Question of the Day - 07 July 2022

Second question first: We answered this “Anthony or Tony” question about a year ago in a little more detail, but here's the gist.

Anthony's always been called Anthony, which isn't so unusual; think of Anthony Perkins, Anthony Bourdain, Anthony Edwards, Anthony Michael Hall, etc. The "Tony" nickname just never caught on, but we'd be hard pressed to credit/blame the legendary Tony Curtis as the reason. Of course, a few people do call him Tony, which he responds to. The rest of us never call him Tony. It's Anthony, or A.C., which is sometimes pronounced Acey, or Mr. Curtis, when we're feeling formal.

As for Andrew, we agree: His and Anthony's interactions on the YouTube channel are quite engaging. Part of that is due to Andrew's background. He was born and raised in L.A. and has been around showbiz a long time.

Andrew’s father, Gary Hunt, is a producer from New York. As such, Andrew attended a lot of television conventions in Vegas when he was a kid; that and his dad’s Vegas stories turned him into a Sin City aficionado early in life. His own personal relationship with Sin City started, appropriately enough, when he drove to Vegas from L.A. shortly after getting his driver's license with a fake ID (in the early '90s).

Andrew went on to become a comedian and executive producer of films and television in Hollywood. Through a chance meeting with Pauly Shore in Hollywood, he held a job early in his career (2004-2005)  as an assistant to the great Mitzi Shore, owner of the world-famous Comedy Store. He's also worked on 15 feature films, as a bondable producer, line producer, or unit production manager. Two of the notable films he coproduced are Officer Down starring Steven Dorff and James Woods and Pawn starring Ray Liotta at Forest Whitaker. 

Andrew was also part of a Hollywood initiative to create game shows around casino games. His dad Gary was doing business with Pechanga Casino in Temecula, CA, and Michael Meckza, the casino-industry’s legendary “dean” of market research and player insights (who died last year of COVID at age 77), sat in on some of the early meetings; he was on board with the casino-game-show idea.

Meckza introduced Gary and Andrew to Anthony Curtis. They were already regular readers of Question of the Day and thought it might be fun to produce weekly LVA video updates.

Eventually, Anthony and Andrew became friendly, bonding over their mutual love of Las Vegas, gambling, music, and beer.

Andrew has commuted between Las Vegas and Los Angeles more times than he cares to remember or count. He's finally settled in Las Vegas, produces and hosts the "LVA Weekly YouTube Update," and performs stand-up comedy at Wiseguys Comedy Club in the downtown Arts District on Tuesday nights. His Instagram handle is @andrewangeleslive. 

Here's a link to the LVA YouTube Channel.