An Interview with Kim Krantz An Oral History Conducted by Joyce Marshall ______________________________________________ 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 ii iii 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 iv 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. v An Interview with Kim Krantz An oral history conducted by Joyce Marshall 1 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. 2 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? 3 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 4 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.