Confirmed: Bette Midler & Cher to replace Celine in Vegas

[William2005]

Like both but Cher will definitely be able to draw in more crowds than Bette.

[tonybower]

The return of CHER! I can't wait!

Was sad to have missed her most recent final tour.

Hope I can get to see both shows. Does anybody know how long they have signed for?

More than a year I hope, otherwise I don't stand a chance!

[CSCfan]

Bette 2 years....don't know about Cher (probably the same with an option for more)..

[LasVegasCanadian]

Bette has signed for 2 years, not sure about Cher. I agree that Cher can probably do very well here! I am looking forward to seeing her as I never have.

Aline

[peo]

Wow! so Cher will do her concert at the Colosseum after all.

[LasVegasCanadian]

They will be announcing her Feb 7(Thursday). If I wasn't working I would have loved to go down to see the press conference.

[JP]

For sure, Cher will do a better show than Bette for that kind of place.

[CelineAndRene]

Nobody will bring in more than Celine, but i like Cher, so i'm glad it's her and Bette.

[LasVegasCanadian]

So far, Cher is scheduled to start May 6.

I first worked at the Celine Boutique in 2006 and heard then that it would be Bette and Cher. Negotiations must be something to behold!!

[SarahJB5]

No matter who performs there, it just won't be the same without Celine! Maybe one day she'll be back, lol!

[Edwin]

So when are we going to see Cher, Davey?

[celinerific]

It'll never be the same... ever again.

 

 

[CelineFanInSoCal]

I can imagine both of them doing wonderful shows! Is Elton still there? I see Cher's show being a spectacle and Bette's being campy/musical-esque/comedy show.

 

I can also imagine both of them paying kudos to Celine during their opening nights. Our girl has set the bar for Vegas head-lining performances now.

[bruno_oliveira]

faster than perez ahhahaha

[dj_Tom]

the Colosseum is Céline and Céline is the Colosseum.

Céline changed Las Vegas.

 

I prefer Cher but it will never be the same. Nobody will make that Céline has built there.

[tal-sh2]

How much time will Bette and Cher perform there?

I just doubt they will have sold-out shows for 2 months each.

[nature boy]

It won't be the same that's for sure but both will do very well I'm certain. They will be doing very different shows.

 

Remember guys everyone said Celine wouldn't be able to sell out.

[Davey84]

So when are we going to see Cher, Davey?

 

Sing to me like Cher

Sing to me of Las Vegas

Take me to your Ceasar's Show

And make it rain

 

Taxi, taxi, give me a ride

I'm gonna take you to the other side

Taxi, taxi, turn off your light

I'm gonna ride with you all night

 

:dance:

 

I think Cher will beat Bette and John! Cher = Las Vegas! PLUS she already had her vegas show with Bono in the 70ies!

[CSCfan]

 

Divine Miss Midler becomes sassy Vegas 'Showgirl'

 

http://i.usatoday.net/life/_photos/2008/02/07/midlerx.jpg

All keyed up: Bette Midler added a grand piano to her Caesars Palace dressing room, which used to be Celine Dion's. Midler's two-year run starts Feb. 20.

 

LAS VEGAS — A New Day is over. Make way for The Showgirl.

One level beneath the Colosseum theater at Caesars Palace, a five-room, two-bath dressing room is undergoing a renovation — evidenced by an open book of fabric swatches left in a hallway. The previous tenant, Celine Dion, moved out Dec. 15. And the new resident is the divine Miss Bette Midler, who wasted no time putting her own touches on the subterranean suite.

 

In place of Dion's dining room table is a Steinway used by Frank Sinatra during his 1970s Caesars appearances — rescued after many years of gathering dust in storage. Among other new additions: several plates featuring images of showgirls in various states of dress hand-painted by a family friend.

 

After wrapping a two-year Kiss My Brass world tour in Australia in 2005, this is where Midler will get herself gussied up five nights a week for the next two years, performing her over-the-top, 90-minute The Showgirl Must Go On. It follows the nearly five-year run of Dion's A New Day.

 

Curled up on a living room sofa, Midler recalls Dion telling her, " 'It's a great gig, but there are pitfalls.' And thank God she told me, 'cause I was a babe in the woods."

 

Midler had heard frightening tales of the desert's dry heat causing a dreaded condition known as "Las Vegas throat," so she has carefully heeded Dion's advice before relocating from New York City. "She gave me all her doctors' (phone numbers)," says Midler. "She said, 'Don't talk during the day,' and told me, 'Beware of the wind.' She had humidification built under the stage and into this dressing room. She cranked it. It was like the Amazon in here, and I intend to keep it the same."

 

Multiple thermostats and a vaporizer tucked in a corner are some of the aids that will help this 62-year-old showgirl go on night after night.

 

"We've got vaporizers everywhere," she concedes.

 

There were other concerns: "I was afraid of where I was going to go to run around. I was afraid of the heat. But this is the gig," she fearlessly proclaims. "I'm going to do it, and it's going to be great!"

 

Renovations are also taking place above in the 4,100-seat auditorium. The 120-foot stage will feature a new sound system and lighting, and Dion's stage-wide video wall will be reprogrammed to display different images. "Either you hide that sucker or you program it, so we have had to program it," Midler explains. "Every five minutes it's a new film, and we got some good ones."

 

Among the faces who will be in the audience at her Feb. 20 debut are Midler's husband of 23 years, artist Martin von Haselberg, and their 21-year-old daughter, Sophie, who (to her mother's great relief) has zero interest in showbiz. Currently completing a major in sociology and a minor in Asian studies, Sophie speaks fluent Chinese and plans to work in China after she graduates later this year. The family came together in China last year for Sophie's birthday.

 

Before this stint, the longest Midler had ever spent in Sin City was a one-week gig in the '80s alongside Johnny Carson, but she has been able to put her "reservations" aside and is hopeful that she will eventually grow to feel at home.

 

While Dion had a compound built for her far away from The Strip, Midler is, for the time being, without a permanent Nevada address. "I'm just sort of floating around," she says, vaguely explaining she's staying somewhere "in the area" — which suits her just fine. "Celine lived really far away, and I don't like to drive for 45 minutes because I'm an environmentalist who likes to take the shortest route possible."

 

After the show's up and running, she'll look for more permanent digs. Her husband will rent a studio to work on his painting, having moved on from the photography and performance art of his earlier years.

 

With no interest in gambling, Midler says her dream routine will involve sleeping in, eating a small meal, taking a run on her treadmill and warming up her vocal cords for rehearsals and evening performances.

 

When time permits, she will socialize with local friends, including boxing promoter Bob Arum and his wife, Lovee; Elton John, who is still performing his Red Piano gig at Caesars; "and I know that Cher Bono is coming," she says with a bit of excitement.

 

Longtime pal Barry Manilow is also in town regularly to perform at the Las Vegas Hilton. "Barry says this is the best gig he ever had in his life — he loves it!" she says. And "Elton has told me that he loves it. He likes the idea that it's only 10 weeks a year and he's free to do other gigs."

 

Aside from punch-up comic Bruce Vilanch, longtime set decorator Bob DeMora, a few men in her horn section and her security detail, Midler's posse is one big girl's club. In addition to her main backup dancers, the Harlettes (who feel at home lounging in her living room as they are this afternoon), Midler has employed musical director Bette Sussman and Toni Basil (yes, that Toni Basil, of Hey Mickey MTV fame) as choreographer of 20 female dancers.

 

Being part of the Midler sorority, says Sussman, is "loads of fun, but a lot of work."

 

"Hell's-a-poppin'," concurs Basil, who has worked with Midler since the mid-'70s. "With the kind of shows we put on, work is work. The laughing and fun comes later over dinner or out shopping."

 

Basil will be raising Midler above the stage via motorized platforms, while Sussman has incorporated such Midler standards as Wind Beneath My Wings, From a Distance, Do You Want to Dance and Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy, but — shockingly —The Rose may need to be cut for time to make way for such new songs as the big opening number, The Showgirl Must Go On, and one that is Midler's comedic take on Sophie Tucker.

 

Midler is committed to creating what she calls "a really feminine show — feminine dancing, feminine costumes. I want it to be beautiful and call up another era."

 

Before she was clued in that nudes are "not encouraged" at mainstream casinos like Caesars, Midler had planned to feature bare-naked ladies — though, good heavens, not her own: "Who wants to see me nude?" she cracks. "The word I got is that they're not happy to have the French kind of nude — nude all the way down to the ground, which I personally find beautiful. They'll go for pasties and G-strings," of which there will be plenty, she assures.

 

Midler also will revive her repertoire of loony ladies. Among the colorful characters she will embody: Delores Delago, the wheelchair-using mermaid (Basil will fill the stage with mermaids in chairs for what she calls an "extravaganza"); and old, old Soph, the oldest living Vegas showgirl. It is a character to which Midler can now sadly relate. "I tell ya, I'm hanging on by a thread," she says with a sigh.

 

Bull, counters Basil: "She's probably doing more physicality than she has ever done. People think, 'At her age, she can't be running across the stage as much as she did 10 years ago.' But let me tell you, she is!"

 

Midler likes to credit her hair and makeup team (as well as flattering lighting) for her youthful appearance, but there is ample evidence to her own contributions. On her lunch plate are berries and fruit slices — accounting for her trim shape in tight-fitting jeans. She has long avoided the harmful rays of the sun and for several years has studied tai chi, a martial art she picked up from her husband.

 

"It really is very rejuvenating and gets the blood going," she says. "It's gentle pushing and pulling, very good for the knees."

 

Midler will be 65 when her run concludes in 2010, and she says that unlike Dion, who extended her run by almost two years, she plans to get out upon the completion of her contract.

 

"I'm much older than Celine is," Midler says of her predecessor, 39. "Physically I'm in good shape right now, but I can't tell what's going to happen to me. Life doesn't go on forever. You have to ask yourself, 'How many summers and winters do I have?' and I really don't want to die on stage. When you're done, you're done. I just want to go in my sleep. I have sleep apnea, so I kind of know what that's like. I wake up screaming a lot."

 

No one will name a specific dollar figure, but Sussman notes that the two-year run will give Midler "freedom for the rest of her life."

 

With Manilow, at 64, Cher, 61, and John, 60, Midler is part of a community of older performers exploiting the pool of tourists and high-rollers in this neon desert. Midler says she feels as energetic as she was 10 years ago — crediting good genes from a long line of family members who "are speedy and don't shrink."

 

Does that suggest she has no need for plastic surgery?

 

"What are you trying to get me to say?" she shrewdly shoots back, raising an inquisitive brow that actually moves. Up close, Midler's skin appears flawless with no signs of the stretching other divas her age have obviously undergone.

 

After a reassuring chuckle, Midler asks, "Why would you want to do that to your body? You only have one body, and if you beat the crap out of it, what are you going to have left? You might have a nice shell, but then you have these organs inside screaming, 'My days are numbered!' "

 

Then with a shrug, she adds: "Although I'm sure when I die, I'll collapse into a heap and be unrecognizable. I'll melt and there will no longer be a Bette Midler. And I'm sure a lot of people will be really happy about that."

[

USAtoday]

[Bellamy]

That's Celine's dressing room.

 

[Davey84]

No anymooooooooooooooooooooooooore I don't really care! I'm glad she went out of Las Vegas! If she went for another 4,5 years, she could have end up like a caricature of herself... like Elvis

 

http://img.perezhilton.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/02/perezhilton__oPt.jpg

Exciting news, diva lovers!

 

The rumors are true.

 

She's back from retirement!

 

Putting speculation to rest, PerezHilton.com has exclusively learned that Caesars Palace in Las Vegas is going to announce on Thursday their hundred million dollar plus deal with the one and only Cher.

 

The international icon has entered into a very lucrative agreement with the hotel for a series of over 200 shows, which will run over the course of the next three years in their 4300 seat Colosseum.

 

Her first show will be on May 6th. Yay!

 

Cher will be speaking with Good Morning America and Nightline on Thursday.

 

An insider tells us, "Cher reveals that she juggled three different boyfriends last summer, has spent a lots of time quietly visiting wounded soldiers at different hospitals around the world, doesn't have

words to express her hatred for George Bush, passionately endorses Hillary Clinton and most importantly is reuniting with the great Bob Mackie on the costumes for her Las Vegas run."

 

Her rep refused to comment on any of the above except to confirm that she too heard that sequins have officially been added to the endangered species list.

 

Viva the gypsies, tramps and thieves! We know where Perez is gonna be on May 6th!

 

Doesn't she looks younger every year?? But I do lurve her! This could be a reason for me to fly to Vegas all over again!

Edited February 7, 2008 at 08:53 AM by Davey84

[anewdayhascome]

i am really sad looking at Bette in Celine's rooms:(

[rathnakumar]

Céline's Dressing room was soooo cute!

[pol]

Do you think Celine will be eager to attend Cher or Bette show?? Maybe she'll find some free time while on her tour...

[nature boy]

Good for them I wish them all the luck. Although nothing in my eyes will top A New Day... I bet both shows will be great.

[Cambroneroj]

This is soo weird!!! i want to see the shows but i miss Celine being there.

 

I wonder how Celine feels to see all of her things being removed , i would feel like someone coming into my home and moving my furniture out and changed things around ewww weird.

[Viva las Vegas]

I can't wait to be back in Vegas to see Cher and Bette!!!

 

Here's the logo of Cher's show:

http://cher.aeglive.com/images/gwHeader.jpg

 

More information can be found on her new official website or AEG's site for the show

[CSCfan]

It's sad....so sad....it's a sad sad situation.... :(

[Love,]

All they need now is Tina, and the four of them, including Cher, Bette, and Elton can be the Dreamgirls of Vegas!

 

 

:w00t:

 

[LVCeline]

I'm glad we finally got confirmation that Cher is going to be at Caesar's! I saw her Farewell Tour at the MGM Grand, and the entire time I was there I wished I was at Caesar's seeing Celine. I mean it was a very visual show, but not my thing. I will definitely still see her and Bette and the Colliseum though, I'm sure they'll both put on a great show! I'm very curious to see the new stage setup!