1 NEVADA STATE MUSEUM & HISTORICAL SOCIETY LAS VEGAS, NEVADA THE LAS VEGAS I REMEMBER INTERVIEW WITH TRACY HEBERLING 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 MS. HEBERLING: My first view of this country was through pictures, films during the second World War, Betty Grable pictures, "Three Little Girls in Blue," where the sun always shown and skies were always blue and there was mountains of food, because it was gray and dark and damp and not enough food to eat for a long time when I was growing up. MR. ANDERSON: And the war directly affected you there? MS. HEBERLING: Oh, definitely, yes. Most of our food came from Canada and the U.S. And the Germans were very active in the Atlantic at that time with their submarines. We had to rely on it. We grew some food in England, but there really wasn't very much to eat. It wasn't starvation, it was just little to eat. MR. ANDERSON: You lived in Yorkshire? MS. HEBERLING: Yes. MR. ANDERSON: And didn't you have a little trouble with bombing there? MS. HEBERLING: Yes. We were actually bombed out twice. We had one direct hit at the bottom of our garden -- and I guess I was about two and a half, almost three years old -- and it blew the side of the house away. And we were buried for a little longer than a day, almost two days there. And I escaped with just a few scratches. And the second time, another direct hit, but it just TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 3 blew the side of the house away that time. We were evacuated out into the country. MR. ANDERSON: So after those experiences and you saw these Betty Grable movies, and I'm sure others as well about America, you started to tell people about what your future was going to be like. What were you telling folks then? MS. HEBERLING: I wanted to go to America. I wanted to go on stage. I wanted to dance, and that's what I was going to do. MR. ANDERSON: And you did. MS. HEBERLING: And I did, yes. They thought I was crazy, of course. MR. ANDERSON: Why was that such an unusual thing to say? MS. HEBERLING: Well, to start with, I didn't come from a show business family. When I was about eight years old, I guess, I started dance classes. You know, the children just have dance classes. I had ballet and tap and acrobatic. And I was very plain. And I don't know. People in down-to-earth Yorkshire that go to convent schools don't think about going to America and being on the stage and dancing. It was not your regular run-of-the-mill ambition. MR. ANDERSON: So you surprised them with that. And how did you become associated with the Lido troupe in the first place? TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 4 MS. HEBERLING: I auditioned for them. When I got out of school, I went to London. And I took a modeling course in London that did a lot of live runway modeling, some photographic modeling but not too much. And I auditioned, actually, for the Latin Quarter in London first as a showgirl. And I got that job. And I worked at the Edmund O'Ross Club there as well on Regent Street. And there's a newspaper called The Stage in England, and it tells of forthcoming auditions and everything. And I saw that Madame Bluebell was auditioning, so I went to the audition. And she liked me, and I was chosen to come to Las Vegas. MR. ANDERSON: We got a little ahead of ourselves here. If you could just go ahead and tell me your name. MS. HEBERLING: I'm Tracy Heberling. MR. ANDERSON: Okay. I'll need that for the beginning. You went to Paris first? MS. HEBERLING: Yes. We rehearsed in Paris. We rehearsed at the old Baltabera Theater (phonetic) in Montmartre. We lived in Montmartre while we were there and rehearsed there, had all of our costume fittings there, shoe fittings -- everything was custom made for us -- and rehearsed. And we came over as a package. MR. ANDERSON: Paris was great. Tell me why you TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 5 weren't able to stay in Paris. MS. HEBERLING: I was too small. I was only 5'8", and Bluebell didn't have anybody that small in Paris. She preferred her girls to be 5'10" and taller over there. And I was disappointed. I wanted to stay in Paris so I could perfect my French, but it was not to be. MR. ANDERSON: So, what did you first think when they first mentioned Las Vegas? MS. HEBERLING: It's hot. And I was more than happy to do that. I was so tired of the damp and the cold and the dark skies and the rain and chilblains, and I wanted to go somewhere warm. The desert sounded like a good place to go. MR. ANDERSON: Did you have any impressions or knowledge of Las Vegas before you came here? MS. HEBERLING: Just sort of what's printed in the newspapers, you know, "Sin City" and all of that. Even at that time, we had heard of Sammy Davis being here and Frank Sinatra and everything. But I really didn't have that much knowledge of it. I had to look it up on the map and see that it was literally in the middle of nowhere. But it was exciting. I thought it was great. MR. ANDERSON: Tell me about, then, your arrival here in the summer of 1960. MS. HEBERLING: We actually stopped off in New York for a few days. And we did a couple of TV shows there, and I TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 6 saw a couple of Broadway shows. I saw Ethel Merman in "Gypsy." Then we flew on a charter flight from New York, stopping over in Chicago, to be one of the first charter planes like that in O'Hare, because that was just opening in 1960. And then we flew into Las Vegas, and we got here about 1:30, 2:00 o'clock in the morning. So it wasn't that hot. The sky was so incredible, the stars. There were no clouds whatsoever. We landed at what is now Hughes Executive Terminal fronting onto Las Vegas Boulevard. And we were driven to the Stardust. And we went into the casino, and we saw security guards with big guns and bullets. And we were shown into our room. We stayed there at the Stardust in one of the rooms. And it was comfortable. It was not hot or anything until the next morning when I opened the door, and it was like stepping into an oven. It was just like opening an oven door. It was incredible. It took me about a week to become acclimatized, and that was it. MR. ANDERSON: That's pretty good. Most people don't make it in a week. MS. HEBERLING: I loved it. I love that heat. MR. ANDERSON: So, now the Lido troupe was a big deal here in Las Vegas. Why was that? Las Vegas has seen dancers before. Why was Lido so special to Las Vegas? MS. HEBERLING: I think because we were all TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 7 European. Well, the boy dancers weren't. The boy dancers were Americans that were hired by Donn Arden and then flown to Paris to rehearse there. We were different. We were taller, most of us, than most of the other shows. And we weren't allowed to mix. We came over as a show. We were very definitely showgirls and dancers. And at that time, the feeling in Las Vegas was, if you were a showgirl, that was just a little something on the side to legitimize other activities so to speak. So showgirls didn't have a very good name here, which was something Madame Bluebell took care of before the first show arrived here. I came with the third one. I guess we must have looked a bit exotic to people. Bluebells always wear their hair pulled all back and up in a very high chignon. On stage, none of us had any hair hanging around our face. And so our height, combined with our hair pulled back, high chignons and everything, and the way we dressed. Most of us had never worn jeans or anything. We were just different. And people used to just look at us wherever we went. And we walked, which was a source of amazement to people here. Everyone used to stop and ask if we wanted a ride. Had our car broken down? But we were different. And we found the food different here, too. MR. ANDERSON: Europeans walk a lot more, I guess. MS. HEBERLING: Yes, yes. We were used to it. Of TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 8 course, it was a little harder in the heat. And there were no pavements. MR. ANDERSON: Since we were talking about Bluebells, maybe you could just tell us, who is this Madame Bluebell? MS. HEBERLING: Madame Bluebell was born Margaret Kelly in Ireland. And she was brought up by an aunt of hers and taken to England at quite a young age. She was given dance classes because of her weak ankles and traveled with a troupe to the north of England when she was quite young, and traveled again with a troupe to Germany in Europe when she was in her late teens and early '20s. She was in France during the war, and she married a man called Liebovici. I think she spent most of the war in France. I'm not too sure on that point, but she was in there a long time. And she decided to form her own troupe. She was very strict, but not in the strictness that she had had when she was with her troupes. But she demanded certain standards. She preferred mostly British girls because they were accustomed to discipline. And she was, she was a stickler for a certain mode of behavior. Most of the people that she hired were middle class with very traditional values. And when she came over here, when she made arrangements to bring the Lido de Paris over to the Stardust, we almost did not come over here because one of the conditions TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 9 that the people who owned the Stardust Hotel at that time, they wanted the girls in the show to mix in the lounge afterwards. And Madame Bluebell would not hear of it. She was absolutely adamant on that point. And they finally backed down. MR. ANDERSON: How were dancers regarded before Madame Bluebell? MS. HEBERLING: With not very much respect. Which, you know, was a pity because there were a lot of nice people, dancers and everything. Las Vegas was still very much a frontier town at that time and a gangster town. I mean, it just was. But Bluebells had a big influence on it. The "Folies Bergere" at the Tropicana opened 1959. The first Lido de Paris opened in 1958. And they opened with the same policy of no mixing in the bar. They were show people. MR. ANDERSON: The people who listen to this won't be hearing my questions. So when you answer my questions, maybe you can sort of work the question. If I were to say to you, "What was it like to be a Lido dancer," you would say, "Being a Lido dancer was like...," so that they'll have an idea of what I asked. MS. HEBERLING: Okay. MR. ANDERSON: So there were rules for the dancers as well and also dress codes. Is that true? TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 10 MS. HEBERLING: The dress codes and the rules that we had, we were never allowed in the casino in anything but a nice dress. If we wanted to wear jeans, we came in the stage door and we left by the stage door at the back. You weren't allowed in the coffee shop in anything informal. There was a very strict dress code. You were representing something, and you were expected to represent it in a good, positive way. MR. ANDERSON: At all times. MS. HEBERLING: At all times. Yes, indeed. MR. ANDERSON: Tell me the story about your first car here in Las Vegas. MS. HEBERLING: My first car here in Las Vegas was a 1952 Plymouth. It was a wonderful old car. It was built like a tank. And it had, of course, the steering wheel on the left-hand side, and the gear change was on the steering wheel. And I was very proud of it. We got very few days off. We used to get three days off every three months. And we weren't allowed to go more than 50 miles from Las Vegas, which made it a little bit difficult to go anywhere. So I was going to the movies one time. There were only three movie -- oh, there was the Huntridge here -- but there were three movie houses down on Fremont Street. And so I was going there one night after dinner and turning left onto Fremont Street when I was stopped by a policeman on a motorcycle. And he told me I had run a TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 11 red light, to which I replied, "No, it wasn't red, it was yellow." And he said, "Yes, it was yellow, but I'm going to give you a ticket anyway." So I pulled over to the side of the road, and he proceeded to write me a ticket. And I was very upset about it, very upset. I thought it was unfair. I didn't deserve it, and it got me very flustered. I had only been in this country about -- let me see, I think this was -- we opened the show in October. This was probably about December or early January. No, it was later than that because it was warm. So it was probably about May, the following May. By I'd only had my car about three months, I think. And so he gave me my ticket, and I got back in the car, and I was very flustered. And I put the car in gear, what I thought was first gear, and I didn't. I put it in reverse, and it went straight into his motorcycle, smashing it to the ground and causing great consternation. He came around to the door and said, "Switch your motor off and wait for my sergeant," to which tears came into my eyes. Anyway, when his sergeant came, he was a very nice man. And he understood completely that I was flustered and everything. I must admit, I did cry. And he sort of berated the policeman for giving me a ticket in the first place and canceled the ticket. And everything worked out very nicely after that. He was very nice. He was very kind. TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 12 But I was absolutely appalled. A crowd gathered. Everybody was, "Oh, did you see that?" It was very embarrassing. MR. ANDERSON: I can imagine. So what were your first impressions about this place out here in the west of the United States? I've heard it described as the last outpost of freedom for Americans. You know, there was a wide-open feel about it. If you could sort of give me a feel for what life was like in this town when you got here in 1960. MS. HEBERLING: Las Vegas was very different in 1960 when I got here. It was very relaxed, very informal except at night. People did dress very well when they went out to the casinos. Most people dressed. There was no crime here. I mean, nobody locked their cars or their doors. People were very friendly. And, of course, once you got out, there was no speed limit here, which was great. I loved that. There was a great sense of openness and freedom here. There was. And the air was so incredible, that desert air. The mountains, looking towards Red Rock, they seemed to sparkle. It was just incredible. And I would stand just looking at them and the stars at night, particularly when we went up to Mount Charleston. You never saw stars or air like that in England or Europe because of being surrounded by the sea. You always TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 13 have clouds. And desert air is special. It's wonderful. We used to go up to Mount Charleston. They used to have an outdoor skating rink up at Mount Charleston. And once a week the owners used to keep it open for us, and we would go up there after the second show in the winter and ice skate. I mean, it was truly magical, the snow on the pine trees and these incredibly huge stars. It was wonderful. I loved it. I fell in love with the desert, and I still love the desert. MR. ANDERSON: You were raised a Catholic. So what was it like to be a Catholic Lido girl? MS. HEBERLING: We had to go Mass every Saturday. Tommy MacDonald -- we didn't have Saint Anne's on Maryland Parkway. No, Saint Anne's wasn't there because there was no Maryland Parkway. I really can't remember what church there was, but they used to hold Mass every Saturday after the third show in what was then the Stardust auditorium, right next to the Stardust. When the Silver Slipper used to be there, it was in between the Silver Slipper and the Stardust. It was actually a failed hotel, and the Stardust had bought it and just turned it into an auditorium. And Tommy MacDonald, the entertainment director, came around and asked who was Catholic. And we had to go to Mass after the third show every Saturday. There we all went in our full stage makeup and attended Mass. TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 14 Then we used to adjourn to Foxie's for breakfast. Foxie's was a delicatessen at the corner at Sahara and The Strip. Everyone used to go there for breakfast. Our third show finished about 4:15, so it was a long night with Saturday. MR. ANDERSON: Oh, so, then this was early in the morning that you went? MS. HEBERLING: Yes, it was actually Sunday morning when we went. We had three shows on Saturday. We had one starting at 8:00, one at 12:00, and one at 2:30. MR. ANDERSON: Was it like a family to be in the Lido troupe? MS. HEBERLING: Very much so. The men that owned the hotel, and particularly Tommy MacDonald and Bill DeAngelis, the stage manager, they really did. They looked out for you. There was a feeling of being a part of a group. It did feel like family. You had a sense of closeness between everybody. It was very nice. MR. ANDERSON: I'm sure people who come to a place like Las Vegas and see these glamorous, beautiful dancers have one image of them. But what were the girls like? MS. HEBERLING: Most of us were very down to earth. We looked glamorous on stage because of the costumes, the head dresses. And it was fun. It was fun wearing those glamorous costumes. I lived quite a ways off The Strip, and I had cats TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 15 and dogs, and we had horses. And a lot of the people were family people. We really lived very uneventful, quite ordinary lives. Yes, we used to go out. We used to have some great parties sometimes. When the entertainers, Sammy Davis in particular, and Nat"King" Cole, whenever they were in town, they always did a special third show for the big shows, on a night other than a Saturday because we were never able to get to see them because we were always working. And they used to give some wonderful shows for us. We used to go to some recordings sometimes, tapings. Of course, with it being so small, everybody knew everybody else. And Harry James was in the lounge at the Stardust. And, you know, Count Basie used to appear regularly at the Sands. And Sarah Vaughan used to be at the lounge at the Flamingo. It was just a wonderful time to be in Las Vegas. MR. ANDERSON: Were you familiar with Peter Lind Hayes and Mary Healy? MS. HEBERLING: I'm familiar with the names, but I don't know them. MR. ANDERSON: Or Grace Hayes? MS. HEBERLING: No, huh-uh. MR. ANDERSON: Okay. We've spoken to them, and I know that they were big here. And I'm just trying to check with other people about them. TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 16 I don't think a lot of people realize about those costumes and what they were like, especially the head dresses. Tell me a little bit about those head dresses. MS. HEBERLING: The costumes were heavy. And the head dresses were very well balanced so that you felt very comfortable with them on. You were able to secure them. We all brought with us these very long, about three- to four-inch long hairpins from Paris, which were impossible to get here. And the hats had horse hair at the back of them. And, of course, we all had long hair. And the reason we all had long hair was so that we could secure the hats on. And if we didn't have long hair, you wore a pastiche to secure the hat. But they were heavy. A couple that I wore were close to or over three feet tall. And over time they have had an effect on me. In fact, I do have compressed disks in my neck from carrying the weight of the hats. I worked for 11 years in this town, and I loved it. That's just one of the things, I guess. I didn't realize at the time they caused compressed disks, but they did. MR. ANDERSON: Sort of an occupational hazard? MS. HEBERLING: That's right. There you go. MR. ANDERSON: Tell me about the impact that the Lido girls had on Las Vegas as far as clothing and fashion. MS. HEBERLING: When we came here, there was one wonderful shop on The Strip across from the old New Frontier, TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 17 called Magnum's, Joseph Magnum's, and that's where most of us used to shop because they had clothes other than jeans. Penny's, which was at the corner of Sixth Street and Fremont, and Ronzoni's, which was the forerunner of what is now Dillards. They catered to mostly a western type clientele. And the one thing that we found was they didn't have large-sized shoes. Most of us, being tall, had big feet, and we had great difficulty getting shoes that fit us. And clothes, if we did want to buy a pair of jeans, jeans that were long enough for us as well -- they always seemed to cut off just below your calves somewhere. But after a while, when the shows had been here for a while, and the shops and everybody realized that we were sort of here to stay, then you could see the goods in the stores changed. We were able to get larger-sized shoes. We were able to get other bread than Wonder bread. And we had quite an impact, not just on the clothes and everything, but, as I say, on the markets also. There was a great demand for tea. All English people drink hot tea. It sounds so frivolous with the markets being so full of everything. But at that time, it was difficult. I used to have my mother send tea from England. And we couldn't get our creams and all our makeup. Our makeup, a lot of us still sent back to Europe for it because there was just nowhere here to buy it. It was a very small town. TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 18 The first gourmet restaurant, what you would really call a gourmet restaurant, was the Golden Steer. And I believe that opened in 1962 or '63, right around there. And it was the first gourmet restaurant. MR. ANDERSON: As you had been here a while, did the young, local ladies begin to imitate Lido dancers as far as hair and clothing? Did you see that sort of thing? MS. HEBERLING: I really can't say what impact we had on the local way of dressing. Most of us kept to ourselves. I'm afraid we were very cliquish. We didn't mix much with the people. Most of us stayed near the Blair House and the Bally High. Lots of us lived at the Bally High Apartments, which are knocked down now, where Channel 8 is. But they were very popular. But a lot of us lived there. And, then, when we started moving out into houses, we sort of -- with working such long hours and with having so few days off, we tended still to stick together. So, we just didn't mix. I'm sure we did have some impact on the population, but I really don't know how much, whether they wanted to imitate us or not, or whether they just thought we were just weird. MR. ANDERSON: You had sort of a special treat. It would have been a special treat as far as I could see. Tell me about the movie "Viva Las Vegas." MS. HEBERLING: Oh, that was in 1966. I was in the TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 19 "Folies Bergere" at this time, and I had been -- no, it must have been before that. It was 1963, "Viva Las Vegas." And that's right. I was in the "Folies Bergere" then. My husband was a dancer in the same show. And Elvis Presley came to town. And it was decided to make "Viva Las Vegas" here in town. At that time we weren't a big movie town. It was unusual to have a movie here. But this one was specifically based in Las Vegas, and, of course, Elvis was at the height of his popularity. And Ann-Margaret was the female star. She was just starting out. This was one of her earlier movies. And each of the hotels had a segment filmed in it. And I was one of the ones that was chosen to do it at the Tropicana and featured in a couple of scenes with Elvis, in a purely non-speaking role, just as a statuary role more or less. But it was fun. It was interesting. We filmed after the second show and all day. A lot of my scenes were cut. If you know where to look, I can still be found in a couple. MR. ANDERSON: I've been an extra in a few movies. And after you've done that, it's not very glamorous. MS. HEBERLING: Oh, it really isn't. It was exhausting. We finished our second show at about 2:00 o'clock in the morning, and we started filming at 3:00. And we kept right up until it was time to get ready for the first show the following night, over and over and over and over and over again. I mean, it was like, how many times can you do this? TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 20 MR. ANDERSON: It is amazing. And no wonder these movies cost so much to make. MS. HEBERLING: But we made a grand total of I believe it was $34. MR. ANDERSON: For being in a movie. MS. HEBERLING: Right. MR. ANDERSON: Okay. So when you came to town, I don't know what you had heard about these guys who ran this place called Las Vegas and what their backgrounds were like or what their reputations were like. So tell me just what maybe you thought of these guys in the beginning, what you had heard about them, and then how you felt about them as you continued to work with them. MS. HEBERLING: We don't have gangsters in England. So really none of us had thought about a town run by gangsters. It was an American thing. And it was quite acceptable because to us that's the way America was run. It was what you saw in the movies. And so it was just quite acceptable that a town like this -- we had heard of Lucky Luciano. And who was it that started the Flamingo? MR. ANDERSON: Oh, Bugsy Siegel. MS. HEBERLING: Bugsy Siegel, that's right. And we got those stories. But we didn't see men walking around with machine guns or anything or any crude behavior or anything like that. Everybody was very nice to us. They signed our TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 21 paychecks, and we never thought of them as gangsters. And, now, after living here for so long and looking back on it, everybody that's been here a long time says, "Oh, it was wonderful. There was no crime here." There was no petty crime as you have now for the simple reason I don't think they would put up with it. As I said, you could leave your door unlocked, your car unlocked. Everybody felt very safe. You could walk the streets safely. Nobody ever worried about anything like that. So gangsters, to us, was something that you saw in the movies. It wasn't people that we were actually working for. And it wasn't until the early '70s, when, I think, the Justice Department started moving in and Howard Hughes came to town, that a lot of us became aware of just who we had been working for. And, to us, they were just employers, businessmen who owned casinos. MR. ANDERSON: Now, who was running the Stardust at that time? MS. HEBERLING: I'm trying to think who that was. I'm sure I've got it written down somewhere at home. John Drew one was one of the major bosses there. But I can't remember the name of the corporation. I was under contract to Bluebells. I signed an equity contract and then ASTRA contract, but I was under contract to Madame Bluebell. I wasn't under contract to the Stardust Hotel. And I can't for the life of me think what the corporation was called. They TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 22 changed so many times in the '60s and early '70s, changed hands a lot. I'm sure I can find out, but I don't know now. MR. ANDERSON: You've mentioned Howard Hughes. So Howard Hughes comes to town in '66. And from your point of view, what did he do? What was he like? And how did he change Las Vegas? MS. HEBERLING: When Howard Hughes came to town, I believe that was 1966. To start with, he didn't make many changes. But, then, within the next few years, next couple of years, he started buying up the casinos. The Desert Inn was the first one he bought. When he moved into town, he took over a suite there. We used to have a hotel called the Castaways, which was not too far from the Sands. He bought the Castaways. He bought the Sands -- the Desert Inn, the Castaways, the Sands. He bought the Silver Slipper. I think he might have bought one more, and then he tried to buy the Stardust. And this was when Paul Laxalt was governor. And we later realized that Howard Hughes was almost like a political appointee and had been sent in here to clean this town up and make it respectable. But when he tried to buy the Stardust, the Justice Department stepped in, and he was unable to buy it. He was getting too much of a monopoly on all of the hotels here. He never made any secret that he was anti-union. And he said very plainly that he was going to TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 23 bust the unions while he was here. There had never been any problems with stage hands or culinary unions before, but those problems started to arise. And the town changed in atmosphere. It developed a corporate -- lots of places where you went in the early '60s, when I first came here, drinks were just given to you and food was comped. The people that owned the hotels there weren't worried about everything making a profit. It was the gambling that made the profit. And they put on different things. The shows, the food, and the lounges and everything were to bring people in to gamble. That changed when Howard Hughes came. He brought in the corporate mentality, the bottom line mentality, and very much changed the atmosphere of the town. He bought up large portions of Nevada. There was a lot of resentment towards him. MR. ANDERSON: Tell me about what these people felt about what kind of effect he had had on the town. MS. HEBERLING: Well, I've already said he took away the closeness of it. It was just strange, the effect that he had on the town. I don't know. I really don't know how to sort of put it because it was just that it took on a much more businesslike atmosphere, even though he was never seen. I mean, all of his wishes were carried out by other people. I can't remember anybody that saw Howard Hughes while he was here. Even when he discussed matters with the governor, it TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 24 was always by telephone. He was just a very strange man, obviously brilliant. But things did change and because of his being here, the Federal Government started to look more closely at Las Vegas. And this was really when we started learning about the mob and gangsters and how awful the town had been and what sort of town we had been working in all those years. Then it started to come out. But before that, it was never -- well, I'll speak for myself. I mean, I never thought about it. Then you realize, looking at it afterwards, it was a political thing. It was convenient at that time. The mob, so to speak, had sort of opened the hotels. They had got a good thing going, and now it was time for legitimate business to move in and take over and make their corporate profits. And that's what it was. MR. ANDERSON: What kind of relationship do you think Howard Hughes had with Paul Laxalt? MS. HEBERLING: I think Paul Laxalt had aspirations of becoming president one day. And I think they worked very much hand in hand. Howard Hughes was able to purchase an enormous amount of federal land while he was here and, as I say, lots of hotels. And he worked very closely with Paul Laxalt. We heard a rumor that Howard Hughes promised Paul Laxalt if he worked with him that he would one day be president. And I'm sure that was the agreement. It never came to pass. TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 25 MR. ANDERSON: Pretty powerful seduction. MS. HEBERLING: Yes. MR. ANDERSON: I don't know if we'll ever have a president of the United States from Nevada. MS. HEBERLING: I don't know. I doubt it. I don't know. MR. ANDERSON: Hey, if Arkansas -- MS. HEBERLING: I was just going to say, who would have thought we'd have a president from Arkansas? MR. ANDERSON: Or even Georgia, Jimmy Carter. MS. HEBERLING: Right, uh-huh. Yeah. So you never know. It depends on what's politically feasible. MR. ANDERSON: Well, let me see. I'll make sure I haven't missed anything here. Can you remember anything that we covered first that we didn't talk about today already? Okay. Any other memories or stories about life and times of Las Vegas, especially when you were working as a dancer, of other showfolk and... MS. HEBERLING: There's a lot of us left in town here. Janet Kravenko is one of my good friends. She has a dance school here in town. We used to have great times. Horseback, I used to ride every day when I first came here. I used to live where Stonehaven is now. Across from the municipal golf course, that used to be a 40-acre ranch. And there was no Decatur. That was before Decatur was built. TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 26 And it was a wonderful old ranch. It was called the Rundown Ranch. Ed Creek and Count James used to live there also. We rented a little adobe house, a proper adobe house with beam ceilings. And there were boarding stables there, and even the stables had beam ceilings. And there was a half-mile race track out there, so I was able to ride every day. I had my own horse. And we used to go out riding. We'd go up ice skating after the show. A lot of us fell in love with the desert. We really did. And that's why we're still here. We love it, and America, particularly Nevada. But Nevada's losing its wide open areas now. Las Vegas has already lost it. It's very cramped compared to what it used to be. I used to get in my little successor to the Plymouth, which was an Austin-Healy, British racing green, and tearing up Tonopah Highway up to the mountains. It was wonderful. There was no speed limit. You could just get in your car and take off. Things have changed. MR. ANDERSON: Indeed. When you got here, they were still doing above-ground testing out at the test site. I was wondering if you had any reflections on that. MS. HEBERLING: The Dunes by this time had built a high-rise. And they had this lovely top of the Dunes where you could go and see the bombs being let off. This was before 1963, when the above-ground moratorium came into effect. When TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 27 we knew they were going to let a bomb off, some of us would drive out towards Mount Charleston because the flash was much greater when you were in the middle of the desert away from all of the lights and everything. And we were told, "There's no danger whatsoever. It's nothing. Nothing bad will happen to you. This is for America and the Allies and everything." And we believed them. There was nuclear cocktails. And there was even a hairdo, a nuclear hairdo, that they used to do here for you, which involved a lot of teasing and a lot of hair spray. Looking back on it now, it's absolutely incredible that we'd drive out into the desert to see a large atomic bomb let off. MR. ANDERSON: I guess there was even a Miss Atom Bomb. They had a contest. MS. HEBERLING: Yes, that's right. There was a Miss Atom Bomb contest here. I think that's when it involved the hairdo. You had to have the proper hairdo for it, shaped like the mushroom cloud, yes. MR. ANDERSON: It is wild when you look back, isn't it? MS. HEBERLING: Really it is, yes. MR. ANDERSON: How would you sum up a place like Las Vegas? I've only been here a short time. Of course, I've done a lot of reading since I've been here, so I probably know more about Las Vegas than most people who live here, TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 28 especially ones who've been here just a short time, because I've indulged in so much reading and history and talking to people like you, who have vivid memories and who were really in the mix and doing things that were making Las Vegas and giving it its image. I guess in retrospect, how would you summarize a place like Las Vegas? MS. HEBERLING: I love it, and I still do. It's grown a lot. And there are times when I think about leaving it, and the traffic and this, that and the other. But it's still got so much to offer. I still love the sun. And all you have to do is drive a few miles and you are out of Las Vegas. You've got the mountains at Mount Charleston. You've got Lee Canyon. You've got southern Utah, which is so incredibly beautiful. You've got the lake. You have so many things to do. And you still have that, not so much in Las Vegas perhaps, but you still have that wonderful desert air. You drive up to Pioche, you've got your little old western town still there. And it's only about 180 miles, I think. You've got Scotty's Castle, which is just a hundred or so miles to drive to. The Valley of Fire. You've got Death Valley. You've got so much. Las Vegas isn't just The Strip. I doubt very much if I could live anywhere else. I love the open spaces. I love the openness of it. And I love the freedom that Nevada, to me, still does represent. There's a TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 29 few people trying to take those freedoms away. But basically, I couldn't think of another state where I would live. I really wouldn't. MR. ANDERSON: I was talking to Harry Merenda. He had been a bellman and bartender and had worked around Las Vegas for a long time and did really well. And he had gotten together at this old-timers gathering with a bunch of guys, most of whom he thought were already dead. So he was surprised and delighted to see so many guys that he really didn't think were around anymore. He said they all got to talking and looking back and asking each other, "Was it really that good?" And they said, "Yep, it was." MS. HEBERLING: Yeah. I feel I had the best of Las Vegas. The '60s, it was a wonderful time to be here, the early '60s. It was fun. It was still an adventure, and it was a great place to be. And looking back on it, we all feel that we did have the best of it, definitely the best of it working in the shows. It was really something to be a Lido girl in those days. MR. ANDERSON: Very special time. MS. HEBERLING: A Belle de Lido as we were known. MR. ANDERSON: Amazing. Yeah, I can't even imagine really. I can only sort of live it vicariously in a secondhand way from hearing some people talk about it and reading about it and seeing pictures and any kind of newsreel TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 30 footage. But when you see the Rat Pack all together there in the A & E Special just getting together, clowning around, you know, had that bar there set up on the stage -- I don't know if it was down on the floor. Where was that? MS. HEBERLING: It was the Sands. It was a wonderful hotel, the Sands. Jack Entratter was in charge of the Sands at that time. And it was, it was just -- Count Basie used to play there. The music and all of them together, and Sammy Davis's voice and Frank Sinatra's voice, it was a very happy time. And I think the early '60s like that were a happy time in America basically. Kennedy had just been elected, and it was a time of promise which ended in 1963. MR. ANDERSON: Yeah. I'm just wondering, when people look back on this -- MS. HEBERLING: You know, for all the talk of gangsters and mobsters and everything like that, it was a time of innocence. There was no drugs in any of the shows or in this town like there is now. Yes, people like to drink sometimes. But, I mean, there was none of the crime, just all the bad things that have moved in here now. There was none of that. And looking back, it was, it was a time of innocence that's no longer. It's not just here in Las Vegas. I don't think it's anywhere. Between Kennedy's death and the Vietnam War, that time's gone. MR. ANDERSON: Yeah. It's a new world. TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 31 MS. HEBERLING: Yeah. MR. ANDERSON: And I just wonder where we're going to be in 50 years. I keep looking forward to, you know, like 2050. I'll be almost a hundred, and I'm going -- MS. HEBERLING: I will be a hundred. MR. ANDERSON: By God, I'm going to be here. (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 ??