Makeup key to Liberace look-alike

A new Liberace tribute is taking "look-alike" to new extremes. "Everything but the eyes," Wayland Pickard says of his prosthetic makeup.

Granted, more than a few Elvis impersonators have visited the plastic surgeon, a fetishistic career move that eliminates any "actor playing a part" detachment.

Pickard stops short of that permanency in his "Liberace -- Music & Memories," running in the afternoon at the Saxe Theater in the Miracle Mile Shops at Planet Hollywood.

But he's sure dedicated, submitting to a three-hour makeup job that attaches 10 latex appliances to his face before every performance.

"It's more than a look-alike, I tell you. It's a dead-on ringer," Pickard says of the result.

The idea came from Pickard's manager, Randy Nolen, and Nolen's client Steve Bridges, who imitates George W. Bush on "The Tonight Show."

Bridges' income shot up when he jumped to full makeup impressions in appliances sculpted by Kevin Haney, a makeup artist whose extensive TV and movie credits include an Oscar for "Driving Miss Daisy."

Seven years ago, Nolen and his wife checked out Pickard in his own persona, and his wife proclaimed, "He's a modern-day Liberace."

A few days later, "it was like the clouds parted and this beam of light just hit me. With Kevin Haney's talents, we can turn Wayland into Liberace," Nolen recalls.

It's an expensive proposition, requiring a makeup technician and molded appliances that have to be thrown away after each show. But Nolen says it's worth it. "When he walks out onstage you can hear the audience gasp."

The show is licensed by the Liberace Foundation and shares ticket revenue in exchange for use of Liberace's name and likeness in advertising and archival footage in the shows. ...

The Tropicana's relaunched showroom continues to load up. Coming in mid-December is "Laser Rock," which choreographs lighting and special effects to recorded favorites.

There won't be a live band in the production at noon and 10:30 p.m.

Sounds like there's team-up potential of an epic, Reese's peanut butter cup scale if this one were to join forces with "Echoes of the '60s," a musically solid but visually drab effort at the rival Saxe Theater, reviewed in Friday's Neon. ...

Comedian Bobby Slayton says he is coming back to Hooters Hotel next year, celebrating the property's five-year anniversary by working Thursdays through Saturdays from Jan. 27 through April 3.

"The Pitbull of Comedy" had a good run at Hooters in 2007 and 2008, but didn't fare as well next door at the Tropicana in 2009. ...

Longtime Las Vegas jazzman Jimmy Mulidore and former Checkmate Sonny Charles are back for another session at Cafe Roma in Henderson at 7 p.m. Saturday. A weekly gig was fast becoming an old-Vegas gathering point last spring before previous management backed away from it.

Charles has been singing with the Steve Miller Band, but his chance to show off in front of a hometown crowd at the M Resort was canceled by a storm in May. ...

Comedian Louis Anderson receives The Showbiz Society's Louis Prima Award from Louis Prima Jr. on Saturday at the Las Vegas Rocks Cafe. Tickets to benefit the society start at $55 for the noon festivities. ...

Finally, the pendulum swings from one extreme to the other. Hand in hand with news that Garth Brooks tickets are going up by $110 at Wynn Las Vegas comes the superstar's decision to do nine arena concerts in Nashville next month for flood relief.

All tickets: $25 (plus $7.50 in service charges).

Has anyone in either city heard of tiered seating prices? The Wynn shows might have lessened a public-relations black eye by keeping a few upper balcony rows at the original $143 price.

And money flowing into the Community Foundation Tennessee Flood Relief could have been doubled/tripled/quadrupled if even a few sections of the Bridgestone Arena sold for triple-digit prices. People pay that for big acts such as U2 even without a tax deduction.

Contact reporter Mike Weatherford at mweatherford@ reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0288