Las Vegas Weekly

September 17, 2009 · 2:59 PM

CSI Interviews: Is Hawaii next for CBS hit? Is there a perfect crime?

By Robin Leach

CSI: Crime Scene Investigation producer Anthony Zuiker cuts the ribbon of CSI: The Experience during the exhibit's grand opening at the MGM Grand.

Photo: Getty Images

Hard to believe that one-time Las Vegas tram operator Anthony E. Zuiker created a TV juggernaut in his CSI franchise, which is now worth $6 billion to CBS, per The Wall Street Journal, no less! The original CSI in Las Vegas has spawned New York and Miami spinoffs, and the creator and executive producer now has his eyes set on Hawaii!

At the opening of the new CSI: The Experience exhibit at MGM Grand, I asked Anthony why he’d picked Las Vegas to start. He told me: “The one thing that the television network executives ask you is, ‘Can you write 100 episodes?’ and they also tell you to write what you know. I definitely know Las Vegas. I’ve been growing up here since I was 6 months old and am now 41, so I have seen just about everything. I have seen so much of the mob come and go. I have hung out in casinos all my life.

“I felt I knew the backyards of Las Vegas better than the back of my hand. It’s a very transient town with its own graveyard shift complete with a modern day scientific approach. What better place than Las Vegas for me to start with? I’d like to do a CSI: Hawaii, and that way I could drink out of a pineapple, relax in the sun and just write four of their episodes a year. That would be great!

“In 10 years, we are actually now north of 250 Vegas episodes, 200 in CSI: Miami, about 150 in New York. We have cut four cakes and are en route to a fifth cake at CSI: Miami for the 200th. To this day, I still think our Episode 7 from Season 1 in Las Vegas was the one that still stands out. It was called ‘Blood Drops,’ about a quadruple murder, and was written by Tish McCarthy and Anne Donohue. A close second would be the two-hour episode that Quentin Tarantino did. The quadruple murder was from a real-life incident, but Quentin’s was pure fiction -- so to say! He was pure brilliance.”

I asked Anthony about the dollars and sense of the $6 billion franchise. He told me: “CBS has the money -- not me! But I sleep very comfortably at night. I never thought it would become this big and profitable. CSI was my first TV script that I ever wrote.

“Our goal -- my hope -- was to stay on for 13 episodes. We never dared think of 500 episodes at this point. We never guessed we would wind up having three shows in the Top 15 reaching 75 million people around the world. We are living the dream, and only in America can you have a show this successful and employ so many people.

“It’s very ironic for me because I used to work at the MGM Grand. Then I created CSI, and now 10 years later, I’m back at MGM looking at the infrastructure I created becoming a museum right back in the MGM. That’s really a great story.”

Anthony, who used to be a tram operator for MGM Mirage, told me the only gambling he does is with life itself -- and not at the MGM tables! “Life is a gamble. There is a lot of gambling in Hollywood as we speak. I am not a big gambler, but I do take a lot of risks in Hollywood,” he smiled.

“My achievement with this show is that we want to make sure that the awareness is raised about crime labs so they get proper funding from the government. There are a lot of labs that are subpar in their technology. What we have on the show is the Hollywood version of the best, but the majority really needs a lot of help. A lot of crime material in cities has to be shipped off to the FBI at Quantico. There are a lot of crimes not being solved because police forces don’t have the means, the funds and the technology to do it. We hope the show raises awareness and grows future CSIs.”

I had to ask with all of his experience of producing hundreds of episodes and writing dozens of scripts if he’d come across the perfect crime yet? “I have, but I can’t tell you. I think you can get away with murder, he said. “I think there are a couple perfect crimes, but I think the real forensics boys would beg to differ because they are the experts. Forensically, there is no such thing as the perfect crime, but I think there is a way to get away with murder. But there is always something, the smallest of mistakes, and you can be caught. There are foolproof ways to kill, but I can’t repeat them.”

Stunning redhead Marg Helgenberger remembers starting on CSI back in spring 2000 -- nearly 10 seasons ago. I’d met her nine years earlier in Mexico. I asked why she thought CSI works so well when other shows on television die so quickly.

She told me: “I think it is a combination, the sum of its parts. Everything begins with a great story, but then it’s the execution of that story, which includes the cast, which we all had great chemistry from the get go. And there was a new way of telling mystery with the use of all the special effects and all the technology. We still have the best group of writers. … It is the mystery that comes first.

“I am always in awe of those who do this for a real living. It can’t be an easy job, and every time I ride with them or talk with them, they are always incredibly curious, they stay interested, and they love their jobs even though it is gruesome. I marvel at their ability to solve real-life crime because it is far more tedious than how we present it on TV. It is very painstaking and you have to have enormous patience, so I do marvel at their skills and abilities.

“I don’t know how long I will continue to stay with it. We are in Season 10. I am contracted through this season, and I take it one season at a time. I still enjoy what I do, and I love everybody I work with. I have a lot of fun. The show still has great quality.”

Marg is a fan of the city where her CSI started out: “I really love Vegas. I am not a gambler. I like to shop here, and it is fantastic. Over the years, I’ve come to know the places I like, so I return to those places.”

She told me that she’d been through the exhibit when it first began two years ago but was never able to go through the three crime scenes as a regular visitor. “I started to but got distracted,” she said. “I’m going to try it again here and see how far I get. I think I am a pretty good crime solver on and off screen, so it will be interesting and fascinating. I think the exhibit is an absolutely wonderful addition to Vegas attractions.”

I told Marg that I’d asked Anthony if there was a perfect crime that one could get away with. She commented: “There are people who get away with it. That doesn’t happen automatically. I think some people are master criminals who know how to cover their tracks, but I wouldn’t propose to say what the perfect crime would be even though I think I know!”

Click HERE for our earlier Vegas DeLuxe coverage of CSI: The Experience.

Robin Leach has been a journalist for more than 50 years and has spent the past decade giving readers the inside scoop on Las Vegas, the world’s premier platinum playground.

Follow Robin Leach on Twitter HERE.

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Follow VDLX Editor Don Chareunsy on Twitter HERE.

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