David Cassidy on the Web
Entertainment Column
February 5, 2002
By Mike Weatherford
Las Vegas Review-Journal
"The Rat Pack Is Back" at the Sahara is scrambling to find a new "Frank" after the mutual agreement that Steve Lippia's last night as the Sinatra figure will be this Sunday.
"I love the security and the camaraderie, but it also can become a bit confining at times," Lippia says of the revue he joined in the fall of 2000.
Lippia has been getting offers to perform as a solo act in Atlantic City and with pops orchestras, but "Rat Pack" doesn't have a full-time understudy to give him the kind of vacation time he seeks.
"We both have reasonable concerns," Lippia says of himself and the producers, entertainer David Cassidy and his partner Don Reo. "They've been frustrated because they're having trouble finding substitutes and they're not very accepting of anybody else coming in."
And while "they treated me extremely well," Lippia says he realizes "the show itself is really the star no matter how great a job I try to do."
Lippia already had a taste of solo stardom in November 1998, when a team of Frank Sinatra's '80s-era associates plucked him from the Florida country club circuit to headline an enclosed lounge at the Rio.
The singer was contracted through the end of March, but the scheduling issue came to a head over dates he had booked before then.
