The woman whose passport reads “María del Rosario Pilar Martínez Molina Gutiérrez de los Perales Santa Ana Romanguera y de la Hinojosa Rasten” has so many fantastic stories that the list of great ones goes on longer than her official name!

CHARO started in Las Vegas back in the 1970s, and before she was legal. “I brought so many people in they looked the other way,” she says. Her time in Sin City is a history lesson of talent. “It was just like the movies. People dressed perfectly; there was an ambience of class.” Her co-stars in sophistication included Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, and Sammy Davis Junior (“The best performer in the world”), and a setting that she calls “a dream come true.”

While the dream may have ended (“Las Vegas is Disneyland now”), Charo has not. She performs year-round. On February 25 she  performed  her new song, “Sexy, Sexy” at Splash Bar in New York, and on April 10 she’ll perform at the famous WHITE PARTY in Palm Springs. Charo’s not going back in time, she’s moving with it. 

Charo left the scene before the scene left her. “I knew that I didn’t want my child to be raised by nannies. In the Eighties, I was making a hundred thousand a week in Vegas and Reno, and instead I went to Hawaii where my son could grow up normal with the same friends.” She still performed in Waikiki, and answers the question of possible regrets before you ask. “My son doesn’t have to write a book called ‘Cuchi-Cuchi Dearest.’” It’s a laugh line on her part, and a bittersweet note for anyone who remembers the lush desert days. 

“When I came back to Vegas in 2000, I couldn’t believe it. Corporations took over, and they looked at people like numbers. I stopped learning the names of my bosses because every three months there would be a new one. There was a time when you were a VIP; now you’re a lump.” 

“Sexy, Sexy” was written by Charo’s son, Shel Rasten, a musician in his own right, and it’s an infectious dance number that Charo calls “the new Cuchi-Cuchi.” If you notice a change in her audience, it’s because a lot of the ambience now has a touch of same-sex class. Charo’s flamboyant look has, not surprisingly, kept her in the gay loop. 

“I am against discrimination and against oppression,” she says. “The people in the White House should treat the country like it’s their own children. Same sexes should be respected and allowed to marry. You have to fight, fight, fight!”