today, two Las Vegas print columnists also mock the idea. Richard Abowitz, who writes the Vegas blog for the Los Angeles Times and has maintained a noticeable hands-off policy with the Gans story ("I have tried to write as little as possible about Gans' passing. Right now the death investigation is awaiting a toxicology report and then we will know better if we are discussing a John Ritter or a Heath Ledger death or something else. Whatever the cause, the facts are that the father of three is dead and the show is closed. Those are the two facts that matter most in Vegas, and no future information will alter them.") posts today:

"I assume trying to cajole volunteers to come to the memorial at Encore is being done to create a full house for the cameras and media covering this tribute to Gans. 'Free Comp tickets are currently available for Danny Gans Memorial Thursday afternoon at Wynn,' the e-mails read. Has anyone ever heard of being comped to a memorial service before?"

Even Mike Weatherford of the Las Vegas Review-Journal took time to question the gesture:

"...It was quite a surprise to see one of the daily blasts offering a complimentary ticket to the Danny Gans memorial service today at Encore.

"Well, it's not a surprise in one sense. ShowTickets4Locals is co-owned by the late impressionist's manager, Chip Lightman. But it did raise questions of why they needed to 'paper' a service that had been characterized as an invitation-only gathering of family and friends?

"'It was not an effort to fill the house,' says Gans' publicist, Laura Herlovich. Rather, 'Danny was very active in a lot of community things,' and this was part of the outreach to include some 'regular' fans and locals in the memorial. Tickets also were given to firefighters and police officers, she said..."

These Vegas journos think differently than the rest of us beyond the desert. Of all the things to write about in the case of Danny Gans, this gets them to their word processors.

The Las Vegas Sun? John Katsilometes, who's backed way off from the Gans story since his Day One questions, jots off a quick column saying that today's memorial has got him listening to Paul McCartney and attending a family reunion.

Go figure.

Developing...

Locals play catch-up: Las Vegas newspaper slams Alicia Jacobs for her "reverse bias" in reporting the Danny Gans death case

"I've proven I have ethics,
that I'm a solid reporter
and have never misled viewers.
And I have integrity, which is everything.”

--Danny Gans' close friend, TV reporter Alicia Jacobs

Maybe we’re not crazy for covering the Danny Gans death mystery, after all. The day after the New York Times features the story at the top of its National section, the Las Vegas Review-Journal is starting to catch up. Eighteen days after we brought up the questionable relationship and conflicts of interest involving beauty queen-turned-reporter Alicia Jacobs, the Las Vegas Review-Journal newspaper has sicced a reporter to take a hard look at her questionable actions over the past few weeks.

In the column "Jacobs’ visibility triggers questions of perception," reporter Steve Bornfeld writes that “KVBC-TV, Channel 3 entertainment correspondent Alicia Jacobs has leapt from mere reporter to marquee attraction recently:

“In February, she toted a puppy to Danny Gans' Encore opening, a controversy climaxing when Bonnie Hunt dissed her on her daytime show. Then the Holly Madison Hoo-Ha… L'Affair Prejean… (and) finally, her closeness to Gans drew her into the story of his tragic death as family friend and source speculating on his health.”

Bornfeld quotes an ivory-tower Sig Gissler ethics type who criticize Jacobs’ spotlight-seeking tendencies, and himself mentions her “frequent bold-face mentions in Norm Clarke's R-J column.


Alicia Jacobs, we pointed out on May 3rd, was the first media figure to be informed of Gans’ death. Gans’ manager Chip Lightman phoned her at four a.m. (according to her and Lightman’s accounts), minutes after paramedics pronounced Gans dead in his home in a Las Vegas suburb. Jacobs spoke openly about her long friendship with Gans, but in the days and weeks to follow, began to orchestrate the coverage, generate the mythmaking. And in the case of her executive producer’s “husband,” was connected with an effort to stop this news organization’s investigation.

"There's a difference between
professional relationships
and personal friendships,
especially one as strongly and
publicly evident as Jacobs and Gans.
...It creates an appearance
of potential bias --
viewers/readers wondering if
a reporter-friend would conceal
unflattering or damaging information."

-- Las Vegas Review-Journal

Most disturbing was the fact that hours after she told Tabloid Baby in an exclusive interview that she had no idea what could have caused Gans' untimely death, she and Lightman went to columnist Norm Clarke to claim they knew he had high blood pressure and a family history of heart trouble.

Writes Bornfeld:

“Bias-in-reverse issues do likewise with Gans stories.

“'Don't I have a chance to do that story before I'm judged?’ Jacobs asks about any post-autopsy follow-ups. ‘Don't I deserve that opportunity?’

“Absolutely. But that misses the point. This isn't necessarily about the reality of the coverage by the end, but the skepticism viewers could bring going in.

“Reporters cultivate connections with sources that require a casual cordiality, but there's a difference between professional relationships and personal friendships, especially one as strongly and publicly evident as Jacobs and Gans. Many news outlets discourage it not because it's a guarantee of biased coverage, but because it creates an appearance of potential bias -- viewers/readers wondering if a reporter-friend would conceal unflattering or damaging information. What a shame to sow doubts over reporting that turns out perfectly balanced.

"'I've proven I have ethics, that I'm a solid reporter and have never misled viewers,’ Jacobs says. ‘And I have integrity, which is everything.’

“Jacobs' journalistic ethics and integrity are not questioned here. Her judgment is.”

Perhaps those among the Las Vegas media who called us “insane” or “crazy” for covering the Gans mystery while everyone else waits patiently—for weeks now— for a coroner’s toxicology report that will pass through many hands before reaching the public—will admit that maybe the Tabloid Baby team isn’t insane after all, but perhaps just quicker. Less lazy. With less concern for politesse. And fewer conflicts of interest.

Review-Journal editor Tom Mitchell blogged of his pride in the LVRJ coverage in the 48 hours following Gans’ death. He must have had second thoughts after seeing a comparison of his paper’s own scant bordering-on-coverup coverage with the work of hungry tabloid journos who know a great story when they see one.

Danny Gans memorial at 3 pm today

Friends, fans and firefighters will gather at Danny Gans' former showroom for his memorial service this afternoon. The 3 pm ceremony at the 1600-seat Encore Theatre will feature speakers including Steve Wynn, Donnie & Marie Osmond and mob lawyer-turned mayor Oscar Goodman.

Says Norm Clarke of The Las Vegas Review-Journal: "The celebrity vocal impressionist will be remembered for his grit that lifted him from a career-ending baseball injury to a 13-year headliner run as one of the top acts in Las Vegas."


The service had been announced as invitation-only, but as we reported exclusively yesterday, free tickets were distributed to ordinary Vegas folk through a ticket service (co-owned by Gans' manager, Chip Lightman).

Dans had begun a longterm engagement at the Encore three months before he died in his sleep on May 1st. He was 52. The coroner has still not announced why.

TabloidBaby,com will have a complete reporrt from the scene.

Las Vegas writer Steve Friess finds it "strange" that ordinary folk are being invited to Danny Gans' memorial

Steve Friess, the Las Vegas comp queen, Gay Vegas author and Vegas freelance writer to the world, has finally discovered something "strange" in the case of the death of Danny Gans-- and it's the fact that ordinary Las Vegans are being invited to Gans' memorial service.

We reported this morning that at least one Las Vegas ticket service was inviting Gans' neighbors to celebrate his life in the 3 p.m. show at the Encore Theatre, and we described it as a "nice gesture to Gans' hometown fans."

Friess, whose story in the Las Vegas Weekly a week after Gans' death opened with him and his "husband" in bed, wondering "who's going to care" about Gans' passing, copied our report on his blog this afternoon and referred to the regular folks as "seatfillers."

Seatfillers.

He writes:

"I find this a bit strange.

"Isn't that a little odd and awkward? I mean, is someone concerned about the room not looking quite full enough? It's a memorial -- in fact, it's been referred to in various media accounts as a 'private; memorial -- not a show or a popularity contest. They sent out all these invitations to friends, family, media folk, etc. It's nice that they're opening it up to the public, I suppose, but then they're not really. You have to have tickets..."

How out of touch is this guy?

Friess' concern with the unwashed mixing with the Vegas elite (treating them like people hired at an awards show to fill in empty seats to make the room seem full) seems bizarre in light of the fact that Friess insisted publicly that Gans' death was not worth of reportage because he was such a regular guy. His obsession with being part of the "in crowd," however, may explain his crusade to prevent this news organization from covering the Gans death mystery. His public tantrum, which included name-calling, an attempt to shut down this site, and as he admitted in an email, helping concoct false rumours connecting Wayne Newton and Mayor Oscar Goodman to Gans' death (see kvbcsecrets@yahoo.com and ask for Anony Mouse), was apparently connected to the fact that his "husband" is executive producer of Alicia Jacobs, the beauty queen-turned-TV reporter and longtime Gans chum who was the first journo to be notified of his death and has been a determined promoter of his legend ever since.


"Miles shook me awake last Friday at about 7:30 a.m.

“'I need you to wake up,' he said. 'You need to get up. Now.'

"I was confused. I’d told him I didn’t need to be up until 8. But he looked grave.

“'Danny Gans died in his sleep this morning,' he said.

"My bleary look gave way to a puzzled one. It was the only reaction to such strange and awful news. How does a 52-year-old health nut die in his sleep?

"Here are my first and second comments, in this order: 'Oh, that’s so sad.' Then, after a long pause: 'But I wonder who’s going to care.'

"Yes, that sounds cold. But I meant—and Miles got it immediately—who in the national media will recognize this passing as a significant story? That’s my job and to some extent my function in this community, to determine what of the local news rises to the level of broader significance and interest, and which publication is going to want me to document it..."

Friess, who had a story appear in the New York Times that day (it was about a plastic surgery convention) apparently paid the price for his ignorance about what makes a national story. The New York Times was one national news organization that wanted the story, and today the biggest story of his career was the subject of a New York Times feature by Dan Barry.

(Note: Steve Friess threatens us any time we use an actual picture of him,
so we have to improvise...)

UPDATE: Steve Friess sent us an email: "The NYT has cut back dramatically in all areas as it struggles to avert bankruptcy and is not taking any freelance for their arts coverage. I'm in fine stead with the sections of the Times I write for regularly and have several new assignments at this time. Thanks for your heartfelt concern."

Steve cut off our ability to reply to her emails so we'll reply here: "The New York Times story wasn't an 'arts' story but a news feature in the Times' National section. And if the Times is going bankrupt, it can thank freelancers like you who wouldn't know a story if it bit him on his big spanked ass!"

Twelve weeks? Still no word on the cause of Danny Gans' death; If the Coroner takes a year, will the Las Vegas news media simply wait?

With a little more than twenty four hours until the scheduled start of the invitation-only memorial service for Danny Gans at the Encore Theatre on the Las Vegas Strip, the Clark County Coroner's office still has no answers as to the question of what killed the clean-living, Born Again Christian and seemingly healthy musical impressionist in the early morning hours of May 1st.

"No, the toxicology report is still pending," said another very helpful spokeswoman at the office a few minutes ago. "It usually takes four to twelve weeks for any case to be processed."

"Twelve weeks?"

"That's right."

"Is there any rush on this particular case because of who he is... or was?"

"Not that I know of."

The mention of "twelve weeks" is the first time we've heard anything beyond four weeks when it comes to an answer in the disquieting death of this very unique entertainment figure.

It also raises another question: If it takes a year for the toxicology report to be completed and released, will the Las Vegas news media wait that long before covering the story?

The New York Times runs a condescending feature on Danny Gans and gets it wrong about "hyperventilating bloggers"

"...Although the Clark County Coroner’s Office
has yet to reveal the cause of death
of one Daniel Davies Gans,
hyperventilating bloggers continue to swap
dark speculations about depression, and on and on..."

The New York Times, which ran an obituary for the Las Vegas headliner Danny Gans after his death on May 1, runs with a feature story today on Gans' influence in Las Vegas, before and after his death.

The bippityboppity, bemused, finger-snapping Vegas riffing by writer Dan Barry begins with a wink to hipster New York Times readers by placing Danny Gans squarely in the square, C-level strata of show business losers--

"The dozens of framed photographs that once lined the backstage walls are stacked now on the floor. Danny Gans with Kevin Costner. Danny Gans with Sly Stallone. Danny Gans with Florence Henderson. Danny Gans with Morey Amsterdam. So many celebrities, all wearing that camera-ready grin... Danny Gans, a man famous for not being all that famous..."

--and carries on its condescending, smirking tone before touching on the reality of what his passing at age 52 means to the city and his loved ones:

"He also leaves his wife and three children; more than a dozen employees in need of work; a darkened casino theater in need of acts; and a surreal city struggling with the reality of a hit to its economy and psyche.

"It may seem strange that one man — an impressionist, of all people — could have such an impact, but you have to understand the loss in Vegas terms. This wasn’t just anybody who died; this was Danny Gans.

"The city fairly shouted his name, from massive billboards, from the tops of hundreds of taxis, from the lips of all those cabdrivers and casino workers he courted over the years. When visitors asked what’s a good show to see, 10-to-1 the cabbie would say, Danny Gans."

Dan Barry gets some of it wrong in Vegas's Man of Many Voice Falls Silent, spinning the false report that Danny Gans ended his last show with Bobby Darin's The Curtain Falls into something totally confusing ("Three weeks ago, Mr. Gans closed his show with his Apollo Theater tribute, which threw the band off a little because lately he had been ending by singing 'The Curtain Falls'..."), accepting as fact an apocryphal comment about nonexistent "hyperventilating bloggers swapping dark speculations about depression" (the only depression story was floated by Mike Weatherford of the Las Vegas Review Journal), and in the end, glossing over the most interesting facts of the story in order to gloat over the image of Danny Gans as a show business freak in a story that's more performance piece than thought piece:

"Mr. Gans was a show business anomaly, with no movie or television career to speak of and a long-ago one-man show on Broadway that lasted a week. Still, when he died he was grossing $18 million a year as a sure bet to lure people into the casinos that hired him, which is what it’s all about..."

"Danny Gans soon became more famous in death than in life, as a familiar local story went international: How he turned to entertainment after an injury ended his baseball career; how Las Vegas allowed him to stop traveling; how he was a devout Christian and family man who raised millions for local charities.

"But this is Las Vegas. Although the Clark County Coroner’s Office has yet to reveal the cause of death of one Daniel Davies Gans, hyperventilating bloggers continue to swap dark speculations about depression, and on and on..."

"(Chip) Lightman, Mr. Gans’s manager, cringes at all the gossip and hollow sentiment... These days the manager is trying to find jobs for the band members, the sound and lighting crew, the theater ushers and others who depended on one man for a living. He is also working on getting the book and DVD out, which would be a good thing, because in less than three weeks that once-ubiquitous name has all but disappeared from the Strip."

Tellingly, the Gans feature was not written by the Times Las Vegas stringer Steve Friess, who severely damaged his credibility by participating in spreading false rumours about Gans' death in his effort to stonewall the investigation by this news team.

Unfortunately, in his effort to be cooler-than-thou and paint Las Vegas as a mentally retarded cultural backwater and Danny Gans as a bizarre subcultural entity, the New York Times reporter who did cover the story obviously didn't move much farther than the Encore Hotel for his quotes and observations, and came no closer to explaining why Vegas' own news media has exhibited such a lack of curiosity about the tragedy.

Danny Gans memorial plans revealed

Speakers at the Danny Gans memorial service tomorrow afternoon will include Las Vegas celebrities, pols, leaders and stars (and, we'll bet, an evangelist or two), including mayor Oscar Goodman, Donny & Marie Osmond (whose Vegas show Gans produced) and Andre Agassi. That's according to Norm Clarke of the Las Vegas Review-Journal, who twitters the news he attributes to Danny Gans' longtime close personal friend, beauty queen-turned-TV entertainment reporter Alicia Jacobs. No one in Las Vegas is reporting on the details of the Strip superstar's life, death, the delays in the release of the coroner's toxicology report, or the controversies involving the insurance and Gans' deal with the Encore Theatre where the memorial will take place at 3 pm.

Though the 3 p.m. event is billed as by "invitation only," one Tabloid Baby source reports being "offered free tickets... via Show Tickets 4 Locals," a website that allows show producers "to give back and show their appreciation to locals in the form of free or discounted show tickets," and which is a nice gesture to Gans' hometown fans.