Bringing happiness into people’s lives: “That’s what matters to me.”
Mr. Las Vegas reflects on his career and his relationship with President Ronald Reagan.
(CLAIR | Simi Valley, CA) – Wayne Newton began performing in Las Vegas at 15, has recorded 165 albums and has shared bills with Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin. What he doesn't have, he told a Simi Valley audience on Sept. 22, is a cell phone.
"I do not have a cell phone, ladies and gentlemen," Newton said during his appearance at the Reagan Presidential Library. His daughter has one, he said. So does his wife. But Newton refuses to carry one, because he believes it takes away from people talking to each other, when you can look at the person you're talking to and read what they're saying. He said he thinks music has done the same thing.
The comment came in answer to an audience member who asked about the hardest part of working through decades of changing entertainment technology. Newton recalled the Las Vegas of Elvis, Sinatra, Martin and Jerry Lewis, and said there aren't those kinds of performers anymore. But he said enough of them are left to carry the message of what performers are supposed to do on that stage: bring some happiness into people's lives. "That's what matters to me," he said.
Newton, known as "Mr. Las Vegas" and for his signature 1963 hit "Danke Schoen," appeared for a conversation and CD signing tied to the soundtrack of the film "Reagan." Melissa Giller, chief marketing officer for the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute, hosted the event. Newton spent the evening reflecting on his career, his friendship with Ronald and Nancy Reagan and the song he contributed to the soundtrack.
That mission of bringing happiness, he said, is what Las Vegas taught him. He has never learned to read music. His first teacher took two years to realize he was playing by ear: he would hear the lesson song played, go home and play whatever he wanted, then play the song back the way the teacher had played it. Asked why Las Vegas suited him, he said the whole city is built on service. "That's what Las Vegas gave me, the knowledge that we're there to bring happiness to other people," he said.
He said Sinatra reinforced that lesson during a lunch meeting. Sinatra asked how he was feeling, and Newton said he had a bit of a cold, nothing serious. Sinatra told him not to share that with an audience, because they have their own problems and don't deserve to hear about his. Newton said he has kept to that his entire life.
Then there was Reagan. Newton said he was producing a horse show when he saw Ronald and Nancy Reagan walking toward him as he stood by a stall. He realized Reagan felt the same way about horses that he did. "So we hit it off immediately," Newton said, adding that he was taken with Reagan's kindness and his love of horses.
Reagan was governor of California at the time. Newton later invited him to his home, and Reagan wanted to see the horses right away. Newton gifted him a horse, which Reagan rode and loved for the rest of his life. Newton called seeing Reagan on that white mare one of his favorite memories.
What stood out to Newton was that Reagan played no games: what you saw was what you got, and he believed what he said. Newton said he has tried to emulate that his whole life.
He also told a story from Reagan's run for the presidency, when he was part of a group of performers doing fundraisers around the country. At a New York show with Sinatra and Martin on the bill, Newton assumed he would open, since everyone else was a bigger star. Instead he was asked to close. About two months later, at the Republican convention, he asked Reagan why. Reagan told him they all knew that once Newton got on stage, they could be halfway back to California before he got off. Newton called it one of the most honest moments he has known.
Reagan's loyalty, Newton said, showed in 1982, when he was dealing with rumors, a court battle and bad press around the time of a fundraiser at his ranch. Organizers canceled the event at his home so the controversy wouldn't rub off on the president. When Reagan found out, Newton said, he declared he was going to Wayne's home and the organizers could come or stay. "That's the kind of man he was," Newton said.
A video shown during the event recounted a later controversy, in 1983, over Newton's invitation to perform at the July 4 celebration on the National Mall in place of the Beach Boys. Despite a downpour, more than 300,000 people showed up, according to the video. Newton said Nancy Reagan called him on his flight home to apologize for what he had been through, and that the Reagans' sense of humor helped him laugh.
The friendship also produced a story that drew laughs from the audience. Newton's sister-in-law asked him to retell the tale of Reagan calling his home. Newton said he had just come off a concert tour and told his housekeeper not to wake him for anyone until 6 p.m., when he had a show at the hotel. When he got up, he asked if anyone had called. She told him President Reagan had called three times, and each time she had told him Newton was still asleep. Newton said he told her there are always exceptions: he had asked her not to disturb him for anyone, but for the president, she should have.
The stories weren't all lighthearted. Newton recalled a phone conversation with Nancy Reagan where he could tell she was having a tough time. She told him it was the toughest time of her life: she had walked in to see her husband and he didn't know her, the first time that had happened since his diagnosis with Alzheimer's in the early 1990s. Newton said the love and respect the two shared showed "what you should be like as a good human being."
That love story is at the center of the film he came to promote. A new director's cut of the 2024 biopic "Reagan" returns to theaters Friday, Sept. 25, for America's 250th anniversary. The film includes restored deleted scenes, ranging from the Oval Office to Reagan's life at home.
Newton said he saw the film before its release and sat "with tears in my eyes." He said it tells an incredible story of the president and first lady and shows their love, their communication with others and what they believed life was about. The version returning to theaters runs about 10 minutes longer than the one he saw. Newton said he felt he owed it to the late president and Nancy Reagan to be part of it, and that he is honored to be part of that memory and that soundtrack. He urged the audience to see the film.
Giller noted that younger fans probably know Newton best from his appearance in "Vegas Vacation" (1997) with Chevy Chase. Newton said he ad-libbed three scenes: telling a man at his table to pet his hair, answering the door in a karate outfit (he is a fourth-degree black belt in Taekwondo and Butokukai), and swapping the contents of a keychain box. The cast and crew broke up laughing, and the scene had to be redone.
Asked for a favorite song to perform, he named "MacArthur Park," which he said he didn't always like and was once forced to sing before he came to love the lyrics. He also said he took Lucille Ball's advice to turn down offers for a TV series, calling it the best advice he ever got.
Living in the public eye, he said, comes with a rule: at home on his ranch he can wear blue jeans and not worry about his hair, but "the minute I go out those front gates, I belong to the public." Asked what he misses most about Reagan, Newton said he misses truth in politics. Reagan was who he was, and you didn't have to go to the news for their take on it, he said. Politicians today should study that: "to be able to tell the truth, no matter how it falls."
The evening ended with a clip of Reagan calling Newton "the entertainer's entertainer" who had never said no to a worthy cause.
