Vic Glazer is what one might call a trouper, an old pro, a show business warhorse.

While he's not particularly old -- he is, in fact, a spry and amiable fortysomething -- the musician-conductor has been around a while and done just about everything, having worked during his long career with a number of the greats (Debbie Reynolds, Dinah Shore, Lucille Ball) and a few of the not-so-greats (Connie Stevens, Rip Taylor, Sha Na Na).

More significantly, though, he is also one of those rare entertainers who can say that he's been able to make a steady living in the field of show business for more than 20 years -- and then some.

"He is not only a pianist,'' gushes Antun Duzevic, the general manager of Romanoff on Church Street, "he is the pianist. He has worked in the United States with many of the top stars, and he is also an accomplished composer.'' In a somewhat more modest tone, Mr. Glazer himself adds later: "I hate to blow my own horn, but there's very little that I can't play.

"I can play Broadway, '30s and '40s music, music from the '60s. And that's because I've been doing this all my life.'' It is just after 2.00 p.m. on a Friday at Romanoff, where Mr. Glazer, who was close to an hour late for his interview but extremely apologetic when he did arrive, has just been recruited to tickle the ivories at the splendidly appointed Franco-Russian restaurant on a nightly basis.

On this occasion, Community and Cultural Affairs Minister the Hon. Wayne Furbert is holding court at one centrally located table, while high-powered local attorney Alan Dunch talks shop at another.

They are, by Bermudian standards, glamorous company, though still a far cry from the movers and shakers that peopled Mr. Glazer's old stomping grounds of LA, Miami and Vegas.

Even so, the old pro and warhorse -- comfortably settled now in a corner stool at the bar -- claims not to miss those previous worlds of his.

"A job is a job as long as I'm happy with it,'' Mr. Glazer, who served as Debbie Reynolds' pianist, conductor and musical director for seven years and former teen heart-throb Frankie Avalon's for eleven, says without a trace of regret.

"Sure, there's more prestige with someone like Debbie, but the money's usually the same and here I don't have to travel.'' Indeed, Mr. Glazer's resume does seem to have more place names in it than a Rand McNally road atlas -- a stint with the Dallas or Houston Symphonies here, a gig in Honolulu or Hong Kong there.

Mostly, though, the native northeasterner counted Los Angeles and Miami as his home before he came to Bermuda, where his wife of more than two decades was born, and where he opened the Southampton Princess Hotel with Mr. Avalon -- "they hadn't even put the carpet down yet'' -- in the early 1970s.

As Mr. Glazer talks glowingly of that first encounter with his wife, "a lovely redhead who had just gotten divorced,'' at Elbow Beach, and of how difficult it had been to take her "away from her mother and family'', it is easy to see why the couple decided to move back after so many years in the US and so many miles on the road.

It is even easier to understand after Mr. Glazer lets forth on some of the less pleasant aspects of his life in entertainment, particularly some of the people whose paths he's crossed over the years.

One well-known crooner, for example, is described during the course of the interview as "pure evil, the kind of guy who enjoys sticking it to people'', while another, well-regarded for his famous so-called family values, is revealed to have been a womaniser.

Even sweet-as-pie Ms Reynolds, the star of "Singin' In The Rain'' and "The Unsinkable Molly Brown,'' the wronged woman in the notorious Eddie Fisher-Liz Taylor affair, apparently had her vice.

"Debbie's a legend, and she's still my buddy,'' Mr. Glazer starts off his tell-all. "But -- and I may be letting the cat out of the bag here -- she doesn't sleep! She would stay up all night and tell old showbiz stories. And one of us would have to stay up with her.'' How advantageous -- in addition to the lightened travel load that Mr. Glazer acquired when he took his new job in Bermuda, the old pro will no doubt be getting more sleep as well.

SIGNATURE LOOK -- So distinctive are Vic Glazer's mustchae and curly hair, that he uses the "look'' on his resume.