Vegas Veteran

Steve Lawrence remembers the night he tried to keep up with Frank Sinatra.

"I got so smashed," he recalls, chuckling. "I was trying to match him drink for drink, and I was into the crib. He said to one of his guys, 'You'd better take the kid home. I don't think he's with us anymore.' "

But this weekend at The Orleans?

He's with us.

At 73, Lawrence inherits the mixed honor of being one of the last Las Vegans to run with the Rat Pack. For years, younger generations have sought out Lawrence and singing spouse, Eydie Gorme, for that old-Vegas authenticity Michael Buble can't hope to duplicate.

In rare moments of nostalgia, casino executives agreed. They called upon the duo to close the old Caesars Palace showroom in 2000 and the Stardust in 2006.

"I wish everybody I knew and loved felt as well as I do at this point," Lawrence says. "I really am in good shape, I feel good. Take a little Centrum Silver and Scotch. I guess that's keeping me together."

The down side is that it's getting lonelier to be a Las Vegas legend. Lawrence was a pall bearer at his friend Robert Goulet's funeral last October. And he's going solo this weekend for two not-so-great reasons: Casino officials asked him to fill dates left vacant by the death of George Carlin, and his wife isn't feeling up to their usual show together.

Gorme, who turns 77 on Saturday, never healed correctly after surgery for torn cartilage in her knee, and she may be facing surgery again. Add some other ongoing health concerns, and "she wants to examine all her options." But, he adds, "She's a strong girl though. She's going to be OK."

Seeing the (Scotch?) glass as half full means Lawrence will be more in a musical spotlight, after years of Steve & Eydie shows in which the comic banter weighed right up there with the singing.

"I don't think he's ever received the accolades he deserves as a singer," says veteran musical director Vincent Falcone, who will conduct the 27-piece orchestra this weekend. "The fact that he's always been the Steve of Steve and Eydie, I don't think he's ever gotten the attention he deserves.

"His vocal acuity hasn't diminished at all as he's gotten older," Falcone adds. "His voice in my view is as good as it's ever been, if not better. And of course, his maturity and understanding is unchallenged and unmatched by anybody else."

Lawrence still is trying to steer to completion a big-band swing album he and longtime arranger Marion Evans have been working on for two years. And he will appear in Tuesday's episode of the A&E drama "The Cleaner," playing "a guy who hangs around a racetrack," he says of the show scored by his composer son David. "Ideally, I'd love to do a recurring role on any dramatic kind of show."

He doesn't know whether this weekend's shows will turn out to be one of a kind, or a new career turn. But either way, it offers the chance to do songs he hasn't tried on in a while.

The set list won't go back to "The Banana Boat Song" or "Party Doll," songs that a 21-year-old Lawrence (born Sidney Leibowitz) charted in 1957, only three years after the original "Tonight!" show with Steve Allen became a national forum for the regularly featured singer.

But Lawrence will offer new takes on his 1961 hit "Portrait of My Love" and 1963's "Go Away Little Girl." Both songs were released during a prolific stretch when he and Gorme -- who married in Las Vegas in late 1957 -- were releasing albums and singles separately and together.

"I know I'm going to do one of (Eydie's) songs as a tribute to her," he says. "I also have a bunch of things that Frank laid on me that I think I want to do as a tribute to him."

Both the shows and the eventual album may reclaim some hits that got away. Any veteran singer has war stories about songs that either were shelved or released without fanfare, only to have them become hits in the hands of others. For Lawrence, they include Gladys Knight's "Best Thing That Ever Happened to Me" and Barbra Streisand's "My Heart Belongs To Me."

"I guess things happen the way they're supposed to happen whether you like it or not," he says. "That applies, I think, to everything in life. ... I think things happen, for some dumb reason we don't understand, the way they're supposed to happen.

"Overall, I've had ups and downs, but the ups outnumber the downs."

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