IVAN KANE
With the phenomenal success of Ivan Kane's Forty Deuce in Hollywood and in Las Vegas at Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino, and his newest venture, Ivan Kane's Café Was, a bohemian bistro, bar and live music venue, the entrepreneur has added his own unique blend of excitement and edge to going out, turning "nightlife into a more theatrical experience."
"The mission of Ivan Kane Enterprises, Inc. is to create a complete sensory experience, whether through ambience or an actual show," Kane says of his venues, "to convince you there's another reason, aside from dining, cocktails and canoodling, to go out."
A native New Yorker, Kane grew up a Broadway fanatic, "second-acting" shows by sneaking in with the smokers after intermission when he couldn't afford the price of a ticket. He became a successful triple threat, singing, acting and dancing on stage, before segueing into films with a role in Oliver Stone's Oscar-winning Platoon, which prompted him to drive cross-country in 1986 to pursue a film career in L.A. After several film roles, among them Born on the Fourth of July and Bound, to name a few, and numerous television appearances, Kane wrote a screenplay which sold to HBO, which aired as the HBO Original movie No Alibi, starring Eric Roberts and Dean Cain.
Trying to gain control over his own destiny, Kane took a left turn and put all his savings into buying Small's, a bar on Melrose Avenue opposite Paramount Studios, which he gutted, redesigned and opened as Kane in 1997, with his partner and wife, renowned burlesque dancer Champagne Suzy.
"We didn't just want a cookie-cutter club with four walls, lights and sound," he explains. "We wanted high concept. Kane was one part 60's Vegas Rat Pack, one part 70's Super Fly cool. We had a female, Cleopatra Jones-type DJ playing nothing but funk, flanked by two dancers in bra and panties doing jazzy go-go. I cast it as if I were doing a show." The intimate venue, a kind of sweaty house of soul, drew an A-list crowd of celebrities lined up around the block.
Three years later, Kane opened deep on the corner of Hollywood and Vine, an homage to an early idol, All That Jazz, Cabaret and Sweet Charity director/choreographer Bob Fosse.
This nightclub, infamous for "pushing the envelope in terms of sexuality, voyeurism and decadence," was featured in the film Oceans 11. The nightclub had a plexiglas box over the dance floor and two Amsterdam-style rooms over the bar with two-way mirrors, where dancers performed stylized ménage a trois. Explains Kane, "Nightlife as art. It was hot!"
In 2002, Kane launched Ivan Kane's Forty Deuce, a burlesque striptease show and nightclub in Hollywood. "The naysayers said no one in L.A. would stop what they were doing in a club to watch a show," Kane says, but with Champagne Suzy as his muse, together "the two redefined burlesque and put it back on the map, changing the landscape of nightlife forever."
Kane literally dragged the concept of pre-pole dancing striptease into the 21st century. "The look and feel of the room had to be right. The brick walls stained with the smoke of a thousand cigarettes, so to speak," says Kane. "The club had to feel lived in and worn in, it had to have a soul. You want those ghosts of burlesque dancers dancing for two rummies at the bar."
"This kind of striptease is very empowering to women," explains Kane of Forty Deuce's phenomenal success. "It appeals to both sexes." This led Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino to come knocking, so Kane opened a branch of Ivan Kane's Forty Deuce in Las Vegas, an event documented in the hit four-part Bravo reality series, Forty Deuce, directed by Zalman King and Executive Produced by Kane.
Looking to expand the genre of burlesque, the Vegas venue launched two new shows, Stormy Monday male burlesque and Ivan Kane's Royal Jelly, which substitutes a live rock & roll band for the usual jazz combo. An Ivan Kane's Forty Deuce tour, the newest show from Kane, combines deep funk burlesque with the "classic" show and the audacious Royal Jelly. With ten dancers and a six-piece band, including a three-piece horn section, the Forty Deuce tour has been selling out 3,000 seat arenas throughout the country, solidifying Kane's reputation for producing and directing what has become the gold standard in burlesque and for being one of the most innovative men in nightlife.
His long-range goals include continuing to build the Ivan Kane Enterprises brand and realizing his dream project, a boutique hotel that he has already conceptualized and designed. Kane has many projects in development, including an 8,000 square foot Ivan Kane's Forty Deuce in the brand new Revel Casino in Atlantic City, New Jersey. The project includes a 3,000 square foot themed gaming area as well. Already under construction, the space promises to be one of the most unique nightlife experiences in the country. Ivan Kane's Forty Deuces' are also in the works for Sydney, Australia, London, Southampton and New York.
He's been called an impresario and a "nightlife guru," but most of all Ivan Kane is an innovator. "I'm constantly looking to redefine nightlife," he concludes, "by doing the unexpected."
