"At the heart of Wayne's mesmeric mastery over his audience is the notion of Suspending the Rules," Rosenbaum writes. Rosenbaum has analyzed the element that contributes to Newton's domination of the nightclub stage. clipped off his ducktail and pompadour and laid in a flamboyant new wardrobe." He also settled into the Las Vegas showrooms like no one had ever done before, selling out night after night and eventually earning one million dollars per month.Īlthough Newton denies that he is dependent upon Las Vegas for his fame, the fact remains that town and performer are inextricably entwined. Having already sweated off his baby fat, he scaled his voice down to a plausible tenor. With Jerry gone, Wayne was his own man at last and anxious to prove it.
#WAYNE NEWTON PROFESSIONAL#
"For Wayne," writes Windeler, "the split with his brother was a kind of watershed, a declaration of professional independence that coincided with a hard-won sense of personal freedom. Second, he became a favorite of the aging Howard Hughes, who saw to it that Newton always had the best Las Vegas bookings. First, he disbanded his partnership with his brother and began to perform solo. Two factors helped to change Newton's image from that of a pleasant teen to that of a stage idol. Both "Danke Schoen" and his other big single, "Red Roses for a Blue Lady," were performed in "an eerie, post-pubescent soprano," to quote Windeler, marking Newton as an adolescent singer even after he reached twenty-one. Newton scored a million-selling hit with "Danke Schoen" and propelled that success into top bookings in New York and Las Vegas. While they were performing at the prestigious Copacabana Lounge in New York City, the Newtons met Bobby Darin, who offered to produce some records with Wayne. The brothers realized that lounge singing could become a dead-end street, so in 1963 they took their show on the road, opening for Sophie Tucker and Jayne Mansfield. They abandoned their Spartan digs in a fleabag motel for an apartment, then a house." In the lounge, however, the Newtons were an instant hit. According to Windeler, "Wayne was too young to go through the Fremont's front door, much less into the casino. Newton had his own radio show in Phoenix as a teenager, and at sixteen he dropped out of high school to perform in lounges with his older brother. His parents thought the desert climate would help his bronchial asthma, and they were proven correct. When Newton was ten, his family moved again, this time to Phoenix, Arizona. Sometimes alone and sometimes with his brother Jerry, Newton performed on the local radio stations, quickly becoming a minor celebrity. "By the time I was 6 I knew exactly what I wanted to do with my life," Newton told People. There, in the town of Roanoke, he began a singing career at the age of five. When Newton was still young his family moved to the Shenandoah Valley, just west of Norfolk. Both of his parents were half American Indian-his father Powhatan, his mother Cherokee. Wayne Newton was born in 1942 in the Virginia seaport town of Norfolk. His mellow blend of pop, rhythm-and-blues, country and rock wins no fewer than five ovations each night from the predominantly middle-aged, Middle American audience." Esquire contributor Ron Rosenbaum observes that Newton "has built an entertainment empire out of what was once a lounge act, transformed himself into a Tom Jones-type sex symbol, become the highest-grossing entertainer in Las Vegas history" because he "has somehow captured and concentrated, become an emblem of, the essence of Vegasness." cultivated a silky baritone and outfitted himself in sequined cowboy suits-an image that has earned him the Las Vegas billing of 'The Midnight Idol.'. "Nostalgia fans remember Newton as a pudgy, baby-faced, adenoidal tenor with three big hits: 'Heart,' 'Danke Schoen,' and 'Red Roses for a Blue Lady,'" notes Betsy Carter in Newsweek. His popularity in the nightclub setting is unprecedented not even Johnny Carson or Frank Sinatra can command the high fees and lengthy engagement contracts that have become commonplace for him. Newton has graced the stages of Las Vegas resort casinos for more than twenty years, performing two high-energy shows per night, seven nights a week, as many as forty weeks per year. "Pound for pound, day for day, Wayne Newton is the highest-paid cabaret entertainer ever," writes Robert Windeler in People magazine. Addresses: Office- Flying Eagle, Inc., 3180 S. son of Patrick (an automobile mechanic) and Evelyn (Smith) Newton married Elaine Okamura (a flight attendant), 1966 children: Erin.
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