"JUBILEE" LAS VEGAS
‘Jubilee!’ remains a titanic ode to Las Vegas entertainment!
When it opened in August 1981 at the old MGM Grand, there was nothing else like it.
Thirty-one years on, still, there is nothing else like it!
“Jubilee!” is Las Vegas’ own treasure chest filled with sequins, crystals and finely feathered costumes. The contents have hardly changed in the decades since the grand chest was flung open 31 years ago to a mouths-agape public that had never witnessed such a spectacle.
One hundred and twenty-six performers, tall, toothy and unwaveringly graceful, paraded across the stage. On opening night, “Jubilee!” was the largest show ever in Las Vegas. The showgirls, topless and tantalizing, stood high on heels while balancing headgear as large as birdcages and performed with seemingly painless precision.
Men were dropped into this big box, too, sporting blush-worthy, studded codpieces (where the term “suspicious package” has always carried a unique meaning) and bedazzled tuxedos.
But the men have always craned not to be overshadowed by the pure scope of it all.
The great showroom then was known as Ziegfeld Theater, and the show’s opening helped the MGM Grand return to form after the terrible fire at the hotel that claimed 85 lives just nine months earlier. In rehearsals at the time of the fire and nearly a year behind schedule, “Jubilee!” finally strode in to replace another showgirls-peppered show, “Hallelujah Hollywood,” which had closed after six years at the old MGM.
Six years for such a show seemed an eternity. “Jubilee!” at first was not viewed as a long-term hit production. It’s not that the show that billed its creator, Donn Arden, above its very title lacked legs.
“Opening night was incredible,” said current “Jubilee!” assistant company manager Diane Palm, a showgirl in the production’s original cast. “The line stretched all the way through the casino with people trying to get into the show.”
But nobody in that audience thought in terms of decades for a production where shameless grandiosity ruled the night. Asked if anyone felt “Jubilee!” might span 30 years and straddle two centuries, the show’s company manager and resident legend of dance Ffolliott “Fluff” LeCoque responded with the swift force of a high leg kick.
“Absolutely not,” said the 88-year-old LeCoque, who started as a dancer for Arden more than a half century ago. “We thought it would last six years at the most. “ ‘Hallelujah Hollywood’ lasted that long. Nobody thought ‘Jubilee!’ would be any different.”
Donn Arden's "JUBILEE"
Jubilee Theatre
Bally's Las Vegas USA
