George Lopez’s career turned the page with ‘Playboy’

George Lopez, headlining Friday and Saturday in the Mirage “Aces of Comedy” series, began his Vegas stand-up career in an unlikely production — the “Playboy Girls of Rock and Roll” adult revue at Maxim.

This was a sultry show, licensed by Playboy, featuring at least one actual playmate performing a dance number, with a live band and such terrific vocalists as Michelle Rohl, who still performs in town as the swing for the Janis Joplin character in “Legends in Concert” at Flamingo Las Vegas and intermittently at Myron’s Cabaret Jazz at the Smith Center.

Lopez joined the production in the holiday season of 1987, at age 26.

“It was crazy, a little bit strange but great experience,” Lopez said in a phone interview this week. “I would go down to the stage about five minutes before I’d go on, do my act, and leave. It wasn’t until six months later, when I came back, that I realized the show was topless.”

“George really kind of kept to himself in those days,” Rohl recalled. “We were like professional partiers and he was just starting. Everybody had a good time. One thing about that show is they had great comedians.” Along with Lopez, who made several appearances in the show’s five-year run at Maxim, popular stand-ups David Gee and Bruce Mickelson were rotated into the production.

The show helped Lopez get his start in feature films. Director Rich Correllhad heard the production was a stage for top emerging comics, caught Lopez’s act and wound up casting him in the 1990 comedy, “Ski Patrol.”

Lopez says he’s nearing the end of his stage career. He plans to perform in Las Vegas through 2019 or possibly 2020, then close the show.

“At first I thought I’d end it in June 2019, but maybe continue past 2020,” Lopez says. “I performed for my first time, ever, in 1979 and if I make it to 2020 so I’ll have done stand-up in seven decades … But who knows? Maybe I’ll just keep going and going, like Roberto Duran. I’ll be like an old boxer, just coming back to Vegas because I love it.”

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