Author: Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 1058
Book Description
Jack Cortez' Fabulous Las Vegas Magazine
Author: Jack Cortez' Fabulous Las Vegas Magazine
Author: Played Out on the Strip
Author: Janis L. McKayPublisher: University of Nevada Press
ISBN: 1943859035
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 232
Book Description
From 1940 to 1989, nearly every hotel on the Las Vegas Strip employed a full-time band or orchestra. After the late 1980s, when control of the casinos changed hands from independent owners to corporations, almost all of these musicians found themselves unemployed. Played Out on the Strip traces this major shift in the music industry through extensive interviews with former musicians. In 1989, these soon-to-be unemployed musicians went on strike. Janis McKay charts the factors behind this strike, which was precipitated by several corporate hotel owners moving to replace live musicians with synthesizers and taped music, a strategic decision made in order to save money. The results of this transitional period in Las Vegas history were both long-lasting and far-reaching for the entertainment industry. With its numerous oral history interviews and personal perspectives from the era, this book will appeal to readers interested in Las Vegas history, music history, and labor issues.
Greetings from Las Vegas
Author: Peter MoruzziPublisher: Gibbs Smith
ISBN: 1423651774
Category : Photography
Languages : en
Pages : 476
Book Description
This book of vintage Vegas ephemera offers a guided tour of Sin City’s rise out of the Mojave Desert to become a major entertainment destination. Greetings from Las Vegas tells the story of Las Vegas during its golden age in the first half of the twentieth-century. The city’s miraculous evolution comes alive through a fun and diverse collection of vintage photos, picture postcards, matchbooks, ads, and other ephemera. This beautifully illustrated volume captures the glamor of Fremont Street and the Las Vegas Strip, landmarks such as the Sands and Riviera hotel casinos, and the cream of Hollywood glitterati, including Frank, Sammy, Dino, and the rest of the Rat Pack. Author Peter Moruzzi’s sharp and irreverent commentary provides essential context for the visual treats as well as a unique historical take on the evolution of this desert playground.
Fact, Fictions, and the Forbidden Predictions of the Amazing Criswell
Author: Edwin Lee CanfieldPublisher: SCB Distributors
ISBN: 1915316014
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 459
Book Description
“We are all interested in the future for that is where you and I are going to spend the rest of our lives, whether we want to or not!” Jeron Charles Criswell King, better known simply as Criswell, can rightfully be described as one of the first pop celebrity psychics. His bizarre predications — 87 per cent of which came true, he claimed — appeared from the 1950s through the 1970s in newspapers and magazines, while the flamboyant showman hosted his own Los Angeles television show, guested on national TV and in Ed Wood movies, including Plan 9 from Outer Space, alongside Vampira, Tor Johnson and Bela Lugosi. Unsuccessful attempts to find fame on Broadway and Tin Pan Alley did not prevent him from co-authoring three books on how to succeed in these fields. A member of the hidden Hollywood gay community, the story of Criswell, his triumphs and defeats, is one of fame and hope. Fact, Fictions, and the Forbidden Predictions of the Amazing Criswell is the first full-length biography of Criswell. It is the result of 20 years of research by number one fan, Edwin Canfield, and includes interviews, new information, and many startling predictions. “The world as we know it will cease to exist on August 18, 1999!”
Fly on the Wall
Author: Dick OdesskyPublisher: Huntington Press Inc
ISBN: 1935396218
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 253
Book Description
Imagine what it must have been like to be in Las Vegas during its most glamorous and eventful years: the 1950s, the 1960s, and the 1970s.Back then, "the boys" ran the town, dinner shows were a dollar, and vacant lots on what is now the Strip sold for $5 an acre. Tallulah played baccarat, Shecky shot dice, and Frank dealt blackjack.Fly on the Wall chronicles those times, as well as the men and women who shaped them.As a reporter for two of the city's most respected newspapers and a publicist for two of the city's most infamous casinos, Dick Odessky was in the thick of itthe proverbial fly on the wall. His recollections of Las Vegas' good old bad old days put you in the thick of it, too.
Bright Light City
Author: Larry GraggPublisher: University Press of Kansas
ISBN: 0700619038
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 352
Book Description
When Elvis crooned "Bright light city . . . gonna set my soul on fire," he voiced and embraced the siren call of a glittering urban utopia that continues to mesmerize millions. Call it Sin City or Lost Wages, Las Vegas definitely deserves its rapturous "Viva!" Larry Gragg, however, invites readers to view Las Vegas in an entirely new way. While countless other authors have focused on its history or gaming industry or entertainment ties, Gragg considers how popular culture has depicted the city and its powerful allure over its first century. Drawing on hundreds of films, television programs, novels, and articles, Gragg identifies changing trends in the city's portraits. Until the 1940s, boosters promoted it as the "last frontier town," a place where prospectors and cowboys enjoyed liquor, women, and wide-open gambling. Then in the early 1950s commentators increasingly characterized Las Vegas as a sophisticated resort city in the desert, and ever since then journalists, filmmakers, and novelists have depicted a city largely built by organized crime and featuring non-stop entertainment, gambling, luxury, and, of course, beautiful-and available-women. In Gragg's narrative, these images form a kaleidoscope of lights, sounds, characters, and ultimately amazement about this neon oasis. In these pages, readers will meet gangsters like Bugsy Siegel, Tony Spilotro, and Lefty Rosenthal, as well as Las Vegas's most popular entertainers: Elvis Presley, Sinatra's Rat Pack, Liberace, and Wayne Newton, not to mention the Folies Bergere showgirls. And Gragg's skillful interweaving of fictional and journalistic accounts of organized crime shows just how mutually reinforcing they have become over the years. Vegas will always make people's eyes light up as bright as the Strip, witness the new TV show Vegas or the recent film The Hangover. For everyone entranced by its glitter and glamour, Bright Light City is a must read boasting color photos and bursting with insider details: an eclectic blend of stories, people, sights, and sounds that together make up this desert city's extraordinary appeal.
Bugsy's Shadow
Author: Larry D. GraggPublisher: University of New Mexico Press
ISBN: 0826365167
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 232
Book Description
Early in the Prohibition era, Moe Sedway became part of the New York organized crime gang led by Meyer Lansky and Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel. A loyal and highly effective operative for Siegel, Sedway eventually gained monopoly control of the race wire service in Las Vegas and also became an effective casino manager of the Las Vegas Club, El Cortez, and the Rex Club. A breach in their relationship led to rumors that Sedway had gained Lansky’s approval for a “hit” on Siegel. The unsolved mystery of who murdered Bugsy in 1947 has spawned numerous theories about the identity of the hitman, but regardless of who pulled the trigger, Bugsy’s death opened the way for Moe to flourish as his own man at last. Long overshadowed by Bugsy in the annals of organized crime in America, Moe Sedway is now at last brought out into the light in this riveting tale of the sensational life and times of one of Vegas’s most mysterious and little-known figures.
Beyond the Black and White TV
Author: Benjamin M. HanPublisher: Rutgers University Press
ISBN: 1978803834
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 216
Book Description
Beyond the Black and White TV argues that depictions of racial harmony on variety shows between their white hosts and ethnic guests aimed to shape a new perception of the United States as an exemplary nation of democracy, equality, and globalism during the Cold War.
Dictionary Catalog of the Research Libraries of the New York Public Library, 1911-1971
Author: New York Public Library. Research LibrariesPublisher:
ISBN:
Category : Library catalogs
Languages : en
Pages : 580
Book Description
