READY FOR ITS CLOSE-UP IN CURRENT TV SHOWS AND A WHOLE RAFT OF MOVIES, LAS VEGAS IS A POWERFUL LURE FOR HOLLYWOOD.

Byline: Jerry Rice  Staff Writer

LAS VEGAS - Britney Spears slept here.

So did Mark Wahlberg, Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez. It's also where Leonardo DiCaprio spent his last two birthdays.

``Here'' is the lavish, 2,900-square-foot suite on the 28th floor of the Palms Casino Resort, which became one of the hottest places in town after it was featured in MTV's ``Real World.''

``I don't think any other room has gotten the kind of play and air time and publicity that room has received - and almost all of that is from the show,'' said Palms spokesman Brian Albertson.

It's just one example of Hollywood's increasing fascination with Las Vegas - on both the small screen and the big - and the phenomenon is causing fans to come trailing in the wake of their favorite stars.

It might not be surprising that celebrities have been plunking down $10,000 for a Friday or Saturday night in the Real World Suite (on Sunday through Thursday the room goes for $5,000 to $7,500). But that ``as seen on TV'' aspect to the three-bedroom suite has encouraged people of more limited means to reserve it for slumber parties of their own.

``A lot of times it's taken by groups of people who chip in and rent it out,'' Albertson said of a room that even locals seem to love. It was voted by the staff of the Las Vegas Review-Journal as the Best Use of Las Vegas in TV or Movies.

That recognition often means more revenue, said Anthony Curtis, publisher of the LasVegasAdvisor.com traveler tip site.

``There are close to 100 casinos in the entire Las Vegas valley,'' he said. ``If you've got to choose one, where do you go? You go to the one you've heard about, that seems cool and you can identify with to some degree - and that happens when you see it week in and week out on television.''

The Palms isn't the only casino that has found a home on TV.

--Golden Nugget owners Tom Breitling and Tim Poster let television cameras follow them around for the summer reality series ``The Casino.'' Produced by Mark Burnett (``Survivor,'' ``The Apprentice''), the show attracted an average of 4.4 million viewers per episode - a fairly respectable showing. Breitling and Poster are now talking with other production companies about bringing more reality or scripted shows to the downtown hotel-casino.

--The Hard Rock Hotel and Casino has a nearly 5,000-square-foot penthouse - complete with a single-lane bowling alley and a full bar - that has hosted Howard Stern's radio show. The room also was featured in a first-season episode of ``The O.C.'' on Fox, as was the palm-tree-lined pool area.

--Green Valley Ranch in nearby Henderson is home to Discovery Channel's ``American Casino,'' a reality series about the everyday problems of working in a casino, including pampering high-rollers and handling obnoxious customers. After completing a successful first run earlier this month, work is under way on an 18-episode second season.

All three places have enjoyed increased traffic since taking the publicity plunge. At Green Valley Ranch, for example, online reservations skyrocketed almost 300 percent after ``American Casino's'' June debut.

Elsewhere, the pyramid-shaped Luxor also experienced a spike in room reservations last year after it was featured in an episode of NBC's ``Fear Factor.''

Las Vegas on television and in the movies is not a new phenomenon. The city's neon lights have been captured dozens of times before.

--The Rat Pack - led by Frank Sinatra as Danny Ocean - conspired to rob five Las Vegas casinos simultaneously in the 1960 film ``Ocean's Eleven.'' George Clooney returned to the scene of the crime for the 2001 remake, complete with a performance by the dancing-water fountains in front of the Bellagio specially choreographed for the movie.

--Robert Urich played a handsome, wise-cracking private eye on ABC's ``Vega$'' in the late 1970s, setting up shop at the old Desert Inn. Today, ``CSI'' is the No. 1 crime drama in town. And while most of the CBS series is filmed in Los Angeles, set-up shots and lengthier scenes have been done at locations all around Las Vegas, including the Liberace Museum and New York New York, where senior forensics officer Gil Grissom (William Petersen) likes to work out his tensions by riding the roller coaster.

--Chevy Chase brought his oddball Griswold family to several casinos in town for 1997's ``Vegas Vacation.'' His unbalanced cousin (Randy Quaid) was caught swimming with the dolphins at the Mirage, his underage son was carded and kicked out of the Riviera Hotel and Casino, his daughter hung out with Beatles look-alikes at Lady Luck Casino Hotel, and his wife was wooed by Wayne Newton during one of his nightclub concerts.

--Who can forget Nicolas Cage as a ``flying Elvis,'' parachuting down to Bally's to rescue Sarah Jessica Parker from the clutches of James Caan in the 1992 movie ``Honeymoon in Vegas''?

--And long before there was a ``Real World'' suite - or even a Palms Casino Resort, for that matter - a suite at Caesars Palace gained instant recognition when Tom Cruise and Dustin Hoffman stayed there in 1988's Oscar-winning ``Rain Man.'' Five years later, Robert Redford propositioned Demi Moore in ``Indecent Proposal,'' staying in a lavish suite at the Las Vegas Hilton.

``People really are interested in visiting film locations,'' said Robin Holabird, deputy director of the Nevada Film Office.

She cites two examples to prove her point: the Ponderosa Ranch, a picturesque 570-acre property near Incline Village, Nev., which was used for ``Bonanza,'' and the baseball diamond cut out of an Iowa cornfield for 1989's ``Field of Dreams.''

The Ponderosa Ranch continued to attract visitors until last month when its new owner closed it - 31 years after the long-running show was canceled by NBC. Future plans for the property are unclear.

The ``Field of Dreams'' diamond, which is located in Dyersville and operates under the name Left & Center Field of Dreams, attracts more than 1,000 tourists on weekends during the peak summer season.

Apparently in Sin City, there's even interest in some locations that don't exist.

During an episode last season of the NBC sudser ``Las Vegas,'' Caan's casino boss met with somebody at a topless pancake house. The establishment's slogan held that the only thing flat in the place was the pancakes.

``We got an e-mail the next morning asking if we knew where it was,'' Holabird said. ``They said, 'It looks like a friendly place.' Of course, we knew there was more to it than that.''

Considering the desire to visit movie and TV locations, it's somewhat surprising that in Las Vegas, apparently, nobody is offering tours of the sites. Kenny Kramer, the inspiration for Jerry Seinfeld's frenetic neighbor in ``Seinfeld,'' still offers a half-day bus tour of various New York City locations that appeared in that show. The Big Apple also has a three-hour ``Sex and the City'' tour, based on the former HBO comedy.

Of course, there's always the self-guided Las Vegas tour.

``You could almost walk down one side of the Strip, cross the street and walk up the other side and almost every place you hit would have had some association with either a movie or television show,'' said Holabird, who is working on a book about what draws producers to Nevada.

As with anything, Las Vegas location stories are not always happy ones. The image of the Golden Nugget, for example, took a hit from the producers of ``The Casino.'' Locals considered the show overly sleazy and not in keeping with the property's image as a classic Las Vegas hangout on the rebound, according to a story in the Las Vegas Sun.

Several casino owners, including MGM Mirage, have turned down reality show offers, concluding that hosting them is not worth the hassles and potential risks.

``Some are still a little leery to lend their name to a show because they can't control the filming at all times, there's the inconvenience, and it's also fairly expensive,'' said Curtis of LasVegasAdvisor.com. ``If somebody wants to come in and shoot, you've got to cut some sort of deal with them - like maybe you put them up or maybe they get food allowances.

``Even if you're not paying them directly, they're using a lot of the amenities and resources to house and facilitate the filming - not to mention the closing down of areas and putting customers out to some degree.''

Other properties, while opening their doors to filming, have tried to shield themselves from downside risks by removing all references to the casino. CBS' new offering ``dr. vegas,'' starring Rob Lowe as a playboy casino doctor, is filmed at Green Valley Ranch, but viewers won't know that from watching the show; Lowe's character works at a casino called the Metro.

But none of that seems to matter as long as the cameras keep rolling and the gamblers keep coming. Production revenues last year topped $104 million, with nearly $60 million of that coming from TV shows and specials.

``There's a value to Las Vegas in general when people see it over and over and over again on TV. It stimulates them and spurs them to get on a plane and come out here,'' Curtis said. ``The most specific value of that sort of thing is for the individual places that actually do it. Somebody who's coming out anyway might say they've got to go to the Palms where they had 'Real World.' ''

And that brings us back to Britney Spears. As far as her actually sleeping in the room, we're not entirely sure. But we know she was there. It was the night of her infamous 55-hour marriage in January to a childhood sweetheart.

``There's the notion that if you're a fan of 'Real World' you want to be in that room because you saw it on TV. But you can also say you slept in the same bed as Britney Spears or Mark Wahlberg or any number of celebrities,'' Albertson said. ``I can't think of any other real hotel room that people just want to be in. It's a real attraction on its own.''

CAPTION(S):

5 photos, 2 boxes

Photo:

(1 -- 2 -- color) Television has trained a mesmerized eye on Las Vegas of late, using the glittery location for such dramas as CBS' ``CSI,'' top left, and ``American Casino,'' above, the Discovery Channel reality series that is taped at Green Valley Ranch in nearby Henderson, Nev.

(3 -- 5) Vegas locations familiar to film and TV fans include the Real World Suite at the Palms Casino Resort, top (yours on a weekend night for $10,000); Caesars Palace, above left, where Dustin Hoffman took a Buick for a spin in ``Rain Man''; and the pool at the Hard Rock Cafe and Casino, above right, a setting for ``The O.C.''

Jerry Rice/Great Escapes

Box:

(1) MAKING A SCENE IN VEGAS

(2) SEEING A PREVIEW