Tony Sacca, with his singing clock, had the time of his life
Tony Sacca always had something going on. He relished new projects, whether it was his Las Vegas Rocks Cafe restaurant and showroom downtown at Neonopolis or his musical/comedy adventure through our city’s history, “Vegas the Story.”
Even his singing clock.
This souvenir was so very Sacca, the Las Vegas entertainer and TV host who died Monday night of a heart attack at age 65. It was no ordinary clock. It sang and kept time and represented Vegas in the shape of a roulette wheel.
Sacca began marketing the Las Vegas Rocks clock in 2006, after working through a few dozen prototypes. He dropped by my old office one morning with one of these clocks, signed No. 16 off the line.
“It sings my song,” he said, flipping the switch on the back to start the playing of the Sacca original, “Las Vegas Rocks!” The lyric: “Las Vegas rocks, all around the clock!” The timepiece could be set to play the song each hour, every few seconds or not at all.
When Sacca left that day, I locked the clock in a drawer and headed to an assignment. Soon a colleague called, saying “Your desk is singing.”
“Oh,” I said. “That’s Tony Sacca.” Security opened the desk and flipped the switch, but Sacca would hardly be silenced.
Sacca sang of the city at every chance, at the annual San Gennaro Feast and in his show at Bally’s, the 2 p.m. musical comedy Windows Showroom. Joining his brother Robert, a member of the Sacca Twins, Tony became well-known first at the lounge at the old MGM Grand (now Bally’s).
The brothers were also featured in the late-1980s when David Letterman brought “Late Night” to Bally’s in 1986. After his brother’s death in 1999, Sacca continued to host the TV shows “Entertainment Las Vegas Style” and “Classic Vegas Entertainment .” The shows always seemed trapped in a bygone era, but Sacca’s video library dating to the mid-1980s is loaded with star headliners.
Onstage, Sacca would sing any song; today a friend sent me a clip of Sacca performing “Disco Inferno” at this year’s San Gennaro. He loved being on the scene with his friends in the community, at show openings and at nightspots with open lounges and live entertainment.
One of his greatest challenges was opening the Las Vegas Rocks Cafe, a new showroom with a top-notch restaurant operated by Sacca’s devoted partner, Josette LeBlond, the woman known as “Chef Josette.”
But business at Neonopolis was soft, and Sacca closed the restaurant in January 2011 after just two months of operation.“I warned Tony to be careful,” Mayor Oscar Goodman said just after Sacca and LeBlond shut off the lights for the last time. “Neonopolis is the bane of my existence.”
Even Sacca admitted his regret at the time, saying, “The last time I talked to the mayor, he told me, ‘I told you so.’ “Everybody is saying, ‘I told you so.’ “
But Sacca’s tenacity — a word often used to describe the entertainer on and offstage — resurfaced with his “Vegas the Story” production. This show about Vegas history had a long history itself, dating back a dozen years, when Sacca produced the show under the title “Vegas the Show.”
Sound familiar? It’s the same title as the David Saxe production at Miracle Mile Shops at Planet Hollywood. Sacca threatened to take Saxe to court over the use of that name and told me just last month that he had received a “very impressive” check from Saxe to settle the dispute.
In the end, both shows co-existed as a recounting of the city’s entertainment past, and Sacca’s production had just been extended through the year at Bally’s.
A final, favorite memory: About a year ago, Sacca helped produce a charity event at the Italian American Club, one of his favorite haunts. It was an onstage chat with actor Chazz Palminteri for the club’s scholarship fundraising effort. Sacca was long a member and supporter of the club and had set up the sound for that event, and I was honored to join Palminteri onstage.
Midway through our chat, the microphone clipped to Palminteri’s jacket began to crackle. Sacca appeared, from somewhere in the wings, and pulled the mic free, unbuttoned the top two buttons on Palminteri’s shirt, then kissed the great actor on the cheek.
“I love you!” Sacca said before hastily departing.
Palminteri, his eyebrows arched, held the little microphone in his hand, and said, “What was that?”
I said the only thing I could think of: “That’s Tony!”
John Katsilometes’ column runs daily in the A section, and Fridays in Neon. He also hosts “Kats! On The Radio” Wednesdays at 8 p.m. on KUNV 91.5-FM and appears Wednesdays at 11 a.m. with Dayna Roselli on KTNV Channel 13. Contact him at jkatsilometes@reviewjournal.com. Follow @johnnykats on Twitter, @JohnnyKats1 on Instagram.