THE family name is Emperatore, from the Italian imperatore, meaning emperor or commander. And though he was born in the back of the butcher shop that his immigrant father ran in the heart of Toronto's Italian district, Gino Empry, who claims to be descended from the rulers of Imperial Rome, is very much a Caesar - and not just in his own mind.

As the former impresario of Toronto's Imperial Room and the man who made (Honest) Ed Mirvish a household name, Empry has played Prince Consort to a vast number of glittery giants of showbiz past and present for more than 30 years.

His sizeable roster of clients, past and present, has included Peggy Lee, Tony Bennett, Deborah Kerr, Andy Gibb, Peter O'Toole, Chita Rivera, Pia Zadora and, closer to home, Ronnie Hawkins, William Hutt, Karen Kain, Anne Murray and Roch Voisine. It's probably no exaggeration to say Canada's publicist-to-the-stars has rubbed shoulders with every famous name in, well, the Western Hemisphere. The only person he regrets not having worked with is Clark Gable. "But he's dead. Otherwise I've met all the others."

Tomorrow, after years of seeing others bask in the spotlight, Empry will take centre stage in a tribute organized in his honour by Famous People Players, the Toronto-based black light theatre company founded by Diane Dupuy in 1970. "Gino has done an awful lot of work with many charities," Dupuy said Wednesday. "He provides all his services and his time for free. And he's given an awful lot to our company."

This might surprise people who have failed to see beyond the glitz; for all his Las Vegas gaudiness Empry is, deep down, a shy guy with a heart of gold.

Tomorrow's event, which will take place at the Famous People Players Dinner Theatre, will be a full house with more than 200 tickets at $45 each sold in advance. Alas, the big guns of Hollywood are staying at home ("I don't think they were given enough notice," says Empry). But many have sent telegrams to be read at the dinner: "Gino, my wonderful friend. Always, Donald (O'Connor)." "Gino, it takes a pro to know a pro. Love, Glenda (Jackson)." "Gino, how do you love us all? Love always, Jane (Russell)."

But on this day, Gino - everybody calls him Gino, never Empry or Mr. Empry - is not thinking about the tributes of the past or the present. Perched behind a table in an Italian restaurant whose butter-soft leather chairs, etched glass and polished wood design seem light years away from his humble origins on Dufferin Street, Empry expounds on his two favourite topics - himself and those he knows. He does this by, as he likes to put it, "trying to tell the truth."

But, that said, he tells you, with a straight face, that he was born in 1949, although his biographical entry in Who's Who in Canadian Film and Television says that he graduated from the University of Toronto in 1961 at what would have been the ridiculously prodigal age of 12 years. (Rumours abound that he's in his sixties, even in his seventies. Ed Mirvish, who just turned 80, has frequently told people Gino is almost as old as he is. But who'll ever know?) Maybe 1949 is his mental birth date, the year he first discovered what it was he was going to do in life.

Whatever his age, Gino Empry has spent so much time walking in the shadow of greatness that he has absorbed some its garish glow. Ever mindful of his appearance ("I'm not vain," he says, "I just go to great lengths to look better than I am "), he dresses like a flamboyant prince of pitch. Today, for instance, a red ascot decorates the throat, a bouffant hair piece adorns the head and the scent of perfume (Calvin Klein's Obsession) can be detected within a 20-foot radius. His skin is sallow and the circles under his eyes give him the look of a haunted owl. His pants ride high over his tummy and his bomber jacket is a silver roadster number festooned with decals, mostly from the local police force - "I just looove policemen." He could be a character in a Scorsese film, one played by Joe Pesci downing Aspirin and Diet Cokes. Everyone in the restaurant knows him, and he frequently jumps up during the course of the meal to do the rounds, cracking jokes about having sex with a guy's wife. But just for laughs, see?

Empry is something of a throwback to another era, a time in which hands-on agents, such as Swifty Lazar and such make'em-or-break'em celebrity scribes as Walter Winchell, gave new and splendiferous meaning to the word star. His forte, as he calls it, is the personal touch. "God gave me a gift of understanding people. If I knew how it worked it probably wouldn't work," he says through sips of a white wine spritzer. "That's why stars trust me and why they have done things for me that they wouldn't do for other people."

His way of doing business has impressed some, appalled others.

"In spite of his eccentricities, we owe him a great deal," says Anne O'Hagan, director of communications and publicity for Paragon Entertainment Corp., who, at age 38, represents something of the new wave of showbiz publicists in Toronto. "While his style might not have as much currency today as it once did, he set down some very important foundations."

"For a long time he was the person who handled every quote-unquote celebrity in town," offers another high-ranking Toronto publicist who asked to speak anonymously. "His name became associated with showbiz in the traditional sense and when people think of that kind of showbiz they think of Gino Empry. But the business has moved away from that kind of glitter. The Imperial Room (which Empry once ran in Toronto's Royal York Hotel) has closed. But Gino himself has not changed. I think it's sad that he still wants to live the life he used to live because that life doesn't exist anymore."

The eldest of nine children born to Arturo Emperatore, who came to Canada from a rural region outside Rome, and Lucy Flamminio of Toronto (she was 15 when Empry was born, Arturo was 27), Gino developed a love of the theatre while under the care of nuns at St. Mary of the Angels Separate School in Toronto. He acted with Catholic youth groups before joining an all-boys acting ensemble at St. Michael's College. "I played Portia and Juliet because I was small," says Empry, who stands 5 feet 6 inches when he's not wearing his favourite two-inch heels.

He had an uneasy relationship with his parents and left home early to make his own way in the world. His father was distant at best. This led him to seek out relationships with older men, "authority figures," as he calls them. "My favourite people were policemen, truck drivers and gangsters." Yet, the confirmed bachelor says he is not homosexual - "though I know many people think I am " - and while he has fraternized with crooks, he adds that he has never, ever been involved with organized crime.

His first job was as a night cashier for a trucking company. Later, he worked as a systems analyst for a transportation firm. He yearned for a life of glamour: "I grew up among gangsters but always thought I'd be something different."

His first job as a publicist was with Ed Mirvish, the owner of Honest Ed's discount store who purchased the Royal Alexandra Theatre in 1962. Volia, an impresario was born. Says Empry: "I always knew I could be flamboyant because Ed was always more so." As for his beginnings with Mirvish, Empry adds, "I started at the top . . . You couldn't get any better than the Royal Alex at the time. I got $100 a week."

As befitting a man who claims a Gaius, a Marcellus and a Gallus as part of his ancient family tree, there's jewelry. Lots of it. Around his neck this day is a multicoloured stone pendant - a gift, he says, from Ella Fitzgerald - that Empry has set in solid gold. The chain it hangs from glistens with a dazzling array of diamonds, rubies and emeralds. On his finger is a heavy signet ring of which he is most proud. "It's the family coat of arms." And so it is, a shield with a star and a half moon topped by a chivalric helmet and a banner weighed down with the cap-lettered cognomen of Emperatore. This bit of heraldry also adorns Empry's gold- embossed business cards.

Empry's motto is a variation on the what-goes-around-must-come-around idea of cosmic interrelationships. He says he learned it from Pauline McGibbon, the former lieutenant-governor of Ontario who, when he knew her in the 1950s, was on the board of the Dominion Drama Festival.

"I was trying so hard to make it as an actor and nothing was working for me and I went to Pauline. I was crying. And she said that I had to keep trying. The path will come clear, she said, but that to remember that all the help that I get I must pass on. 'What people do for you, you must do for others.' I have never forgotten that. I have lived by it."

He has been a staunch supporter and contributor to many charities but in recent years, Empry has had to curtail his largesse, due partly to the recession and to declining fortunes that resulted from the 1989 closure of the Imperial Room and his abrupt dismissal in 1992 from the Mirvish account by Honest Ed's son, David. "It was a style thing," Empry says, ever conscious of what makes a good quote.

Empry's flashy appearance notwithstanding, this "style thing" he refers to extends to a few unfortunate personal traits and habits. For starters, Empry is a narcoleptic, meaning that at any given time of the day or night he can fall asleep. People who have sat next to him in theatres have jumped out of their skins when Empry starts sawing logs minutes after the curtain has gone up. His snoring is a big rip of noise that has literally jostled patrons out of their seats. "Yes, I have narcolepsy, but just a minor touch," says Empry apologetically. "But what it means is that I've never seen the full first act of anything in my life."

Then there's his temper. "Well, that's just Italian]," shrugs Empry. "We don't get ulcers because we don't keep things inside]"

His temper got him in hot water in 1989 when he attacked a woman in the lobby of the building that houses his million-dollar condo. The elevator was broken for the umpteenth time and Empry lost it, tearing a verbal strip off a young employee. He says she hit him first and he was forced to act in self-defence. But when he told that story to an Ontario judge he was fined $1,000 in lieu of going to jail. What does he have to say for himself? "I haven't used a lawyer since."

Empry is a character, all right. "People tell me, 'Gino, you don't walk into a room, you make an appearance.' " It's a trick he learned from Bernadette Peters. "She told me once, 'Gino, do you know how you get the best table in a restaurant? You walk to the front of the line and look imperious.' " As for looking larger than life, well, maybe that's something he learned from Tom Jones who, Empry says, used to wrap his prodigious privates with strips of terry cloth before each show. The real McCoy, though, offers Empry, is Jones's rival crooner, Engelbert Humperdinck. "He's built like an elephant]"

Get past the posing, the perfume, the pendants and the pizazz and what emerges is an immigrant's son just wanting to make good.

"I've worked hard for everything I've gotten. I've made many mistakes. I'm the first to admit it."

Is there a book in here somewhere? "I've been working on my memoirs for five years," Empry says. "I'm thinking of calling it, You Star, Me Gino."