Question of the Day - 13 December 2019

Thanks for asking. This is one of our favorite stories from Eyes in the Sky, a new history book on Las Vegas that we loved reading. The author, Karen Leslie, graciously gave us permission to excerpt the book in order to answer the question.

This main character of this true tale was one Kent Carmichael.

[Begin excerpt]: Kent arrived in Las Vegas in the late ’50s from California at the tender age of 25 and found work in a growing town that was hungry for skilled labor. He began working for Western Neon Sign Company during the day as a sign hanger. The first one he installed with Western, in fact, was the “Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas” sign.

Working on signs was a grueling occupation that barely paid the bills. To better support his wife, daughter, and newborn son, Kent took a night job as an electrician and maintenance man at the Fremont. 

One night, he got a call to replace a lightbulb over the stage in the Carnival Room lounge where a teenaged Wayne Newton was performing with his older brother Jerry; he had just enough time to finish the job before the next show.

In the Carnival Room, he stopped in front of the electrical panel that worked the sound and lights, all controlled by Wayne while he and Jerry were performing.       

Kent turned on the power switch and flipped the toggles that controlled the eight lights over the stage. They were all illuminated, except Wayne’s center-stage spotlight; it was out.  

The only way to get to it was along the eye-in-the-sky catwalk above the stage.

The confined area of the catwalk was dark and narrow with no ventilation; Carmichael started to sweat. He reached the damaged spotlight and sat down on the catwalk, feet dangling over the edge, only a few inches from the asbestos ceiling panels.

He unscrewed the bulb inside the projector fixture and held the fixture in his left hand while he examined the bulb with his right. He set the damaged bulb down beside him on the catwalk and was preparing to replace it with the new one when suddenly, a voice from the microphone bellowed through the showroom below, “Ladies and gentlemen, the Newton Brothers!”      

Wayne’s voice boomed from the microphone as he flipped the eight light toggles on the control board.      

Kent felt the surge of 220 volts from the live projector-fixture wires shoot from his left hand, up his arm, and down through his body. The wires crackled and sparks flew. Kent rocked back, lifting his legs off the metal catwalk in an attempt to insulate himself from the current.

Below, music blasted as Wayne and Jerry sang their opening number.      

Above, Kent struggled to stay on the catwalk, but with both feet in the air and live electricity coursing through him, he lost his balance and rolled off the scaffolding.         

He was falling. And falling fast.

He hit the asbestos ceiling tiles head first; they broke apart like a Styrofoam piñata.  

As his upper body smashed through the ceiling, Kent watched as the floor of the lounge rose up to meet him.  He stretched out his arms in a swan dive, snapped his body into a pike position, rolled over onto his back, and flattened out. He could hear screams over the music at the sight of the huge figure falling from out of nowhere as he crashed onto a table, landed with an enormous thud, flipped the table on its side, and sent the young couple seated at the table flying backwards.

Alarmed audience members looked on in shock as two cocktail waitresses rushed to the scene and helped the young couple to their feet. They appeared to be dazed, but otherwise unharmed.      

Kent, on the other hand, was a sight to behold.         

As the dust continued to settle, he rose to his feet. At six feet tall, with his muscular frame covered in white asbestos dust, he looked like a towering albino Paul Bunyan. His work boots, jeans, and short-sleeve shirt were snow white, but his face and forearms, teeming with sweat only moments before, were now completely plastered with white dust.   

In his hand, he still held the projector bulb.        

Audience members began to laugh hysterically.        

“Are you OK?” Wayne said into the microphone.      

Kent shook his head, shrugged his shoulders, and threw up his arms, all in embarrassment. The movement filled the air around him in a cloud of white, sparking more laughter from the audience.    

Apparently realizing that, other than the ceiling, the mishap had ended with no apparent serious damage, and being the young showman that he was, Wayne seized the moment. Gesturing toward Kent as he leaned into the microphone, he said “Now there, ladies and gentlemen, is a man who knows how to make an entrance.”