Artie Lange & Vegas: a potent mix

AT the CineVegas Film Festival last month, where the stars present included Dennis Hopper, Laurence Fishburne, Christina Ricci, Sylvester Stallone and Helen Mirren, nobody drew a crowd like rotund comedian and Howard Stern sidekick Artie Lange. Fans followed Lange around the Palms and turned out in the hundreds to scream as he walked the red carpet drink in hand for a screening of his film "Beer League." (The movie will be released Sept. 15.)

Lange was still ecstatic about the experience weeks later: "The reaction was a million times better than what I expected. I never make anything for critics to like. I make it for guys who work construction." Indeed, Lange has no ambition for his film to place his name beside those of Fellini or Woody Allen. "It cost $5 million to make and $2 million to advertise. My hope is just to make the money back in theaters, and then all the DVD money is gravy." His only regret about the CineVegas trip -- he had yet to officially dissolve his relationship with his girlfriend and so he says he held off on the hookers.

There is something of the perfect fit between Artie Lange and Las Vegas, and woe to anyone who gets between him and his fans here. Jeff Beacher learned a lesson about Lange's fanatical appeal when he booked the comedian to headline his Madhouse revue at the Hard Rock. Mixing variety performers, sexy girls and comics, Beacher's Madhouse was already popular with the same hard-partying demographic that Lange draws. But the combination did not go as planned.

"It was a disaster," Beacher recalls of the night. "I've never seen anything like it. His fans just wanted to see Artie. They didn't want anything to do with my show. It was the only time ever that every single person who works for me got booed off the stage, from the beautiful dancing girls to the sword-swallowing transvestite."

When Lange returned to Vegas a few months later, Beacher had Lange appear solo, raised the price of tickets and added a show. Beacher says both shows sold out in hours.

Lange's explanation for his massive Vegas appeal: "Vegas is ground zero of fun and vices, and people know I'm into it."

Indeed, some might say Lange is \o7too\f7 much into Vegas' fun and vices. If Vegas has been the setting for many of his triumphs, this town has also been the launching pad for some humiliating disasters. In the second category was a nearly career-destroying incident in 1996 that cost Lange his job on "MADtv": "I went on a cocaine binge that started in Vegas at the Tyson-Holyfield fight. I bet on Tyson and lost $15,000 on the fight and then lost $6,000 at the tables before heading back to L.A. I went to rehearsals coked up and got arrested." (Court records show the case never was tried.)