1 NEVADA STATE MUSEUM & HISTORICAL SOCIETY LAS VEGAS, NEVADA THE LAS VEGAS I REMEMBER INTERVIEW WITH HARRY MERENDA Taken At KNPR Studios 5151 Boulder Highway Las Vegas, Nevada TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 2 MR. ANDERSON: Tell me how you came to be in Newark, and a little bit about Palermo, and a little early history of your family. MR. MERENDA: Well, I was born and raised in Newark, New Jersey. I'm Italian-American. My father and mother were born in Palermo, Sicily, and she was born in 1899. My father was a carboniere, which is the equivalent of police, police department. My mother came from a well-to-do, socialite family. And when my mother married out of her class -- because my father's side was Mafia, which is the backbone of Sicilian life -- and my mother was well-to-do, you know, the family thing clashed. So they decided to come to America. And they came by ship. I think the name of the ship was the President McKinley. And they went to Montreal, Canada, first, then it came down to Dunkirk and settled in Buffalo, and then they worked their way down to Newark, New Jersey. MR. ANDERSON: Okay. I forgot to ask you to tell us your name. MR. MERENDA: My name is Harry Merenda, M-e-r-e-n-d-a. MR. ANDERSON: Okay. So you're in New Jersey. MR. MERENDA: Yeah. MR. ANDERSON: And tell us about your family life. Your father doesn't live long. TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 3 MR. MERENDA: No, my father died rather early, considering the hard life he had, at 48. My mother died at 62. And I always figured I'd go somewhere in between there. I never figured I'd live this long. I'm 67. I lost two brothers 11 months apart. They were all in their early 60s. So nobody ever lived more than 60-some odd years in my family. So I sort of resolved myself at an early life that I was going to go -- you know, when I compared my father dying at 48 and my mother at 62, I figured I'd have a good time and didn't really care because I always expected to die rather early. MR. ANDERSON: Tell me about how your family fared after your father's death and how you were taken care of. MR. MERENDA: Yeah. My father died in 1935. And my earliest recollection was I was five years old. And I can remember a very cold February day. I mean, snow. In them days we used to get some horrible snowstorms in Newark. And I remember waking up very cold and my mother shaking my father and screaming. And that was my first recollection of life, my mother screaming and seeing my father dead on the bed. And now you got to remember '35, this was the height of the Depression. Everybody was poor. I never realized I was poor because everybody was in the same boat, but we were poor. I mean, poor. Because years later when my mother died, my uncle still had the receipts where the family had gathered TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 4 together and -- who gave $3, who gave $5, who gave $2 -- made a collection to bury my father. That's how poor everybody was. My mother raised five of us on relief and state. But I always wondered. We had beautiful holidays, always an abundance of food. And at Christmas there was toys. Baskets would arrive at the door. And I always wondered because I believed in Santa Claus, you know. I mean, God, look at us here, we're poor, but the holidays were great because we'd get all of these things, never realizing until years later that it all came from my father's connections. Because the Mafia bosses, out of respect to the old country, my father's connections always took care of my mother. My mother never talked about it because it was something you didn't talk about. And that's how we got through the rough years. MR. ANDERSON: I thought it was interesting the first time we talked. This was before you came to Las Vegas. But your uncle gave you some very good advice. MR. MERENDA: Yeah. Well, my uncle, Frank Alfano, was the educated one in the family -- had a complete education, very smart, wrote Italian, American, read and all. And he was connected to the Mafia because he could read and write. He kept the records for the Mafia in Newark. And he never spoke about anything like that. But he always kept a wary eye on the family, made sure everything was going TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 5 smoothly and that we survived, besides making sure that the family was covered with Prudential Insurance. He was the first Italian-American to be an agent for Prudential in Newark. And, like I said, he also kept the records for the Mafia. And when my father died and my mother died, he sat me down. And that's the first I heard about my roots, my background, was him telling me about the old country, how they all came over, how respected my father was in the family, and how everything would be okay. But he highly recommended that I make it on my own and never have to lean toward them if I didn't have to be obligated. Because once you took from them, you were in for life. So it was better that I kept them as friends and help, better for them to be obligated to me than the other way around. And that's how he told me about all the Mafia, and the good that they did, and how they helped all the immigrant Italians when they first came to the country. It was like a social club because, you know, you didn't go to the police. The Chinese didn't go to the police. You know, all the ethnics, you had to rely on your own people to make your way. And if anything was trouble or if there were family disputes or gang disputes, you went to them. And that's what they were there for. MR. ANDERSON: So you grew up in Newark and then TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 6 survived the Depression. But then later on in the early '60s, you came to Las Vegas. What gave you the idea to come to Las Vegas in the first place? MR. MERENDA: Well, I had a varied background. I mean, you know, when you're raised on the streets in Newark, the main thing is to survive. And you don't have many choices. So I did a lot of things to survive. And I really didn't care because, like, I figured I was going to go out early anyway. You hung around with the wise guys, and you hustled. You did all kind of jobs and I sort of drifted. Along the way, the fight came, and the music came, and the jazz, and meeting all kind of people that were struggling like me in the neighborhood -- who were beauticians, who were fighters, who were gangsters, who became actors -- like Bill Campbell, and Vince Edwards, and all -- and who became fighters, like Charlie Fusaro, and my cousin, Johnny Caravella. They all became contenders and all. So after drifting in the early years and going into the service at 18 and all, I did all the usual background things. But somehow or another, I was always a hair breadth -- my uncle's voice in the background: "Don't do something totally dishonest. Don't disgrace the family. Don't go to jail." So I was always at that hairline. So I sorted of drifted into politics because Essex County was the richest TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 7 county in Jersey and in the United States next to Beverly Hills. And the politicians controlled all the great jobs. And one of those great jobs was jail officer, correction officer, sheriff's department. So I did some political work, you know, breaking bones and all of that, getting out the votes on election day. One of the politicians that I helped get elected was Jack Waldorf, who was running for mayor and then councilman. They had the councilman system. So payment for that was that I got to work as a jail officer at the Essex County Jail. Then I drifted into correction officer, Rahway Prison, then into the sheriff's department. So I had several years of that. Then I shifted over to Mayor Adanizio (phonetic) as a chauffeur, because in them days you weren't lined up to one job. Where the people needed you, that's where you went. So a couple of days a week, I drove for him, and the other I was with the emergency police. Well, it happened that when my mother got a heart attack, my sister called me, and I was working with the emergency police at the time. So to make a long story short, when she died, I went to pieces. So some people came to me and said, "Harry, take a couple of weeks off. Go to the Sands in Las Vegas." Well, the only time I ever heard of Las Vegas was seeing Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, and seeing the programs coming from the Moulin Rouge and the El Rancho Vegas, TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 8 Tommy Dorsey and Frank Sinatra, you know, and seeing the movies. That's my connection with Vegas in them days. So here I ended up with my friend, Carmen LaVia, and at the same time we had a third friend, Bobby Silver, who was being managed by Sammy Davis's uncle, Will Mastin, as a singer and actor in Hollywood. So I make a few phone calls, I end up at the Sands for ten days. Carmen bought a Pontiac convertible, brand new car. I mean, we went out in style. I had my mother's money, $14,500 that she left me, you know. And we came out first class, had the suite at the Sands, gambled at the Desert Inn. We first came out of that desert, you know, on Route 66. That was the route you took in them days, you know, and going through the Grand Canyon and coming out of that desert. It was just about 5:00 o'clock in the evening. The sun was starting to settle, and you see the lights of the Stardust. And I said, "Man, this is what it's like to die and wake up in heaven." To me, the desert was gorgeous. It was beautiful. Everything was gold. And then you drive up to the Sands Hotel. I mean, it was everything you heard and read about, you know. It was like Bagdad. The farthest I had ever been was Atlantic City. And then you come out and you see Las Vegas for the first time, it's a lasting impression. It was everything I ever imagined it would be. And for ten days, wine, women, and TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 9 song, and gambled and all of that. And then it was time to go back to Newark, you know. And I just couldn't wait to get back, you know. Part of me was always here in Vegas. And I didn't know how or what I was going to do to get back, but I knew I was going to come back. MR. ANDERSON: So you did get back. MR. MERENDA: Yeah. MR. ANDERSON: In our earlier interview, you described this as sort of like the last outpost of freedom, this open city. Tell me what the city felt to you like then as far as the difference of other places you've been. What was so unique about it? MR. MERENDA: Well, when I first came to Vegas, the population was 40,000 people; 10,000 up in Reno and Carson City. It was just so full. There was more jobs than you could shake your hand at. You had the flats going where they were shooting off the bombs. And it was just so hard to imagine. Everybody knew everybody. Like, for instance, I lost my money. I was living at the Sands. And the next day after I went broke at the Desert Inn, I went to work as a bar boy. And I stayed there for two-and-a-half years. Well, I made so much money at the Desert Inn that I was able to take a year off and go around the world. And it was a vacation from a vacation, you know. I mean, it wasn't really work because I was meeting all the TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 10 famous people. I was waiting on everybody from presidents and royalty to Sinatra and Dean Martin and people like that, you know. Maurice Chevalier, you name them. Marlene Dietrich. So, I mean, one minute you're serving them drinks, then comes 7:00 o'clock at night, you take the jacket off, and they're inviting you to the table. You're eating with them. You know, everybody knew everybody. You were an actor or you were an entertainer. I was a bartender. Nobody looked down on anybody. Everybody was equal to everybody. And so it was one huge friendly community. I mean, Kay Starr or Connie Francis would get tired of eating at -- I'd say, "Well, why don't you come over to my apartment and we'll make some spaghetti." And everybody was hanging out together. And the bosses, I mean, you couldn't ask for better people to work for than the boys in them days. As long as you did your job and mutual respect, you never had to worry about making a living. And any way you wanted to live, that's the way you lived. It was so full of opportunity, plus you had the great climate. I mean, there were no slums. Slums were back in New York. I mean, there was nothing over here older than 20, 30 years, you know. And all I could say, it was paradise on earth to me and to a lot of people. And even to this day when I get together with some of my friends that we all worked together and we compare the difference between today and then, you have to ask -- I mean, TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 11 as you get older, do you fantasize? Was it really as good as we thought it was? And they say, "Yeah, Harry, it really was that good." It was just a different type of life. It was a small-town atmosphere but it was cosmopolitan at the same time. And all I could say is, I've been here now going on 35 years, and I'm glad that I had the best of it. I mean, at least 20, maybe more, of those years were the greatest you could ever ask for. I mean, I made two and three fortunes and lost them and still I'm here. So that gives you an inkling. And I'm still living on the money that I saved from them days. So that gives you an inkling from the difference between then and now. I mean, it's still great now. It isn't what it was, but it's still better than anyplace else. MR. ANDERSON: How long after your initial vacation out here did it take you to move out? MR. MERENDA: Well, just long enough to go back. I worked for another year, and then I had another vacation coming up. And it was around June. And Carmen and I transferred. He was working for a typewriter company in L.A., Olivetti typewriters. And Bobby was doing good. He was going to open at the Sands for the first time singing in the lounge. And Sammy was in the main room. So we all timed it for Bobby's opening. So I took my vacation, came out and never went back. I stayed for another two-and-a-half years. TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 12 And that was the end of '62. And I established residency. MR. ANDERSON: Tell me about who built this city. MR. MERENDA: Well, the so-called boys, the mob, built the city, people like Moe Dalitz. Well, the Flamingo, you all know that that's Bugsy Siegel, Meyer Lansky and them people. The El Rancho was on The Strip. Beldon Katleman owned that. He owned that from the early '40s. But in '46 they built the Flamingo. You had downtown, you know. And Benny Binion and Jackie Gaughn, the El Cortez. But they were bus-stop casinos, little grind joints, you know, and bars. But The Strip began with the boys. The Sands, the Desert Inn, the Stardust was built by Cornero, Moe Dalitz and Wilbur Clark and Marshal Caifano, those people. Jack Entratter came out. He was a bouncer at Jules Podel's Copacabana in New York, which was owned from the boys. And so they had the talent wrapped up and they built the Sands. And it gave them an outlet for their entertainers to work at the Sands. That was '53. Then you had the Tropicana, that was Frank Costello and the New York -- the five families. See, at that time, each hotel represented a segment cross-country of the mob, the different families that had their interests. The Sahara, the Thunderbird, Joe Wells. But Moe Dalitz was the brains. He bought the land and he financed the casinos for the five families, and so he was the overall lord. He was the brains, TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 13 the bookkeeper. The Italians were the muscle and the owners and the landlords, but the Jews were the bookkeepers. They oversaw. They were the front people and saw that everything was run. Vegas was always considered an open territory. Anybody who wanted and had no place -- I mean, you got to remember, those people, they were going into middle age, approaching old age. They had fought the wars of the '20s and the '30s, and they were looking for a way out. They wanted to raise their families and they're respectable. And that was Vegas. This was the last outpost. This was the last place where they could go and be respected and enjoy their wealth, built casinos and hotels. And they wanted to be legitimate, and they were. They came here. They didn't come here as wise guys or bus-stop gamblers. They came here as middle-aged people raising families. This was their home. You didn't cause trouble in Vegas. You took that into L.A. or Arizona. There were no killings in Vegas, mob killings. That happened outside of Vegas. This was respected. And they built beautiful hotels and beautiful homes which you still see today. MR. ANDERSON: Tell me a little bit more about the kind of work you did out here. You became a bellman. Tell us what a bellman did and really what a bellman was and how TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 14 complex that job really was. MR. MERENDA: Well, in my case, I did all the jobs. I did dealing. I did bartending. Later on after being a bellman for a number of years, I went into the entertainment end of it because of the people that I knew in New York and Jersey. And then they were making it as stars here. Like, for instance, Redd Foxx, people like that, Sarah Vaughn. You know, we were all raised in the same neighborhood in Newark, and they were just starting to make it. So all the people I knew back there were making it here as entertainers, and stars, and whatnot, and business people. So we continued our relationship when I came out here. So I didn't like being a bartender because I didn't drink. I wasn't particularly crazy about gambling because I wasn't that good at it. I enjoyed it. I liked entertainment. I liked dealing with people. So the logical step for me, the next progression, was as a bellman. And I got to be so good at it that I had my own clientele. And because I had a following and brought in good people and knew how to treat them, it took me the extra notch. The boys, the owners respected me, you see. I didn't answer to anyone but the main boss in each hotel that I worked with. I had a prime connection either in a casino or in a hotel then. And the only word I was given is, do everything legit. If there's any trouble, you take the fall. Other than that I was on my own. TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 15 And so to give you an idea of what I did, one of my clients was Arnold Winethal, who was the president of Mercedes-Benz in Germany. And I met him at the Desert Inn. In them days, Desert Inn, on the second deck, it had a private restaurant and bar, which was reserved for the bosses and the stars and the high rollers. And it was like their own little party room. And so I met Arnold there. And Arnold would come, in them days, in the early '60s, he would come maybe once or twice a year. And if you know Germans, they work hard and they play hard. And he would send me a letter or a message through some intermediary saying, "Harry, I'm going to be here for a month." And he had an idea what he wanted and who he wanted and where he wanted. And I would lay out his whole itinerary for him. And I had people of that caliber, you see, that I waited on. When he went back to Germany a month later, I would get a blank check from him in appreciation. So that shows you the kind of people that you were dealing with in them days. I mean, you talked about everyone from Eisenhower to President Truman to Arnold. You name them, and they came. At one time or another, they all came to Vegas to play. And if you had anything going for you, the world was the limit. I mean, being a bellman in them days was better than being president of the United States. I mean, you say you were a bellman at the Desert Inn or at the Sands, that TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 16 carried you across country because everybody knew the Desert Inn and the Sands. And if you were good enough to work in them places, you had to have something going for you. So that's the high esteem a bellman was held to in them days. MR. ANDERSON: You weren't just carrying bags? MR. MERENDA: No, no. There were bellmen that carried bags, and there were bellmen that knew how to make a living. I was a professional. I knew how to make a living, and I made a damn good living. MR. ANDERSON: Tell me, what was the formula that made Vegas work? What made this town work? MR. MERENDA: The formula that the boys had in mind was, they didn't want to grind you out. They wanted you to come. Vegas was built gambling first, beautiful women second, and the best talent in the world. And that was their formula. And I'm not talking about prostitution. Every hotel in those days had a line. The first 15 minutes before the star came out, you had a chorus line. They did their little routines and all. And those girls turned out to be great actresses like Lucille Ball, Janet Lee, people like that all came out of the chorus line. And I'm trying to think of another one -- Perrine. MR. ANDERSON: Valerie? MR. MERENDA: Valerie Perrine. She came out of the Tropicana, you see. And the most beautiful girls in the world TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 17 were in those lines. And every hotel was competing for the most beautiful girls. And so when you had a high roller -- in them days the girls had to mix an hour before show time, an hour after show time. They would address the lounge and the bars. And that was the formula in them days because a gambler, he wanted to gamble, he wanted a beautiful girl on each arm, and he wanted to see Sinatra and the clan and whoever was appearing in them days. And in them days, that was enough to fill up the town. And they didn't want to grind you out. They wanted you to have a good time and to come back. They were always thinking of you coming back. Many times I saw Wilbur Clark, a friend of his, because they were friends. They weren't just gamblers, they were friends of the house. They were guests of the house. And he would call a guy out and say, "Look, Peanuts, you lost enough. Here's a plane ticket, go back, and come back later to gamble." And that was the formula in them days. MR. ANDERSON: We missed that last part so if you could sort of tell that story. MR. MERENDA: Yeah. Wilbur would give a customer a plane ticket and tell them, you know, "You're losing too much. Go back home and see the family. Come back again in the next month or two." And that was the formula then. Each hotel had their own clientele, had their own TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 18 register of high rollers. And those guys gambled only at that hotel. And then they would go from one hotel to another after that. Like Benny Binion had his own. The sky's the limit. I mean, the true gambler went to Benny Binion's, the Horseshoe, the high stakes gambler. I mean, you put a million on the table, he covered it. MR. ANDERSON: So that's where the real action was? MR. MERENDA: Yeah, yeah. Benny Binion. To this day, the real true gambler gambles at Benny Binion's. MR. ANDERSON: The police department knew that these people who ran these hotels were connected and that the places that they came from, they had lengthy criminal records. How did the local police, the Clark County Sheriff, coexist with the so-called mob? MR. MERENDA: Hand in hand. That not only goes for the sheriff, but the politicians. The politicians are elected. I mean, the best mayor we ever had, Oran Gragson, hardly talked. He was so good that the boys kept putting him in office year after year. And I just saw him at the Old-Timers Ball last month at the Stardust. You know, 20-year or so residents, Jack Cogan and a bunch of the old politicians made up the Old-Timers Ball. And I saw guys there that I thought were dead for 25 years. And Oran Gragson was there. The best sheriff we ever had in Clark County, Ralph Lamb, was there. I TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 19 mean, Ralph Lamb was the type of guy you didn't mess with. I mean, you did something wrong that one call from the boys or whoever to Ralph Lamb, he'd walk you out to the desert, break an arm and a leg, pointed you toward L.A., and told you not to come back because this was a clean town. It isn't like today. Every wise guy in the world is looking to make a score in Las Vegas, not in them days, not with Ralph Lamb and Oran Gragson in office. They ran a clean town. And it was a mutual admiration society. The boys ran the hotels. There was no trouble there. Ralph Lamb went from hotel to hotel. He ate in a different hotel every night, made sure that everything was okay. In fact, Ralph Lamb was quoted many times as saying what they did in Ohio or Detroit and all of that was over there. And there had to be reasons for them to do that. What they're doing over here is raising families. And so he respected them and they respected him. And that's how they coexisted. MR. ANDERSON: What was the beginning of the end of the old Vegas as you see it? MR. MERENDA: 1966, Howard Hughes. Howard Hughes always lived in Vegas. He always loved Vegas. He owned RKO. His background was aviation and movies, but he loved Vegas. He always lived in Vegas, always had a home base in Vegas. Did most of his business from a phone booth. He was hard of hearing, but he loved Vegas. And he bought up more land in TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 20 Vegas. 1966 he sold TWA for $540 million in cash, came to Vegas. He was living in the top floor of the Desert Inn. Well, Moe Dalitz and Allard Roen and those guys created Tournament of Champions, golf. To this day, they have the best golf course at the Desert Inn. And so they had their tournament coming on in the summer and that was reserved for all the top golfers. And Howard had been staying for about a month or so on the top floor. So Moe Dalitz told him, "You know, he'd appreciate it, he's having a tournament come in. He'd appreciate it if he would vacate for a couple of weeks and then come back." Well, instead of vacating, Howard sent down through Noah Dietrich, his money man, a blank check. He wanted to buy the hotel. So they gave him an astronomical figure, figuring it's a joke, he's not going to go for it. Instead, he bought it. So then after buying the DI, he bought five other casinos plus Harold's up in Reno. And then when he was negotiating to buy the Dunes, that's when the mayor and the governor stepped in, and they limited him to the five casinos. This is 1966. Well, he had a couple of guys by the name of Chester Davis and Bill Gay, who he raised, and they were his lawyers. And they ordained that every department had to make a show of profit. That was the beginning of the corporate era. Up until that time, the boys relied on the drop, which was the casino. They weren't in the room business, they were in the TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 21 gambling business. And there was so much money to be made in a casino that they could give food, room, all the freebies in the world and still show a tremendous profit. That was their philosophy. When Howard Hughes came, not so much Howard Hughes because he was pretty banged up. He was very sick. He had survived that last plane crash in Beverly Hills. And so they started shooting him up on drugs. So he was out of it. He relied on Davis and Gay and those people. Noah Dietrich got fed up with them. He made so much money for Howard that he decided to become a millionaire in his own right, and he died shortly after making that money. So it was the Mormons that he was surrounded with at the time that ordained the corporate structure. That was the change from individual ownership to corporate structure. That all started with Howard Hughes's people. MR. ANDERSON: So how do you think Howard Hughes and the city -- MR. MERENDA: Howard Hughes, to add a little bit more to that, take it to the next step -- up until that time, Vegas had a history of five-year highs and lows. And when he came, he really saved Vegas because Vegas would have disappeared into the desert. The banks weren't making any loans. The banks were hurting. It was in a recession. And like Bill Miller said, who was the great entertainment director of all TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 22 time in Vegas, Howard Hughes saved Vegas and then he destroyed it. And Howard Hughes was a genius. Well, that sums up Howard Hughes. He was a pure genius, one in maybe four or five that ever lived. I would rate him right up there with them. But he had people like Maheu and Davis and those people. They really hurt Vegas. And that led to what you got today. I mean, it's a different kind of living. It's totally different than when I first came here. The old Vegas with the boys, that only exists in the minds of people like me that came here, you know, broke, and made a decent living and had great full lives and raised families. That town no longer exists. Today, well, look what you got. Three to 5,000 room hotels. Those aren't hotels, they're factories. I mean, they're so damn big that they're almost complete little towns in themselves, each hotel. I mean, you go to Caesars Palace, you go to the MGM and places like that, my God, you go in there, they got everything you could ever want. It isn't like in the old days. You went to the Desert Inn, you saw a show at the Sands, you gambled at Caesars. You know, you could hobnob. Today these places are made like that on purpose so that when they get their customers in there, they catch them going in and they bust them going out. They have no time to go anywhere else. That's the difference between then and now. MR. ANDERSON: How about some of the other people you TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 23 remember? The story that you told about Mort Sahl, if you could tell that story about his routine that he did. MR. MERENDA: Oh, Mort Sahl, he was a great humorist. He was a humorist in the same way as Will Rogers was. He came out with a sweater and with a newspaper, and he loved to do takeoffs on Hank Greenspun. Well, Hank Greenspun was brought in as a publicity man for Bugsy Siegel. When Ben Siegel built the Flamingo, that was his start. That's how he came to town. And he was the creator of tabloid news as we know it today. Junk news, news about nothing he made headlines in big black letters. And he bought the Las Vegas Sun. Well, in them days there was two or three other newspapers, and they were all struggling. So how do you compete with the L.A. Times? So Hank Greenspun would cover the wire services. And he would see in North Dakota, six people badly mangled in a car accident. Well, he would take that and give it bold headlines, "Big Massacre," you know. But he never told you where it happened until you got into the newspaper on page 6. And you thought there was a massacre on The Strip, you see. And he created headlines like that, I mean, do it two or three times a week, you know. And it was the joke, but everybody went out and bought the Las Vegas Sun. So Bill Miller books Mort Sahl into the new lounge, you know, alternated with Redd Foxx. This is the TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 24 International, which is today the Las Vegas Hilton. And he would come with his turtleneck sweater, a copy of the Las Vegas Sun and the L.A. Times. And he would take off on Hank Greenspun. The first 15, 20 minutes of his monologue was all on Hank Greenspun. Comparing the Las Vegas Sun, he said, "Look at this, blah, blah, blah, killed." And he'd say, "Now, I defy anybody to find this in the L.A. Times." And he'd open it up, and he'd go page by page through the Sun and the L.A. Times comparing the headlines. And that was his opening monologue every day for a week at a time on Hank Greenspun. He was hilarious. And he never repeated himself. He would always find another original takeoff on Hank Greenspun in the Las Vegas Sun. And Hank Greenspun was, in my opinion, one of the truly great. He would rate with Winchell or Damon Runyon as the all time great newspaper. He was an original, in his sense, in his way. And he was great friends with Howard Hughes. And, in fact, what you know as Green Valley now, he won by default from a suit with Howard Hughes. Because Howard Hughes owned everything from Black Mountain on down. I mean, he had all those millions and he just bought up The Strip. And in that land deal, he was involved with Hank Greenspun. And Howard Hughes was so sick and drugged up at the time that he never showed up for the trial. And so all that land around Black Mountain and Green Valley, the Greenspun family owns TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 25 now. MR. ANDERSON: So did Hank Greenspun take offense to Mort Sahl? MR. MERENDA: No, no, he loved it. He was truly unique. I mean, he was proud of himself at what he was doing. You know, he made the Las Vegas Sun a big newspaper. And that was the only way to compete, was what he was doing, tabloid news, as we know it today. But in them days he was making news. MR. ANDERSON: So Hank Greenspun was not upset by Mort Sahl? MR. MERENDA: No, no, he was flattered by it. I mean, when somebody imitates you, that's the height of a compliment, isn't it? MR. ANDERSON: You're right. Maybe you could tell us a little bit about this Marshal Caifano. Marshal Caifano was a notorious enforcer, wasn't he? MR. MERENDA: Well, there was Johnny Rosselli and Marshal Caifano. And you didn't mess around with them. Not even Ralph Lamb messed around with them because they were true killers. I mean, when it came to being friends or on a man-to-man basis, they were nice guys. But they knew their business, and you didn't mess in their business. To give you an idea about Marshal Caifano, Moe Dalitz and Allard Roen and TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 26 Johnny Rosselli and Sam Giancana, they were the owners of the Desert Inn. They bailed out Wilbur Clark. Wilbur Clark ended up with 14 percent. The boys muscled in for the rest. And in reality, they owned the Stardust too. They went across the street. So in them days the only independent was the El Rancho, Beldon Katleman. So they decided to go across the street and have a talk with Beldon about getting a piece of the action. And Beldon Katleman had the audacity to shoot his mouth off at Marshal Caifano. Marshal Caifano looked at him. There was no deal made, didn't say nothing. He just got up, went back to the Desert Inn, came back that night after the last show at the El Rancho with a five-gallon can of gasoline and torched the El Rancho Vegas. That's how it burned down. Red Skelton took pictures of it burning and that was what was shown on the news, you know. And that's a true story about it. And the thing about the El Rancho was that it was underinsured. See, Beldon Katleman came from Beverly Hills. He was a Beverly Hills furrier. And he was the manager of Mario Lanza at that time. In the early '40s, you know, he liked Vegas, and he built the El Rancho and made it very successful. And the boys tried time and again, and he just wouldn't have no part in this and all of that. So Marshal just burned it down, and it was never rebuilt. And nothing TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 27 was ever proven. Beldon never made a fuss, never tried to sue or make any trouble because he knew you didn't mess around with Marshal Caifano. MR. ANDERSON: You might wake up dead, huh? MR. MERENDA: You better believe it. And there's a lot of ways to kill you besides a gun and a knife. MR. ANDERSON: A person I've heard a lot about since talking to a number of people who have been in Las Vegas for a long time was Grace Hayes. Tell me what you remember about Grace Hayes. MR. MERENDA: Grace Hayes was the mother of the comedian, Peter Lynn Hayes, who still lives here, a few blocks away from me. I see him every now and then. He's very old and sick. But Grace Hayes, she lived here. She was very friendly with Howard Hughes in the '40s and '50s. And she owned 43 acres of what was then the Castaways Hotel, which is now the Mirage Hotel. And she was a show person, a character in her own light, a legend, still is. Of course, she's still alive. The last I heard, she was living at the Golden Nugget downtown. And she also has a suite on the top floor of the Mirage. And she was a madam. You know, she did everything. She ran a honky-tonk, bordello and all of that. Quite colorful. And she owned 43 acres, which was then vacant. But then one of the owners of the Tropicana built the Castaways on TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 28 her property. Well, she owned that for a long, long time. She wouldn't even sell it to Howard Hughes. Howard Hughes never even bothered to ask her because he knew she wouldn't sell it. But along came Steve Wynn, who had built the Golden Nugget downtown, and he wanted to build the Mirage. So part of the deal of buying the property from Grace Hayes is that she wanted, besides the money -- and she made a very, very good deal because she knew what that land was worth to Steve Wynn -- she wanted a suite in the top floor of the Mirage and a suite at the Golden Nugget as long as she lived. That was part of her deal, and that's where she lives. She sold that property so that Steve Wynn could build the Mirage. MR. ANDERSON: Pretty good deal, huh? MR. MERENDA: Very good deal. MR. ANDERSON: She ran a place called the Red Rooster. MR. MERENDA: The Red Rooster; that's right. Bordello, sporting house. MR. ANDERSON: Everybody was welcome there; right? MR. MERENDA: Everybody from Rex Bell to the sheriff at that time, nobody bothered with her. Prostitution was legal but not in Clark County. But there were houses of prostitution, and they were in what they called the green-light area. You could have them there and as long as TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 29 there was no trouble, nobody bothered you. In fact, the sheriff at the time before Ralph Lamb, had a piece of it. There was hers. There was about three or four of them really big ones that he had a piece of the action. MR. ANDERSON: Roxie's place. MR. MERENDA: Roxie's was the other one, yeah. MR. ANDERSON: How about that story that you told me about Nick the Greek when he was not well? If you could tell it. MR. MERENDA: Yeah, Nick the Greek's real name was Dandalos. I'm trying to think now. There's so many stories about Nick the Greek. I got a chance to meet him. There was this big card game at the Stardust. It had been running about three days, and Bill Holden and guys like that were in it. Well, he always had a bad heart. I mean, he was quite old when I knew him in the '60s. And he started to keel over. And he always gambled. Whenever he gambled, he had a showgirl at each side of him standing there all the time, weren't allowed to leave. And he got these chest pains. And so myself and two other friends of his, we literally picked him up, put him in the car, and we took him to University of Nevada Hospital. That was the closest hospital at that time. Sunrise hadn't been built yet by Moe Dalitz. So we ran him over to University Hospital, got to the emergency room, and he said, "We got a friend in the car, you TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 30 know, Nick the Greek." And so the head nurse came out. They looked at him, and all. And I said, "Well, why are you looking at him over here? Let's carry him into the emergency room." And to make a long story short, they wouldn't admit him because he didn't have no identification. He never carried ID or credit cards and all of that. And so here he is laying half in and half out of the car in the driveway of the emergency room, and the head nurse wouldn't let him in. And the guy had $30,000 on him in cash. But that wasn't good enough to get him into the hospital. So by the time we made calls and all of that, he ended up staying -- forced the doctors, you know, got the permission from somebody we knew in the hospital. And he stayed in the suite at the hospital for ten days and recuperated, came back. The original game was still going on at the Stardust. He went in and sat down, two showgirls on either side, and just started playing again. He was quite a character. MR. ANDERSON: That's a great story. MR. MERENDA: Yeah. Nick Dandalos, that was his real name, Nick the Greek. Very close friend with the boys. They protected him. Fact is, there's a very famous story. A guy called Ray Ryan had got into a card game with Nick the Greek shortly after this thing happened in Beverly Hills, and they cheated him. They were spying, you know, holding binoculars TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 31 on his hand. And they had things in their ears. To make a long story short, the boys found out about it, and they blew up Ray Ryan in his house in Indianapolis about a year later. Nobody messes with Nick the Greek. He was protected by the boys. He didn't cheat and nobody was allowed to cheat, especially in Vegas. MR. ANDERSON: How about Sam Giancana? Do you have any association or memories with him? MR. MERENDA: Oh, yeah, yeah. He was a tough guy, really tough. He was the boss of Detroit at that time, and he stayed at the Desert Inn. That's where I saw him. And, like I say, his right-hand man was Johnny Rosselli. And the McGuire Sisters were appearing as one of the house acts at the DI. And he became very close, until he died, with Phyllis McGuire. That was his girlfriend, and they made no bones about it. They were truly in love with each other. Well, the thing with Sam Giancana, Frank Sinatra owned points in the Sands, and then he bought a place up in Lake Tahoe, Cal Neva Lodge. And that's where Sam used to stay, hide out. When things got too tough in Detroit or he just wanted to get away and be with Phyllis, they would go up there. And every now and then they'd have investigations, the Kefauver Committee and all of that. And they would take off on the five-year parade on the boys because when there was nothing else going, they'd always make good headlines, you TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 32 know, the mob in Las Vegas. And they would take off after Sam. And there was this thing about that time. The Kennedys were partying, used to come to Vegas quite often in the late '50s and '60s, right up until he became president. And there was the story that the reason that Giancana was killed was because he got involved with the financing of the elections and then trying to get the overthrow of Castro, who was a bitter enemy with Kennedy. They were both trying to kill each other off. And somehow or another they were afraid that Giancana and Rosselli, who was cooperating with the FBI and Bobby in getting Castro, and financing a lot of secret deals -- because, don't forget, Giancana and Kennedy's father, they go way back to the old days of bootlegging together. So there was that family connection. And they were afraid that he was getting too old and might say something. He shouldn't cooperate. So that's why he was executed. The story that I always heard was that he was executed by Johnny Rosselli in his house while they were cooking sausage. And, you know, in the basements they had the hideaway rooms. And in turn Johnny Rosselli was executed because, you know, you don't leave no living witnesses around. So it's always better to hedge your bet and get rid of them both. So that's why they were both executed. He was quite a character, quite a tough guy. He was the boss for a TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 33 lot of years. MR. ANDERSON: What can you tell me about the relationship between Parry Thomas and Steve Wynn? MR. MERENDA: Well, Steve is a classy guy, very classy, very brainy. He's got a beautiful wife who is just as clever and brainy as he is. Had a father and a mother, their background goes to Baltimore, Virginia Beach. The father owned bingo games, slot machines, legal and illegal, in them days. And the whole family's background was gambling. The father was very well respected, and it was said that if you owed Steve Wynn's father any money, you didn't hedge. You paid up. He was quite a guy in his own right. Very well respected. And Steve was raised in that background, thorough knowledge of gambling, plus he had taste and class and educated and Mr. Clean. You know, the boys were always looking for a front man to go down on paper because with their records, they could never get licensed; right? In that respect, that's how the whole town has changed. It went from individual ownership to corporate ownership to front people. But they're still here, always were, always will be. And Steve, you don't wake up one day and say, "I'm going to build a hotel. I'm going to be a president of a hotel." Somebody has to hold your jacket, somebody has to groom you, somebody has to prepare the way. And Steve was the TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 34 logical guy. So how do you prepare him? So one story is Howard Hughes was known not to sell anything. What he had, he had, and that passed on to the people that were running the corporation for him. Caesars was built in 1966 by Zasowits and those people from the Sands. And there was a corner piece of property there on Flamingo. It wasn't much, but it was an important piece because you need it for access on and off. And Steve made an offer to the Hughes people, a million dollars to buy that piece. So they were hedging, and they were hedging and hedging. And Steve Wynn had a friend, Parry Thomas, who owned Bank of Nevada in them days. And he was just starting to funnel money to the boys to build hotels like Caesars, you know, Jay Sarno and all those people, Circus Circus. He was the first banker to hedge his bets on the growth of Las Vegas and the hotel industry. And so he liked Steve. Steve went to him and said, "You know, I'm trying to buy this piece of land here, and Hughes's people are giving me a hard time." Parry says, "Well, I may be able to help you." Because Frank Carroll built the Landmark Hotel. And the thing about the Landmark was that it was supposed to revolve, a tower like the Seattle World's Fair that had just been a big hit. But the land sunk and the pole that was supposed to turn, when they tried to make it spin, it was off TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 35 balance, and so it never worked. And the Landmark never really took off. So Frank Carroll, who was an old time operator, you know, very great on building things and dumping them on fall people, sold it to Howard Hughes. And there was a couple acres that was the parking lot and the surrounding ground on the Landmark. A friend of a gambler -- I forget their name -- went to Parry Thomas and defaulted on a note. Well, the parking lot of the Landmark was worth, at that time, the note was between 5 and $7 million. So Parry says, "Well, I'm holding this piece of paper here that I'm almost stuck on." He said, "I may be able to help you." So he got in touch with Chester Davis, and he said, "If you sell Steve Wynn that corner piece there at Caesars for a million," he says, "I have a way where you could recoup on the piece of the land that you already own and I hold the note on." And that's worked many times more than that little piece of land there. And so Chester Davis's eyes lit up. He saw a way to unload a useless piece of land for something that was really paper. And everybody benefited. So that's the long and short story of how Steve got started. With that million that he got from selling that piece at Caesars Palace, he in turn started buying stock in the Golden Nugget downtown. And it was all because Parry Thomas held his jacket. And that was the first time that Howard Hughes's people were known to sell any of TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 36 their holdings. And I'm not really saying something out of line because you know how Steve likes to sue people. He already went on Charlie Rose and told that story, which we all knew about for years, you know. But the thing of it is that there's also a missing element to that that he still doesn't talk about that somebody had to okay. Another thing you don't do is you don't wake up one day with a million dollars and say, "I'm going to start buying stock in the Golden Nugget"; right? Somebody has to open that door too. See, you don't do things on your own, you know. There's always somebody that's got to hold your jacket or pave the way for you, no matter how smart or intelligent. So he didn't do it on his own. He had a lot of help along the way. MR. ANDERSON: From? MR. MERENDA: A couple of sources. I don't like to talk about people that are still living because I believe everybody's entitled to their privacy. The people I talk about is already dead and it's known history. It's all right to talk about it. You don't talk about people that are still alive. And the only reason I mentioned Jerry Zasowits is because I was told that he recently died in Palm Springs a year ago. But Zasowits was a very classy guy and helped a lot of people. And you could verify the story that I already told you about Steve Wynn through Parry Thomas. He knew both of TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 37 them. MR. ANDERSON: We hope to talk to him. He was going to Europe, and he said to give him a call about the first of the year. So I'm going to give him a call when he gets back and hope to sit down and talk with him. Well, that's pretty much all I had. You talked a little bit about the Algiers when we first talked. The Algiers was the place to go, where Paul Price would go. MR. MERENDA: Oh, Paul Price. Paul Price, yeah. Great newspaper man. Paul Price and Hank Greenspun, best buddies. They both were publicity men for Ben Siegel for the Flamingo. That was their start. And Paul Price, he was a great newspaper man in the old sense that he had spies. You know, like, in order to be a good cop, you got to have finks on the street. You're only as good as your finks. Well, the only way to be a good newspaper man is to have as many sources on the street feeding you tips as you could get. Well, Paul Price's headquarters -- he had an old typewriter in the Algiers coffee shop where Joe Wells and those people, you know, who owned the Thunderbird, they all used to congregate in the morning and discuss what happened the night before and all of that. And Paul Price never left the coffee shop at the Algiers, and yet he knew what was happening all over town. The latest killings, the latest gambling losses, whatever was going on in Vegas, Paul Price TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 38 knew about it from the Algiers coffee shop. And that was his home until the day he died. And Hank Greenspun, Paul Price never went to the office at the Sun. Hank Greenspun would come down for coffee at noon and get the latest reports from Paul Price. That's how they operated. Great newspaper man. Rated with the best in the country. MR. ANDERSON: That's a terrific story that the Algiers was the -- MR. MERENDA: That was the home base. That was home base in them days. Everybody went to the Algiers coffee shop. MR. ANDERSON: And that's where the information was? MR. MERENDA: Yeah. And for the wise guys passing through town, the other home base was the Tower of Pizza, Jasper's Speciale, known as Jasper Martin, the best odds man that ever lived in this town was connected to the Brooklyn family. Whenever you wanted to know who was in town, the latest wise guys coming, you went to the Tower. In fact, that's why it was used as the focal point for the book and movie Casino. MR. ANDERSON: Okay. MR. MERENDA: The Tower of Pizza. But those were the two places, the Algiers coffee shop for Paul Price and Greenspun, and Jasper Martin's the Tower of Pizza for odds TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 39 making, the latest going on in sports and all of that. MR. ANDERSON: That's about all I had from our first meeting. If there's anything else that you can remember or anything else that you think maybe I forgot or haven't mentioned that you'd like to mention, go right ahead. MR. MERENDA: Well, to talk about my environment in Newark and, you know, we had all these little old Italian guys with stogies in their mouths and friendly, nice little guys. But they never wandered out of the neighborhood as long as I could remember all through my life until I started going back and forth to Vegas. And it was like one guy in particular, very well-connected, meek, little old guy called Ham. His real name was Andrew Gulasko. When he died, they found a million dollars in cash around the house. Not even his wife knew. This guy was so well-connected and so worldly in his own way. When I went to the Sands, my friend there was Arron Weisberg, who was one of the bosses. And he was originally from the family in Jersey, ran the floating crap games in The Meadows where Budweiser Brewery was. If you saw the movie "The Godfather," where they went to dump the body in The Meadows, in that area is where they had what they called the floating crap games. And that's where Charley Turner and Arron Weisberg came from, got their start. Well, he became a boss and greeter at the Sands. Well, to make our entrance, TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 40 Carmen got an idea. He had heard that Ham was connected. So Aaron is sitting at the next table. We're sitting in the lounge, and we're talking to Jerry Vale, the singer, on a break. And Bobby Silver was waiting to go on next. And Carmen sort of drops Ham's name, Andrew Gulasko. Aaron picked up on it, heard the name Andrew Gulasko, sent over drinks. Long and short of it, we find out Ham, together with Joe Adonis, were the major owners of the Sands at that time. And there's a guy, the only time he ever knew about the Sands was as a hotel in Vegas, and here he was an owner and never left the neighborhood, 15th Avenue. That shows you about the background of some of these people in my neighborhood and my environment, where they came from. See, those people, those wise guys, they didn't have many choices in those days. They took and they made. So they chose crime as we know crime, but they were in the gambling business. But those people, with the right circumstances, would have been successful in any walk of life. They chose gambling. That's why I always respected them, and they always respected me. Because they did what they had to do at that time. And they came here and out of ashes, sand dunes, they created a mecca. Vegas is a unique place in the world. There's only one like it. And I don't know why certain politicians -- although I respect Governor Miller because he TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 41 never hid his past. There's nothing to be ashamed of in Vegas. In fact, we should flaunt it and build more statutes to some of these people that created this town. And it's known all over the world. And it could never be duplicated. So what have we got to be ashamed of? Our heritage? That's all I got to say about Vegas. It was great to me, still is. I'm 67 and I'm still here. I should have been dead 15 years ago. MR. ANDERSON: Okay. That's great. All right. (End of tape.) * * * * * ATTEST: The foregoing transcript of the interview was transcribed fully and accurately from the audio tape provided by KNPR Radio. Eunice G. Jones, Transcriptionist TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 ??