STAR TIDBITS (as of 1-1-2000)

Peter Allen
First time he ever played for 2 weeks in a nightclub. Wrote LEGS DIAMOND and gave the best material to Julie Wilson. Good friend who felt I didn’t know he was gay! Guess it was because he was married to Liza Minelli who was a friend of mine. Marriage didn’t last long. He would phone me and cry when a close friend or lover died of aids but he never told me that he was suffering from same. Also at Roy Thomson Hall with Bernadette Peters.

Pearl Bailey
Spent one night with her while she talked about the sex life of a pomegranate until 3:00 a.m. Loved her stories. We were very close. She was tough to work with but I had a way with her! When she needed my support it was “Mr. Empry, please read the clause in my contract”. From her I really learned the difference from a singer (which Ella was) and an entertainer (which she on one occasion, during rehearsal, she and the maitre’d, Louis, got into an argument about how far the pullout stage should be and she loudly said “Mr. Empry, what does my contract say about the stage?” I replied “the stage shall be set according to the direction requested by the artist”. “Mr. Janetta, are you breaking my contract?” Louis gave in although he claims that later on she said that he was right and he was wrong but I certainly don’t recall the stage ever being moved. She and Bob Hope, who gave Antonio Benedetto his new name, co-discovered Tony and I recall one day when Louis was enforcing her “no comp” ruling and I told her that Tony and his group were coming to see her that night, she told Louis “I’m not going to charge my son and his company!”

Incidentally, she was the only artist to ever refuse to have the Thursday night, 2nd show “Gypsy Night.” I had all the performers in the city come on this light night, free of charge. The hotel made money on the drinks and the artist had a real high from the love and applause that only their own can give.

Tony Bennett
12 years as his manager—until his son became old enough to take over. Same thing happened with Johnny Lombardi and Ed Mirvish. Tony started his painting career with his first exhibit in Toronto. Had the “Top of the Mark” in San Francisco renamed TONY BENNETT PLAZA. Got my Casino training in Las Vegas due to so many engagements with him there. The fun and challenge of the “Tony Bennett/Lena Horne” tour throughout the U.S. Also Roy Thomson, O’Keefe with Lena Horne, Ford Centre etc. and a wonderful week at the Royal Alex where he was so loved that even “hatchet man” Yale fell for his charm. Or was it mine? Yale at no expense to me & Tony put in special lighting around the stage that was very attractive. One of my most prized possessions is a very large original painting he game me which hangs in a place of honour in my condo.

At the Royal York, he always stayed in suite #11 277. He loved this suite as it faced east fronting the Royal Bank Tower which was covered with a facing of a mixture of gold plate and other metals. He painted a great many sketches of what he called “The Gold Building”. I had booked him into the Imperial Room during my last year as Entertainment Director but the NEW management refused to give him his usual suite so he made me cancel the date! No wonder I quit at the end of that year in 1989.

Jim Carrey
In 1982 I booked him into the Imperial Room along with IAN TYSON and PETER MANAN’s group The Airwaves. Even then I knew he had what it book to make a $22 dollar name. Saw him in Beverly Hills, he said “Hello…etc.” and I didn’t recognize him! I quickly recovered though by asking about his latest film which was opening on the Friday (lucky guess). He introduced me to his girlfriend as the man who booked all his dates in Toronto. His warm reception certainly belies the rumours that he has become very difficult to work with.

Diahann Carroll
Another incredible beauty who insists Lena Horne has had face lifts. I don’t. I’ve seen Lena with her hair up and her shoulders bare. Not a mark. During the late ’70s and early 80s, she seemed to be out of the public eye but she was such an incredible concert performer that I used her for many private dates and after her first Imperial Room stint, a coincidence perhaps, her star started shining brighter. She is the consummate professional.

Petula Clark
Practically just off the plane for a 2 week engagement at the Royal Alexandra when I talked her into taking over for Tony Bennett, who had laryngitis, on one day’s notice. We have been close friends ever since. Visited with her on dates in New York and London. Also Imperial Room.

Cher
Her Eaton’s credit card. She and Sonny with Chastity when Chas was about 9 years old. Backstage in New York with “Jimmy Dean…” On the set with “Moonstruck”. I don’t p.r. that many films but I sure know how to pick a winner! Moonstruck won an Academy Award for Cher as best actress. At O’Keefe Centre with Sonny. At CNE with Sonny and then alone.

Rosemary Clooney
Visits to her home in Beverly Hills every xmas. Coming to my mother’s house for dinner. The annual xmas cassettes with the personal message. Working with her sons, one of whom married Debbie Boone who I also worked with. The quake. The love. And she solved the Marlene Dietrich/Yul Bryner mystery for me! She was the beard! Also O’Keefe Centre and in New York at Rainbow of the Stars.

Count Basie
The very essence of cool! We got along great. One time a reporter asked him what he thought of the black problem. Count considered and finally said “later man”. My partner, Sylvia Shawn met him in Florida at one gig and found him doing imitations of me crying to get him to do an interview. She tells me it was a very good imitation.

Cyd Charisse
We became close friends when she and husband Tony Martin played the Imperial Room. We were mentally attracted to each other and spent a lot of time talking. She was very generous with her time for charity and the 3 or 4 times she played Toronto in theatre etc. we use to sit for hours talking about everything under the sun. Also Teller’s Cage. I never got tired of looking at those incredible legs.

Burton Cummings
After working with him at the CNE Grandstand with the Guess Who for several years and seeing wind down by playing and singing in the hotel lounge where the band and crew went to relax, I suggested that he try playing solo in a supper club, the Imperial Room. Took some convincing but in his own words “You’ve given me a whole new career. And I don’t dare sing flat or play the wrong note on the piano. They can hear me.” Also Variety Club.

Marlene Dietrich
“Why should I do interviews?” They read their past files and pull out the questions from the answers I’ve already given.” “Never fall in love with a Capricorn woman, she will make your life miserable, I should know since I am Capricorn.” “For a hangover drink flat champagne” ….and many more. And she refused to see Yul Bryner after a show no matter how I cajoled and pleaded. And yet that same night she talked all night on the phone with him. Next am she complained that he kept her up all night talking. Thanks to Rosemary Clooney, the mystery was solved. She gave me a pocket wallet with cards in front to write notes. She said she didn’t like to see me searching my pockets for something to write on. “You must always be chic”.

Phyllis Diller
A zany badly dressed and made up comic on stage but off stage, the most regal woman I have ever met. I met her first when she had just had the famous $4000 face lift and she was appearing at O’Keefe Centre. We became fast friends and when she left, she left a thank you letter with a $500.00 cheque in it telling me it was for “a nose job!” She then appeared 8 times in January each year at the Imperial Room. The soirees in her suite after shows are some good times that I will never forget. Much more.

Duke Ellington
He used to ask me to make sure that there was a bottle of Coca Cola with 3 heaping tablespoons of sugar in it placed on the piano just before showtime! “You want a gallon of ice cream? Duke, where am I going to get ice cream at 3:00 a.m.?” We missed a Variety Club luncheon because he slept in and I didn’t double check the wake up. “Never mind, this is the morning that that diseased flea was going to sting me as I walked out the door if we left on time!” And so on. I kept forgetting that the man I treated as a close friend was a genius. There were so many times I worked with him. I got to know the tune he wrote “Fresh” every time he met a beautiful woman and he would just change the name! He once played a whole concert for me alone on the stage of Massey Hall. Also Hook & Ladder Club. He never traveled with much luggage. He saved packing and let them dry over a lamp shade. He liked working at night and even with two years notice to compose something on a commission, he would wait until deadline time to get it finished with committees gnashing their teeth because there was not enough time for changes. Clever man! He had a knack for making every woman he met feel like the most glamorous woman alive. More!

Ella Fitzgerald
Read Chapter 5. I could write a book about my wonderful Ella.

Maureen Forrester
I phoned her up one day and caught her before a performance in Otta3wa and suggested she do a supper club act. She was interested and 4 days and 6 phone calls later we had a deal. She was a sensation. Even made an LP of the songs.

Robert Goulet
I got to know Bob after he became big in CAMELOT. We became fast friends on his first Imperial Room gig. I gave him advice which he took to have his eyes done on the strength that his vision was impaired because of the overhang. Things like that. His latest wife, known as the “Iron Lady” took to me from the first meeting in Las Vegas. Also tour of South Pacific.

Lena Horne
I met this incredibly beautiful lady when she and Tony Bennett got together for an incredible concert tour. When I was taken to her dressing room to meet her, she was so beautiful that I forgot why I was there. One day at a rehearsal in Philadelphia, Tony asked for coffee. I passed by Lena who was rehearsing at the piano and asked if she would like coffee “How do you like it, Lean, I’ve forgotten? Says I. She answers “black naturally!” She was never bitter about the way black performers were treated way back and how all her movies were done so that she could be cut out of them for the south. She retired from supper clubs but came back to do one more engagement in the Imperial Room because “she owed it to Gino”. Also O’Keefe Centre.

Irish Rovers
Can’t leave them out. I was their world-wide P.R. for over 10 years in the first years of my so called career. You want a history in Irish humour? I know every joke and limerick there is. All sorts of venues.

Molly Johnson
One of the Queen Street entertainers that I thought would do well in the Imperial Room. But again her handlers would not listen to me and over-produced her. She was simply wonderful as a chanteuse simply singing by a piano. But she did well anyway and we are fast friends. Also Cameron House and other venues.

Eartha Kitt
This incredible entertainer is one of my closest friends. Many a night we have visited in my condo, her farm, hotel of appearance in cities such as Toronto, New York, London, and Los Angeles. She’s incredibly wise and her own worst enemy. She tries to pretend she doesn’t need you but then hollers loud and clear when you aren’t there. Also Plaza II, Premiere Dance Theatre, Montreal Body Building show, etc. A couple of good anecdotes involving the incredible conceit of Louis Janetta. She had her own farm and used to send me vegetables from same. At the Premier Dance Theatre in Toronto, she was so upset after a show about technical problems that she ended up on the floor full length crying. She was going through a bad time with relatives. Her theatrical career was equally successful. In Toronto, she appeared at the Royal Alex in THE OWN AND THE PUSSYCAT but this was shortly before I started at the theatre.

She was also the author of several books which started from her time when she denounced certain situations in the U.S. Government. Her last book, titled “I’m Still Here” was not released in Canada. I had to embarrass her to get a copy!

Danny La Rue
Danny is the consummate performer. Danny is so well respected and so professional. One does not think of him as a female performer but as a gifted actor. He even played the West End as “Hello Dolly” to fantastic success and then conquered the British Isles by touring the show. Our telephone conversations are few and far between but we don’t even say hello. Just pick up from the last conversation.

Las Vegas Illusions
I talked to Royal York top management in allowing me to use the dry summer months to put in a low cost Last Vegas type show for the tourists. Toronto citizens made this first one incredibly popular because it was “all right” to see topless show girls and a male stripper in the Imperial Room. Lots of repeat business.

Peggy Lee
We talk by phone at least every 2 weeks. I visit her at her mansion every time I go to Beverly Hills. I am privy to far too much for my own sake. I phone and sing “Peg, you is my woman now” and she sings back “I loves ya Gine” a la Porgy and Bess. Each time she came to Toronto, she would decorate her suite with plants which I inherited each time. Hers plus the Jack Lemmon connection are why I have over 60 plants and trees in my condo now. Much more to talk about Peggy. I went through the Disney battle with her among many other things. Also O’Keefe Centre, Variety Club, etc.

Hal Linden
We go back to 25 years ago when he played Sky Masterson in GUYS & DOLLS. Then he won Tony awards on Broadway and became Barney Miller on TV. We are close, very close. The year that the police celebrated their 100 year anniversary, they begged me to get “Captain Miller” to be guest of honour. He said yes to me and I guess that’s partly why I have half the police force as my friends. Also Royal Alex, O’Keefe Centre, Princess of Wales, lots more. He calls me his Toronto concierge and as he and his wife, Frances, are golf nuts, all activities were scheduled not to interfere with his golf game.

Catherine McKinnon & Donald Harron
Hard to believe that comedic Don was the toast of Broadway for 10 years. I call him “her” because of his “Valerie Rosedale” character and keep asking Catherine to stop living with another woman. When we did Spring 1967, Catherine had kept a wonderful diary of the tour and I stole it and used it for newspapers stories about her, Don, Dinah Christie, Tom Kneebone and others. Also many other venues.

Ann Mortifee
That incredible voice and the inspirational songs she wrote. Another one of my “who would think the Imperial Room!” Harry Belafonte told me I was crazy to book her into a supper club. After he heard and saw her, he said “Crazy like a fox!” about me and hired her as his co-star in his next Toronto Concert at Massey Hall and the subsequent tour. Several anecdotes involving that monster ego, Louis Janetta.

Anne Murray
It’s really true about singing in bare feet, I was there. Anne made her debut in the room and soon afterwards called me for help. She wanted someone to take over managing her and I gave her my accountant’s phone number. Stupid-stupid-stupid. Signed a photo to me saying to “My first and Bitchy Italian P.R. man.” I worked with her again at the Royal Alex and with the Junos and many other venues.

Bernadette Peters
What a gal! At the Imperial Room, she set a new set of rules for professional behaviour. Another anecdote with the ‘great’ Louis when he undid his hair to show how he covered his bald top. She loved to go bowling.

Ginette Reno
The perfect case of the slim girl trying to get out of the fat body. Ginette is the best chanteuse to ever come out of Quebec. We became fast friends the first time she played the room. We’ve kept in touch over the years and it’s always been like we are carrying on the original conversation. She tried so hard to be slim and glamorous.

Chita Rivera
The grande dame of Broadway. In 1997, she is 62 and still dances like a young girl even with the pins in the leg that was broken so badly a few years ago, causing her to cancel an Imperial Room date 24 hours before opening night. And the body is that of an 18 year old. And she loves to tour for long runs with every one of her dhows. Going to New York without seeing Chita in a show, and there were so many, was like ordering apple pie and ice cream and they give you a biscuit.

Jimmie Rodgers
In 1970 this very handsome singer came to Toronto for his first Imperial Room date and we became instant friends. But the steel plate in his head was causing his agonizing non-stop pain. He told me the whole story of the tragic accident and we had a long dinner together the night before opening and spent his opening night day doing publicity in spite of the pain. I went to get him for the show at 8:45 pm and he was gone. On the door of his suite was a letter addressed to me in which he apologized profusely to “his new, close friend” for going home. He just couldn’t stand the pain any more and had hopped a cab to the airport. All my mail, phone calls etc. to “my new, close friend” were never answered.

Ginger Rogers
The queen of the silver screen came to the Imperial Room in her late 40s and when I took her to a wholesale furrier to try on some coats, she apologized because her waist was now 20 inches! Incredibly beautiful with gloriously thick blond hair, she could never walk into a room without everyone stopping in their tracks to admire the vision she was. She never bothers with diets and when I took her for lunch with Honest Ed, she ate her rather large ice cream desert with relish and Ed’s too! Much more.

Craig Russell
He and I were close friends and on and off during his turbulent life, I was his manager. The peak of his career had to be his first Imperial Room date. But it was one of my worst nightmares. The trouble I had keeping him sober and off pills. He more than repaid all the trouble he caused me when I had to try and prison my drug laden brother into the same hotel Craig was staying in. I asked Craig to keep an eye on him and to make sure he didn’t leave the hotel. Craig certainly proved that old axiom that “one sick person is the best one to take care of another one. I still laugh when I think of us walking through a hotel lobby and Craig noticed the men’s washroom door labeled “Gentlemen” “Oh, I’ll have two please” was Craig’s remark. I was best man at his wedding where he wore ruby red high heels and black tie! An incredible genius whose downfall was an absolute lack of discipline.

Frank Sinatra Jr.
He came to the Imperial Room to sing but most of his act was one liners! Why he was trying to be a singer like Pop (he wasn’t bad) when he was such a great comedian, I’ll never know. Frank Sr. was coaching him and he called his dad almost every night for a critique. But he decided to lead his father’s orchestra and get fat! I hardly recognized him.

Smothers Brothers
I first worked with them at the CNE Grandstand and they had just lost their Angel TV series and were very depressed to the point of being rude without realizing it. One day I went to their dressing room for a brief meeting and they were not being cooperative and slammed the door in my face. I slammed it open and said “How dare you!” and berated them for a full 5 minutes including remarks about the big fat fee they were being paid to “entertain”. When I met them again at a Roy Thomson date, Tommy apologized and we became good friends. I’ve always been closer to Tommy than to Dick who I suspect is as shy as I am. My relationship with both of them was cemented by their appearance in the Imperial Room and at the Royal Alex in I LOVE MY WIFE.

Tanya Tucker
She came in town like a 5 alarm fire, but beneath all the bravado, there was this young girl still trying to find out who she really was. She started way too young and got involved with too many men too fast.

One night Bob Dylan came to hear Tanya and the maitre’d would not let him in as he wasn’t dressed properly. He sat in the ante room so he could hear her. I came by, knew it was Dylan and asked if he would like to come in. He said Louis refused him entrance. I took him backstage and sat him in a reclusive corner and then he and Tanya had a long visit after the show.

Tommy Tune
Here is the consummate gentleman in show business. One of the nicest men you will ever meet. As a gift, I got him a free subscription to Now Magazine in which the business personals read like a work of fiction. We met at the O’Keefe Centre and became friends very quickly. He was another in the long list of celebs that I set up dinners and lunches for with the Mirvishes, Honest Ed and son David. When he agreed to an Imperial Room week engagement, it was a feather in my cap. I think it was his first night club gig since his very early days.

Tina Turner
I knew she was ready to become a great big rock and roll star the first time I booked her in the Imperial Room. For 5 consecutive years, I kept thinking that each year would be the last supper club date as she was on the verge of a major breakthrough for the whole 5 years. She was very professional and kept to herself and her band most of the time. We rarely talked except for discussions on media interviews and stage/sound requirements. You know that she had a tough life, that she was a real survivor and being patient. She told me on several occasions that she didn’t want the nightclub scene but longed for the big rock & roll arenas.

Variety Club
If I worked out an hourly fee for my charity work, I would have a million in the bank from this work alone.

For over 25 years every star I worked with, with few exceptions, came to the monthly lunches held to raise funds for their Children’s charities.

Ben Vereen
Ben made his nightclub debut at the Imperial Room. Up to that point, he had only performed on Broadway and had just had his first major success in PIPPIN. The audiences were sparse and Ben said that one day he would come back and fill it. He did! We found out that we were soul mates having both been born on the same say, same year. More.

Raquel Welch
The untouchable—once she was made up and dressed. Her nightclub act in 1976 was designed with back up singers and dancers to make her look good and hide her deficiencies as a singer and dancer. Worked too! She was cooperative enough but she took 3 hours to get made up and dressed for a TV interview—and she would cringe if anyone touched her. I guess I was one of the few to see her before the transformation. Difference was that she was still pretty but not glamorous.

Pia Zadora
Comes along with a reputation that her then husband, Ricklis bought her whatever she needed. A nightclub to perform in, buy the Riviera Hotel in Las Vegas, star in a movie, start your own film company, a “name” house, buy PICKFAIR completely remodel it. Maybe there’s some truth in this. Rick certainly was a multi-multi-millionaire, but in spite of all the derision about her talent, she DID have talent! And she finally proved it at the Imperial Room in September 1985 singing a program of standards like a powerhouse belter with a symphony of 50 musicians that we never thought could fit on that small stage. And she was good to Rick. Game him 2 children that they both worshipped. Last time I saw her was in New York at the LITTLE nightclub. Since then, she and Rick divorced and have separate residences, but I wonder who’s living in Pickfair.