Seemingly every server there knew him, and he was so relaxed that even as the clock passed 9:40pm -- just 20 minutes before show time -- he lazily rose from the table and shuffled without hurry through the Caesars lobby.
Dion, too, has her routine down pat, leaving her house about 5pm, taking the stage about 8:30, finishing around 10 and arriving home as early as 11. She seldom digresses to visit stores or restaurants, she said, "because of air-conditioning, meeting a lot of people, shaking hands -- more chances to get sick."
Next to the entrance to Dion's theater in Vegas is an all-Celine store, nearly as big as a Gap, in which her fans can purchase Celine discs, books, refrigerator magnets, and coffee mugs, of course, and also Celine bath togs, Celine crystal pendants by Baccarat, Celine watches by Fossil, and lotions and sprays with any of the three Celine scents: Celine Dion, Notes, and the newest, Belong.
The Hilton has a store devoted to Manilow, in which the items on sale include Barry Manilow zinfandel and a bottled juice drink called the Strawberry Manilow. Enormous pictures of him hang inside and outside the hotel, and a tiny picture of him adorns the currency with which gamblers at the hotel play.
"They've got my little face on the chips," Manilow said.
"I was playing with them last night!" chimed in his publicist, Carol Marshall.
As he walked down a service hallway, a female hotel employee said, "I love you and I love your music."
"You better," he said as soon as she was out of earshot, then added, to his companions, "It's all they play here all day long. I'm surprised she didn't say, `I'm sick of you."'
It's a surreal life in Vegas, Manilow
acknowledged, but a sweet one, and that may be why gossip columns are increasingly
atwitter with reports of entertainers like Madonna and Britney Spears considering permanent gigs here.
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