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Picture Frank Marino under the spotlight, sequins catching the light like a disco ball made of flesh, and you’ll understand why he’s still standing. Not just standing—strutting, shimmying, and serving like the lovechild of Joan Rivers and Liberace.
Forty years as a Las Vegas Strip headliner. Longer than most marriages, longer than most trends, longer than some empires.
Marino didn’t just survive Vegas, he owned it, teased it and threw it back in your face with a glittery wink. When his debut show An Evening at La Cage opened at the Riviera in 1985, it was supposed to be a three-month experiment. Marino thought bigger.
An Evening at La Cage
Photo by: Courtesy
“From day one, I knew it was going to be a long-term event,” he tells the Weekly. “We signed a three-month contract that ended up being 25 years.”
This is the kind of longevity you can’t fake. No one grinds through decades in drag unless they’re powered by pure devotion to the craft. “I really think that’s what keeps my energy going,” he says. “The fact that I could get dressed up every day.”
Marino’s not your average queen—he’s an institution, a rhinestoned time machine, a living vestige of when Vegas was more than bottle service and LED screens, when you could smoke indoors without shame, and when the city’s pulse ran on pure, unapologetic spectacle.
Back in the day he’d do three shows a night, then head to another hotel for dinner and cocktails, catch a lounge act like Cook E. Jarr or Bob Anderson, then hit an off-Strip nightclub until morning.
He became recognized for his impersonation of Joan Rivers—maybe became her in a spiritual cabaret possession—but he’s long since morphed into someone else and performs as himself these days. “I stopped doing Joan Rivers about five years after she passed,” he says. “But I guess I’m still very Joan. People will assume I’m doing her because of the New York accent, the blonde wig and the persona.”
He nods to Kenny Kerr’s Boy-lesque for making the queer community shake hands with mainstream Vegas audiences. The female impersonation revue—the first known on the Strip—ran for over a decade at the Silver Slipper starting in 1977.
“Kenny really opened the door for people to see this kind of performance in a higher realm than just the gay bars or underground clubs,” Marino says. “He opened the door, and we busted it down.”
Now, his Divas, Drag & Drinks residency at 24 Oxford at Virgin Las Vegas is a carousel of pop deities—Gaga, Beyoncé, Celine—but Marino remains the gravitational center. He emcees a dazzling 75-minute production with impersonations of stars from every generation. Audiences get a kick out of the queens paying tribute to their respective celebrity through song, choreography and costume while sipping on cocktails and singing along.
Drag is mainstream now. RuPaul has an empire. TikTok queens are born daily. But Frank? Frank was drag before drag knew how to market itself.
“In the beginning, people came because it was, for lack of a better word, naughty,” he says. “Something they couldn’t see back in their hometown. In Vegas, they could let their hair down.”
Now they show up in tank tops and fanny packs. Marino remembers when the audience was dressed better than some performers: minks, gowns, tuxedos. That’s gone. So is the Riviera. But he’s still here, getting nervous before each show.
“I used to think it was strange,” he says. “Then someone said, ‘If you weren’t nervous, it wouldn’t matter to you.’”
FRANK MARINO’S DIVAS, DRAG & DRINKS September 19-21, times vary, $59+. 24 Oxford, etix.com.
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