An Interview with Kim Krantz
An Oral History Conducted by Joyce Marshall
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Las Vegas Women in Gaming and Entertainment Oral History Project University of Nevada, Las Vegas 1997
Production of An Interview with Kim Krantz was made possible in part by a grant from the Nevada Humanities Committee.
Joyce Marshall, 1997
Produced by:
Las Vegas Women in Gaming and Entertainment Oral History Project Department of History, University of Nevada, Las Vegas 89154-5020 Director and Editor: Joanne L. Goodwin Text Processor: Joyce Marshall
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This interview and transcript has been made possible with the generosity of the Nevada Humanities Committee, a state program of the National Endowment for the Humanities. The History Department of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas provided a home for the project and a wide variety of in-kind services. The department, as well as the college and university administration, enabled students and faculty to work together with community members to generate this selection of first-person narratives. The participants in this project thank the NHC and UNLV for its support which gave an idea the chance to flourish. The text has received minimal editing. These measures include the elimination of fragments, false starts, and repetitions in order to enhance the reader’s understanding of the material. All measures have been taken to preserve the style and language of the narrator. In several cases, photographic sources (housed separately) accompany the collection as slides or black and white photographs. The following interview is one of nine conducted as a pilot project for the Las Vegas Women in Gaming and Entertainment Oral History Project. Additional transcripts may be found under that series title.
Joanne Goodwin, Project Director Associate Professor, Department of History University of Nevada, Las Vegas
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Preface
Kim Krantz arrived in Las Vegas in 1953. She came as a seasoned performer having danced in large productions in Chicago, Montreal, New York and Florida. Born Delores Kalcowski in Jersey City, New Jersey, she adopted the name Kim Perrin while working at New York’s Latin Quarter. She had always loved the West and jumped at the chance to take the Latin Quarter show from New York City to Las Vegas. She came for a two-week engagement at the Desert Inn Hotel. The show was held over at that property for three months, and then it moved to the Riviera Hotel and Casino. Bill Miller approached her to join a new production at the Dunes Hotel. He and Harold Minsky were preparing “Minsky’s Burlesque,” the first show to use women born in the United States in a nude show. She opened with the original cast and stayed for two years. Kim retired in 1957 after she married Danny Krantz, the Food and Beverage Manager for the Flamingo Hotel. She raised four children in Las Vegas, but never lost touch with the stage and her former co-workers. This interview explores the opportunities for gainful employment in show business in the post-World War II years. It also offers a first-hand account of the changes in showroom entertainment with the introduction of nudity.
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An Interview with Kim Krantz
An oral history conducted by Joyce Marshall
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This is Joyce Marshall and today I am at the home of Kim Krantz at 105 Hollyhock
Lane here in Las Vegas. It is February 26th [1996] and it's about 1:30 in the afternoon. The release form has been discussed and signed.
I want to start out today by asking you a little bit about your early life; where you were born, what got you into dancing.
I was born in Jersey City, New Jersey. My head was always at the window at my dance classes. And horses, I loved horses. I had to sit on tar roofs and read Zane Grey. I had never seen the west. I started auditioning for shows in New York. I never went for a job that I didn't get. I worked for Donn Arden. I worked for the Latin Quarter. I worked the
Lookout House in Cincinnati, the Chez Paris in Chicago, the Folies Bergere in Montreal.
I was at the Latin Quarter for almost four years. I worked at the Latin Quarter on Palm
Island where I had the pleasure of meeting J.F.K.[John F. Kennedy], Joe DiMaggio and numerous. It was during the glamour years. We were fully clothed. We may have looked like we weren't, but they were body stockings and our body stockings were dressed and each girl was an individual. They do say that Lou Walters, Barbara's father, was like the next Ziegfeld of his time. He presented each of us with our best, I mean, if your butt was too big he would [makes a motion like she is lifting her buttocks], you know what I'm saying? But, we were dressed. You didn't see a varicose vein, you didn't see -- it was lovely. Flowers came to the dressing rooms, I mean, there would be limos at the stage door. We were invited to all of the best places in New York, Twenty-One
[Club]. It was a different time, a very different time.
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How did you end up coming to Las Vegas?
There was a show coming for one month, the Latin Quarter show was to appear here.
And, I came out for the one month and I fell in love with Las Vegas.
When was that? What year?
In about 1954. They held the show over for another three months. I thought I was going
to meet a cowboy or an Indian for sure. I mean those were the days of the Sand's Lounge.
I mean everybody rubbed elbows with everybody else. Sinatra, everybody knew
everybody. Desi Arnez, they found him sleeping in front of the Rendezvous Gambling
Hall. You'd ride horseback down the Strip if you wanted to and tie up at the old Silver
Slipper. It was just a wonderful, wonderful time. Of course, Bill Miller was doing the
new show at the Dunes Hotel and asked if I'd like, I knew Bill. I had worked for Bill at
Bill Miller's Riviera in New Jersey and he wanted to know if I wanted to work in that and
I said, I love it here. I don't want to leave. Why would I want to leave? That was the
very first nude show. Bill got --
Which was?
It was Harold Minsky and Bill Miller at the Dunes. He got Minsky because American
girls would not go topless. Harold brought in the women from the burlesque houses
across the country. We had to go on strike for them to build us a new dressing room.
They were a very different breed of woman. It was, I mean, they were burlesque girls. It was --
What do you mean different? I don't understand.
They weren't dancer dancers.
They were just nudes?
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They were nudes. They were burlesque girls. [raises voice]. They were tough, they were -
- [grimaces]. And Howie Engle and Sid Wyman and old Major Riddle, they built a new dressing room for us because we said, we're going on strike. We refuse to dress --
You didn't want to be in the same room with them?
In the same dressing room.
Wow. They walked around nude and had no modesty?
Well, dressing rooms were generally pretty casual. It was just, they were just different.
They were, possibly, gay?
Some, yeah. Some were quite masculine. But, the first nude to set foot on a stage, Ash
Resnick, they were all there, Dean Shendel, all of the inner sanctum here, they all came to the dress rehearsal and we'd gotten done with our can-can and we are posing in the, you know, sitting there and here's stage left, fully clothed, you know, strapless gown, beautiful. It was a royal kind of blue velvet with a lot of glitz. We see her come walking out on stage and the foot lights are down. I mean, the lighting, they're doing the whole nine yards and all of a sudden she turned her rear to the audience and we hear this uproar.
They are hysterical. Her bottom was out. When she turned around to us and we saw it, we all fell on the floor.
So, the first nude shot was not of breasts, it was of a rear-end.
That's right, it was a bottom.
That's funny.
Then, of course, they were having some problems keeping nudes, you know, topless. I mean, Harold, Bill and Dottie, Harold's wife, they begged all of us. They would say, we'll give you more money, go topless. It just, American girls just didn't do that. That's why
Donn Arden embarked on bringing the Lido show. He brought the French and the
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English, the European girls who didn't have any problems with that. But, they did get one or two of our dancers and I remember one of them, she was a darling girl, beautiful girl.
When she got out there topless, we had all to do to get her off the stage. She just loved it.
It was a -- [laugh]
Liberating experience.
I guess. But, I don't know, I always thought the topless shows and way back in the beginning when they were presented very nicely, I felt it was kind of a neat thing for
American women. I'm talking about when they were real breasts on the stage. I felt that it was kind of a nice thing for our guests, that had been, felt that maybe they were too small or they were too big, you know.
Sure, they could see that there were differences in everyone and it was acceptable.
Exactly. I think it liberated a lot of women across this country. But, I still couldn't work topless.
It was an illusion, I think, even when you say you wore the full body suits, I think what they were seeing was really in their minds, but it must have been shocking in the beginning to see a women walk out with no top or no bottom as we find out. So, how long did you work for Minsky?
I worked in that show, that was the last show that I worked. I could have gone to work at the El Rancho for Beldon [Katleman]. Rene Malner offered me a job there and I was ready to take it, but I didn't realize that you had to live on the premises, in one of the cottages.
He required everybody to live there?
In those days, yes.
To have a close eye on you?
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I don't know, it was --
More than an eye?
I think it was more than an eye. I saw Howard Hughes there at the El Rancho in the
casino. We used to go over there, you know, in-between shows and what not. It was,
some things were different. You got your cottage and lived on the premises.
How long did you say you were at the Dunes?
I was at the Dunes a year, in that very first addition and then I got married.
And quit dancing. Harold Minsky was quoted by one of the newspapers when he first
brought the show here and they asked him how he thought he could compete with all
of these headliners and he said,” you know, my father always told me that I had the
leading act in breasts.” I wonder if that kind of remark, because you worked for the
man, was typical of something he would say?
Yes, I would think so.
How did he treat the girls?
He was very nice. Bill, you know, Bill Miller is still alive and well. He's living in Palm
Springs. He's 91 years old. He is still married to Denise. He was the entertainment director at the Flamingo and the International before Hilton and, you know, this was a man that brought some of the finest talent to this town. He brought Tom Jones in, then forgot to renew his contract and Caesars got him. Yeah, Bill was a very special man and
still is. His son was Jimmy Miller who produced the Rolling Stones, forty gold records.
Jimmy died a short while back. That's the one thing that Bill said to me. He said, you
know, outliving your friends is one thing, but when you start to outlive your children.
That has to be the worst. How many people were in that show, in the original cast?
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I'd say at least, maybe 100 or 150. Allen, I wish I could think of Allen's last name, he was a beautiful straight male dancer. As a matter of fact, I think he and his wife are still here as I understand it, I think she was a showgirl at the Latin Quarter in New York. She's a wardrobe mistress or something in one of the hotels. Now a lot of the women stayed in the business, too. And Allen, I believe, is a stage hand somewhere.
So, out of the hundred, about what percent were topless?
There were only, there were like three different groups. I'm talking about, you know,
Nancy Houssels and Francois Szony [Szony and Claire International Dance Team] were the dance team. I mean, I'm encompassing the entire cast and I don't know, there were maybe twenty dancers and twenty nudes and showgirls.
So, it was a good mix?
It was a lovely show, it really was.
Well, it was successful. It certainly stayed around for a long time.
When I worked with Zsa Zsa Gabor at the Riviera Hotel and Morey Amsterdam, that's when she wore that sheer nude gown, she was lovely. Backstage, if Zsa Zsa drank champagne, we had champagne.
Wasn't that nice.
I remember stepping on her gown in the finale, tore the daylights out of it. "Don't vorry darlink." The one thing she said to me, she gave me a set of hair combs. The french twist was a big do then and she had the moon and the crescent and I'd admired them and she'd gotten me a set. And, I remember her saying to me, "backstage I love you -- when we're in the casino and I'm with a gentleman, don't speak to me. You are too young and too beautiful." She was a sharp cookie.
Now that was the Riviera, not here?
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The Riviera here, oh yes. The Riviera Hotel.
When were you there?
I was there, oh, between '54, probably around '55.
Oh, so you just danced with Minsky's for a year and then you left?
I went to the Dunes, was the last show that I worked. I worked at the Riv[iera] in between.
In between the year you were..
The Latin Quarter show that came here to the Desert Inn. Then I went to the Riviera.
Oh, the Latin Quarter went to the Desert Inn?
In those days and then the Latin Quarter went to the Riviera Hotel and they were terribly
upset, the girls that had worked there forever, you know, we were held over.
Sure, because that put them out, didn't it? So, you went from the D. I. to the Riv and
then when you left that show, you went to Minsky's.
I went to the Dunes. That was the last show that I worked. That's when I settled down and began raising a family, but I was fortunate enough to marry someone [Danny Krantz] that was in the hotel business. He was food and beverage, catering, he was an innovator.
He started packaging and, you know, he loved this town. He always said it would be the convention capital of the world and he was exactly right.
You said something [before we turned the tape on]. You said he "four-walled" something?
Yes, "four-walled" like for Rodney.
Yes, but explain that because I'm not sure I understand what that means.
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It's taking the room and paying for it. Like Rodney paid the bills for that room to the hotel. Whatever business he did, whatever business he attracted, you know, it was his.
There was a percentage, I guess, that went --
To the hotel? Your husband set that up? It was like a leasing.
Yes, exactly. Shecky, Shecky Greene, you know, he was an innovator, he was. He also started a buffet and a show.
Is that right?
The show ticket kind of thing. Ground handling, meeting and greeting the groups. We started a small company. I had "Kim Tours" and Bill McFee had the other company, but I had too many children. I couldn't stay with it. I really couldn't. But our thoughts were meeting the charters and seeing that the people were taken care of and I had a nice group of attractive people in their white turtlenecks and nice little hip belts. We did a lot of things here. We opened the King of the Sea Restaurant. That was, let's see, Jodie was, that was 30 years ago, 31 years ago, she was five weeks old. That's my measuring stick.
I do the same thing, measure what time it was by what kid I had.
Betty Grable, Loretta Young, I mean, we had ninety seats and the place was full all the time and I was chasing lobsters around the airport. We'd fly them in from Boston. $5.95 for a Maine lobster, live Maine lobster dinner.
Well, that sets it back a few years. What year was that?
Yeah, I have the menu, it's interesting. It was, whatever, 31 years ago.
1966 or '65?
Bill DeAngelis and Eppie who did all of the set decorations and whatever for the Lido show, they did the interior of the restaurant.
I remember it.
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We had the wheel from a museum in Laguna or something and my dad having been captain of the Statue of Liberty boat, came in and made sure that all the knots were tied properly. It was a labor of love. But, we started something, because then they opened
Moby Dick [Stardust Hotel] and the Dome of the Sea [Dunes Hotel] and in those days you couldn't get clams or lobsters or --
No, you couldn't get seafood here.
We would pay $7 for a bushel of clams and the freight was $14.50. At least we started something. It's kind of neat to know that. Then I became very active. I used to do fashion shows for the Judy Bayley Auxiliary and Star with a lot of the women that I had danced with.
So, although you left the stage, you really kept in contact with a lot of the same people and kept very active.
I did. I did because of my husband's position within the hotels. I think I had a rather fabulous life in spite of the fact that I had four children. I still got to go to opening nights and press parties and it was all part of our life. I think it was healthy for me.
When you were dancing, of course, there were no blacks on the strip at all?
No, I was here when they marched on the strip.
There were no dancers, no --
No. Danny and I used to go visit the Treniers, out by the pool at the Frontier Hotel. He'd get a bottle of Chevis Regal and we'd bring it over and we'd hang out with the guys because we knew them from New York. It wasn't very nice. Sammy Davis.
I read an interview with the Treniers and they talked about the fact that they had to wait out by the pool before they could go on stage; that they were not allowed in the
10 building. So, was that the time you are talking about, before the show, that you would take out --
Yes. Lena Horne was the forerunner. She stayed at the Sands with her husband.
Did she?
Yes, she did. She wasn't having any of that. She was a great lady. Back in those days, I mean, they had that march on the strip.
Well, I think they were fighting just to go into the casinos.
Exactly. I mean, they could appear but couldn't stay. We used to go over to Ruben's
Restaurant on the Westside. We could go over there, but they, of course, things were different then. The town was a lot different. It was a very safe community.
You remember the opening of the Moulin Rouge then?
Yes, and the Carver House. Our town has changed radically.
I think it was in the Sixties sometime when they finally got black dancers and allowed them on the strip.
It's just like gay shows; there were no gay shows then. That was something that nobody would touch -- Boylesque. As a matter of fact, my husband made the mistake, he was asked by two other people, Ash Resnick was one of them and someone else, they had an opportunity to buy a show to put into the Theater for the Performing Arts at the Aladdin and Danny wanted to buy Boylesque. The other two wanted to buy the black Guys and
Dolls. Needless to say, at that point in time, the country with black and white situation wasn't exactly, you know, we were getting a lot of visitors from Detroit and New York and a black Guys and Dolls was not what they wanted to see. The rest, of course, is history with the Kenny Kerr [Boylesque] show. Danny felt the town was ready, was grown up enough –
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For that, but they still weren't going to accept the black Guys and Dolls. Isn't that a shame because that had a heck of a cast, didn't it?
It did. Leslie Uggums and, I'm trying to think of his name -- oh, I just don't know.
How long was that, it wasn't opened long, was it?
No, it wasn't. We lost our fannies on that one, but we tried.
And Kenny Kerr is still out there.
That show is still going strong. He's marvelous.
With his commercials, "My mom still thinks I'm a cop in L.A.," it became legendary.
I know, I know.
People still remember that. So, your husband was there when they opened the Theater of the Performing Arts, he was part of that?
Yes. He had his offices at the Aladdin.
There was somebody else that I read an interview for that had something to do with that. It was Lenny Martin. Did you know Lenny Martin?
I know the name but --
He was entertainment director for the Sahara for years. I remember him talking about the black Guys and Dolls and what a disaster it was. Well, you were probably lucky that you missed that in the back end when people were still dancing. I hear it was pretty traumatic when the black girls first came in. They wouldn't let them in the dressing rooms.
Yes, that I did miss. It bothered me when performers we knew from New York and
Chicago and Cincinnati, I mean talented performers, were not allowed to stay in the hotels. They couldn't even go into the coffee shop. They had to stay outside by the pool.
In the summer that must not have been a pretty picture.
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No, it wasn't, not with our weather.
How long did Bill Miller stay with Minsky? Was it just for that early show.
Just for that early show and then he went over to the Flamingo and that's when
[Alex]Shoofy opened the International [Hotel, presently the Las Vegas Hilton] and he
was entertainment director for both places.
So, was the transition difficult for you? Were you ready to quit dancing?
Oh, yes, I was. It had changed. It was beginning to change radically.
In what way?
When they started bringing in the European shows. Fluff, who is still, she was with Donn
Arden. I had danced with her at the Lookout House [Cincinnati]. She was one of the
most beautiful dancers I had ever seen on stage. She was our lead dancer. She had long
red hair and I'll never forget it, a green felt fedora, a bird cage, a cigar and a bell. She
came out in this wonderful show, I mean, Donn always did beautiful shows. He took one
look at her and brought her out here and she was his assistant. Bunny Hunt had been
before, the forerunner.
She was French, Fluff?1
Fluff? I don't really know.
She has a French sounding name, Fluff Le Coque.
Yeah, but no, she's an American girl. She was married.
She was married to that name probably?
Yes. She is still, she had a big part in Casino.
She did?
1 Ffolliott LeCoque. See her interview in this series.
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Yes, she had a big part. They honored her one night at the Stardust. I went to that
closing of the Lido show. It was kind of sad. Of course, Donn had since passed away.
We have a group, the Arden-Fletcher dancers, an alumni group. We get together. They
are going to have a reunion here, I believe, in May.
Well, I'll have to go.
A lot of women from Los Angeles. Marian Collier Newman, she's married to a very talented screen writer; Mickey, a girl I used to room with, she's an artist now that danced here with me at the Riv; Allard Roen's wife was a dancer from the Desert Inn.
So, you said things started to change when the [European] girls came in. Did it just
flood the market? Was it more difficult to get a job?
To a degree. When they started going with all the topless shows, you know. Although,
look at Lee Fisher's wife, Eleanor danced, I mean she's English, she danced forever in this
town. I think Eleanor holds the record for having continued to be a dancer. She was a
dressed dancer, though, she was not nude and a very fine dancer.
How long did the girls dance? Was there an average age? When they turned 30 or
turned 35 or 40?
Well, I think it depended on how kind the years were to you. Some people, the years
have been very kind to them. I went to a reunion in New York at the Glen Island
Rendezvous of the Latin Quarter women. They put something together. This has been
four, five, six years ago. It was wonderful. They had a cocktail party at the Plaza Hotel
and they had buses to take all of us up to the Glen Island Rendezvous.
Which is still there?
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Oh, yes. Well, it was then. Many of the women, I must say, looked fabulous. They had
maintained over all the years. Some of the women I didn't recognize. I was pleased
because everybody recognized me. Made me feel good.
You look pretty much like you did in these pictures. I would have recognized you.
Well, the years do change you.
You actually look thinner now than you did there.
Well, that's for all the wrong reasons. We had our little group, the golden girls. We were
rehearsing. Rene DeHaven was choreographing for us. My granddaughter said,
Grandma, don't you know anything but Hello Dolly? But it was nice to get together.
We'd go over to Henry Le Tang's Dance Studio. It was better than going to an aerobic's
class.
Yes, it was very strenuous. Donn Arden said that he liked to hire the English girls
because they were like oxen, they were strong.
Donn used to say a lot of things.
They didn't break down easy and I don't know what the relevance of that is, but --
I danced for Donn when it was the Arden-Fletcher dancers in New York.
And who was Fletcher?
Ron Fletcher who went on to do Top Banana when they parted.
Not friendly?
No. As a matter of fact, when Ron would show up for one of our alumni gatherings,
Donn would leave.
Then Donn came to Las Vegas?
Yes, that's why it was just Donn Arden Dancers. It's kind of sad really because they were wonderful together. They had produced a lot of shows across the country, you know,
15 when there were lovely nightclubs like the Chez Paris and the Lookout House and the
Beverly Hills Country Club and the Folies Bergere in Montreal and the Bellview Casino and Gatno Country Club in Ottawa. I mean, I worked there with Oscar Peterson, Ray
Brown, we stole his bass. He wanted to kill us. Janice Rule's sister Kathleen Rule.
Janice Rule who went on to marry Ben Gazarra, she was a dancer, the two sisters. Janice had a much bigger appetite. Kathleen, she didn't want to be a star. Janice did and she darn near made it at one time. Those were the days. I worked at the Latin Quarter on
Palm Island in Miami Beach, Sammy Davis and the group were at Ciero's.
Do you think they were treated any better, the blacks in other major cities than they were here.
Yes. Black performers, talented performers? Oh, absolutely. There wasn't a problem with that at all. I worked at the Greenwich Village Inn in New York City with Pearl
Bailey, Joe Barry, who became Tony Bennett. The dancers, we were the only white act.
It was Pearl Bailey, Maurice Rocco, The Three Rockets, Bob Hope came in, Tony opened the show, Joe Barry.
His name was Joe Barry?
Joe Barry. He had one recording, "Boulevard of Broken Dreams," under the name of Joe
Barry.
I wonder why he changed his name? Joe Barry is a simple name.
I think, no, I think his real name was Antonio Bennidetto, or something and I think that
Bob Hope felt that Tony Bennett, that's where that came from. Joey Bishop, I mean, I worked with Sophie Tucker at one point. It was, you know, towards the end of her --
That was the first show I saw and I was only a kid, at the El Rancho Vegas, Sophie
Tucker.
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No, I worked with her in Baltimore, Maryland at the Club Charles which was another --
Pearl Bailey, did she work with a black line, though?
No. No, we were all blondes. She had a blonde line somewhere around here with black velvet little gown on and white mink hat and muffs. Then we worked at Colombo's in
Philadelphia. Colombo's had downstairs, upstairs and next door they had the CR Club which was an after-hours club. There was a whole avenue of working. Ralph Young,
Sadler and Young, Ralph was our production singer at the Latin Quarter in New York.
So, you were really never worried about a job. You just went from place to place to place.
If you worked for a choreographer like I worked for Donn, well, this engagement is over and you would go on to someplace else. You were on the road.
When you got here, that pretty much happened. You went to work, got held over and then got offered another job.
And fell in love with Las Vegas. No pushing, no shoving like in New York where I'd been born and raised. People didn't honk horns. Cars stopped when you crossed the street. It was wonderful. It was such a gracious place.
How about the mob. We're hearing so much about that with the debuting of the movie
Casino. Were you aware of that.
I think we all were.
But, did it bother you?
Not really. It was a very safe community. I never thought much about it. I remember Sid
Wyman, he had a little test, I think, and Davey Berman, may his soul rest in peace, and
Joe Rosenberg. Dave Berman, they once had an Arabic convention, or something, coming into the Riviera Hotel and he put a sign up at the front door -- "All Jews enter at
17 their own risk." You would come into work to do your show and between shows, Sid
Wyman would say, here, go play 21. Tell the pit-boss to put $50 worth of silvers [silver dollars] on the table. But, Sid had a little test. Ross Miller, our governor's father, lovely man, I mean they were all supposed to be bad boys, but they certainly weren't bad to us.
They couldn't have been nicer. Charlie Rich, George Duckworth's dad, I mean. But his test, Sid's test, I'll never forget it. He called me over one time and he said, here, take this and put it on the roulette wheel, put it on the red and let it ride and if it hits, let it ride again. And, it hit and it hit and I came back and I gave him his money. He said, you keep that. He said, you are one of the few. He said, they always come back and say they lost it.
It must have been difficult, though, to take all of this money and put it on the red, you may have wanted to hedge your bet.
Number one, I'm not even a gambler, so, I mean, it's never, it's not --
So, if you passed the test then you would get more money to bet? Or, you'd get to keep it?
No, he said keep it. But, the point was, you know, you weren't a thief of sorts. They knew that if you, if they had customers and you talked or you had friends come in. He had his own way of testing the quality of -- because, yeah, there was a period, they wanted you to stay between shows. You were window dressing.
And, did all of you do that? Was that a problem?
At times it was a problem. It wasn't always what you wanted to do. At one point, Major
Riddle who, forgive me, was not one of my favorite people. I knew his wife, I knew too much. At his son's funeral when she went to put her arms around him, he said, "get away from me." I mean, he had two showgirls waiting for him, you know.
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What a shame.
But at one point -- that's when I left the show at the Dunes -- Major Riddle wanted everyone to stay in the hotel. And, of course, most of the Minsky girls were not opposed to that. That was the end of it. I almost feel like I ended. It was the end of one era and the beginning of another.
The end of a better era?
I think so.
When not that much was demanded of you, when you were treated better?
I remember Lou Walters coming out here when we had the King of The Sea Restaurant and he came in and had dinner and we thought, you know, it was wonderful. We went to see the Lido show and the old man said, "there's no individuality." It was like a sea of all the same. The girls were not presented, it was just T and A [tits and ass], that's what they were featuring, not the individual, beautiful showgirl. He had a whole different and, of course, he was at the Trop[icana] for a while. See, it had changed. The business had changed. It was T and A that was selling, that was attracting middle America and the rest of the world.
So, we're looking at 1955, 1956 when this transition was starting to take a turn.
Actually, that had to be with the nude dancer. The showgirls and the –
As I said, it started with the Lido. Then, of course, they didn't want to go home. It was a great country.
Actually, though, it had to start with Minsky's. He brought in the first --
But, they were not European girls. They could stay in this country, they were American citizens.
Then the majority of the girls that came from Europe married American men.
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Many of them did. They married stage hands, they married anyone that they could at that point in time. As I told you and I'm not ashamed to say, it was a horror. It was just, they did not want to go back to France or England.
They just wanted to stay here and marriage was their ticket.
And, a lot of marriages disintegrated because these gorgeous girls, some poor little engineer or stagehand or dealer or pit boss or -- It was a siege at one point.
Well, they brought a lot of them in for the Stardust and then Tropicana and, of course, at the Dunes too, Fredric Apcar's Casino de Paris.
Oh, yeah, it went on and on and on. They had that little show they had in the lounge, the seven dwarfs with the boobs, you remember that?
Yes, I do. You thought it was their eyes. Oh, I totally forgot that.
That was so clever. Apcar did that.
Was that part of the production?
It was a little lounge production that they had.
Was that part of Viva Les Girls? Wasn't that in the lounge?
Yes. That was darling. That really was darling. But, then, of course, I don't know, living here I had my screen actor's card and raising my four children. You know, you had the opportunity to work on a film or not work on it. I worked on Godfather 2 at the Trop.
You know, went into wardrobe and makeup and Ceil Chapman gowns. That was that era.
How nice.
I think it was a very healthy community then. My husband and I both admired beautiful people and we were able to grow older gracefully. We enjoyed, I think it kept us both young, truly.
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How about AGVA [American Guild of Variety Actors]? Was it around when you were here?
AGVA, oh yeah, I belonged to AGVA. Penny Singleton, our president, Joey Adams,
Cindy Adam's husband. I worked with Joey at the Lookout House in Cincinnati when he and Cindy got married.
What did they actually do for you? You paid dues?
We paid our dues. I mean, our salaries were minimal in those days. We didn't make the kind of money that these women make today. Not by any stretch of the imagination.
No, of course, you didn't need so much money then.
No, we all lived at the Country Club Apartments.
Yes, Country Club Apartments, that was the place to be.
In Cincinnati it was Ester and Dell. They were rooming houses. In Baltimore, Maryland it was Uncle Herbie and Uncle Enoch. The performers stayed in one building, we stayed in the other, the showgirls. It was fun.
So, the union, you had no health insurance? It was just something you belonged to.
Well, yeah, you got a decent wage. If you were non-union, you'd be working club dates.
I mean, they did what they could do.
How about working conditions? Did you guys get days off?
Yes, we had our days off, you know, it was --
But, the shows went seven nights. How did that work?
We had a swing girl.
Is that what it was called?
Yes, they'd use a swing girl who would take each girl's position, the better dancers, generally got stuck with that. They knew everybody's position.
21
How about things like pregnancy? Was that ever a problem? Did girls get pregnant?
On occasion.
Those were the days when it wasn't really --
No, it was not.
Not like today where somebody could walk out and say, well, I'm not married but I'm
pregnant and I'm going to have this baby.
No, that was, generally, if it was the case, it was a big secret.
It wasn't talked about. You danced before silicone became popular.
It wasn't even on the market. No, we used tape to push up what we had and lots of pads
underneath. For dressed dancers it was easy to acquire cleavage.
Nude dancers were pretty much on their own.
Yes, yes.
When did silicone -- ? I think it was in the Sixties.
Yes, I think you're right. I knew numerous women who had terrible experiences.
Tell me about how you met your husband.
How did I meet my husband. Oh, that is interesting. He was a bit of a playboy. He was one of our guests. He was involved with a hotel in New York State. He had two partners and it was a seasonal thing at the Catskill Mountains. Danny was Jewish and I was
Catholic. Nobody came to the wedding. My mother ran and said novenas and his mother went to temple. That is an absolute fact.
That is quite a combination.
Betty and Ben were a married couple, his partners, and he was the playboy. They'd come
out here and they were comped. He gambled and he was always surrounded by beautiful
women. The old Thunderbird Hotel. I mean, I remember going there and he would ask
22
me out and he'd be sitting with Milton Berle and the whole group and, you know, they
were inside, the good old days. Louis and Keely, Keely is an old friend of mine. I've
known Keely forever. We are still good friends. I remember telling him, you're not my
type, I don't like the people you associate with and I'd stand him up and he was persistent.
One day, I finally went out with him and we went to Foxy's [A Jewish delicatessen on the
northeast corner of Sahara and Las Vegas Boulevard South].
I loved Foxy's.
The old Foxy's. I had a cup of tea and a bagel with him and saw a very different side of this playboy. He was just having a good time. He worked hard all year long until the off season and it was either here or Acapulco, his playground, or Miami Beach. That's how I met him.
Finally succumbed and had a date and it turned out to be a lifetime --
Well, he left and went back to open his hotel and I had said, let's have a cooling off period. We'll wait until, and he called daily, I mean, I still have every letter he ever wrote
me, every love letter. Finally, he said, I'm not leaving you in that town. You get on a
plane. I don't care what your parents say, or mine. Oddly enough, when I got on that
plane, Jack Carter was on that plane with a redhead. They were in first class, but Danny
used to go with [makes a gesture to mean the redhead] and when I got off the plane, of
course, first class went off first and he was standing there with flowers waiting for me
patiently. I'd never been to the Catskills. I mean, a Catholic girl from the Jersey Shore, I
had no idea. I was the only gentile with 500 Jews. But, needless to say, she saw Danny
and she's going to spend the weekend, I guess, with Jack in New York, who knows. She
started to greet him and Danny said, get away from me, my future wife is getting off the
plane. Yeah, he was something else. Women loved him. I have albums here of every
23
major affair in this community. He was always thinking. When Donna Goldstein
married Kenny Epstein who is one of the owners of the Barbary Coast, they were just
kids. Kenny used to bring his report card to me. Danny, each wedding or affair had to be
bigger and better. This is when Joel Snow got married at Caesars everything had to be
better than the affair before. He iced the ladder in the Crown Jewel room, went up to cut the cake. Mel Exper's son, Danny did his Bar Mitzvah. Danny had a cake built on the stage that took up the whole stage and the boy came out of the cake. E. Walker, the
Walkers, Ann Walker drove Danny crazy. Danny said why don't you have the wedding at your brother-in-law's hotel, why are you terrorizing me? That was the glamour, everybody wanted something bigger and better than everyone else.
I wanted to ask you one more thing about the dancing before I get off of that, and that's the costuming. Now, the headdresses, did you wear the huge headdresses? Were they a part of the show?
They weren't as big back in those early days.
I talked to a gentleman over at the Moulin Rouge that said when that show opened in
1955, they were actually the first ones. Lido takes credit but they were the first ones to wear headdresses.
Yes, that's very possible. We didn't wear anything that massive.
When you started dancing, how old were you? When did you get your first professional job?
I was very young. I was probably too young. I was probably all of fifteen or sixteen, but when I was eleven years old, I was as tall as I am now and my parents, I mean, they just loved it. They thought it was wonderful. They used to hide me from the ABC which was the liquor board. I didn't drink or anything, you know.
24
That brings up another point. When you were dancing, what were the drugs like?
Were there any?
Not really, no. Drugs were not a big thing. I think, maybe, by the time I got to the Latin
Quarter, marijuana had come on the scene. That was like the beginnings of it.
Early Fifties?
Yes, the early Fifties. Showgirls were not into that. It was the musicians that hung out at
Charlie's Bar, a musicians' bar.
How about pills?
No, as far as pills, girls that had weight problems took Dexedrine. That was the big drug of choice, yes.
And, doctors were prescribing it?
Oh, I mean, they gave it to them like nothing. I can remember at the dressing room at the
Latin Quarter in New York a gal that was going with the Mayor of New York, a showgirl, she knew exactly how to cut her wrists. Every time he would go with somebody else, she would cut her wrists. Corky, my dear, dear friend, Corky Gershio who was married to
Joe Gershio, Elvis's musical director. We'd run her over to the Poly clinic and pay for her
-- gorgeous, gorgeous girl. Gwen Grayson Altman, she married Altman the furrier, that's who I named my oldest daughter after, the most beautiful girl I've ever worked with. She was as nice as she was beautiful.
That's always a nice combination, when they're --
I can remember one time, I brought a little radio in. Remember when we had those little radios, for the dressing room. Now the dressing room at the Latin Quarter was the old, we had the spiral staircase going up to the dressing room and we were all in a row with the lights and the whole nine yards and I brought my little radio in and we had fire
25 escapes which was on like 7th Avenue or 6th, out one the -- I plugged this radio in and it blew and my hand was charcoal. We all, they thought there was a fire, we all ran out and we're all out on the fire escape and you could hear the taxi cabs and the honking horns.
What happened to your hand? Was it all right?
It was char-broiled. Well, you know, it was an old building. I went back to New York a few years back, shortly after my husband died. I went back to a family wedding, a happy occasion and I went into the city and walked down Broadway and went to the old Latin
Quarter and there was a fellow cleaning and what not and I said, can I get in there. He said, no I can't let anybody in and having lived in Las Vegas I found out that money talks.
I dug in my purse and showed him a five dollar bill. I used to work here, I would love to see it, so, he let me in. It was so sad. It was all painted black. I think it had become a gay club and numerous things. When you think about that stage door and the limos that used to pull up.
Was it that same type of class here in Las Vegas even though it was so small?
In the beginning, oh, yes, absolutely. I mean, Moe Dalitz, all those people were wonderful to all of us. Johnny Rosselli, poor man, they found him floating in a tin can in
Biscayne Bay. He was a charming man.
But, obviously, more to him than --
Much more, but, you know, we never knew about any of that. Although, I must say, young as I was, I can remember being, you know the old chuck wagons where you'd have your steak and eggs and this and that and they'd go in to count the money. I can remember one of the big bosses would always come out with his newspaper under his arm and I thought, and I once kiddingly said to him, if you ever put that newspaper down,
I'm going to take it home.
26
It came out a little bit fatter than when he went in?
You know, we all knew or thought we knew something, but we didn't. We were never told anything and they were just very good to us. They were wonderful bosses.
That's the bottom line, isn't it?
For us, yes. We were paid.
Did you all associate with the owners and the bosses of the hotel? Were there functions and -- ?
Not socially, no. During working hours and show time and whatever.
They didn't have things at their homes?
No, we were not invited to those.
I know a lot of them had boats on the lake [Lake Mead].
Yeah, Nicky Devine had a big boat on the lake, lots of them. Dean -- and Pete Goin and, yeah, little Joe with the glasses. He looked like -- they found him in Lake Mead. Joey didn't swim, he didn't like water. He never went near water.
I take it he wasn't alive when they found him?
No, hey, look at Gus Greenbaum and his wife. I mean, some of the horrible things. You know, I used to get up in the morning after I got out of the business and the first thing I would read was Hank's [Greenspun] "Where I Stand." I'd read that before, I mean, he was such a crusader. But then all that changed too. I think his family had been threatened so many times. Look at our little Ned Day.
That was such a shame, he was so young.
[The interview stopped at this point.
Kim Tours, 8 A L AGVA, 21 Arden, Donn, 1, 4, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17 Latin Quarter Arden-Fletcher Dancers, 14, 15 Las Vegas, 2, 7, 8 Miami Beach, 1, 16 New York, 6, 14, 26 B LeCoque, Fluff, 13 black performers, 16 Lido body stockings, 1 Las Vegas, 4, 9, 14, 19, 20, 25 Boylesque, 11 Lookout House, Cincinnati, 13, 21 breast implants, 22 burlesque girls, 2, 3 M marriage, 5, 10 C Martin, Lenny, 12 Casino, 13, 17 Miller, Bill, 2, 5, 6, 12 Casino de Paris Miller, Ross, 18 Las Vegas, 20 Minsky, Harold, 2, 4, 5, 7, 8, 12, 20 children, 9, 10 Moulin Rouge, Las Vegas, 11, 25 costume, 25 courtship, 23 N nightclubs, 16 D nude shows, 2, 20 drug use, 25 P E pregnancy, 22 entertainment directors, 12 European dancers in Las Vegas, 4, 14 R Resnick, Ash, 3, 11 F Riddle, Major, 3, 19 Fletcher, Ron, 15 Folies Bergere, Montreal, 1, 16 S four-walled, 8 Foxy's, 23 segregation, 10 Shendel, Dean, 3 G swing girls, 22 Gabor, Zsa Zsa, 7 T Greenspun, Hank, 28 Greenwich Village Inn, New York, 16 topless shows, 4, 14 Treniers, 10 H W Henry Le Tang's Dance Studio, 15 Horne, Lena, 10 Walters, Lou, 1, 19 work, 1 Las Vegas, 2 K New York, 15 Katleman, Beldon, 5 work conditions, 22 Kerr, Kenny, 11, 12