Danny Gans: Now It Can Be Told

Here we go, folks. This should be fun.

With Danny Gans all ready to say buh-bye to MGM Mirage and head to Wynn/Encore, folks throughout the company are becoming more and more candid about what a fright show working with him and his manager, Chip Lightman, has been. Steve Wynn told me yesterday that he felt he'd gotten lucky to land Danny because MGM Mirage reopened negotiations on Gans' contract to extend it, a notion that elicited very loud laughter from many I spoke with over there.

The best tidbit I picked up yesterday from a key hotel source had to do with the unbelievably tacky manner in which Gans and Lightman barely waited for Roy Horn to emerge from surgery in October 2003 before they started bugging MGM Mirage brass to give Gans the larger Mirage marquee. It was shocking, even coming from Gans and Lightman, that it was only days after Roy was bitten by a tiger on-stage and the duo were aggressively seeking to enforce an unusual part of the Gans contract that indicated he would receive the larger marquee if the Siegfried & Roy act ever closed. Of course, nobody expected it to close in the manner in which it did.

I asked if that incident soured some in the company on Gans, whose career has hit a bizarre glass ceiling in Vegas. (Seriously, how is it that he's never had a sitcom? An HBO special? A guest role on "The Simpsons"? This lack of broader success has strained the Gans-Lightman link in the past.) The answer: "It really just confirmed for a lot of people what they already felt about Danny and Chip."

Apparently, there were some pretty intense negotiations that had to go on later to get Danny not to remain on the big marquee when the Cirque show "Love" came along.

All I can say is, thank GOD they weren't wrapping buildings in show ads back when Danny first negotiated that contract. It's one thing to stay in the room in Toni Braxton's crotch, but...