Show Biz
Ruivivar brother's health takes turn for worse
By Wayne Harada
Advertiser Entertainment Editor
HERE 'N' THERE: Francis Ruivivar, the Las Vegas-based former Honolulu resident who has starred in several Broadway productions, continues his battle with leukemia but his health has taken a turn for the worse.
Now hospitalized in Las Vegas, he has had to curtail directing work on the Society of Seven Las Vegas' new show because of illness.
Brother Tony Ruivivar, SOS leader, was planning to fly to Las Vegas as this went to press, to be at Francis' bedside; his wife, Karen, already is there, with Francis' wife, Cathryn Croft. "Francis would love to hear from friends and fans," Tony said. "Cards and notes — and prayers — are appreciated at this time." Write Francis Ruivivar, c/o Mountain View Hospital, 3100 N. Tenaya Way, Room 568, Las Vegas, NV 89128 .
Meanwhile, the SOS Las Vegas crew has been doing bits and pieces in the SOS Honolulu's show at the Outrigger Waikiki, where Glenn Miyashiro donned Bert Sagum's masquerade costume for that "Phantom of the Opera" sequence (with Sagum getting to see that number from the audience for the first time, because he's usually in it). Two SOS LV soloists, Johnny Fernandez and Jonathan Kaina, also did solos (with Gary Bautista), behind their Phantom masks. Of course, the new group — a clone of the original — is working toward that May 8 debut at the Outrigger ...
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RANDOM NOTES: Tiny Tadani was a tad nervous performing live in front of an audience for the first time at the Perry & Price Hanohano Room show Saturday at the Sheraton Waikiki's Hanohano Room. The "Tiny TV" favorite was plugging his "Tiny CD With a Tiny Help From My Friends" and his concert with his CD co-stars (including tiny Tani Lynn Fujimoto, also at the brunch show) at 7:30 p.m. May 4 at the Hawai'i Theatre ...
Phil Hamilton of Austin, Texas, made local radio history when he and wife Dixie called in a Hawai'i Public Radio pledge while tuned in to Keith and Carmen Haugen's "Music of Hawai'i" show the other day. The Hamiltons used to live in the Islands ...
When Colon performed at Duke's Waikiki, NHK filmed the concert for airing in Japan ...
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ITEMIZATIONS: Kamakoa Page, a Scruples Beach Club girl and model who is a dancer with Peter Rockford Espiritu's Tau Dance Theatre, is Mainland-bound in pursuit of a career on the runway. She has an interview set at the Ford Modeling Agency ...
Speaking of Scruples: Club-owner Fred Piluso was joined by former "Magnum P.I." co-star Larry Manetti in taping a special "E! Entertainment" segment earlier this week. The show's producer, Andy Swift, got interested in Scruples and Manetti as a result of Manetti's tome on the show, "Aloha Magnum," also because the "Magnum" crew often hung out at the Waikiki night spot ...
Oops: An expletive inadvertently made the 6 o'clock news one weeknight at KHNL-8. It was one of those off-the-air reporter utterances that shouldn't have made the airwaves, but did ...
And oops again: Frank DeLima's Easter show was at the Wisteria, not another restaurant, as listed here the other day. Some of DeLima's loyalists called him to moan, "I thought it was at the Wisteria!" It was, it was. Mea culpa ...
And that's Show Biz ...
Wayne Harada's Show Biz appears Wednesdays and Fridays; phone him at 525-8067, e-mail at wharada@honoluluadvertiser.com, or fax at 525-8055.
