FROM SIN CITY TO CINE-CITY: MAXXAM ENTERTAINMENT RENDERS UNTO LAS VEGAS WHAT IS VEGAS

Story/Interview by Erica Hector Vital

Director Don Lewis Barnhart and producer Skip Burrows are determined to raise an empire out of the glowing neon embers of a Vegas movie history that includes Sin City inspired productions going back to the 1964 Elvis vehicle Viva Las Vegas to the present day Clooney and Pit franchise, Ocean’s 11, which finds its origins in the Rat Pack’s 1960 Vegas classic of the same name. Vegas sparks Hollywood. But a full-fledged Vegas-based production and distribution industry has yet to catch fire.

Barnhart and Burrows, with their recently structured film and television production studio, Maxxam Entertainment, of which MaxxaM Pictures1 is a part, are positioning themselves as the fire to stoke the necessary flames under the Vegas media presence. “You can’t duplicate Hollywood. The attitude out in Hollywood is totally different than it is out here,” says Burrows whose name has been attached to projects such as Con Air, 3000 Miles to Graceland and The Mexican, “and that’s not a bad thing. That’s like comparing Las Vegas to St. Louis. I mean, we’ll never have the St. Louis Arch. But this is a golden opportunity in the making ... I say ‘Las Vegas what are we waiting on?’ We need to start networking the people out here who have some of the power and have some of the wherewithal to get this going. In Hollywood you will see a picture come out by Warner Bros. in conjunction with Universal, also distributed by Buena Vista . . .they’re in a joint business venture. Las Vegas . . .the pie is big enough for everyone. And if everybody would join in they’ll find out that as a community we can produce products that can be distributed and linked with Hollywood. You’re never going to drag Hollywood across the line. It’s not going to happen. So you have to create your own entity. And we already have our own entity. It’s called Las Vegas.”

The numbers clearly support Burrows’vision. Nevada boasted a steady increase in filming revenues throughout 2000, generating $102.5 million for the calendar year 2005. Nevada Film Office Director Charles Geocaris credits this strong six-year trend to Nevada’s industry friendly environment. It is Burrows’ contention that the money that begins in Vegas should remain in Vegas throughout all aspects of film. “You can go back to Hollywood and duplicate a casino area in an interior. But you’re not going to get the Strip down there. You’re not going to get downtown. You’re not going to get the Fremont experience. You’re not going to get Lake Mead. You’re not gonna get Mt. Charleston. Those things are native here, so if we can get productions to start here, be funded here and be distributed from here then the money will stay here.” If Burrows is the money man, having made a career in both above the line and below the line production, as a producer and in sound and special effects, then Barnhart is the above-the-line child of Hollywood.

Strolling the actor-director’s walk of fame in MaxxaM’s intimate Las Vegas studio is like opening a portal into TV Land. There’s Barnhart, long-haired and bearded, seventies grunge/chic, giving direction on set to Burt Lancaster, Lee Marvin, and for heaven’s sake, what looks like, and is, Edward G. Robinson, in what had to be one of the lauded film gangster’s last roles for television. And there’s Barnhart, jeans and cambray workshirt, directing one of the biggest and most peripatetic comedy names of our time, Robin Williams – Oscar winner – in the role that defined the eighties and rocketed Williams’ career as an affectionate, rainbow suspender-wearing alien who na-noo-na-nooed his way into television parlance. Yeah, it was Barnhart’s name that would appear at show opening and show close, and if you are a true TV-aficionado and stayed glued to the set until the last best-boy credit, then you saw the name there – DON BARNHART – in big gold letters.

The sitcom hits that followed included Benson, with the harbinger of poise himself, Robert Guillaume, as the dignified right-hand man to a southern governor, followed by Saved By the Bell, which gave us Mario Lopez as high school jock AC Slater, and Screech, and well, Mario Lopez--a show that was a little less than Barnhart bargained for, maybe, and perhaps a little more. For as producer and managing partner, Skip Burrows does not hesitate to point out, Saved By the Bell, is running on television somewhere in the world, three hours out of every day.

Can somebody say “residuals.”

If such a rich and storied career has made Barnhart happy, he is not and will not be satisfied until he does it again, and again, in the city that brought us Howard Hughes, Lola Falana, Sinatra, and Cage as a suicidal drunk and a flying Elvis, respectively.

One of the first feature film projects Barnhhart and Burrows have slated for MaxxaM is the comedy Vegas Wedding Blues. Written by Barnhart, the film has an aura of Vegas kitsch with the requisite promise of humor and breathtaking Strip shots. Dance Vegas Dance is another feature in the works, a project that bodes to do well in the current market of box office dance draws. Antonio Bandera’s Take the Lead, Honey, Step Up and Marilyn Hotchkiss’ Ballroom Dancing and Charm School, come to mind. This Rocky-like genre film, pairing messages of perseverance with a reverence for youth and gorgeous gyrating bodies, is smart for MaxxaM. Smart for Barnhart and Burrows.

The show-savvy expertise of the pair does not end with features and sitcom work. After a few decades inTV land giving the people what they want, Barnhart realizes that the people also want a dose of reality. With that in mind, Barnhart and Burrows have begun pre-production and are currently holding auditions for So You Want to Be An Actor, a reality-TV series that will bring aspiring ingenues and their male counterparts enmasse to Vegas to act out classic moments in film and TV. “It will be a show within a show,” said Barnhart, who will host and direct as over 13 weeks acting hopefuls will compete in performances that will either bring them fame and a million dollar prize, or the pain of being eliminated.

“I was an actor. I was a performer. I was a disc jockey for a number of years . . . that experience kind of allows me to have the knowledge of what other people do, and to have the fear of what it takes for an actor to get out there. Because I’ve been there and I know what that fear is about. My job as a director is to take away the fear.“ According to Barnhart, the show is meant to expose honest moments in the lives of young actors as they struggle with the pitfalls of the biz and the limitations, or the heights, of their talents.

To celebrate the production of So You Want to Be An Actor, MaxxaM Entertainment will host a kick-off event at the Stardust Hotel and Casino on the Las Vegas strip, Sept. 20th. Cast and crew will be there, along with celebrity guests, and hopefuls.

The Stardust was one of the hotels run under the heavy hand of Lefty Rosenthal and Antony Spilotro during the 70’s. The legendary Vegas mobsters were translated into de Niro’’s Sam Rothstein and Joe Pesci’s Nick Santoro in Scorsese’s master-piece, Casino. In a final twist of Vegas-fate, a classic of another sort was filmed at the Stardust the same year. Showgirls, directed by Paul Verhoeven starred the young actress Elizabeth Berkley, a once innocent alumna of Barnhart’s Saved By the Bell.

No, as Skip Burrows will attest, Vegas is not Hollywood. But it definitely doesn’t have to be.