Goulet outshines Copperfield

David don't you lose my number. I fear this whole tabloid feeding frenzy may drive you back to your own private island, just when we were having a laugh or two.

It's a telling contrast, having Robert Goulet's death and funeral fall during the period of leaks and gossip surrounding David Copperfield.

Goulet was universally liked and a high-profile guest at show openings. Whenever I was treated to his seemingly endless well of showbiz yarns -- often recounted with role-playing, nearly always with his wall-shaking laugh -- I'd walk away feeling as though I'd heard something special. It was almost disillusioning to find out, after he died, how many people felt the same way.

But Copperfield? Who's jumping to his defense during a federal investigation of sexual misconduct that has yet to yield charges? It's more the opposite; someone's feeding the sharks at TMZ backstage handbooks that may not reveal anything improper, but hardly refute the illusionist's longtime reputation as a control freak.

Copperfield's attorney, David Chesnoff, issued a statement denying the "Show Participation" document is a pick-up-chicks manual: "The distorted and twisted claim that these meet and greets were designed as a dating service for Mr. Copperfield is ridiculous."

So what if they were? Copperfield is single, so why begrudge him the rock star life? No one blinks when Las Vegas-based music journalist Lonn Friend writes in his book "Life on Planet Rock" of being the "groupie gatherer" for Mötley Crüe: taking backstage laminates into the audience and recruiting two girls to service other band members backstage during Tommy Lee's 20-minute drum solo.

Could it be the Copperfield documents are somehow more unsettling for their three pages of explicit, controlled detail? For example, "From time to time, boyfriends and husbands will give us a hard time and refuse to stay."

Copperfield has been one of the Strip's biggest draws since 1983. But unlike Siegfried & Roy, he's never been fully immersed in the community. Instead, he's the relentless workaholic, living an insulated life.

The illusionist always did his perfunctory interviews. But I only started hearing from him last year, when he really, really wanted me to take one of the midnight tours he conducts in his warehouse museum.

On the tour, it became obvious that while the 51-year-old illusionist marches to his own drum -- not having children and the routine joys of suburbia some would call mundane -- he has an undeniable passion for the history of his profession and the collection he has assembled.

But Goulet's funeral makes a person think about things. When it's all said and done, what's going to count more? The size of your magic collection? Or how many people are going to miss you?

Mike Weatherford's entertainment column appears Thursdays and Sundays. Contact him at 383-0288 or e-mail him at mweatherford@reviewjournal.com.