Question of the Day - 06 November 2017

Jeff Beacher is currently enjoying life in Beverly Hills, whence he communicates with his followers via Instagram. (And thanks to Scott Roeben, of the excellent VitalVegas.com site, for pointing us to it.)

For example: “There’s always a reason to not do something. From my projects to my health, I don't let ‘no’ or ‘can’t’ or 'maybe' or any form of negativity live in my world. I ignore it and accomplish what my mind is set out to do,” he proclaims. (To prove he’s serious about the health kick, he starts each day with 100 pushups. He’s also gone vegan.) He says that when he was a showman — and much fatter — he was “fake happy.” After dropping 225 pounds, his outlook on life is much more positive.

It’s not surprising that Beacher would have issues: He was an adoptee who lost both of his adopted parents to cancer, which “created insecurities and issues that some people can’t even understand … One thing that made me happy and proud was before they passed, they both got to experience my success from all there hard work of raising me. They both got to see my show at the Paramount/Madison Square Garden 2002, and then my father saw the opening in Vegas in 2003.”

Beacher still makes the occasional visit to Las Vegas (where he claims to have been the youngest headliner in Sin City history), as he did for the most recent Floyd Mayweather fight. But his current focus is divided between a new incarnation of "Beacher’s Madhouse" at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel and a reboot of "The Gong Show" for ABC-TV, for which final auditions were held at the Saxe Theater in Planet Hollywood last March. He’s also frequently spotted with Mariah Carey, so how bad could life be?

An offshoot of Beacher’s comedy shows, the first "Madhouse" debuted at Madison Square Garden on June 14, 2002, at its Paramount Theater. The show subsequently moved to Broadway’s Supper Club. With his producing partner, the late Jeff Pollack, Beacher took the "Madhouse" concept to Las Vegas, bowing at the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino.

“Their clientele was young, hot, and sophisticated, demanding more than the run-of-the-mill magic show from a washed-up Vegas performer,” says the official "Madhouse" site. Beacher asserts that the show played five years of sold-out dates, ending in 2008, whereupon the show enjoyed a stint at MGM Grand, where it petered out sometime in 2015 and Beacher took a year-long break to regain, he says, his health and sanity.

This led to the Hollywood offshoot and an 81-city tour. Beacher has also become a fitness guru, preaching the "Beacher Method” to the masses and using his own dramatic reduction from 400-plus pounds to 225 as proof. While no longer a fixture of Las Vegas, Beacher’s eponymous "Madhouse" relies on the same formula, which former Las Vegas Where editor Jennifer Prosser describes as “a rowdy round-up of entertainment and drinking that would do a frat boy proud.” 

Although any Beacher show features a passel of dwarves, his showcase performer is now Mini Trump, an orange-tanned well-coiffed version of the president, who made headlines by storming Trump International in Vegas during election season, only to be detained by security. During Beacher’s prime Vegas years, one of his most successful acts was Mini Kiss. When the latter fell out with Beacher over money, he started Tiny Kiss — “three little musicians backing up one 300-pound female lead singer.” 

What followed could only happen in Sin City: “On April 8, 2006, Tiny Kiss was rehearsing for their first 'Madhouse' appearance when the members of Mini Kiss snuck into their rehearsal, jumped onstage, and started a bloody fistfight. Hard Rock Security removed Mini Kiss from the property, but not before the press found out about the incident. The news world was delighted at the battle between the two pint-sized Kiss cover bands. The story quickly spread, becoming the L.A. Times' most emailed article of all time and was featured on everything from 'Jimmy Kimmel' to 'The Daily Show.'”

When Mini Britney gave Beacher trouble, he dressed in drag and presented himself as Big Britney. The stunt backfired on the then-corpulent Beacher, who collapsed and required hospitalization, a life-altering event.

“By 2014, I was 410 pounds. We had a $100 million 20-year deal with the MGM to open a theater there, but my life was going in the wrong direction. On the outside, it was great -- we were selling out every night. But on the inside, I was an absolute complete disaster. Emotionally, mentally, spiritually, physically. So I had to make a change … I made the decision to leave the MGM and went back to L.A. to be happier and healthier. We had a huge financial deal with MGM, but I needed to get out of the Vegas environment.”

Beacher’s Hollywood version of the "Madhouse," accessed via a concealed entryway behind a bookcase, is done in the style of a speakeasy … if a speakeasy ever had surround sound and three HD video screens. In true Beacher style, there’s a Midget Bar, where a little person mixes your drink. Celeb visitors have included Miley Cyrus, Justin Bieber, George Clooney, Sandra Bullock, and Sean Penn, according to Beacher says.

As for the future of Beacherdom, Jeff predicts, “We’ll also be launching an online portal, a cross of Maxim meets Ripley’s Believe It or Not. There will be gorgeous girls, celebrity content, interviews, a three-headed turtle, the world’s tallest man -- all the craziest oddities in the world from our show … I want to leave something behind that lasts. I want to do something that can live on when I’m gone, similar to Walt Disney.”