About Wayne Newton
Carson Wayne Newton , also known as Mr. Las Vegas, is an American singer and actor. One of the most popular singers in the United States from the mid-to-late 20th century, Newton remains one of the best-known entertainers in Las Vegas and has performed there since 1963. He is known by other nicknames such as "The Midnight Idol" and "Mr. Entertainment".
As a teenager, Newton first performed in Las Vegas in the late 1950s and was mentored by some of the nation's biggest artists including Frank Sinatra, Bobby Darin and Elvis Presley. In 1963, he achieved headliner status at the Flamingo, a casino hotel in Las Vegas, and soon became one of the city's most popular performers. The Washington Post describes Newton as "America's number one night club act" and at his peak being more prominent in Las Vegas than both Sinatra and Presley. Newton is the highest-grossing entertainer in Las Vegas history. Throughout his career, Newton has appeared in a number of movies and television shows.
His well known songs include "Danke Schoen" , "Summer Wind" , "Red Roses for a Blue Lady" , "Daddy, Don't You Walk So Fast" and "Years" . "Danke Schoen" is Newton's signature song and was notably used in the 1986 movie Ferris Bueller's Day Off.
Newton was born Carson Wayne Newton born in Roanoke, Virginia to Patrick Newton , an auto mechanic, and his wife, Evelyn Marie Smith . He is of mostly English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh and German ancestry. His father served in the U.S. Navy during World War II, Newton spent his early years in Fredericksburg, Virginia, learning the piano, guitar, and steel guitar at age six. He has perfect pitch. He performed in a local music radio show, playing steel guitar and singing country music, before school. On the weekends, he performed in a traveling road show of the Grand Ole Opry.
While he was a child, his family moved near Newark, Ohio. He began singing in local clubs, theaters, and fairs with his older brother, Jerry. Due to Newton's severe asthma, his family moved to Phoenix in 1952, at his doctor's suggestion. Soon after arriving in Phoenix, the brothers performed in a local television talent show Lew King Rangers and won. As a result, the owner of KOOL-TV, Tom Chauncey, who also televised the talent show, gave the brothers their own television show, Rascals in Rhythm and served as a mentor to them. The brothers, as the Rascals in Rhythm, appeared with the Grand Ole Opry roadshows and on ABC-TV's Ozark Jubilee; performed in front of then-president Dwight D. Eisenhower and auditioned unsuccessfully for Ted Mack's Original Amateur Hour.
Newton attended North High School where he was the Sophomore Class President. He was also a member of the Junior Reserve Officers' Training Corps. In the spring of 1958, near the end of his junior year of high school, a Las Vegas booking agent saw the two Newton brothers performing on their local TV show and took them back for an audition. Impressed with their audition, the booking agent signed Newton, then age 15, and his brother, as part of a two-week contract to perform in Las Vegas at the Flamingo. On closing night, Newton and his brother were offered a one-year contract to continue performing in Las Vegas. To pursue his music career, Newton left North High School just before finishing his junior year.
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