NEWSMAKERS

NEWSMAKERS

Caesars Palace getting $75 million update despite bankruptcy

LAS VEGAS

Caesars Palace on the Las Vegas Strip is getting a $75 million upgrade for its 50th birthday despite facing a complicated bankruptcy reorganization and millions of dollars in fines.

Parent company Caesars Entertainment Corp. announced Friday that it’s overhauling the hotel’s original Roman Tower of rooms, last redone in 2001. The iconic Roman-themed property is the only Strip casino owned and operated by a Caesars subsidiary that is trying to shed $10 billion of its $18.4 billion in debt by restructuring.

Caesars Palace recently was fined $9.5 million by federal and state regulators for failing to take steps to prevent money laundering in the casino.

Chris Jones, a gambling- industry analyst with Union Gaming, said it would be difficult for anyone involved in the bankruptcy case, including Caesars’ creditors, to argue that a capital investment to improve the nearly 15-year-old rooms would be a bad call.

He said it doesn’t help anyone if the tower, closed for construction since mid-September, isn’t making money. The 567-room tower will get 20 additional rooms and a new name: the Julius Tower.

Arnold Klein, dermatologist to the stars, dies

LOS ANGELES

Dr. Arnold Klein, dermatologist to the late Michael Jackson and other Hollywood celebrities, has died. He was 70.

Klein, 70, died Thursday at Eisenhower Medical Center in Rancho Mirage near Palm Springs, according to the Riverside County coroner’s office. The brief press release did not state the cause of death and did not indicate any investigation was underway.

Klein’s roster of patients once included Elizabeth Taylor, Dolly Parton, Carrie Fisher and other celebrities. The Beverly Hills dermatologist’s specialty was the use of injectable drugs such as Botox to ease wrinkles and sagging skin.

Klein, who called Jackson “my best friend,” treated him for more than 25 years before the pop star’s drug-related death in 2009.

Debbie Rowe, a nurse who worked for Klein, married Jackson and had two of the singer’s three children, Prince and Paris, before the couple divorced. The doctor dismissed media reports alleging that he fathered the children through a sperm donation.

When Jackson died, federal drug agents investigating the singer’s prescriptions cleared Klein.

Associated Press