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"Clint Holmes Says Goodbye" by Robin Leach
I’ve known
Clint Holmes as a good friend since the early 80’s
when I hired him to do some special showbiz reporting for the
then young Entertainment Tonight daily show. Our paths have
crisscrossed ever since, thru Manhattan, Atlantic City, Monte
Carlo and now Vegas, which we’ve both called home in recent
years. He’s now 60, and has decided he’s got one last big
dream to achieve; he wants to bring the musical of his
extraordinary life story to Broadway. But, that’s a journey
that must begin first in London, where both he and I were
born. It’s a courageous gamble when you’re sitting pretty and
comfortable as a Vegas headliner in your own theater at a
major Strip hotel. But, as you are about to read in our
exclusive and candid interview -- just 4-days before the
curtain comes down Saturday, Sept 30 on his 6-year-run for the
last time -- his life has always been about closing chapters
and opening new ones!
Clint Holmes at the piano. Clint's last show
at Harrah's is this Saturday.
RL: Talk about the chapters in the life of Clint
Holmes. This is the closing of a chapter, the opening of a new
one, yet again, Talk about that and reflect on the 6 years in
Vegas.
CH: Growing up in alittle bitty town in up state New
York, I remember when I would watch television and I watched
the Mickey Mouse club and I would think that if I lived in
California I would be on that. I found that singing is what I
did. Maybe from me coming from a turbulent marriage and the
little town that we lived in, it was my only place to be. My
only point of identification was that I could sing and people
would smile and clap and like me. So I went to college as a
voice major and that was my first freedom. I got involved with
my first girlfriend and I then went into the Army and I am
just going through chapter. I was fortunate, this was the late
60’s, I heard about the Army music program and I played
trombone as well. I found out that if I enlisted for three
years I could be in the program where as, if I was drafted,
they would do with me what they wanted to. So, I enlisted to
play trombone. And the greatest miracle that was in my life
was that, while I was in the school of music, learning the
marches and stuff, I had mentioned to people that I would
really rather sing and they all said well, we don’t need
singers, we need trombone players. I would never hear that
again in my life. The captain of the school of music was being
promoted and his mother’s name was Alfie and so they came to
me and asked if I could sing this song, all about Alfie. I
said yes and I sang the song for his commencement. He cried,
his mother cried and then he promoted me three ranks the next
day and then kept me at the school of music and I started
singing and I would sing at all the functions.
RL: Not too many people came out of the Army and went
into show business.
CH: That is probably true, but there were a few singers
in that chorus one of them is with the Metropolitan Opera
Company with Richard Stillwell. Because the war was
Vietnam and nobody wanted to go over there, when they came in
the great singers went to the chorus.So that is why there were
really some great musicians that stayed out of Vietnam. So
that takes us to the 70’s and then I got out of the army and I
started working locally, and then Paradise Island in the
Bahamas, one night I was singing in the lounge and I did my
Johnny Mathis impression and a guy comes up to me and
said, you know I am Johnny Mathis’s record producer and he
said I have a song that I would like you to record. This is
1973 and I said fine, I took his card and when I left the
islands, I went back to Washingtonwhere I was living and I
went to New York and he played my this song that was like my
name is Michael…and I said well that’s cute and we recorded it
and Clive Davis the presidentof Epic Records/Sony heard
it and thought it was cute and wanted to put it out around
Christmas time and it became a regional hit by July of 74, it
was the number 2 song in the country. So, that was my calling
card. I began to work lounges and opening for Cosby and so
those were the two little miracles, singing in the lounge they
talk about that all the time, the breaks and they say when the
breaks happen you have to be prepared.
Yours truly and Clint Holmes.
RL: So that was the gypsy chapter of your life going
all around?
CH: Yeah all around. Then I lived in LA for a while in
the 80’s and traveled and traveled where we worked together in
Monte Carlo. Performing in the Joan Rivers stint as her
announcer for a couple of years, and then I got my own TV show
in 1991 in New York on UPN's WOR so I moved my family to New
Jersey and did that show, it lasted a year, we won an Emmy and
then the station was sold and the show was gone. That is when
I dove into comfortable shoes and wrote a play that was
produced twice once in the Paper Playhouse in New Jersey and
then again in Chicago a few years ago. In 1991 when the show
was cancelled, this is what is interesting. The show was well
received in the Paper Playhouse it was optioned to by Marty
Rivers and Sam Caruthers they loved it. We did a
workshop and the money fell through. It was 1997, I had taken
no work for a year to work on this play and I was taking no
work and in a few weeks the plan was that we were going
regional and then we were going to Broadway. Money fell
through and there I was. That is when Steve Wynn called
and invited me to come here. So, in 1999 I came to the
Golden Nugget for 8 months. Steve Wynn said "I will pay
you for 8 months even if we close the show in 2 weeks." So, I
cancelled whatever work I had and I came out here and the room
was built for Sinatra and there was no one making it work and
he felt that if anyone was going to make it work it would be
me, so he gave me that opportunity. I don’t know if we did
make it work but what did work was people saw me and it was
during that run that Tom Jenkins from
Harrah’s saw me and this became a six-year run that has
just been amazing. That has been another huge chapter of my
life.
RL: So what does six years mean for you in Vegas? I
always felt, knowing you as long as I have, that you came home
when you arrived in Vegas without really knowing it.
CH: Wow. That is a great way of putting it. I think I
know what you mean. All my life I looked up to the Sammy’s and
Frank Sinatra. For cabaret performers, Vegas is the
ultimate. So, yeah, coming here in a real way, not just as an
act opening up for somebody but coming here in a main position
performing in a showroom that they eventually named after me,
with the best band anyone could hope for was coming home. It
really was. I look at it as there is a next chapter and it is
time to do that but so many things have happened I am divorced
which I never thought would ever happen I was married for 36
years to a great woman. I had cancer, I have gotten to know so
many people so well and I have gotten to stand on the
shoulders of those that I admired all of my life.
RL: I am guessing that it must be bittersweet but how
does it feel to be relinquishing your theater to another
person, comedienne Rita Rudner who is your friend?
CH: Yeah I am giving it to Rita. It is bittersweet. And
it gets less sweet and more bitter every night. I’m joking. I
talked to her about it: She was extremely gracious. She said
to Harrah’s that she didn’t want to make an announcement until
Clint is ready to make an announcement. She didn’t want to say
I am coming to Harrah’s before I had a chance to say I am
leaving Harrah’s. I couldn’t relinquish it to a classier, more
talented person, so that part is great and that I am really
ready to move on to the next chapter. Those are the upsides.
The downsides are that this is the perfect situation for an
entertainer and you know as well as I do that theater Broadway
is incredibly risky and 95% of the shows that go there. Don’t
stay there. But it is a dream and I am 60 years old.
RL: So, has this musical been eating at you for over a
decade? Does that have to come out before you die?
CH: Actually this is a new piece and there are some
elements of “the ‘Comfy Shoes’ musical because part of it is
about my family, my mom, my dad, my life, but this piece
extends to being an entertainer and in the footsteps of the
people that I talk about. This was a town that until the 50’s
was racially divided. You know Sammy Davis could sell
out a nightclub, but couldn’t walk through the front door. It
was people like Sinatra that changed all of that. The working
title is Breathe. As in we all must breathe to live. (ED:
the show is now called 'Just Another Man'. ) The story
starts in London because it starts with my mom and my dad. As
you know my mom is British and that is where they met and that
is where I was born. Also because New York is run by one
newspaper with a lot of power. London, for someone starting
out in this business may be a more even playing field. I went
to London recently and I went to a lot of theater and
something about it just clicked to me. I mean I want to end up
in New York and I want my shot at Broadway because that is the
ultimate prize. The plan is that we are doing the workshop
here in Vegas in October and November, regional theater
somewhere out of the limelight. It won’t be New York, it won’t
be Chicago, it won’t be LA It could be Albuquerque,
Minneapolis also has a great theater, San Diego Salt Lake City
there is a lot and then London which we are very close to that
which we can talk about off camera if you’d like. So, that
will hopefully happen in the spring.
RL: So you are going to stay in Vegas?
CH: Yeah I live here. And I will do gigs and I play
Constitution Hall in Washington in December, which is
exciting. I have never done that. I have Atlantic City dates
and up in Connecticut too. You know I will do things like that
while I am working on the piece.
RL: You’ll go to London and then on to Broadway, but
eventually you come back to Vegas? We aren’t going to lose
you?
CH: Absolutely. Thank you for seeing it that way but I
would not want to lose Vegas forever, this is home. For a
nightclub entertainer it is the ultimate home. I would come
back here for the rest of my career, whether it be on a
continuing basis or whether it be 6 times a year we will see,
but I live here. Harrah's said right away we want to keep you
in the family so hopefully that will happen. I would open for
George Wallace anytime he asked. I love him.
RL: Let's highlight six years of Vegas. Obviously a
highpoint would be beating cancer, but professional nights.
What moments in this theater stick out?
CH: The night they named the theater after me, which
was very special. The Governor was here and a lot of friends
flew in all over the country. It was an amazing night to come
up the escalator and see the Clint Holmes Theater. When you
asked me that the first thing that popped intomy head was the
night that Hal Prince came to the show while he was
getting 'Phantom of the Opera' ready. I am a theater buff and
his 'Westside Story' is probably my all time favorite, He has
more Tony Awards than anybody else. When we found out that he
was coming and he actually did come was that because everyone
had told him that the one show he has to see when he comes was
my show not knowing what to expect. Afterwards he came
downstairs and he hugged me and he said that is probably the
greatest evening I have ever spent in a nightclub. We did our
Westside story piece and he said you absolutely killed me with
the Westside Story piece. It was the only show that he saw in
town. He said he would be my ally while I am working on the
Broadway piece. That was a magic night. Those two nights stick
out and the night when Sammy Davis came in and gave me the
Sammy Davis Jr. Foundation award carrying on the Legacy and
that was obviously a very specials night. And the night when
Jenna Jameson came and sat in the third row and the
entire band was in rapture!
LEFT: Clint and I demonstrate our secret
handshake. RIGHT: Clint in his trademark white suit.
RL: So what do you think in these final days? Four
nights to go! On Saturday night do you think there will be
tears?
CH: I was talking to Larry Moss, the director of
my play about it, and it's funny because I know there will be
a lot of friends here and a lot of people who have sent he
show many times, my first instinct was to go out and make the
show somehow a little different. And he said you know I think
that is the wrong approach I think what people really want to
see is the show. They have heard a lot of the jokes before but
I think they will be thinking that this is the last time we
are going to be seeing this show. And I think that is good
advice so that is what I plan to do. But I know that they are
going to do a presentation and I know that I am going to say
something to my band and to the people that I have worked with
for 6.5 years. I don’t expect to be an emotional wreck but I
do expect to be emotional because that is how it is.
RL: When I was driving here I was thinking about how I
was gong to structure this interview and I thought about your
life by chapters, but next Saturday night is a real close of
an almost final chapter?
CH: It is and if I were a fearful or a smart person I
wouldn’t be doing it this way. There is a certain freedom in
my life now that I want to enjoy. I mean my kids are grown and
I am single and there is that responsibility to my family
including Brenda, and I am healthy but I can go out there and
do everything that I have ever done. I don’t know where I will
be in 5 years, but I don’t want to look back when I am 70 and
say I wish. I know I could fall on my butt, I could say in 6
months from now that I never got it off of the ground. And if
so then I will pick the pieces up and come back and work or do
whatever I have to do. So it doesn’t scare me, but I have been
very fortunate for over 6 years and I have had the checks
cleared every single week. So I am going back out into a world
that is not as clear-cut comfortable or with as nicer people
as here. But I’ve always been a person about change and so
this is exciting. If I had to weigh it I would say it is 80%
exciting and 20% very scary.
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