Movable Feast: Joan Rivers impersonator Frank Marino’s key to Vegas success: you’ve got to work it, baby

Before going on stage, six nights a week, dressed in drag as Joan Rivers, Frank Marino painstakingly applies his own makeup for an hour in his star dressing room. As producer of his own show, Marino keeps a chart on the dressing room wall he checks nightly giving the audience counts.

“It is color coded red or green to show if I went up on that day from last week.” Translating the chart, he says, “We currently average about 400 tickets a night. To be honest I would like to get that up to 600.”

Marino arrived in Las Vegas as an unknown in 1984 to star as the Joan Rivers impersonator in the drag show “La Cage” at the Riviera. “We were originally on a three-month contract and stayed almost 25 years.” Last year, after “La Cage” closed, Marino opened his own show, “Frank Marino’s Divas Las Vegas,” at Imperial Palace. Earlier this month, “Divas” had its 1-year anniversary and Marino his 25th in Vegas. Marino recently did some math on his Vegas years. “I’ve done 20,000 shows with we estimated 350,000 costume changes for me.”

He notes another ominous statistic: “In the one year since I opened ‘Divas,’ I count 24 shows that have opened and closed.”

These days, Vegas favors headliners minted elsewhere with guaranteed audiences, like Donny and Marie or Rita Rudner. Marino is a holdover from the older-model, famous-in-Vegas era that produced the late Danny Gans. That name recognition from his years at the Riviera is what he was banking on when he launched his show in the worst economy for entertainment Vegas has ever seen. “I earned enough in ‘La Cage’ that I did not have to work and it is a huge risk to do a new show in this economy,” he says. “But I feel like I am too young to retire and I have to do it now because people forget quickly.”

Marino, 46, who grew up on Long Island, started as a professional female impersonator in the ‘80s. But it wasn’t until a manager got involved that he settled on his Joan Rivers character. “My idol is Diana Ross. But I can’t sing. So I wanted a comedian. The two most famous female comedians at the time were Joan Rivers and Phyllis Diller; I guess I took the lesser of two evils.”

Asked about the key to his success, Marino is clear. “Marketing is everything. One day you are dealing with time shares. One day you are dealing with brokers. Today I met people connected to a Harrah’s promotion. Anyone who has anything to do with selling a ticket, you got to get them to know your show is the best.”

Marino’s competitor David Saxe, who produces shows at Planet Hollywood, says of Marino’s genius for selling tickets (priced $39 to $79): “His shows not only appeal to women, he knows how to get the ticket brokers to get them to drag their husbands along. He really pounds the pavement. He is really out there selling his show and he knows all the ticket brokers and concierges and they respect that.” Marino’s mother even stops by one same-day ticket venue at the Fashion Show Mall on the Strip to recommend that people see her son’s show.

Part of his knack for getting attention has been public feuds, including a long-running one with a local Barbra Streisand impersonator. “Some of my feuds have been sensationalized for marketing,” he admits. Marino learned the value of feuding from being sued by Joan Rivers early in his career. The case was quickly settled, and he later was on her television show. (These days Marino describes his relationship with Rivers as “great.” She delivered a salty tribute to Marino recently by video for his anniversary celebration.)

Though he thinks Rivers is hot again in 2010, Marino believes he has managed, after 25 years in Vegas, to transcend Rivers’ own career ups and downs. “It used to be if Joan was hot, then I was hot. Now, I am thought of as the person who has this big production called ‘Divas’ out there.”

The cast includes impersonators of Lady Gaga, Whitney Houston and Britney Spears. All perform complete with backup dancers, but only Marino uses his own voice. Like most Vegas performers, Marino wants his show to appeal to all of America. He emphasizes that a drag show is not a commentary on sexuality. “I am not making political points. I am not selling a lifestyle. I am selling a form of entertainment.”

Marino hopes to get even the most conservative of tourists into his show. “You would be surprised how when people are in Vegas they like to let their hair down.” And he does not think drag has become so acceptable over his quarter century on the Strip that presenting male performers as female singers has lost the shock value for his audiences. “Every night you can watch the surprise when some men in particular see how hot our cast looks. The reason we do so well is that people come to Vegas and you still can’t see a drag show in your hometown the way you can a singer or a comedian.”

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