American Experience (1988) s18e03 Episode Script

1
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MAN:
Las Vegas is the place
where the steam gets let off.
It's like a vacation.
People c come here and feel
they're living a naughtier life.
Cocktails?
MAN:
Las Vegas is clockless,
and in that sense, it does throw
your whole rhythm off.
I think that that induces
a kind of spacelessness
and weightlessness
and a placelessness
so that Las Vegas becomes
a world into itself.
Yoo-hoo!
MAN:
I mean, this is after all
a city in the desert,
so Las Vegas suggests,
of course,
that the whole rest of the world
is the desert
and it is the oasis.
WOMAN:
We don't want anything in Las
Vegas that upsets the tourists
and if it's a touch of reality
that is not pretty,
then we want to get rid of it.
You don't want to come
in contact with reality
when you're here for fantasy.
MAN:
It's not a deeply
introspective culture.
It's not
about the interior life.
Paging 3-5-5-7
MAN ( continues):
There is no gap between
the thought and the act.
It isn't like you say,
"Oh, should I do this,
should I do this?"
It's like
( imitates lightning strike)
Am I going to walk you down
the aisle and give you away?
MAN ( continues):
So that kind of hesitation
and contemplation is not
really a part of this culture.
WOMAN:
Maybe there's some mystical
thing about Las Vegas.
You know, you'd like to think
that man governs and dominates
all the decisions
that make history unfold.
But clearly people must have
been in the right place
at the right time.
Now, some could say
it's just nature.
I say it's luck.
WOMAN:
There's so much more to Vegas
than the Strip.
And once you get here
and see what else they have,
you won't even come
to the Strip.
Housekeeping.
( knocks at door)
( keys jingle)
( door unlocks)
Hello.
WOMAN:
Well, when I lived
in California,
I didn't have
that many opportunities,
but here they got
so many hotels coming up,
stores opening up every day.
So you can get a job real easy.
It might not be the job you want
but it'll be a job
until you get the job you want.
My brother moved here
to Las Vegas,
so I've been coming here
to visit him
and he said,
"You should come up here.
It's easy to get a house up here
and stuff."
When you apply for it, you can
move into a brand-new house.
They build it the way you want
You know, the way
you want them to.
No money down.
Not a penny.
Now, that was for me!
( laughs)
I was ready for that.
So it's it's real nice.
It's a two-bedroom,
two-bathroom.
But right now I'm thinking
about getting a bigger house,
because I have three
granddaughters now.
So we're going to get
a bigger place.
It's just like any other town.
It has clubs, zoos
You wouldn't think Vegas would
have a zoo, but they got a zoo.
When we come to Vegas, we come
straight down the boulevard
and we stayed on the Strip
But, you know, once you gamble
and lose your money,
you go home.
What else to stay for?
But it's a real town.
This is indeed
the best move I ever made.
I wasn't established
in California.
I went there in 1970.
I never bought a house;
I never owned anything.
And when you get in your 40s,
you have to own something,
you know.
So soon as I moved here,
I got my jobs,
got a new car, got a new truck,
got a new house
And I've only been here
six years.
I cleaned up.
( chuckles)
MAN:
I think the hold of this place
is it's on the edge.
And it needs to be.
It's always been a place where
you look out of your windows
and see the sun rise
or set on the desert
and know that there are snakes
and serpents out there.
It's biblical in that way,
and if you can imagine the place
devoid of all construction,
you would quickly say,
"Well, who on earth
would have come here?"
Because it's not a sensible
place to build a city,
and I think there is
still that feeling of
kind of loony surreal triumph
over the elements.
You know, "Damn those elements.
We can beat them."
NARRATOR:
A more godforsaken locale could
scarcely have been imagined.
But in 1930, in the midst
of the Great Depression,
southern Nevada's Black Canyon
looked to many Americans
like paradise.
In just six months,
some 42,000 men descended
on that desolate spot,
desperate to land one
of the 5,000 construction jobs
on the Boulder Dam,
also known as Hoover Dam,
a massive engineering project
that would harness
the mighty Colorado River
for the benefit of a half dozen
states throughout the Southwest.
( explosion)
For 4½ long years,
the dam workers would spend
their days
slaving between walls
of stubborn hard rock
that was literally too hot
to be touched
and their nights penned up
in Boulder City,
a federal reservation with
few of the comforts of home
and all of the same
hometown rules:
no gambling, no prostitution
and absolutely no liquor.
They lived for payday.
They blew out of Boulder City
as if it were on fire
and headed straight
for a dusty little town
in the middle of the Mojave
called Las Vegas.
There, along a two-block stretch
of Fremont Street,
the town's main drag,
and in the nearby red-light
district known as Block 16
they encountered one
of the greatest concentrations
of wide-open vice to be found
anywhere in Prohibition America:
a bawdy, brightly lit cluster
of gambling dens
and hot-sheet prostitution cribs
and saloon after saloon
after saloon.
MAN:
They were living in these camps
in this unforgiving desert
in a state of real lockdown.
And let's face it, there is
absolutely nothing to do.
So you had two choices
on payday in Boulder City.
You could stay back in the camp
and not drink and maybe play
some cards with your friends
and wait for night to come,
or you could hit Fremont Street
and gamble and drink
and party
until your check ran out.
Now, which one would you choose?
NARRATOR:
Founded in 1905
as a railroad town,
Las Vegas had enjoyed about
a dozen years of prosperity,
catering to passengers
on layover
and supplying the mining camps
to the north and south.
But its stint
as a classic western boomtown
had been short-lived.
In 1922, after a national strike
idled the line through the town
for nearly a month,
the railroad moved
its repair shops
and laid off hundreds of people.
Many businesses went belly-up,
and some observers thought sure
the place would wind up
a ghost town.
In desperation, local boosters
dreamed up wild schemes
to keep the town afloat:
a county fairground
dude ranches
for prospective divorcées
and a nine-hole golf course
that lacked
only one key component: grass.
But nothing really worked.
In the end, what saved Las Vegas
was Nevada's historic tolerance
for sin.
MAN:
Nevada lacked the resources
that other states had.
It was so arid
that it lacked enough water
to develop industries.
In 1890, Nevada was the lowest
populated state in the union.
It had less people
than you could fit
in Fenway Park in Boston.
Some states actually
talked about Nevada
becoming part of California
and abolishing Nevada
altogether.
And so in order to keep people
here and keep the economy going,
none of the towns really
abolished their frontier vices
immediately.
Well, I mean,
the history of Nevada,
I mean, it's just a big desert,
you know.
With nothing in between here
and Reno.
It's an eight-hour drive
I mean, it's really nowhere.
And its whole tradition
is doing illegal stuff.
You know, I mean, they do
divorces, they do prize fights.
They do all this stuff that was
banned from Prohibition America.
And so this became the way
you make money in the desert.
NARRATOR:
But it wasn't until early 1931
that Nevada had truly solidified
its reputation
as the nation's rogue state.
At a time when games of chance
were illegal
everywhere else in the country,
and diehard gamblers
had to play in back alleys
and underground clubs
Nevada lawmakers had taken
the scandalous step
of legalizing wide-open,
casino-style gambling.
Las Vegas's Fremont Street was
wall-to-wall gambling houses,
and penny slot machines
had been installed
in nearly every gas station
and grocery store in town.
THOMSON:
This allowed East Coast
America, academia,
Washington, the churches,
to say Sodom and Gomorrah
An enormous stain upon Nevada
in the eyes of the East,
which I think lingers
to this day.
NARRATOR:
Legal gambling alone would
likely never have brought people
to a place as remote
as Las Vegas.
But with the pleasure-starved
residents of Boulder City
now just down the road,
the desert outpost was
about to make a killing.
Curiosity about the dam
boosted business even further.
In 1932, some 100,000 people
went to gawk
at what was fast becoming known
as the eighth wonder
of the world,
and many paused en route
to sample the unique attractions
of Las Vegas.
By that time,
the opportunistic town had long
since taken to billing itself
as the "Gateway
to the Boulder Dam."
Then, in 1935, President
Franklin Roosevelt came to town.
ROOSEVELT:
We are here to celebrate
the completion of
the greatest dam in the world.
NARRATOR:
Within a matter of months,
the thousands of dam workers
abruptly disappeared.
Fremont Street,
one observer remembered,
was suddenly "as empty
as could be found."
Thanks mainly to the dam,
Las Vegans had discovered
the immense potential for profit
in America's forbidden desires.
But to fully exploit it,
they would have to find a way
to lure people to the desert.
For now,
the prospects seemed dim.
As one writer put it, "The
people were not here yesterday,
and they will not
be here tomorrow."
COOPER:
There is a thread
that runs through the whole
history of this place
as it relates to America
and American culture.
It's a refuge.
It's a place that you run to.
It's a place
that you indulge yourself in.
It's a way out of
the incredible straitjacket
that we find ourselves in
in our highly regimented
and regulated lives.
MAN:
A lot of people come to Vegas
and get married
because they start planning
a wedding at home,
and the cost gets out of hand.
You might have Cousin Charlie
come along
and say, "Oh, you can't
do it that way,
And then grandma says,
"Well, you got to do this."
And they say, "Forget it."
They get on an airplane,
come to Vegas and get married.
Will you love, honor, respect
and be faithful to him
all the days of your life?
Yes.
Marriage is an honorable estate
instituted by God
in the very beginning
of man.
It is, therefore,
never to be entered
into lightly
but reverently, sincerely,
and in the love of God.
( "Viva, Las Vegas" plays)
Bright-light city ♪
Gonna set my soul,
gonna set my soul on fire ♪
Gotta whole lot of money ♪
OFFICIANT:
I've been doing weddings
ten years
and I have done a little more
than 37,000.
86 is the most
I've done in a day.
ELVIS:
Viva, Las Vegas.. ♪
OFFICIANT:
I did one wedding onstage
in a total nude joint.
I did a commitment ceremony
one night
for a man and his motorcycle.
I had a lady come in one day,
had a couple of attendants
with her, were all dressed up.
She wanted to marry herself.
I notice that one of you
lives in New Orleans
and one lives in Metairie.
Metairie, yeah.
Metairie?
Mm-hmm.
Are one of you going to move
or are you going to
Yeah, he's coming.
Or are you going to be happy?
We going to move together.
( chuckles)
( "Here Comes the Bride"
plays on organ)
OFFICIANT:
The wedding chapels
are a business.
Right there, guys.
OFFICIANT:
I think that some
of the ministers
that do weddings in this town
confuse that with a ministry,
but I roll with the punches.
Whatever these people want
is okay with me.
Jürgen, do you take Goudrin
to be your lawful wedded wife?
( translating into German)
Yes, I do.
Goudrin, do you take Jürgen
to be your lawful
wedded husband?
Yes.
By the powers vested in me
by the state of Nevada,
I pronounce you husband
and wife.
You got a wedding down there?
Okay.
All right, hold onto them.
I'll be there as quick as I can.
OFFICIANT:
I think marriage is great.
MAN:
Place your bets,
ladies and gentlemen.
NARRATOR:
The British writer
Somerset Maugham
once described Monte Carlo,
the glamorous gambling resort
on the French Riviera,
as "a sunny place
for shady people."
By the early 1940s,
the same might have been said
of Las Vegas.
The first big wave of so-called
"sporting life" characters
had arrived back in 1938,
after a reform-minded mayor
ran them out of Los Angeles.
An easy day-trip
from the City of Angels,
Las Vegas had become
the obvious destination
for the scores
of illegal gambling operators
and card sharks
and dirty cops on the lam.
MOEHRING:
They gravitated to the city
because they had the expertise.
They knew more than
many of the local yokels
who were running
the small casinos
of how to make customers happy,
how to give comps,
And they brought a real
expertise in casino management
to Las Vegas.
NARRATOR:
Now me one of
the more infamous denizens
of LA's underworld,
a dapper
and often volatile mobster
by the name
of Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel.
A key player
in the national
crime organization
known as the syndicate,
Siegel, at 36, was arguably
one of the most crooked
entrepreneurs of his time.
He'd spent most
of the 1930s in Hollywood,
overseeing LA's half-a-million-
dollar-a-day bookmaking
enterprise
and palling around with studio
executives and movie stars
on the side.
But when Nevada became
the only state in the Union
to legalize the racewire,
a service that relayed
thoroughbred racing results
to off-track bookies
across the country,
syndicate boss Meyer Lansky sent
Siegel to take over the action
in Las Vegas.
MOEHRING:
Bugsy Siegel was sent up
to Las Vegas in 1941
with Moe Sedway
to eliminate James Ragan
who owned a racewire here
that the mob did not control.
These guys came here and
they created a rival racewire.
They charged lower prices
and eventually they got rid
of Ragan by poisoning him.
Once they had eliminated Ragan,
it was obvious to Siegel
that there were real
possibilities here for the mob.
NARRATOR:
Las Vegas was still basically
a one-horse town
A train depot and a row
of gaudy gambling joints
surrounded by thousands of acres
of undeveloped desert.
But there was every reason
to believe
the place was headed
for a spectacular boom.
Two new defense installations
had been recently situated
on the outskirts of town
which together had brought
thousands of people
and their payrolls
into Las Vegas's orbit.
And now that the country
was at war,
hordes of impatient couples
were already stampeding
over the border into Nevada,
where state law
allowed them to tie the knot
without waiting for the
blood tests required back home.
Since Las Vegas also performed
quickie divorces,
as one of the country's top
spots to dump a spouse,
Siegel figured the casinos
on Fremont Street
would soon be packed
to the rafters.
If the syndicate wanted
to get in on the ground floor,
he told Lansky,
now was the time.
Over the next several years,
with Lansky's blessing,
on Fremont Street,
before buying the El Cortez
outright in 1945.
The official owner
was a front man.
Behind him was
a roster of investors
that read like a Who's Who
of organized crime
Men who got their share
of the profits
from cash skimmed off the top.
COOPER:
There's no taxes on a skim
and there's no bookkeeping
on a skim.
It is your up-front money.
When the mob controlled
one of these casinos,
they had their operatives
who would effectively supervise
what's called
the hard count room,
which is where you'd
count up the money
and you knew that
if Bob or Joe was the guy
who would come in literally
with a sack or with a box
and pick up some money
and walk out the door
Well, nobody s anything.
It was a lot of money
came out of those places.
You would know,
there were people who had
the breakdown of how much
This goes to Chicago, this goes
to Milwaukee, this goes here.
You knew to the penny
where that money was going
and who was getting it.
NARRATOR:
The scheme was so simple
and so profitable
that Siegel was soon
pushing the syndicate
to make a more sizable
investment,
this time in a risky
new development
roughly three miles
from the center of town,
on frontage bordering
Highway 91,
the two-lane road
to Los Angeles.
Out there in the barren desert,
Siegel told his associates,
they could open a place that
would be beyond the city limits
and the reach
of the city slot tax.
There was space enough
for a full-fledged resort
An upscale joint with a casino
and a swimming pool
and a parking lot.
Two sprawling motor inns,
the El Rancho Vegas
and the Last Frontier,
had already been built
on that model,
and so far, they'd been doing
a respectable business.
Now, Siegel's longtime
acquaintance Billy Wilkerson,
the publisher
of the "Hollywood Reporter,"
was trying to raise money
for a third
A glamorous place
like the nightclubs he own
on the Sunset Strip.
PILEGGI:
Ben Siegel then wound up
looking at Vegas.
And he said, "The war is over."
It's 1945 and '46.
America wants to party.
Got to remember the country had
been through a horrendous war.
America was looking
for a good time.
He said, "Let's invest money."
NARRATOR:
Siegel's associates
ponied up 1.5 million
Enough to buy a two-thirds stake
In Wilkerson’s project.
The plan now, Siegel told a reporter, was.
To build "the goddamn biggest,
fanciest gaming casino and hotel
you bastards ever seen
in your whole lives."
He would call it "The Flamingo."
PILEGGI:
Before Benny Siegel
opened the Flamingo,
the look of the casinos
in Las Vegas
were all cowboy casinos.
They were western
There was sawdust on the floor.
Benny Siegel comes in,
he creates
an urban Miami Beach hotel
in the middle of the desert.
Suddenly when you walk
into a casino,
you're not met by a guy
with a cowboy hat
and a six-shooter
and cowboy chaps;
no, you're met
by a guy in a tuxedo,
you're met by a guy
that looks like Dean Martin.
NARRATOR:
With its swank atmosphere,
wall-to-wall carpeting
and a newfangled
air-cooling system,
the Flamingo would
eventually become
a favorite hot spot
for the Hollywood crowd.
But by the time construction
was finally completed
in the spring of 1947,
Siegel had overrun his budget
by $4½ million,
and the syndicate's mood
had soured.
A few months later,
Siegel was gunned down
in his girlfriend's
Beverly Hills home
and Lansky's deputies
took over the Flamingo
for the syndicate.
By then,
the word on Las Vegas was out,
and wise guys
from all over the country
had already begun
decamping to the desert:
from Phoenix, syndicate
bookmaker Gus Greenbaum,
from Minneapolis, local mob boss
and rumrunner Davie Bean
and from Cleveland,
the one-time kingpin
of the Mayfield Road Gang,
Moe Dalitz.
PILEGGI:
When these guys came here,
it was like a morality
or ethical car wash.
You came here,
you were cleansed of your sins,
you were now
legitimate and legal.
I didn't care what you did,
you got a wash.
MAN:
Las Vegas of 50 years ago was
an island, a desert island,
an outpost
of hedonistic excess, of vice.
Everywhere else in America,
every four years
when the district attorney
needed to get reelected,
he busted the gambling dens.
But here is this island
where bad could become good,
where illegitimate
could become legitimate.
MAN:
They came out here
and the shackles came off.
They could do in the sunshine
what they could only do in
the shade where they came from.
And they said to themselves
I know they said it
"This is a place
to make our home.
This is a place
to raise our families."
NARRATOR:
As one resident put it,
Las Vegas was now home
"to more socially prominent
hoodlums per square foot
than any other community
in the world."
It was also fast becoming the
ideal front for organized crime,
as new casinos, like the
Thunderbird and the Desert Inn,
sprouted up on Highway 91
and the cash from the skim
found its way
into the pockets of mobsters
as far away
as Chicago and Miami.
Nevada authorities
could do little about it.
COOPER:
Gambling was so stigmatized
and was so morally impure
that the only way
you could finance this
was with illegal funds.
So the gambling interests
and the mob interests
were intertwined
with the establishment.
Everybody from the PTA to
the Mormons to the businessmen,
they saw nothing,
they heard nothing,
and they did nothing
The money was rolling in.
NARRATOR:
For Nevada,
it was a devil's bargain:
Were it not
for its shady citizens,
Las Vegas may well have shrunk
back into the desert.
But a thriving gambling town
run by reputed mobsters
was not likely
to earn much respect
in the centers
of national power.
The question now was
not if Washington would
come calling, but when.
WOMAN:
A lot of people
who settled here
had a real frontier reality.
So that attitude
of "Don't regulate me,
"don't tell me what to do,
don't fence me in,
especially if you're the Federal
Government, still prevails today.,"
MAN:
When we first moved here,
you could ride out my backdoor
and ride 500 miles north
and only cross two paved roads.
You used to feel like
it was pretty wide open.
You knew your neighbors
Everybody talked to each other.
The kids were always out hunting
rabbits, hunting coyotes.
They would ride clear back
to Sheep Mountain
And there are some old
Indian caves back there
And they'd spend the day
and then come home.
You didn't have to worry
about where they were
or who they were with
because you knew everybody
in the neighborhood.
There was only 20 families
in the five-mile area.
It was a rural way of life,
and we're trying
to maintain that
in this little block right here.
But they're slowing
chipping away.
If they would have had
some kind of planned growth
this could have been
a good thing.
But when you run out of water
and you run out of usable land
and you start
crowding people together
just for the sole purpose
of making an extra buck
instead of trying to develop
a quality of life
or a type of life
that people want,
then it becomes something
entirely different.
More and more of my neighbors
are moving.
More and more people are putting
their houses up for sale.
Vegas has changed.
( horse whinnies)
NEWSREEL ANNOUNCER:
The nation's underworld
gets the unwelcome spotlight
of publicity
as the Senate's investigation
subcommittee begins
new hearings on crime.
NARRATOR:
For the men who ran Las Vegas,
periodic scrapes with the law
were a fact of life.
So none
were particularly alarmed
when, in the spring of 1950,
the U.S. Senate launched
a major investigation
into organized crime.
Word had it that the Senate
committee was slated
to take testimony
from some 800 witnesses
in 14 American cities.
Not surprisingly, Las Vegas
was high on the list.
As the more seasoned players
in town saw it,
there were a variety
of possible outcomes.
The Senate hearings could force
greater regulation
of the casinos
or increase taxes
on their profits
or even God forbid
Actually shut Las Vegas down.
But many took comfort
from the fact
that the probe was being headed
by none other
than Estes Kefauver,
a man whose regular
tirades against gambling,
didn't keep him from chalking up
near-perfect attendance
at the racetrack.
NEWSREEL ANNOUNCER:
The Kefauver crime committee
meets the press in Washington.
Organized crime does operate
on a syndicated basis
across state lines
in the United States.
It's a much bigger,
more sinister
and a larger operation
than we had ever suspected.
MOEHRING:
Kefauver was a senator
from Tennessee,
a Democrat from the Bible Belt.
He was an opportunist,
and he saw bashing Vegas
and attacking the mob
as a way to perhaps get the
Democratic nomination in 195
NARRATOR:
Throughout the summer
and early fall,
the publicity surrounding the
nationally televised proceedings
forced the closure
of illegal gambling dens
and other mob-run enterprises
across the country.
Las Vegans, meanwhile, awaited
their turn with amusement.
As one mobster's daughter
remembered it,
"Privately, my father
and his friends joked
"that the committee
would never shut them down.
"They'd never had
any respect for politicians
since they had made
a career of bribing them."
Some in town even saw fit
to lay odds on the outcome
of the hearings.
Almost no one put
their money on Kefauver.
The Senate committee spent hours
taking testimony
from local witnesses
and uncovered no hard evidence
of wrongdoing whatsoever.
The casinos in town were legal
and the operators had
the full sanction of the state.
In the end,
the entire hearing came off
as an advertisement
for America's unofficial
mobster metropolis.
SMITH:
His intention was to drive
these scoundrels underground,
to put a little light on them
and watch them scatter.
Well, some of them did scatter:
They scattered from the east
and from the south, uh,
and they came out to Las Vegas.
COOPER:
He created a gangster diaspora.
All of a sudden,
gangsters, illegal gamblers
from bingo parlors
and roulette dens-
they had nowhere to go,
they're feeling the heat.
Meyer Lansky and Bugsy Siegel
had already gotten
a foothold here.
Moe Dalitz was already here,
and they said, You know what?
We're going to Las Vegas."
So really it was
the organized drive
to push gambling
t of American life
that created the biggest
gambling center in the world.
NARRATOR:
"I love that man Kefauver,"
cracked one recent arrival.
"When he drove me out
"of an illegal casino operation
in Florida
"and into a legalized
operation in Nevada,
"he made me a respectable,
law-abiding citizen
and a millionaire."
Las Vegas had managed to survive
the federal
government's scrutiny,
but it still needed to make
its mix of sin
and syndicated crime
appealing to Main Street, U.S.A.
SMITH:
Las Vegas has been
a place apart,
it's been other,
it's been outlaw.
And it actually fought
against that image,
that reputation initially,
trying to sell itself
as "We're just
like everyone else,
and, boy, don't we have a lot
of chapels and churches?"
But this has always been
crossroader country.
WOMAN:
I was in music for 25 years.
My famil.. I'm one of ten,
and my family was
in show business.
We were
the Louisiana Family Band.
I remember I was really young
and we used to travel
all the time.
We didn't even go to school.
We would perform
six nights a week.
And we lived in hotels.
It was the way I grew up.
And we were all together
We would play cards in the back
of the truck
and, you know,
and we'd sing all the time,
and that's just how life was.
Always wanted a home, though.
Oh, Chenelle, look at you!
WOMAN:
That's how we came to Vegas,
we were performing.
And then I got into cocktails.
I was schlepping cocktails
and he was valeting.
And we would meet at home.
We'd say, "Okay, we got $150."
And we had a lite bucket I
swear to you, a little bucket.
We'd put it in and we'd
kind of cry to each other how
it was kind of tough, you know?
So we put our money in our
bucket, and we saved up $15,000
just like that.
We just did it
one drink at a time.
So we did that
till I came home one day
and my daughter had on
my cocktail outfit.
She says, "Mommy,
I want to be just like you."
So I started real estate school
the next day.
I think this fits
We're trying to change the look
of the Las Vegas market.
A nice community park
Obviously see the
gorgeous, incredible
mountain views there.
WOMAN BUYER:
When was this built?
WOMAN:
This is built in 2003, so
WOMAN:
We bought our first home,
it was out in the boonies.
It was 1,400 square feet.
We sold it,
we doubled our money.
The next one we did,
we quadrupled our money.
And I just kept saying,
"I know I can do this."
I see right now I sell
million-dollar houses to people
who, ten years ago,
were just like me.
And in this community and
in this kind of environment,
it's given us that dream.
I never could have done this
For us any place else.
And music brought us here
And here we are.
All right, girl!
Oh, yeah, oh, yeah, oh, yeah
WOMAN:
If somebody would have ever said
my daughter would go
to Our Lady of Las Vegas
or that on her birth certificate
it would say "Las Vegas,"
I never in my wildest dreams
would have thought that,
because you think it's Sin City.
When we first decided
to get off the road
and raise our baby here,
I said, "How can we live
in Las Vegas?
We're raising a little girl."
He says, "You know what?
I have a vision
"that we can have our life here
and we can be in it
but not of it."
( music ends, adults cheer)
That's it,
that's a Saturday night.
NEWSREEL ANNOUNCER:
Fall of 1950
A fierce international war
rips through a small country
called Korea.
Russia has successfully
detonated an atomic bomb.
Now more than ever before,
we need to develop and produce
a greater number
and possibly even
more powerful atomic weapons.
And like all new ideas
and weapons,
new atomic bombs
must first be tested.
But where?
NARRATOR:
Just before dawn
on January 27, 1951,
a blinding white flash
lit up the Las Vegas sky.
Minutes later, there was
a thundering blast
that left a trail
of broken glass
from Fremont Street
clear out to the Strip.
Atomic bomb testing
at the Nevada proving facility
had begun.
MAN:
one, T-zero.
Over the next 12 years,
120 nuclear devices
An average of one
every five weeks
Would be detonated aboveground
in the Mojave Desert,
just 65 miles
from downtown Las Vegas.
"We have glorified gambling,
divorces and doubtful pleasures
to get our name before
the rest of the country,"
wrote Las Vegas Sun publisher
Hank Greenspun.
"Now we can become part
"of the most important work
carried on by our country today.
We have found a reason for
our existence as a community."
TITUS:
Having the atomic
testing program here
gave us a certain
amount of legitimacy.
We were prostitution,
we were gambling.
Suddenly we were helping
to win the Cold War,
and I think people
could grab a hold of that
because it was a good thing
to do for democracy.
NARRATOR:
At a moment when the word
"atomic" was cropping up
on signs all over the country,
when Boy Scouts
were laboring to earn
their "atomic energy"
merit badges
and Hollywood was putting
out films about nuclear
espionage,
Las Vegas had
the singular distinction
of being the only city
in America
with a front row seat
at ground zero.
In the hands of Las Vegas's
publicity machine,
the specter
of nuclear annihilation
now became spectacle.
The Chamber of Commerce put out
a series of press releases
promoting the explosions
as entertainment,
churned out up-to-date
shot calendars
to help tourists
schedule their trips
and distributed road maps
that highlighted
the best vantage points
around the test site.
Casinos, meanwhile,
hosted "bomb parties"
that culminated
with a predawn blast,
and offered
limousine service to guests
hoping to get as close
to ground zero as possible.
THOMSON:
The bombs went off at dawn
wonderful spectacle.
People would go up to the roofs
and they'd watch with glee.
It was part
of the entertainment.
It was definitely
part of a show.
TITUS:
If you think about
the mushroom cloud,
it's a very powerful,
very sexy, very scary concept.
And so it fits right in
with tourism.
Risk, you know, gambling
is all about risk,
so you take that mushroom cloud
and you pin it on
a beauty pageant contestant.
Or even some of the casinos
would pack picnic lunches
for you to go out
and watch the mushroom cloud.
I would have done it
if I'd been here at that time.
What could be more exciting
than that?
MAN:
This is Walter Cronkite
and this is Newsmen's Nob,
some 75 miles north
of Las Vegas, Nevada.
The bomb will be exploded
from a tower 300 feet high,
and this time, some thousand
troops will be in trenches
only some two miles
from the tower
where the atomic device
goes off.
MAN:
three, two, one,
zero.
GREENSPUN:
My father used to take us
as kids.
We used to go up
to Mount Charleston.
And I remember
watching these mushroom clouds.
And a number of minutes later,
these particles
These pink particles
Would just settle over us,
this dust.
And that was all radioactive,
you know, fallout.
We all took the government's
word that it was safe.
The government lied to us.
NARRATOR:
As the decade wore on, there
would be pockets of protest,
and in 1963,
the Limited Test Ban Treaty
would finally put an end
to the atmospheric detonations.
But for now, any misgivings
Las Vegans harbored
about the bombs
were easily brushed aside.
The town was growing.
Tourism was booming.
And every time a radioactive
cloud bloomed over the desert,
Las Vegas again made the news.
TITUS:
Las Vegas succeeds
because i has to.
When you deal with adversity,
you've got to be creative.
I mean, it's brittle
and it's brutal,
but if you make it, boy,
there's no stopping you.
It's a very American thing.
It's that very kind of
egalitarian notion
everybody can strike it rich.
I think that's one of the things
that's appealing
It appeals
to that American dream.
WOMAN:
The lovely thing about Vegas
is a dancer can have
a long life here.
The show Jubilee,
it offers job security
that you don't usually get
in shows in other places.
It's been going on for 23 years.
As long as your body is in shape
and you look good,
you can hang,
you can stay in the show.
We've got a lot of dancers
that are, you know,
in their 30s, 40s.
Our principal dancer just left
last contract;
she's 51 years old.
That's cool, because I like it;
it's nice, easy living out here.
Hi
This is the largest production
of its kind in the country
if not the world, I think.
It represents
all classic Las Vegas
That's Bally's whole theme
is real, live Las Vegas.
It's sort of "classic, glamorous
Las Vegas lives."
You know, I just love the show.
I thought it was, you know,
well, a little campy,
but it's fun, you know?
It's a good show and I think
that this is
it has everything that people
want when they come to Vegas.
You know, this is what
they're expecting.
They want feathers and the,
you know, rhinestones and
"tits and glitz" we call it.
( orchestra begins playing)
WOMAN:
If you're blue and you don't
know where to go to ♪
Why don't you go
where fashion sits ♪
Puttin' on the Ritz. ♪
♪
Strollin' down the avenue
so happy ♪
All dressed up just like
an English chappy ♪
Nippy, snippy ♪
Come, let's mix
with Rockefellers ♪
Who walk with sticks or
umber-ellas in their mitts ♪
Puttin' on the Ritz. ♪
( audience applauding)
DANCER:
We'll do, like, six hours
at Bally's
and usually about nine to ten
hours, sometimes, at Drai's.
I sleep for maybe
three, four hours,
and get up and do it all again.
So for the better part
of the last two years,
I've been working
seven days a week.
( people conversing loudly)
And people come here
and they come to party.
Especially in the after hours
they tend to get louder
and ruder and more demanding.
( hooting)
you're still taking it in,
you're still
being affected by it.
CUSTOMER;
Bartender!
( loud music and conversations
continue)
It's definitely getting
different extremes of Vegas
with the two different jobs.
Eventually I'll have
to let go of it.
It's kind of wearing me down
a lot,
but, you know,
now I'm just hooked.
I'm just hooked on having money
in my pocket again.
I just struggled
so much in New York
that I just don't want
to go back to that.
Do you realize
what it would mean
if anybody in Northcomb
found out
that Mr. Ernest Raff,
the president of the bank,
was in Las Vegas?
Our life has been rich and full.
You don't want
to ruin our reputation
by spending a weekend
a place like that?
No one will know
anything about it
but us.
All right I'll
dare anything you dare.
All right, get in.
There you are.
Slide over.
Next stop, Las Vegas.
( laughing)
THOMSON:
In the prosperity
of the postwar period,
that notion begins
to creep in around the edges
and then begins to seep
to the center
where people look
at each other and say,
"Maybe we could have some fun."
And, uh, everyone says, "Well,
what do you mean by fun?"
If you want to have fun
in the sun out west ♪
Here's what we suggest: ♪
Meet me
in Las Vegas. ♪
( trumpets punctuating)
Just take a tip
and pack the grip ♪
And make the trip today ♪
Meet me where
the people play ♪
Play in the sun ♪
Meet me in Las Vegas ♪
THOMSON:
Las Vegas said to people,
"Look, you could come here
for a weekend, you can gamble.
"Leave your wife at home.
"Do you understand
what I mean by that?
And we'll give you
a little bit of fun."
Just take a tip
and pack the grip ♪
COOPER:
Las Vegas
was perfectly positioned
to cash in on the postwar
consumerist prosperity boom.
I mean, think about it:
1950's, the rise of
the national highway system,
the emergence of motoring
as a leisure activity
and money.
It's okay to have fun,
it's okay to seek leisure,
it's okay to go
on frivolous vacations
and it's okay to push the edge.
It's in Nevada ♪
( brass punctuating)
Nevada, U S A ♪
( song ends)
NARRATOR:
By the mid-1950s, Las Vegas
was everywhere Americans looked.
A casual flip through any of
the country's leading magazines
and one was reminded, yet again,
that the wanton desert city
was the place to be.
At this point,
for the average tourist,
Las Vegas was not
really one city, but two.
Downtown on Fremont Street
Lately dubbed "Glitter Gulch"
The rugged, western feel
of the old frontier outpost
still prevailed
and joints like the Horseshoe
set the tone.
Owned and operated by Benny
Binion, convicted bootlegger
who had killed at least two men
back home in Texas,
the Horseshoe was
the only place in town
that would accept any bet
a player put on the table,
no matter how high,
and the first to ply
the clientele with free booze.
"If you wanna get rich,"
Binion liked to say,
"make little people
feel like big people."
Here was a guy
who was a bigger-than-life,
a tough-talking,
pistol-packing Texan.
But he instilled
the ethic in this city
that the customer
was number one.
It's a cliché,
but it's the cliché
that has built
the most visited place
in America.
NARRATOR:
But it was the stretch
of Highway 91
on the southern edge of town
that now most often
leapt to mind
when Americans
thought of Las Vegas.
Known as "the Strip,"
it was fast becoming
what one journalist called
"a Never-Neverland
of exotic architecture,
"that is the hearty
of this unspiritual Mecca."
Bankrolled almost entirely
by the mob,
New Strip resorts rose
up out of the scrub
with dizzying regularity:
First the Sahara and the Sands,
then the New Frontier
and the Riviera and the Dunes,
then the Tropicana
and the Stardust.
At times, the gala openings
were just weeks apart.
And by the end of the decade,
the swath of highway would be
so lit up with neon
that it was visible
from 50 miles away.
THOMSON:
What happens is
the mob quickly realized
that it's
an enormously lucrative thing,
that there could be
many casinos.
And they also realized
that tourists,
they're going to hear
about Las Vegas
and it's going to be exotic
and romantic and glamorous.
WOMAN:
Well, all right okay
you win ♪
NARRATOR:
In the quest
for tourist dollars,
no gimmick was too bizarre.
Okay you win ♪
NARRATOR:
At the Sands,
there was an annual
Miss Atomic Bomb beauty contest.
The New Frontier installed
a glass-enclosed chamber
at the bottom
of its swimming pool,
so that guests could enjoy
their cocktails
with an underwater view.
It's just got to be
that way. ♪
NARRATOR:
One publicist even toyed
with the idea
of filling a hotel pool
with Jell-O,
before a desperate
maintenance engineer
put a stop to the stunt.
Resort owners touted the Strip
as Hollywood's playground
and kept their hotels in t news
by offering the press
regular access to their stars.
Well, all right ♪
Okay ♪
You win. ♪
( song ends)
NARRATOR:
And unlike the barebones
casinos on Fremont Street,
the Strip resorts lured patrons
to the tables
with an irresistible concoction
of luxury and diversion:
posh accommodations,
eternally green golf courses,
lavish midnight buffets.
But the biggest draw was
the shows.
Inspired by the Sands,
which had been the first to hire
a top-flight
entertainment director,
the new resorts poached managers
from the hottest nightclubs
on both coasts and charged them
with booking the brightest stars
in the country.
By the mid-'50s,
the Strip marquees boasted
what one reporter called
"a wider choice
of top-banana talent
than could be found
even on Broadway."
Suddenly, for the price
of cup of coffee,
visitors to Las Vegas
could catch the kind of act
they had only seen
on the silver screen.
THOMSON:
Noel Coward is hired
to come here,
and the idea that, boy,
that place, this new place,
this upstart place can get
Noel Coward
And Dietrich came
and Judy Garland,
and, you know, people who were
major showbiz legends came
and had smash hits
for a lot of money.
NARRATOR:
Nowhere else in America,
not even New York,
were performers paid so well
As much as $50,000
for a one-week stand.
The stars, in turn, plugged
their Vegas gigs
every time they appeared on TV.
The arrangement was so
mutually beneficial, in fact,
that by the mid-1950s,
the entertainment industry's
newspaper, Variety,
found it necessary
to station a full-time
correspondent in Las Vegas.
As the competition
in town mounted
and the price of star-studded
productions soar,
some resorts made skin
their headline attraction.
With each passing month,
costumes in local revues
grew skimpier,
until finally, in 1957,
the dancers at the Dunes
appeared onstage topless.
"Pretty girls sell," one
Las Vegas promoter explained.
"You need to do something
to get people's attention."
But the entertainment was
never more than a sidelight
"a smart business hype,"
noted LIFE magazine,
"that brings
gambling patrons in."
Actress Tallulah Bankhead
put e matter more baldly:
"Darling," she once said
to a reporter,
"we're just the highest-paid
shills in history."
To the casino owners, it was
an investment well worth making.
With the odds stacked
overwhelmingly
in favor of the house,
they stood to make a fortune.
All they had to do was
get people in the door.
Some Americans, at least, proved
more than willing to be taken.
TONY BENNETT:
I know I'd go
from rags to riches ♪
If you would only say
you care. ♪
COOPER:
You came here,
and just by coming here
you were making a statement.
You were a little bit gamy, you
were a little bit on the edge.
And that was
a real novel concept
in American popular culture.
It was the first national
permission granted to you
to be an adult and to do things
that y might not ordinarily do
but you wanted to do,
and I think that was really
kind of the intoxicant
that drove Las Vegas.
NARRATOR:
By 1955, Las Vegas
was reeling in
an estimated seven million
visitors a year
More than the Washington
Monument, Mount Rushmore,
Yellowstone National Park
and the Grand Canyon combined.
Few if any of them ever ventured
off the Strip,
the frenetic adult playground
that had now given Las Vegas
the moniker "Sin City."
BENNETT:
My fate is up to you ♪
MAN:
I think this notion
that Vegas is a place where the
underside of the American psyche
could express itself
a little more,
could come out from
under the rock, as it were,
has been there for a long time.
Las Vegas was created
as this place in which
sort of good people could be bad
and yet not lose any points
for doing so.
That whatever happens here
doesn't count.
MAN:
I'd gamble on the way to work
and I'd gamble after work.
On my way to work,
if I wanted some money,
I wouldn't go to work.
Then I'd go home
and lie to my girlfriend
that I'd worked overtime
or my car had broke down
or something.
I was living quite a lie,
you know.
MAN:
My name's Randy.
I'm a compulsive gambler.
My last bet was June 9
the famous day.
I'm Bob,
and I'm a compulsive gambler.
My name is Chris,
I'm a compulsive gambler.
WOMAN:
When I was out there gambling,
I was just crazy.
I mean, I would leave
my newborn son
at home with my 12-year-old
at the time
and not caring about going home,
not caring about anything.
RANDY:
You can't walk into a 7-Eleven
or am/pm or anyplace else
without there being slots.
The grocery stores have slots.
They ain't got them at
McDonald's or Burger King yet,
but it'll happen probably.
Yeah, I got to the point where
I was gambling my whole check
and I was borrowing from
whoever family, whoever
To cover my cover my butt.
And I finally ran out of people
to borrow from,
and, uh, well, I didn't want
my fiancée to leave me,
so in a I guess in a panic,
you could say,
I figured I had
no other alternative
other than to rob a bank.
Ran in there
and gave the lady a note
and she started
handing me money,
and I went running out of there.
I can remember saying
"excuse me"
to somebody
walking out the door.
Doesn't hurt to be
a nice bank robber.
RANDY:
Right w
I'm waiting sentencing.
It seems that it'd be a really
scary time, which it is,
but I know that
the sentencing I'm waiting on
could not be as bad
as the sentence I was in.
MAN:
Thank you very much,
my dear friends.
On behalf of Keely Smith, Sam
Butera and all the Witnesses,
it was wonderful playing
for you nice people.
We have another show
in exactly 30 minutes.
We're going to be recording
a new album
which will be called
The Sahara Swing Shift.
And you've been
a wonderful audience.
We love you for being so nice.
Thank you for coming to see us.
NARRATOR:
Beyond what one visitor called
the "fabulous,
extraordinary madhouse"
of the Strip in the 1950s,
Las Vegas was exploding.
Each year, thousands
of newcomers flocked
to the booming desert city,
first doubling, then nearly
tripling its population.
At the end of the decade, the
metropolitan area would be home
to more than 127,000 people.
Most tourists never even
glimpsed the neighborhoods
where all these
new residents lived.
They likely had no idea
that Las Vegas claimed more
houses of worship per capita,
than any other city
of equal size
or that growth had so taxed
the water distribution systems
that sewage effluent was used
to keep the golf courses green.
And certainly almost none
of the millions
who passed through Las Vegas
each year
had ever been to the West Side,
a sprawling,
squalid neighborhood
across the railroad tracks
from Fremont Street
that was home to some
15,000 African Americans.
WOMAN:
West Las Vegas, the West Side,
was like nothing
I had ever seen before.
It was not unusual
to see cars almost bigger
than the very houses
they were parked in front of.
It was the most
segregated neighborhood
that I had ever witnessed
in my life.
It was a given
if you were African American,
you had to live west
of the railroad tracks.
MOEHRING:
The first significant numbers
of African Americans
came to Las Vegas
during World War II
to help build and work in
the Basic Magnesium factory,
a defense plant.
There were many white people
who hoped
that once World War II ended,
they would leave
and go someplace else.
But the hotel industry,
the growing strip and downtown,
created lots of low-paying jobs
for custodial labor,
room maids, waiters
and whatever.
And so, ironically, it was
the Las Vegas hotel industry
that kept
African Americans here.
NARRATOR:
Like virtually every other city
in the country,
Las Vegas was
rigidly segregated.
African Americans were relegated
to the lowliest positions
in the hotels and casinos,
and barred from patronizing
most every establishment
in Glitter Gulch
and on the Strip.
Even the black performers
who headlined in town
were shunted out
of the showrooms
when the curtain came down
and effectively exiled
to the West Side,
where dingy rooming house
accommodations
went for as much as $15 a night,
roughly 50% more than the going
rate for a room on the Strip.
SAMMY DAVIS, JR.:
Must you dance? ♪
CUNNINGHAM:
That was the excitement
of Las Vegas.
You could go to a lounge show
for a two drink minimum,
not only see
top-notch entertainment,
but you might be sitting next
to Frank Sinatra.
Those were the kinds
of experience you could have
walking through a casino.
You never knew
who you would run into.
That was the thing
after the shows
They went to the lounges.
But the African-American
entertainers could not do that.
NARRATOR:
But in 1955,
the color line began
to threaten gambling profits.
The trouble began
with the Moulin Rouge,
the city's first
integrated resort,
which upped the ante in town
by adding a third nightly show
and instantly siphoned off
business from the Strip.
WOMAN:
It was a fabulous place.
That's where we used to gather,
and we were joined by a lot of
people from this side of town,
in fact, everybody was
over at the Moulin Rouge.
It was a huge success.
Every night was packed
and jammed.
NARRATOR:
Meanwhile, as the struggle
for civil rights
gained force and momentum
in the South,
African-American celebrities
began to challenge
Jim Crow in Las Vegas,
demanding rooms in the hotels
where they played
and refusing to perform
unless black people were allowed
in the audience.
LENA HORNE:
Hey, baby, won't you love me
or leave me? ♪
NARRATOR:
Strip owners were over
a barrel
They could either concede
or risk losing some
of their biggest attractions.
The desire to keep
the casino crowded
trumped the color line
nearly every time.
Then, in early 1960, the local
NAACP ratcheted up the pressure.
KEY:
The NAACP called a march
on the Strip
and they notified
the Resort Hotel Association
and if they didn't want to see
it on national television,
they would open their doors.
GREENSPUN:
The hotels don't want
this fight.
They don't want these headlines
all over the country.
And this town was run
by the hotels.
When they said do, it got done.
NARRATOR:
The day before
the planned protest,
at the Moulin Rouge, members
of the NAACP met with the mayor,
the governor and a group
of local businessmen.
In a matter of hours,
they had finalized an agreement
to lift the m Crow restrictions
at every hotel, restaurant, bar,
casino and showroom
in Las Vegas.
SMITH:
You know, in retrospect,
people will look back
and remember
how liberal they were,
but in reality back then
there were very few whites
standing up with blacks.
There were folks
who believed that blacks
were bad for business.
But the one thing
that the casino bosses
have always protected
is their bankroll.
And anything that they see
that has threatened it
uh, was was put aside.
NARRATOR:
It would be more
than another decade
before the city
was fully desegregated,
before African Americans
could hold
the more lucrative
casino positions
or make their homes
beyond the West Side.
But the Moulin Rouge agreement,
as it would come to be known,
had underscored
an irreducible truth:
the color that mattered most
in Las Vegas
was not black or white,
but green.
COOPER:
People say that Las Vegas
is a town based on fantasy,
but I don't think so.
I think Las Vegas is,
in some ways,
the more honest and most
authentic place in America
because it gets us down
to what much of our
relationships are about,
in any case, which is money,
and we don't like to talk about
that out in the real world.
This is a city where
the only currency is currency.
It's a place where,
as long as you have the chips,
you are equal to everybody.
Nobody cares what your race is,
your color, your gender,
your sexual orientation.
In fact, they don't even care
if you have a criminal record.
Everybody is the same
until you're out of money.
Then when you're out
of money, you're just out.
NARRATOR:
By late 1960,
Las Vegas was so iconic that
Warner Brothers was inspired
to set a major motion picture
in town:
a rollicking saga
about a five-million-dollar
casino heist gone awry,
starring three
legendary veterans
of the Vegas
entertainment scene:
Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin
and Sammy Davis, Jr.
When shooting on the film
wrapped for the day,
the trio would make
late-night appearances,
along with their co-stars
Joey Bishop and Peter Lawford,
in the luxurious Copa Room
at the Sands.
They called their act
the "Summit."
Their fans called them
the "Rat Pack."
The show was such a hit, that it
would run on and off for years.
DEAN MARTIN:
I kissed her
and she kissed me ♪
MAN:
We went to the Sands hotel,
where every business guy
with money on the planet
was trying to get
through the door.
Every swinger
and do-da-diddy guy,
every sporting le character
on the face of the earth
was in Las Vegas, taking
every room in this small town
so they could get a seat
at the Rat Pack.
And the air
in the Sands crackled.
Something was happening.
The music was playing
on the P.A. system
of Sinatra and Dean Martin
doing "Guys and Dolls"
and things like that.
The charisma, the excitement,
the electricity in the building
in the afternoon
was beyond belief.
There is no parallel to it
today.
( drum roll)
The lights go out.
And the announcer says, "Welcome
to the Sands Copa Room."
And then without another word,
the curtain opens
and Frank Sinatra walks out,
Dean Martin, Sammy Davis,
Joey Bishop and Peter Lawford
with no introduction.
( band playing snappy intro)
DEAN MARTIN ( on recording): H!
( Martin laughs)
How'd everybody get in our room?
( audience laughs)
MARTIN:
He was here a minute ago;
I'll get him
SINATRA:
Listen, I want to talk to you
about your drinking.
MARTIN:
What happened? I miss a round?
SINATRA:
No, you didn't miss a round.
I want to talk to you about
the amount that you drink.
( audience laughs)
SINATRA:
Well, as I live and breathe,
Sammy Davis, Jr.
MARTIN:
I'd like to thank the NAACP
for this wonderful trophy
DAVIS:
Will you put me down!
( audience laughs)
MARTIN:
Nothin' could be finer than
to shack up with a minor ♪
La-di-di-do ♪
( audience laughs)
They were not nice America,
you know.
I mean, they were just sort of
the dead-end of cool,
they were the dead-end of
all that jazz scene, you know.
They were sort of the embodiment
of these big Italian ghettos
and Jewish ghettos.
I mean, they are the emblematic
creatures of this culture
and they don't, you know
kowtow to no one.
( band plays energetic intro)
THOMSON:
I think people who came here
knew the mob were in control,
and Sinatra and the Rat Pack,
they sort of acted it out,
"You know what's really
going on here, don't you?"
And it was part of the glamour
for the ordinary person.
There he is, folks.
Welcome to
the Sons of Italy banquet.
PILEGGI:
They were urban
half-assed wise guys.
They played the game.
And they were very sharp
and dangerous.
They drank too much, they played
around with different women.
Everybody knew
they were cheating on wives.
This was not
a Donna Reed film festival.
These guys were bad.
COOPER:
Everything that Vegas promised
it would be and said it would be
really was embodied
in those handful of weeks
when the Rat Pack was here
performing every night.
What it really was,
was the pinnacle of Vegas cool.
No question that that really was
the high-water mark
of Las Vegas.
We flippantly refer to Las Vegas
now and then as Sin City,
but that's when Las Vegas
was really Sin City.
( no voices,
jazz recording playing)
NARRATOR:
Among the scores of luminaries
who caught the Summit
in the winter of 1960
was John F. Kennedy, a young
senator from Massachusetts
who had only just recently announced
his candidacy
for president
of the United States.
Kennedy had been coming to Vegas
for years,
bewitched by its beautiful
women, its whiff of danger
and its promise
of a never-ending good time.
You son of a gun,
you got the Jewish vote.
NARRATOR:
The city, in turn, had claimed
the charismatic candidate
as its own.
But once Kennedy reached
the White House,
his administration
would turn on Las Vegas
and launch the most sustained
attack on the city
in its history.
The question then would be
whether a place made famous
as "Sin City" could survive
if it cleaned up its act.
Captioned by
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