A few years ago, I was gazing at the college football betting lines at Green Valley Ranch – and what better way to spend a lunch break? – when a guy walked up and stood next to me.
He looked familiar, but not in a celebrity sort of way. Then I placed the face: Anthony Zuiker. I cleverly remarked, “Anthony Zuiker?” It was just after CSI: Crime Scene Investigation debuted on CBS (impressively at No. 7 in the ratings), and a few weeks earlier we’d run an interview with Zuiker, the show’s creator and co-producer, in the Accent section of the Las Vegas Sun. As we looked over the weekend’s college football matchups (we both liked USC over Cal), Zuiker and I talked about a new show in the works, called “Las Vegas,” and I asked what Zuiker thought of a new prime-time network drama focusing on his hometown. “It’s a totally different ballgame,” he said, not appearing especially concerned. The shows reveal the difference between melodrama and crime drama, and both have survived, of course, but what has long set CSI apart is its famous depiction of minutiae, as Zuiker can extract a gripping moment from moistened Q-Tips pressed into Petri dishes.
Last night, Zuiker, just 39, was one of four Vegas figures – luminaries, if you will -- inducted into the Nevada Entertainer/Artist Hall of Fame during a ceremony at UNLV’s Artemus Ham Hall. Also honored were acclaimed dancer and Nevada Ballet Theatre co-founder Nancy Houssels, reliably tireless impressionist Rich Little, and architect Tom Schoeman, whose company, JMA, designed the understated World Market Center, among several other distinctive projects across Southern Nevada. The awards are named for legendary director and Renaissance man George Sidney, a charter member of the hall of fame in 2002. The crystal awards themselves are called “The Sidneys.”
Zuiker, a 1986 graduate of Chaparral High School who earned a degree in communications and philosophy from UNLV in 1990, broke down a couple of times when accepting his award. He recalled UNLV ethics professor Roosevelt Fitzgerald, who helped instill Zuiker’s attention to detail and innovative approach to his craft. “He said, ‘When you go to the library to check out a book, check out the one to the left of it, and check out the one to the right of it,” Zuiker recalled. “He used to smoked a lot of cigars. He said, ‘My doctor tells me I shouldn’t smoke cigars, so I smoke ’em a lot. He tells me I shouldn’t eat hot dogs, so I eat ’em a lot.” Zuiker seems eager to serve as the Professor Fitzgerald for the next wave of would-be TV (or, film) icons. Before last night’s program, during the VIP reception, Zuiker invited a dozen or so film students for a half-hour chat about his work.
Today, Zuiker’s CSI empire – which includes three prime-time shows, a board game and a new live interactive game for CSI New York – is $6 billion. For a guy who a decade ago earned $8 running a tram at the Mirage, it’s been an amazing ride.
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More from the hall of fame show:
* I wish there was a way to accurately depict the look on Houssels’ face when I asked her about awarding Paula Abdul with the most recent NBT Woman of the Year honor. A mix of angst, apoplexy and anguish? The three A’s of frustration. “She just kept floating around. We couldn’t keep track of her,” Houssels said, recalling Abdul’s daffy behavior at the Bellagio the night she was presented the award. “I think all the fame, everything, has gotten to her.” Oh yeah. NBT is giving its annual honor to a more fitting recipient this year: Broadway legend Twyla Tharp.
* Say this for Rich Little: He stays with what got him there. He performed impressions of many celebrities (some of whom are still living) and told a story about Cary Grant, in which Grant visited him backstage at the Sands and said that Little had the rare gift of making people laugh, and Little should feel grateful for that. During the story, Little did an impression of Grant that was spot-on, but unfortunately many in the audience can’t decipher a spot-on Grant from a spot-on Jimmy Stewart (another of Little’s impressions). But hey, Little does a lot of good work and is so congenial, it’s hard not to root for the guy. He was close with Sidney, too, who didn’t make a habit of surrounding himself with talentless performers.
* Regent Mark Alden, who will not run for re-election, said he would consider an appointment to remain on the board. He said the political nature of the board has turned the regents into “a bunch of micromanagers, where we should be visionaries, thinking about the future, not wondering whether a professor is teaching his class properly.”
* An unexpectedly brilliant moment was provided by the UNLV Marimba Ensemble, which banged out a soaring rendition of “Viva Las Vegas.” Book this crew for your next party.
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PL8 in my head: A blue PT Cruiser, the owner of which likely won this vehicle playing video poker (or, real poker), with the plate AKQJTN.
Fabulous Las Vegas appears at this Web site. John Katsilometes can be reached at 990-7720, 812-9812 or at [email protected]