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Frank Sinatra

Dean Martin

Sammy Davis Jr Story

Dean Martin Live in Las Vegas

Frank Sinatra
with Dean Martin

Playing with The Rat Pack 1960s & 70s
with Dean Martin

Las Vegas in 1977

John Oliver: Las Vegas Is the Worst Place on Earth!

Jerry Vale

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Don Rickles' Last Carson Appearance

Joan Rivers vs Johnny Carson

Angie Dickinson

Remembering Bobby Darin

Who Killed Elvis?

Viva Las Vegas!

Sammy Davis, Jr.

Las Vegas1967

Elvis

Las Vegas in the 1950s

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Lola Falana

Don Rickles

Don Rickles' Last Show

Don Rickles vs Merv Griffin

Sonny & Cher

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Louis Prima

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Johnny Carson

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Liberace

TV's The Las Vegas Show

Red Buttons

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Harlan Ellison vs Frank Sinatra

Demond Wilson on The Dean Martin Roasts, Las Vegas, and Walking Out on Sanford & Son

Joan Rivers

Las Vegas Postcards

TV's The Magician and Las Vegas

Liberace, Frank Sinatra, and Jackie Gleason Attempted an Intervention on Elvis in Las Vegas

What Las Vegas Looked Like Under Lockdown

Sammy Davis Jr.'s Home Was Looted!

Very Revealing Interview with Sammy Davis Jr.

Las Vegas in the 1940s

Frank Sinatra's Last Major Interview

Portrait of Frank Sinatra in 1959
Frank Sinatra in
Monte Carlo 1959

Drummer Hal Blaine on Recording with The Rat Pack

Marty Allen Almost Cost Me My Foot!

Home Movies of Las Vegas During The Strip’s Golden Age

Donny & Marie Are Calling It Quits

Totie Fields

Sinatra's First Palm Springs Home

Phyllis Diller: An Appreciation

Steve Allen

Rich Little

Betty White on Don Rickles

Elvis' Background Singers

Wayne Newton

George Carlin

Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gorme

Redd Foxx

Las Vegas & The Mob

Henny Youngman

Rodney Dangerfield

How Las Vegas Has Changed Since the 1970s

How Las Vegas Has Changed Since the 1960s

More on How Las Vegas Has Changed Over the Years

BONUS: Garry Shandling in Las Vegas

Las Vegas Postcards / The Las Vegas Strip

THE MOB AND LAS VEGAS

From a Vegas entertainer: The entertainers and folks I know who worked in Las Vegas pre-1980 liked it better than what came after, When the big hotel chains muscled in on Sin City the mobsters, even with the skim, didn't have the money to compete. They were eventually marginalized and Vegas became a corporate playground.

But in the days of the mob it was a much more personal place. You went to one person and they could give you an answer, comp a room, book a night spot. You didn't have to go through layers of corporate lackeys like you do today and apparently pretty much left everyone alone to do the best job they could. Of course, there were those who felt the sting of the Mob - if someone ran afoul of the wrong people or they tried to rip off a casino.

 

The casinos were go-go-go from the late-1940s on, and there were rivers of cash to be made on all sorts of gambling schemes - slot machines, card games,

In the 1950s big name entertainers were the lure that brought in the suckers, that and the chance to hit it big if you bet the right numbers on the Roulette wheel or hit a lucky streak in Blackjack.

It was also an elegant place where men wore coats and ties to the casinos, ladies were decked out in their finest with glittering jewelry and designer dresses.

Beginning in the 1980s, just as mob influence was waning, slovenly tourists were arriving wearing tacky vacation wear, short shorts, jeans. Las Vegas lost that high class edge it had.

Time magazine cover story, May 16, 1977:
Why does the Mafia attract so much attention? Many Italian Americans complain that the notoriety is excessive, and damaging to millions of law-abiding citizens; to assuage their sensibilities, the Justice Department has stopped referring to the Mafia by name. No matter what the organization is called, it dominates much of American crime. Many nonmember gangsters are allied to it, usually kicking back a share of their take to the dons; some criminologists estimate that at least 50,000 hoods can be considered confederates of the Mafia. The Mafia is by far the best organized criminal group in the U.S. and the only one with a national structure: 26 families— five of them in New York City—of from 20 to 1,000 "button men," or soldiers.

Helen Costa, wife of Frank Sinatra’s musical arranger Don Costa:
Don did a few things for the mob so they liked him; he wasn’t really involved too much with them, just on the fringe. I don’t know how much influence the mafia had, they just needed something done so that if you ever needed them to do you a favor there was an exchange of favors there. You just don’t say no, that’s all.

 

 

THE MOB AND LAS VEGAS

 

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Punk - a look at the gay and Punk / post-Punk landscape in Los Angeles in 1980.
 

 

 


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