Luxe Life Blog

Once banned from MGM, Jeff Beacher heads to ‘Crazy Horse Paris’ theater?

Posted September 16, 2012 • 10:33 p.m.

Paris Hilton and boyfriend Benji Madden were ringside with showman Jeff Beacher and casino exec Robert Earl on July 8, 2008.

Photo: Tom Donoghue/DonoghuePhotography.com

Ringmaster Jeff Beacher has been in discussions to return his wild, wicked and wanton “Beacher’s Madhouse” to Las Vegas, and reliable showbiz sources here tell me it’s likely that the negotiations will conclude successfully for him to take over the about-to-close “Crazy Horse Paris” burlesque theater at MGM Grand.

Ironically, the producer was banned from MGM Grand the day he arrived in Las Vegas -- Dec. 11, 2003 -- and pulled off a publicity stunt during a Billboard Music Awards weekend by stripping down to his Speedo and diving his 260-pound body into the 10,000-gallon fish tank at MGM Grand’s Rainforest Cafe.

Since then, he has gone on to rack up “Madhouse” appearances in 81 cities in the U.S. including New York, Chicago and Atlantic City, selling more than five million tickets, with a long run at the Hard Rock Hotel here and the continuing twice-weekly run for five years in LA.

“Beacher’s Madhouse” is packed with the sex appeal of the bountiful Beacher’s babes and has attracted celebrities galore in Las Vegas and L.A., with actor David Arquette becoming a partner in the Hollywood production. (They split up after three months when the club moved downstairs into the Roosevelt Hotel on Hollywood Boulevard.)

Everybody from Paris and Nicky Hilton to Jack and Kelly Osbourne and Jon Bon Jovi have been attendees cheering on the insane acts, among them Leonid the Magnificent, a 6-foot-7 Russian circus performer in high platform boots stripped down to silver sparkling briefs to juggle 50 Hula hoops and balance a sword on a knife in his mouth!

Another man balances an oven on his chin, and a woman lays in a bed of broken light bulbs eating them for dinner. It is always crazy and out of control, especially in the combustible karaoke contests MC’d by boisterous, four-letter-word-spewing maestro Pete Giovanni. Call it shock-and-awe showbiz.

Add in dangerously decadent dancers, fire breathers, sultry and sexy sirens, stilt-walkers, an abundance of little people for the Tiny Kiss, Tiny Brit spoofs, coarse and crude stand-up comedy, circus freaks and Beacher’s occasional striptease, and it’s one of the most entertaining train wrecks in history.

Jeff took his show on the road for a sell-out college tour after closing down at the Hard Rock, where he’d partnered with Harry Morton, who often attended with then-girlfriend Lindsay Lohan. After the tour, Jeff signed a five-year, $10 million deal in Hollywood, and now he’s reportedly headed back here.

If the racy rumors are true, his home will be at MGM Grand mere footsteps from where security held him until police turned up and issued him a citation for disturbing the peace. He was reportedly given 90 days’ probation and banned for four months from all MGM properties in town. By 2009, he was back in MGM’s good graces when then-Mirage President Scott Sibella hired him for projects tied to a proposed series of ballroom shows. Scott is now MGM Grand’s president.

“Crazy Horse Paris” is ending its run after 11 years on Monday, Oct. 1, the fallout of a joint venture with the Pink Elephant nightclubs of Brazil and New York being abandoned. No official announcement about the venue has been made by MGM.

Jeff told me tonight: “All I want to say is that it is my plan to be back in Las Vegas within the next year and a half. There is nothing definite yet.”

Robin Leach has been a journalist for more than 50 years and has spent the past decade giving readers the inside scoop on Las Vegas, the world’s premier platinum playground.

Follow Robin Leach on Twitter at Twitter.com/Robin_Leach.

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Follow VDLX Editor Don Chareunsy on Twitter at Twitter.com/VDLXEditorDon.

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