Quotations, excerpts, and descriptions of performances are taken either from audio recordings or from reviews and contemporaneous accounts in Variety and other sources.
ONE: VEGAS MEETS ELVIS
In a town addicted to building: The history of the Last Frontier and New Frontier hotels is drawn mainly from Stefan Al, The Strip: Las Vegas and the Architecture of the American Dream (MIT Press, 2017), 18–22, 44, and Eugene Moehring, Resort City in the Sunbelt, 2nd ed. (University of Nevada Press, 2000), 46–47.
“with sides running to such length”: Variety, April 20, 1955.
Mario Lanza . . . was booked: Variety, April 7, 1955.
“Seldom in the history”: Ralph Pearl, Las Vegas Is My Beat, rev. ed. (Citadel Press, 1978), 86.
But first, Elvis played Vegas: The details of Elvis’s 1956 engagement at the New Frontier are taken primarily from Peter Guralnick, Last Train to Memphis: The Rise of Elvis Presley (Back Bay Books, 1994), 270–75, and Paul Lichter, Elvis in Vegas (Overlook Duckworth, 2011), 13–34, as well as contemporaneous accounts as cited below.
“No check is any good”: “The Man Who Sold Parsley,” Time, May 16, 1960.
“easily the talking point of this show”: Variety, May 2, 1956.
“What is all this yelling”: Guralnick, Last Train to Memphis, 271.
“Elvis Presley, coming in on a wing”: Variety, May 2, 1956.
“like a jug of corn liquor”: “Hillbilly on a Pedestal,” Newsweek, May 14, 1956.
“For the first time in months”: Guralnick, Last Train to Memphis, 271.
“They weren’t my kind”: Ibid.
“He came out in a dirty”: Shecky Greene, interview with author.
“The carnage was terrific”: Lichter, Elvis in Vegas, 17.
“This cat, Presley”: Ibid., 24.
“He recognized me”: Ibid., 32.
One day he ran into Bing Crosby: Greene, interview with author.
“Man, I really like Vegas”: Guralnick, Last Train to Memphis, 274.
“supernatural, his own resurrection”: David Dalton, “Elvis Lights Up Las Vegas,” Rolling Stone, February 21, 1970.
“Buddy Greco, if you’re hearing this”: Lezlie Anders (Greco’s widow), interview with author.
“The town was so much fun”: Norm Johnson, interview with author.
“You told ’em what you wanted”: Pete Barbutti, interview with author.
“Vegas was kind of an adult”: Paul Anka, My Way: An Autobiography (St. Martin’s Press, 2013), 1–2.
“It’s syrup city”: Ron Rosenbaum, “Do You Know Vegas?,” Esquire, August 1982.
“yukking across the stage”: Hunter Thompson, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (Vintage Books, 1971), 44.
“his act was not working”: John Gregory Dunne, Vegas: A Memoir of a Dark Season (Random House, 1974), 43.
“Dante did not write”: Nick Tosches, “The Holy City,” in Literary Las Vegas: The Best Writing about America’s Most Fabulous City, ed. Mike Tronnes (Henry Holt, 1995), xvi.
“The biggest no-talent dork”: Richard Meltzer, “Who’ll Stop the Wayne?,” in Literary Las Vegas, 271.
“You gotta do a lot of up things”: Vic Damone, interview with author.
“There was no experimenting”: Dennis Klein, interview with author.
“For many, Vegas Elvis”: Dylan Jones, Elvis Has Left the Building (Overlook Duckworth, 2014), 87.
TWO: HOW VEGAS HAPPENED
The Las Vegas Valley: In recounting the early history and development of Las Vegas, I have relied mainly on Moehring, Resort City; Al, Strip; Don Knepp, Las Vegas: The Entertainment Capital (Lane Publishing, 1987); Sally Denton and Roger Morris, The Money and the Power: The Making of Las Vegas and Its Hold on America (Vintage Books, 2001); and Larry Gragg, Bright Light City: Las Vegas in Popular Culture (University Press of Kansas, 2013).
“The town has been converted”: Mike Weatherford, Cult Vegas (Huntington Press, 2001), 3.
“The third day all the stars”: Rose Marie, interview in The Real Las Vegas, History Channel documentary (A&E Networks, 1996).
“The fun of Las Vegas”: Mel Tormé interview, Mark Tan Collection, Nevada State Museum, Las Vegas.
“one of the greatest handshakers”: Pearl, Las Vegas Is My Beat, 93.
“probably the turning point”: Richard English, “The Million Dollar Talent War,” Saturday Evening Post, October 24, 1953.
“nobody gets killed in Vegas”: Susan Berman, Lady Las Vegas (TV Books, 1996), 79.
In fact, Kefauver’s investigation: Denton and Morris, Money and the Power, 116.
“a hunk of promotion”: Variety, December 24, 1952.
“Jack Entratter is responsible”: Sands Hotel publicity material, Sands Collection, University Libraries Special Collections, University of Nevada, Las Vegas.
the Sahara had to be more creative: Stan Irwin interview in Mark Tan Collection, and Bill Miller profile in Las Vegas Review-Journal, February 7, 1999.
“It’s worth any price”: Variety, February 24, 1954.
She caused quite a stir: Steven Bach, Marlene Dietrich: Life and Legend (University of Minnesota Press, 2013), 368–69.
“Las Vegas, as now constituted”: Variety, February 11, 1953.
Concerns about the escalating salaries: Variety, May 17, 1950, and November 19 and August 20, 1952.
“Failure of the entertainment industry”: Variety, December 24, 1952.
“We put him with a musical”: George Schlatter, interview with author.
“The artistry of her delivery”: Joel Lobenthal, Tallulah!: The Life and Times of a Leading Lady (Aurum Press, 2005), 435.
“Why do we do it?”: “Las Vegas: It Just Couldn’t Happen,” Time, November 23, 1953.
He had urged Dietrich: Bach, Marlene Dietrich, 368.
“This is a fabulous, extraordinary madhouse”: Noël Coward diaries, in Literary Las Vegas, 211.
“Jake Kosloff wanted them to stop”: Schlatter, interview with author.
“the Andrews Sisters doing”: “Natural Seven Muzak,” Time, August 11, 1961.
“Frank Ross stirred the pot”: Lorraine Hunt-Bono, interview with author.
“Mary Kaye was incredible”: Pete Barbutti, interview with author.
“You could shout out requests”: Weatherford, Cult Vegas, 46.
“The lounges were freedom”: Ibid.
The group was started: Description of the Treniers’ act in Weatherford, Cult Vegas, 56–60, and Skip Trenier and Sonny Charles, interviews with author.
“It was like a three-ring circus”: Trenier, interview with author.
“Everybody loved the Treniers”: Joe Darro, interview with author.
Black entertainers like the Treniers: The account of the racial history of Las Vegas is drawn largely from Moehring, Resort City, 173–202, and Claytee D. White, interview with author.
“The other acts could move around”: Sammy Davis Jr., Jane Boyar, and Burt Boyar, Yes I Can: The Story of Sammy Davis, Jr. (Farrar and Rinehart, 1965), 123.
“There was a color line”: Stan Irwin interview, Mark Tan Collection.
When Harry Belafonte made his: Belafonte describes the incident in his memoir, My Song (Knopf, 2011), 105–9.
The racial barriers were challenged: The Moulin Rouge’s short life is recounted in Janis L. McKay, Played Out on the Strip: The Rise and Fall of Las Vegas Casino Bands (University of Nevada Press, 2016), 35–36, as well as in Moehring, Resort City, 182–84.
“We were the only ones”: Interview with Anna Bailey, Las Vegas Women’s Oral History Project, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, 1997.
Wardell Gray, the highly regarded: Variety, June 1, 1955.
“tyranny of names”: Variety, January 8, 1958.
The French music-hall revue: The Folies’ history is recounted in George Perry, Bluebell: The Authorized Biography of Margaret Kelly (Pavilion, 1986), 47–52; Paul Lewis, “For Folies-Bergère: 100 Naughty Years,” New York Times, July 8, 1987; and Encyclopaedia Britannica article, https://www.britannica.com/topic/Folies-Bergere.
the Folies had a popular: The Lido’s history, in both Paris and Las Vegas, is covered fully in Perry, Bluebell, 165–90.
“From the ceiling descend”: Weatherford, Cult Vegas, 222–23.
a new edition of Minsky’s Follies: Variety, January 23, 1957.
“Even with bare-breasted beauts”: Variety, July 9, 1958.
“the most spectacular I’ve ever seen”: Hedda Hopper, Los Angeles Times, August 13, 1958.
“Bare chests are the coming thing”: Variety, August 6, 1958.
“It is time that the people”: Variety, August 13, 1958.
A split emerged: Variety, August 6, 1958.
“The spread of nude shows”: Las Vegas Review-Journal, September 7, 1957.
“Nudes are bad for this town”: Variety, August 6, 1958.
“Please accept my reassurance”: Variety, August 20, 1958.
“We certainly do not mean”: Variety, August 13, 1958.
“The Lou Walters show”: Los Angeles Times, December 30, 1959.
“Nothing kills laughs”: Variety, August 10, 1960.
Louis Prima was born: Details of Prima’s life and career come from Tom Clavin, That Old Black Magic: Louis Prima, Keely Smith, and the Golden Age of Las Vegas (Chicago Review Press, 2010).
“absolutely the hottest combo”: Clavin, Black Magic, 84.
“The sound, the feel”: Bobby Morris, interview with author.
“wild, relentless, driving beat”: Clavin, Black Magic, 85.
“It was havoc”: Morris, interview with author.
“He was born Wladziu”: The account of Liberace’s life and career is drawn largely from Darden Asbury Pyron, Liberace: An American Boy (University of Chicago Press, 2000).
“I longed to please”: Ibid., 81.
“Go ahead and laugh”: Variety, April 27, 1955.
“Finally it was impossible”: Richard Corliss, “That Old Feeling: The Show at the Casino,” Time.com, http://content.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,546855,00.html.
“They relaxed and enjoyed”: Pyron, Liberace, 81.
“He admires you so much”: Ibid., 265.
he was wearing a new outfit: Guralnick, Last Train to Memphis, 399.
“He never forgot”: Jerry Schilling, interview with author.
“When one twin died”: Guralnick, Last Train to Memphis, 13.
It’s not clear whether: There’s some evidence that Elvis may have been aware of the connection, since his friend Lamar Fike mentions it in Alanna Nash, Elvis Aaron Presley: Revelations from the Memphis Mafia (HarperCollins, 1995), 541.
“When you grew up”: Schilling, interview with author.
“I didn’t date her”: George Klein, Elvis: My Best Man (Three Rivers Press, 2010), 100.
“This desert never-never land”: Variety, January 27, 1960.
THREE: THE COOL GUYS
“You’re the big man”: Corinne Entratter Sidney, interview with author.
“I used to call him crudely”: Ibid.
“He had a physical presence”: Kevin Thomas, interview with author.
He was born Nathan Entratter: Biographical material in Sands Collection, UNLV Libraries, and Entratter Sidney, interview with author.
“Jack Entratter was the Genghis Khan”: Jerry Lewis, interview with author.
“I cater to the overprivileged”: Entratter Sidney, interview with author.
95 million seconds: Statistics cited in a Sands press release, Sands Collection, UNLV Libraries.
Sinatra demurred: According to Nathan “Sonny” Golden, Sinatra’s business manager, in the liner notes for Sinatra: Vegas, CD box set (Reprise Records, 2014), 14.
“As he meanders”: Variety, October 21, 1953.
“Oooooh, Frankie”: Weatherford, Cult Vegas, 13.
“arrogant, ill-tempered”: Ibid.
“The new Sinatra was not”: John Lahr, Sinatra: The Artist and the Man (Phoenix Mass Market, 1999), 53.
“I’ve been trying for more than a year”: Kitty Kelley, His Way: The Unauthorized Biography of Frank Sinatra (Bantam, 1986), 219.
“The thing that amazed me”: Hunt-Bono, interview with author.
“Frank was the king”: Damone, interview with author.
“He was the number one guy”: Paul Anka, interview with author.
“He’d always be there”: Weatherford, Cult Vegas, 15.
“Frank enjoyed a good time”: Angie Dickinson in liner notes, Sinatra: Vegas, 36.
“You look like a goddamn”: The quote, along with a full account of the Rat Pack’s origins, in Shawn Levy, Rat Pack Confidential (Broadway Books, 2001), 30.
“a comedy routine”: James Kaplan, Sinatra: The Chairman (Doubleday, 2015), 229.
“The dago’s lousy”: Nick Tosches, Dino: Living High in the Dirty Business of Dreams (Delta, 1999), 269.
“Sinatra was enthralled by Dean”: Ibid., 260.
“Talent is not an excuse”: Kaplan, Sinatra, 241–42.
“That was it for Sammy”: Ibid., 242.
“a public and aggressive indifference”: Paul O’Neill, “The ‘Clan’ Is the Most,” Life, December 22, 1958.
It was Lawford: Levy, Rat Pack, 105–6.
“Producer Jack Entratter comes up”: Las Vegas Review-Journal, January 8, 1960.
“Which star shines”: Advertisements in Las Vegas Review-Journal, circa January 20, 1960.
“Mr. Entratter, sir”: Les Devor, Las Vegas Review-Journal, January 21, 1960.
“I flew to Las Vegas”: Hedda Hopper, Los Angeles Times, January 23, 1960.
“an entertainment ball which”: John L. Scott, Los Angeles Times, January 22, 1960.
had to turn away eighteen thousand: Levy, Rat Pack, 108.
The myth of the Rat Pack: Quotes and descriptions of the Rat Pack show are taken from film footage supplied by the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority and by Nora Garibotti (Joey Bishop’s friend), as well as from contemporaneous reviews and articles.
“Joey was a ballsy guy”: Michael Seth Starr, Mouse in the Rat Pack: The Joey Bishop Story (Taylor Trade Publishing, 2002), 59.
Bishop, who wrote the line: J. Randy Taraborrelli, Sinatra: Behind the Legend, excerpted in The Sammy Davis Jr. Reader, ed. Gerald Early (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2001), 185.
“I hated the idea”: Greene, interview with author.
“They were doing our act”: Lewis, interview with author.
“For the first time on such”: Levy, Rat Pack, 321.
“There was an electricity”: Bob Newhart, interview with author.
“There is no Clan”: Levy, Rat Pack, 185.
“I am a member of the Clan”: Ibid., 186.
“If Frank went to a tailor”: Entratter Sidney, interview with author.
“I noticed that no matter who”: Mia Farrow, What Falls Away (Nan A. Talese, 1997), 104.
“With Frank it was like walking”: Entratter Sidney, interview with author.
“But when he was an asshole”: Lisa Medford, interview with author.
“Sinatra really had Jack”: Eydie Gormé interview, Mark Tan Collection.
his demands got so out of hand: The incident described by Entratter Sidney, interview with author.
“Dean Martin is worth his weight”: Variety, July 20, 1960.
“He was nice to everyone”: Deana Martin, Memories Are Made of This: Dean Martin through His Daughter’s Eyes (Three Rivers Press, 2004), 79.
“The important thing to say”: Tosches, Dino, 256.
“Sammy always had to be”: Vera Goulet, interview with author.
“Is Sammy Ashamed?”: Davis, Boyar, and Boyar, Yes I Can, 249.
“Over the years I watched Sammy”: Wil Haygood, In Black and White: The Life of Sammy Davis, Jr. (Knopf, 2003), 181.
“Make yourself comfortable”: The quote, along with other details of Rickles’s relationship with Sinatra, is in Rickles’ Book: A Memoir (Simon & Schuster, 2008), 64.
“trying to figure out”: George Jacobs, Mr. S: The Last Word on Frank Sinatra (Pan Books, 2004), 125.
“If I want a nigger”: Ibid., 124.
“the most brutal, ugly, degenerate”: Kaplan, Sinatra, 175.
“I admire the man”: Guralnick, Last Train to Memphis, 437.
“After all, the kid’s been away”: Peter Guralnick, Careless Love: The Unmaking of Elvis Presley (Back Bay Books, 1999), 62.
the show drew a phenomenal: Ibid., 63.
“People call me the king”: Deana Martin, interview with author.
“It was a party like”: Guralnick, Careless Love, 116.
dubbed them the “Memphis mafia”: Ibid., 76–77.
“As kids we looked at them”: Anka, My Way, 64.
“They took over”: Kaplan, Sinatra, 396.
“a disgusting display of ego”: Levy, Rat Pack, 187.
“Frank and his henchmen”: Ibid.
Sinatra noticed the growing chill: The souring of relations with the Kennedys recounted in Kaplan, Sinatra, 435–39.
“Frank was livid”: James Spada, Peter Lawford: The Man Who Kept the Secrets (Bantam, 1991), 293–94.
“the most violent rampage”: Jacobs, Mr. S, 165.
Joey was cast in the third: Levy, Rat Pack, 257–58.
“I’m never coming to see you again”: Kaplan, Sinatra, 537.
“a rotten, horrible, mean”: Ibid., 542.
“Aren’t you people”: Ibid., 543.
“That little son of a bitch”: Ibid., 546.
“It just wasn’t possible to invite him”: Levy, Rat Pack, 260.
Sinatra’s annus horribilis: A full account of the kidnapping is in Kaplan, Sinatra, 552–67.
Bishop resented the joke: Starr, Mouse in the Rat Pack, 115.
“one of those miraculous moments”: Will Friedwald, Sinatra! The Song Is You: A Singer’s Art, rev. ed. (Chicago Review Press, 2018), 454.
“Mount Rushmore of men”: James Wolcott, “When They Were Kings,” Vanity Fair, reprinted in Sammy Davis Jr. Reader, 192–93.
“Their desert hijinks”: Bill Zehme, The Way You Wear Your Hat: Frank Sinatra and the Lost Art of Livin’ (Harper, 1997), 60.
FOUR: THE ENTERTAINMENT CAPITAL
TWA inaugurated nonstop flights: Variety, June 22, 1960.
34 percent of US households: “Television Facts and Statistics,” http://www.tvhistory.tv/facts-stats.htm.
the Sands in 1955 became the first: Moehring, Resort City, 182.
“We left the showroom”: Ruth Gillis, interview with author.
That benighted era ended: Moehring, Resort City, 184–85.
“is now virtually unknown”: Variety, October 11, 1961.
The Sands’ Entratter even bragged: Sands publicity material, Sands Collection, UNLV Libraries.
“Everybody had two salaries”: Schlatter, interview with author.
“There was a pecking order”: Newhart, interview with author.
“You really found out who”: Anka, interview with author.
“There isn’t any deal”: Tony Bennett interview, Mark Tan Collection.
He grew up in Brooklyn: The account of Damone’s life and career is drawn from his memoir, Vic Damone: Singing Was the Easy Part (St. Martin’s Press, 2009), and Damone, interview with author.
“The cocktail lounges no longer”: Variety, August 4, 1965.
“He could sing ‘My Way’ ”: Klein, interview with author.
the model, reputedly, for Jerry: Anders, interview with author.
She walked out of an engagement: Gerald Clarke, Get Happy: The Life of Judy Garland (Random House, 2000), 438–40.
she was so shaky that spotters: According to Nelson Sardelli, her opening act.
“There are times when her voice”: Variety, December 8, 1965.
“Ladies and gentlemen, I need help”: Clarke, Get Happy, 599.
“curiously unsettling experience”: Variety, December 6, 1967.
Debbie surprised him: The incident is told from both perspectives in Debbie Reynolds, Debbie: My Life (Pocket Books, 1988), 175, and Eddie Fisher, Been There, Done That: An Autobiography (St. Martin’s Press, 1999), 101–2.
When Eddie discovered he had no cash: Fisher, Been There, 158–59.
“They started that Cleopatra”: Variety, July 18, 1962.
“Instead of warming up”: Randall Riese, Her Name Is Barbra: An Intimate Portrait of the Real Barbra Streisand (Birch Lane Press, 1993), 141.
Milton Prell once offered: Phil Solomon, who said he personally witnessed the offer, column in Fabulous Las Vegas, August 2, 1969.
“He loved Las Vegas”: Guralnick, Careless Love, 118–19.
“so heavily that you couldn’t tell”: Priscilla Beaulieu Presley, Elvis and Me (Berkley Books, 1986), 88.
Sammy Davis Jr. was even signed: Entratter Sidney, interview with author.
“I knew what was going to happen”: Ann-Margret, Ann-Margret: My Story (G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1994), 109.
“She comes around here mostly”: Presley, Elvis and Me, 168.
Colonel Parker was not happy: Guralnick, Careless Love, 151–54.
“About as pleasant”: Howard Thompson, New York Times, May 21, 1964.
Stan Irwin . . . booked them: The Beatles’ visit recounted in Weatherford, Cult Vegas, 41–43, and Irwin interview, Mark Tan Collection.
The imported sets and costumes: Maynard Sloate, producer of the Folies Bergere, interview with author.
He was born Arlyle Arden Peterson: Arden’s life and career recounted in Las Vegas Review-Journal, February 7, 1999, and Donn Arden Papers, Special Collections, UNLV Libraries.
“It’s not entertainment”: Variety, March 14, 1962.
“Competition among big shows”: Los Angeles Times, May 24, 1965.
“From the rousing opening”: Hank Greenspun, Las Vegas Sun, September 30, 1967.
called Pzazz ’68 the best Vegas show: Charles Champlin, Los Angeles Times, February 7, 1968.
“There’s a certain way”: Jefferson Graham, Vegas: Live and in Person (Abbeville Press, 1989), 168.
“He would scream and holler”: Sonia Kara, interview with author.
“Ron was slim, sinewy”: Ron Walker, RecordCourier.com, May 18, 2012.
“When you were a Ron Lewis dancer”: Sal Angelica, interview with author.
“People from New York”: Jerry Jackson, interview with author.
“I came to Las Vegas”: Angelica, interview with author.
Carol Burnett . . . set an advance-sale record: Carol Burnett, interview with author.
Carson . . . broke the hotel’s attendance: Variety, July 22, 1964.
“The audiences in Vegas demanded”: Klein, interview with author.
found that he had to cut them down: Newhart, interview with author.
“possibly will zoom over”: Variety, October 9, 1963.
“temperamental without hope”: Sloate, interview with author.
“It was an achievement”: Woody Allen, interview with author.
“I felt guilty”: Ibid.
But he had to see Don Rickles: Irwin interview, Mark Tan Collection.
“He’s doing me!”: Klipf Nesteroff, The Comedians: Drunks, Thieves, Scoundrels, and the History of American Comedy (Grove Press, 2015), 153.
“When he worked clean”: Sandy Hackett, interview with author.
“Hackett has a definite mission”: Variety, January 1, 1969.
“Buddy had the ability”: Greene, interview with author.
“I want to get the audience”: Nesteroff, Comedians, 144.
Hackett, unhappy to hear that Totie: Barbutti, interview with author.
“He was like the devil”: Nesteroff, Comedians, 145.
“His act had no beginning”: Barbutti, interview with author.
“When you saw a Shecky Greene show”: Klein, interview with author.
“I don’t feel bad”: Line recounted by Greene, interview with author.
“Are you proud of Sammy Davis?”: Line recounted by Klein, interview with author.
Greene could be a terror: Greene’s misbehavior is described by many, including Weatherford, Cult Vegas, 98–99.
Milton Berle tried to calm: Milton Berle interview, Mark Tan Collection.
“I never worked like Rickles . . . I couldn’t be Shecky . . . Vegas was very, very good”: Greene, interview with author.
“A lot of entertainers”: Rich Little, interview with author.
“I make approximately the same”: Quoted in Variety, June 20, 1964.
“There was one rule”: Henry Bushkin, Johnny Carson (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2013), 185.
“Nowhere was Johnny more pampered”: Ibid., 176.
“The women, who didn’t seem”: Farrow, What Falls Away, 102.
“The one thing you learned”: Newhart, interview with author.
“I loved being around”: Anka, My Way, 170.
“They would bring their girlfriends”: Lainie Kazan, interview with author.
“Because I sing”: Nelson Sardelli, interview with author.
Shecky Greene liked to tell: Greene, interview with author.
“one of the five most powerful”: Denton and Morris, Money and the Power, 287.
Vic Damone’s relationship: Described by Damone in Vic Damone, 23–41, and interview with author.
“I became very friendly”: Damone, interview with author.
“The work was steady”: Frank Leone, interview with author.
“All the top guys were here”: Barbutti, interview with author.
fourteen hundred working musicians: The membership of the Las Vegas Musicians Union in 1969, in McKay, Played Out, 79.
“It was musical heaven”: Mark Massagli, interview with author.
they arrived in Las Vegas: Marie Pogee, interview with author.
“For a dancer, Las Vegas”: Ibid.
“You had to learn how”: Kara, interview with author.
“Vegas was a great place”: Claire Fitzpatrick Plummer, interview with author.
“typical mob types”: Kathy McKee, interview with author.
“I don’t think I would have”: Ibid.
“You had no choice”: Medford, interview with author.
“They’d give us a hundred dollars”: Plummer, interview with author.
“It didn’t have to go any further”: Ibid.
Elvis was dismayed: Recounted by Marty Lacker in Nash, Elvis Aaron Presley, 379.
“Each show opened”: Joe Esposito, Good Rockin’ Tonight: Twenty Years on the Road and on the Town with Elvis (Simon & Schuster, 1994), 92–93.
“he saw a lot of singer Phyllis McGuire”: The fling with McGuire is recounted by Marty Lacker in Nash, Elvis Aaron Presley, 324–25.
Elvis got a new hairdresser: For details of Elvis’s relationship with Larry Geller, I relied on Guralnick, Careless Love, as well as Larry Geller, If I Can Dream: Elvis’s Own Story (Simon & Schuster, 1989), and an interview with Geller.
“We were having fun”: Guralnick, Careless Love, 176.
“The face of Stalin”: Ibid., 195.
“Remember, you’re Elvis Presley”: Geller, If I Can Dream, 115.
News of the impending wedding: Details of the wedding plans, ceremony, and aftermath are taken primarily from Guralnick, Careless Love, and Presley, Elvis and Me.
“I was simply amazed”: Guralnick, Careless Love, 263.
“Well, I guess it was about time”: Ibid., 264.
“Elvis and I followed”: Presley, Elvis and Me, 237.
FIVE: CHANGES (ELVIS RISING)
Howard Hughes’s stealth arrival: For the story of Hughes and his Vegas years, I relied on Donald L. Bartlett and James B. Steele, Howard Hughes: His Life and Madness (W. W. Norton, 2004); Peter Harry Brown and Pat E. Broeske, Howard Hughes: The Untold Story (De Capo Press, 2004); and Michael Drosnin, Citizen Hughes: The Power, the Money and the Madness (Holt, 1985); as well as the various Las Vegas histories cited below.
“greeted with messianic enthusiasm”: Denton and Morris, Money and the Power, 272.
“This is the best way”: Variety, August 5, 1967.
“Did you hear that Hughes”: Variety, October 4, 1967.
“a resort so carefully planned”: Geoff Schumacher, Sun, Sin & Suburbia: The History of Modern Las Vegas, rev. ed. (University of Nevada Press, 2015), 116.
“as trustworthy and respectable”: Drosnin, Citizen Hughes, 108.
“The increased governmental scrutiny”: Variety, March 29, 1967.
“Dalitz and other members”: Denton and Morris, Money and the Power, 284.
“When the bean counters”: Hunt-Bono, interview with author.
“It was the new bureaucratic regime”: Anka, My Way, 165.
“Howard Hughes maintained”: Goulet, interview with author.
“Mr. Hughes is very happy”: Newhart, interview with author.
“He had the shows piped up”: Little, interview with author.
“I can summarize my attitude”: Schumacher, Sun, Sin, 120.
“In a community of brigand”: Variety, February 5, 1969.
“When the so-called gangsters”: Florence Henderson interview, Mark Tan Collection.
“Hughes had all these little”: Gormé interview, Mark Tan Collection.
“Yeah, I sure got married”: Kaplan, Sinatra, 693.
“During this period Sinatra”: Anka, My Way, 173.
“I don’t think he actually shot”: Jackie Mason, email with author.
Sinatra’s infamous blowup: The incident is thoroughly covered in Kaplan, Sinatra, 725–30.
“He was already out of the cart”: Farrow, What Falls Away, 110–11.
“He threatened to kill anyone”: Kaplan, Sinatra, 729.
“Singer Tony Bennett left”: McKay, Played Out, 73.
“Frank picked a fight”: Entratter Sidney, interview with author.
Caesars Palace was the brainchild: The most complete account of the hotel’s birth is in Al, Strip, 90–96.
Sinatra got a record $100,000: The escalating salaries for Sinatra, Martin, and other Vegas stars reported in Variety, December 25, 1968.
“A virtuoso display of Sinatra”: Champlin, Los Angeles Times, November 28, 1968.
It was inspired by a conversation: Anka, My Way, 208–10.
She would sing her American Bandstand: Connie Francis, interview with author.
“My manager’s vision”: Brenda Lee, interview with author.
“It’s too early to know”: Variety, December 13, 1961.
“A lot of us had a good run”: Anka, My Way, 98.
“If the rock ’n’ roll craze”: Quoted in Variety, September 9. 1964.
“They’re going to leave”: Quoted in Kaplan, Sinatra, 596.
“At least they’re white”: Jacobs, Mr. S, 216.
“To be honest, I’d describe”: Guralnick, Careless Love, 211.
“If it hadn’t been for him”: Ibid., 212.
“There’s four of them”: Geller, If I Can Dream, 124.
“The hotels didn’t want them”: Marty Beck, interview with author.
“Only a handful of new acts”: Variety, January 31, 1968.
“At that time Vegas”: Trini Lopez, interview with author.
“We were not an R and B act”: Mary Wilson, interview with author.
“Las Vegas, the bastion”: Billboard, August 26, 1967.
“get out or get groovy”: Weatherford, Cult Vegas, 71.
“I wore the bells”: Ibid., 75.
“George Burns has a gold mine”: Variety, December 28, 1960.
“I wanted to bring a Broadway”: David Winters, interview with author.
“It’s not often that a different”: Variety, July 19, 1967.
“possibly the highest decibel”: Variety, August 7, 1968.
“sleeper of the year”: Variety, April 10, 1968.
“The lewd stuff will come”: Variety, July 26, 1967.
“We were such an oddity”: Sonny Charles, interview with author.
“He’d come from San Francisco”: Ibid.
“Self-assured, almost cocky”: Quoted in David Evanier, Roman Candle: The Life of Bobby Darin (Rodale Press, 2004), 64.
“Bobby sat on a stool”: Ibid., 207.
“Go back and put on”: Michael Starr, Bobby Darin: A Life (Taylor Trade Publishing, 2004), 184.
“The young comedian scored”: Variety, August 24, 1966.
“I imagined what I looked like”: Richard Pryor, Pryor Convictions: And Other Life Sentences (Pantheon Books, 1995), 94.
Pryor singing new lyrics: Beck, interview with author.
George Carlin was another: Richard Zoglin, Comedy at the Edge: How Stand-Up in the 1970s Changed America (Bloomsbury, 2008), 29.
Carson Wayne Newton was born: The account of Newton’s life, career, and Vegas act is taken primarily from “Whatever Happened to Baby Wayne?,” Time, June 29, 1970; “The Most Successful Performer in Vegas History? Not Frank, Not Elvis—It’s Wayne Newton,” People, April 30, 1979; Ron Rosenbaum, “Do You Know Vegas?,” Esquire, August 1982; and Newton’s own memoir, Wayne Newton: Once Before I Go (William Morrow, 1989).
“When he sings ‘Dreams’ ”: “Whatever Happened,” Time.
“The Flamingo is charged”: Variety, January 10, 1968.
“Many nights there would come a knock”: Newton, Once Before I Go, 83.
“Everyone leaves The Show”: Rosenbaum, “Do You Know Vegas?”
“Get that fag”: Newton, Once Before I Go, 99.
“The one show I found”: McKay, Played Out, 133.
“It got to the point”: Newton, Once Before I Go, 162.
“Vegas is unto itself”: Irwin interview, Mark Tan Collection.
“I’m trying to get across”: “Ladies’ Man,” Time, July 11, 1969.
“There was a strong sense”: Tom Jones, Over the Top and Back: The Autobiography (Blue Rider Press, 2015), 269.
“Entratter could no more relate”: Beck, interview with author.
“different both in sound and delivery”: Variety, March 27, 1968.
“The tall, ruggedly handsome”: John L. Scott, Los Angeles Times, March 28, 1968.
“That album is steaming”: Jones, Over the Top, 270.
Tom was flattered: Ibid., 190.
“What Elvis got from Tom”: Ken Sharp, Elvis: Vegas ’69 (JetFighter, 2009), 25.
“The Colonel behind the scenes”: Schilling, interview with author.
The Colonel’s original idea: Guralnick provides a comprehensive account of the NBC comeback special in Careless Love, 293–317.
“There is something magical”: Quoted in Lichter, Elvis in Vegas, 68.
“It was like nothing”: Guralnick, Careless Love, 323.
“He could have done it”: Nash, Elvis Aaron Presley, 448.
“I want to tour again”: Guralnick, Careless Love, 317.
“He knew where every goddamn penny”: Norm Johnson, interview with author.
Miller . . . was a crafty booker: Las Vegas Review-Journal, February 7, 1999.
“The Colonel was in the front seat”: Weatherford, Cult Vegas, 126.
Elvis went into a Memphis studio: Guralnick, as usual, provides the best account in Careless Love, 326–38.
Davis had initially called it: Mac Davis, interview with author.
“Now you go tell everybody”: Ibid.
“Elvis was really trying”: Ibid.
SIX: COMEBACK (ELVIS REBORN)
“You have to remember”: Richard Goldstein, interview with author.
the worst temper: Schilling, interview with author.
“I liked him a lot”: Davis, interview with author.
“God damn it, I didn’t ask”: Presley, Elvis and Me, 83.
Colonel Parker usually bears the brunt: The Colonel’s complicated relationship with Elvis is fully chronicled in Guralnick, Careless Love; Colonel Parker’s passport problems are recounted in Alanna Nash, The Colonel: The Extraordinary Story of Colonel Tom Parker and Elvis Presley (Aurum Press, 2002).
“The Colonel did not make”: Loanne Miller Parker, interview with author.
“The Colonel was forced to speak”: Esposito, Good Rockin’, 144.
“for the time that goes into it”: New York Times, December 4, 1968.
“Teenagers seem to be tiring”: “Return of the Big Beat,” Time, August 15, 1969.
But Elvis had a dream . . . he actually hung up on the Colonel: Ronnie Tutt, interview with author.
“get used to the crowds again”: Peter Guralnick and Ernst Jorgensen, Elvis Day by Day: The Definitive Record of His Life and Music (Ballantine Books, 1999), 257.
“Not many people told”: Schilling, interview with author.
“management wanted new personnel”: Sharp, Elvis: Vegas ’69, 36.
“Elvis wanted me to find”: Ibid., 37.
“I didn’t like Elvis Presley’s music”: Jerry Scheff, Way Down: Playing Bass with Elvis, Dylan, the Doors, and More (Backbeat Books, 2012), 13.
“When Elvis started singing”: Ibid., 14.
They had crossed paths: Tutt, interview with author.
“We had this great eye communication”: Ibid.
“at least one guy onstage”: Schilling, interview with author.
“I wanted voices”: Sharp, Elvis: Vegas ’69, 37.
“I think Elvis was more influenced”: Terry Blackwood, interview with author.
Morris was originally hired: Morris, interview with author.
“Most of us in the band”: Tutt, interview with author.
“For the first time, Elvis”: Schilling, interview with author.
“I asked if Elvis wanted”: Tutt, interview with author.
“Elvis always wanted to know”: James Burton, interview with author.
“When we started working”: Scheff, Way Down, 18.
“fun but pressurized”: Sharp, Elvis: Vegas ’69, 46.
“He was so gorgeous”: Ibid., 42–43.
“Very seldom would he say”: Blackwood, interview with author.
“Elvis was in a great mood”: Scheff, Way Down, 19.
Elvis snapped at her: Presley, Elvis and Me, 271.
“This town has never seen”: Sharp, Elvis: Vegas ’69, 55.
“Colonel did not ask how”: Miller Parker, interview with author.
“schlocky as all hell”: Nash, Colonel, 252.
“If you don’t do any business”: Esposito, Good Rockin’, 142.
“They didn’t know whether Elvis”: Miller Parker, interview with author.
“the cafe box-office surprise”: Variety, July 16, 1969.
“We got calls from all over the world”: Sharp, Elvis: Vegas ’69, 67.
“The Colonel’s philosophy was”: Jim McKusick, interview with author.
“The way Colonel Parker did promotion”: Ron Garrett, interview with author.
Parker visited him backstage: Sammy Shore, interview with author.
The International’s opening the following night: Variety, July 9, 1969.
the press-shy Kerkorian slipped: Miller Parker, interview with author.
“She’s a sweet girl”: Morris, interview with author.
“The jokes she cracked”: James Spada, Streisand: Her Life (Crown, 1995), 239.
“seemed ill at ease”: Variety, July 9, 1969.
“Even allowing for the opening”: Champlin, Los Angeles Times, July 4, 1969.
“I felt hostility”: Spada, Streisand, 239.
“scintillating display of her gifts”: Champlin, Los Angeles Times, August 5, 1969.
“She sucks”: Lamar Fike in Nash, Elvis Aaron Presley, 473.
“It looked like a political convention”: Sharp, Elvis: Vegas ’69, 62.
so big that they had to be put up: Ibid., 61.
“dressed in black pants”: Ibid., 72.
“We went in there in ’69”: Nash, Elvis Aaron Presley, 468.
“I can remember Elvis sitting”: Scheff, Way Down, 24.
“He was pacing back and forth”: Guralnick, Careless Love, 348.
“If you get lost”: Sharp, Elvis: Vegas ’69, 79.
Elvis had someone fetch: Ibid., 78.
“He was scared to death”: Interview with Burton for Elvis Unlimited, http://www.james-burton.net/1999-interview/.
“The audience was very good to us”: Sharp, Elvis: Vegas ’69, 86.
“The microphone was dead”: Shore, interview with author.
“God among the lobsters”: Scheff, Way Down, 24–25.
“I saw in his face”: Sammy Shore, The Warm-Up (William Morrow, 1984), 34.
Larry Geller claimed that Elvis: Geller, interview with author.
Priscilla said it was because: Presley, Elvis and Me, 135.
“Elvis comes onstage”: Margot Hentoff, “Absolutely Free,” Harper’s, November 1969.
“They wouldn’t shut up”: Sharp, Elvis: Vegas ’69, 91.
“I think he did them because”: Tutt, interview with author.
“He was like a wild man”: Guralnick, Careless Love, 351–52.
“Elvis surprised us”: Sharp, Elvis: Vegas ’69, 113.
“one of the rare occasions”: Ibid., 158.
“Good God”: Ibid., 140.
When he emerged, the two embraced: The Colonel’s reaction is described by many, including Jerry Schilling and Priscilla Presley in interviews with the author.
Pat Boone . . . brought along: Sharp, Elvis: Vegas ’69, 142.
“Ain’t you in show business?”: Ibid.
Bobby Vinton . . . came by with his agent: Ibid.
“It was absolutely spectacular”: Blackwood, interview with author.
“Musically and energy level”: Morris, interview with author.
“I got it”: Presley, interview with author.
“I never saw anything like it”: Davis, interview with author.
“I saw the Beatles”: Sharp, Elvis: Vegas ’69, 126.
“I thought he was fantastic”: Steve Binder, interview with author.
“We had to finish up”; “before I loosened up”; “put down the deposit”: Press conference transcript, Sharp, Elvis: Vegas ’69, 149–51.
“the glamorous rock and roll movie hero”: Gragg, Bright Light City, 147.
“It was not the Elvis”: Billboard, August 9, 1969.
“very much in command”: Variety, August 6, 1969.
“With his stature”: Mike Jahn, New York Times, August 18, 1969.
“Presley came on”: Ellen Willis, New Yorker, August 30, 1969.
“felt like getting hit in the face”: Richard Goldstein, New York Times, August 10, 1969.
“Elvis was supernatural”: Dalton, “Elvis Lights Up Las Vegas.”
“What did he do?”: Sharp, Elvis: Vegas ’69, 169.
“The first night I thought”: Larry Muhoberac interview, Elvis Australia, May 30, 2015, https://www.elvis.com.au/presley/interview-with-larry-muhoberac.shtml.
“If he felt a certain audience”: Morris, interview with author.
“He might do the first three songs”: Burton, interview with author.
“In Vegas Elvis discovered”: Jones, Elvis Has Left the Building, 170.
“Elvis came in with no music”: Leone, interview with author.
“He was so undisciplined”: Guralnick, Careless Love, 385.
“The pressure is getting”: Guralnick and Jorgensen, Elvis Day by Day, 262.
“I’d go stark raving mad”: Nash, Elvis Aaron Presley, 469.
“Do you realize what kind of hell”: Ibid., 470.
“He was like a newborn”: Schilling, interview with author.
“It gave me a new life”: Guralnick, Careless Love, 368.
“I had never even been to Vegas”: Blackwood, interview with author.
“I wish I could go to church”: Pat Boone, interview with author.
Even Sammy Shore: Shore, interview with author.
breakfast that usually included: The menu according to Sonny West, Elvis: Still Taking Care of Business (Triumph Books, 2007), 238.
“He was very nice”: Little, interview with author.
“The reception Elvis is getting”: Guralnick, Careless Love, 355.
“I never heard a better rhythm”: Ibid., 357.
“I wasn’t a fan”: Kazan, interview with author.
“They have an expression”: Sharp, Elvis: Vegas ’69, 113, 116.
“I went in expecting”: Ibid., 94.
Vic Damone . . . thought Elvis was drinking: Damone, interview with author.
“Elvis at least knew how to do it”: Jones, Over the Top, 273.
During the engagement he met: Joyce Bova recounts the affair in Don’t Ask Forever: My Love Affair with Elvis (Zebra, 1994).
“Oh, man, it was like going”: Tony Brown, interview with author.
“The guards had me”; “He was very, very nice”; “But that was probably the best”: Terry Mike Jeffrey, interview with author.
According to the deal: The agreement between Parker and Shoofey is described in Guralnick, Careless Love, 354–55, and (more critically) in Nash, Colonel, 254–56.
“The Colonel was one of the best customers”: Nash, Colonel, 256.
refusing to allow him even to be photographed: Ibid., 193.
“We didn’t decide to come back”: Sharp, Elvis: Vegas ’69, 168.
Davis was so nervous: Davis, interview with author.
Chips Moman . . . thought it ruined: Guralnick, Careless Love, 358.
“That’s what a bad marriage”: Ibid., 362.
“The International came along”: Sharp, Elvis: Vegas ’69, 173.
“It is something of a test”: Variety, December 24, 1969.
“Like the Temptation”: Dalton, “Elvis Lights Up Las Vegas.”
“Before Elvis went back”: Schilling, interview with author.
“I think Elvis made it OK”: Brown, interview with author.
“I always hated the place”: Jerry Scheff, email to author.
“It was a great place”: Burton, interview with author.
“Elvis was uncultured”: Entratter Sidney, interview with author.
“Elvis looked at me”: Sardelli, interview with author.
Trini Lopez was a little insulted: Lopez, interview with author.
“OK, I don’t know who he is”: Sharp, Elvis: Vegas ’69, 183.
“Elvis didn’t go in saying”: Schilling, interview with author.
SEVEN: AFTERMATH (ELVIS FOREVER)
Elvis said he wanted to try doing: Interview with Glen D. Hardin, Elvis Australia, https://www.elvis.com.au/presley/interview-glendhardin.shtml.
packed with 1,780 people: Robert Hilburn, Los Angeles Times, February 2, 1970.
“It was a flawless demonstration”: Ibid.
the hotel let him go: Morris, interview with author.
“Joe was the first one”: Leone, interview with author.
“original Renaldis from Italy”: Weatherford, Cult Vegas, 132.
But when news of the planned telecast leaked: Guralnick, Careless Love, 375.
“Nobody could close a song”: Davis, interview with author.
“You don’t have to ask”: “Elvis Presley: The Originals,” http://davidneale.eu/elvis/originals/list9.html#S1502.
“When he captured Vegas”: Schilling, interview with author.
“Those shows in Vegas in August”: Nash, Elvis Aaron Presley, 514.
“As performances go, Elvis Presley’s”: McKay, Played Out, 100.
They would trade practical jokes: Marty Allen, Hello Dere!: An Illustrated Biography (self-published, 2014), 151–54.
Vikki Carr . . . came to see his show: Vikki Carr, interview with author.
“one of the most ill-prepared”: Guralnick. Careless Love, 504.
“It was like watching a different person”: Ibid., 544.
Barbra Streisand visited Elvis backstage: Ibid., 563–65.
“After sitting through Elvis Presley’s”: Ibid., 617.
did 636 shows: For years the number usually given was 837. But in 2015 a new, more authorative count by a Graceland archivist put the actual total at 636.
“the end of Vegas”: Judith Miller (Bill Miller’s daughter), interview with author.
His former wife . . . always had suspicions: Entratter Sidney, interview with author.
“uncool polyester dump”: Kurt Andersen, “Las Vegas U.S.A.,” Time, January 10, 1994.
“blight to spirit and soul”: Neal Karlen, New York Times, April 25, 1993.
“Gradually between 1968 and 1975”: Weatherford, Cult Vegas, 6.
“Why in hell are you playing”: Davis, interview with author.
“There are a lot of performers”: Petula Clark interview, Mark Tan Collection.
“Genuine Pa Kettles”: Molly Ivins, New York Times, November 25, 1979.
Wayne claimed he saw Elvis’s ghost: Newton, Once Before I Go, 157.
“It’s what God would’ve done”: Al, Strip, 137.
The two had met in the 1960s: The act’s history described by Siegfried Fischbacher, interview with author, and on the performers’ website, http://siegfriedandroy.com.
Twenty-eight million people visited: Statistics from Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority.
“How can a large-spirited American”: Andersen, “Las Vegas U.S.A.”
Colonel Tom Parker himself: Josh Tyrangiel, “Diva Las Vegas,” Time, March 17, 2003.
“If it wasn’t for him”: Celine Dion in Elvis: Viva Las Vegas, ABC News documentary, 2007.
“more than just a great talent”: Las Vegas Sun, August 17, 1977.
“why, he was in perfect”: Ibid.
The first formal tribute: Variety, September 13, 1978.
Elvis himself reportedly went to see: “Elvis’ Star Continues to Shine in Las Vegas,” https://www.vegas.com/elvis/.
it took the Gretna Green Wedding Chapel: Graceland Wedding Chapel website, https://www.gracelandchapel.com/our-history.html.