He plays the president on TV, but in
Vegas, he's the king of the slots. Spend a weekend in Las
Vegas with Martin Sheen
While he's certainly been more victorious in his role as the
president on
The West Wing, for which he was nominated for this
year's Outstanding Lead
Actor in a Drama Series
Emmy (the show
itself was nominated for 18 Emmys),
Martin Sheen still loves the
slots of Las Vegas, where, he says, he finds a mesmerizing sense of
calm. Vegas has been a longtime stopover for the veteran actor, who
first got off a bus in downtown Glitter Gulch in 1966 and promptly
lost every cent of his traveling money.
The seventh child of a Spanish immigrant father and Irish mother,
Sheen was born Ramon Estevez in
Dayton,
Ohio, in 1940. After a
stint on Broadway, he went on to star in the critically acclaimed
Badlands opposite
Sissy Spacek, then blasted to stardom opposite
Marlon Brando in Apocalypse Now. The role took such a physical toll
on Sheen, then 38, that he suffered a
heart attack during filming.
Since then, he's become a familiar face in dozens of movies on both
the small and big screen, including
Oliver Stone's
Wall Street, in
which he played opposite his son
Charlie Sheen. Sheen and his wife
Janet's three other children -
Emilio Estevez, Ramon Estevez, and
Renee Estevez - are actors as well. Herewith, Sheen forgoes the
couple's L.A. home and his character's
White House digs for a
weekend in Las Vegas,
Nevada.
FRIDAY
Lodging
"The Riviera Hotel is one of the early hotels on the Strip. It
started out very old-fashioned, but they've remodeled it
considerably since I have been going there. They've always had
reasonable rates. It's my favorite hotel because it has kept the
image of the way Las Vegas used to be. Great, friendly staff. Plus,
Andy Pohl, the gift shops' manager, has been a childhood friend
since the mid-1940s, when we made our first communion together.
Andy's one of the main reasons I go to Vegas. We grew up together
in Dayton. Every casino on the Strip is unto itself: You can eat,
sleep, entertain, gamble, just about anything. The Venetian is very
well done, as is Paris."