Nino Frediani

Juggler's World: You're back in the City Lites show at the Flamingo Hilton Hotel in Las Vegas now at least until August. Didn't you actually open this same show many years ago?

Nino Frediani: Yes. It's sentimental to me because I opened it in 1981. It was my first time in America and first time in Las Vegas. My dream for 20 years was to come to Las Vegas. The opportunity came out of the blue with a one-week contract, and I ended up staying for five years. I was the longest running specialty act in the show when I left in 1985.

JW: How did you end up in Las Vegas?

NF:AlI European acts have a dream about Las Vegas, though most of them won't admit it. Las Vegas is the Mecca of show business. I had offers to come to America for many years, but never made it because the money wasn't right or the show wasn't right.

Then in 1980 I was working on the island of Rhodes and Reagan got elected. The dollar shot up and the boss cut my pay. It was traumatic, and I ended up leaving. I went back to London and began looking for work. My agent in Los Angeles, Simone Finner, said she had the opportunity to send me to Las Vegas for six weeks, She asked me if I had a videotape and I sent it. But it was a French system and she erased it as she was previewing it!  She sent the tape to the entertainment director of the Flamingo and he called her back and said, "What's this, the invisible juggler? We open in ten days!" But on her recommendation he said he'd give me a one-week contract. The pay barely covered my airfare, but being a gambler I figured I didn't have anything to lose. So I got there the day before we opened. I was nervous and was dropping everything in rehearsal. On the second call I even knocked my prop table over. Nerves! The next day I did another rehearsal because the stage manager was getting very nervous because I was the opening act with this brand new City Lites revue. But everything was so rushed he forgot about me until two hours before the show, and by then he couldn't replace me. He came back in the dressing room and said, "Mr. Frediani, if you do OK I'll keep you the week. If you do good I'll give you six weeks. If you do bad I don't care if I have to go out there and do five minutes myself, you're out of the show! "Well, I went out there and brought the house down and did even better the second show. At 2:30 a.m. they gave me a year-long contract with $300 more a week!