1 NEVADA STATE MUSEUM & HISTORICAL SOCIETY LAS VEGAS, NEVADA THE LAS VEGAS I REMEMBER INTERVIEW WITH HERB McDONALD 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 us your name. MR. McDONALD: My name is Herb McDonald. I'm a director of special projects at the Showboat Hotel. MR. ANDERSON: And, Herb, if you could tell us -- I will go right down the list here -- about some of your background before you came to Las Vegas and the reason and when you got here. MR. McDONALD: Well, I went to Pasadena Junior College with Jackie Robinson and Bill Holden, who was in my class. Then I went to Stanford on a baseball scholarship. And then the war came along, and I became a Navy pilot. And when I come out of the service, I went to work for Music Corporation of America on Wilshire Boulevard. But I had to drive from Pasadena to Beverly Hills every day, and I was west coast manager of promotion and publicity. And I got into booking Las Vegas, and all I knew about Las Vegas was that it was a town near the dam. I mean, I'd never seen it, never even heard of it. And I booked Peggy Lee and Dave Barber, her husband, at the El Rancho in early January for 750 bucks a week. And they invited me up for the opening. So I arrived here on January 21st, 1946. MR. ANDERSON: And was it while you were here that you got a job offer? MR. McDONALD: That's right. I had taken the bus up here. And I was having breakfast on Monday, and some bus boys TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 3 were showing some fishing pictures of bass on Lake Mead. And I asked to see them, and I couldn't believe it. And I said, "Well, where did you catch her?" Says, "Out at the shore," you know. "We do this every Sunday. We get eight or ten." Some of those were five, six pounds. He said, "You think these are big, let's get the chef's pictures." So I went back there. In the meantime, I missed my bus. So Bud Bradshaw come in and says, "You missed your bus. You're going to stay overnight." And I said, "Oh, I saw these fishing pictures." He says, "Say, are you really a nut about fishing?" I said, "Yes, I am." He says, "We've got a very good show here." He said, "I'll tell you what. What are you making at MCA?" And I said, "Oh, 60 bucks a week and $25 for gas." He says, "I'll give you a hundred a week, room and board, and once a week, in the middle of the week, you can use our 37-foot Chris-Craft." I said, "You got a deal." So then I had to decide how I'd go home and tell my mother from Chattanooga, Tennessee, that I was moving to Sin City. That took two weeks to get done. And she didn't talk to me for three days before I left. But anyway, that's the way it goes. She was a Baptist. She couldn't understand why I would go to a place where they had red-light districts on Tenth and Twelfth Street, right out on Fremont Street. And she kind of checked out the town. And she says, "You be a good boy." And I said, "I will." TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 4 MR. ANDERSON: But eventually you won her over. How did you do that? MR. McDONALD: Well, I met my first wife, Phyllis Coker, from Kearney, Nebraska. And I met her in April, married her in July. And then the next June, we had our son. And so I tried to call my mother and have her to come up and see the son, take the train, 'cause the train through here started in Pasadena. She said, "Nope." So, I was telling the slot manager my problem. He says, "I'll tell you what we'll do. We'll put a nickel machine out of order, have it set for a jackpot, and you get her up here. And then you find a nickel on the carpet and have her pull that machine, and she'll hit the jackpot." And that's what happened. Gosh, she was bombastic. She took all the nickels and put them in her purse. I didn't see them again until she got home. And from that day on, she came up every year. MR. ANDERSON: A convert. MR. McDONALD: Yep. MR. ANDERSON: So, one of the things I'm trying to learn from interviewing people like you, who have been around Las Vegas for a long time, is just sort of what Las Vegas felt like, the impressions of the town, the population, the ambiance. MR. McDONALD: It was 18,000 when I got here. And TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 5 there were two hotels, the El Rancho and the Last Frontier. And across the street was just desert for centipedes and scorpions. And one high school, as I say. And everybody went to the Friday night kind of a social. We tail-ended there before the game, and that was our big social event, Friday night football at Las Vegas High. Two theaters, the Huntridge and the Fremont. MR. ANDERSON: You said there were whore houses on Main Street. I thought the city had shut some of this stuff down after Nellis came. MR. McDONALD: Well, but Nellis didn't come until later. It closed down. And when I first got here in '46, there were two places with red lights. I never checked them out, but I don't think most people put red lights out for porch lights. MR. ANDERSON: You know, that's a part of the town that I'm trying to get a feel for, 'cause I've heard from other people that when they came here, they felt like this was the last outpost of freedom in the country. You know, no speed limits and this real "live and let live." MR. McDONALD: Exactly. And it was very friendly. The Lions Club, the Rotary Club. I mean, everybody knew everybody. And they were real feisty clubs that did a lot of good for this town. MR. ANDERSON: And prostitution was just something TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 6 that existed, nobody talked about or paid much attention to? MR. McDONALD: Well, it had been here a long time for the builders of the dam. MR. ANDERSON: If you could tell me that story about Tommy Hull and how he came to build the El Rancho. MR. McDONALD: Well, I'd like to. In 1939, late, he was driving through with his chauffeur to Salt Lake City. Now, Tommy Hull was the owner and chairman of the board of Hull Hotels in Sacramento and the Hollywood Roosevelt in Hollywood. And his car had a flat tire just where the site of the El Rancho is. So he sent his chauffeur into town to get help. And he noticed all the traffic going by his car. So he went to Salt Lake and went back, called his board of directors together in Hollywood and said, "I'm going to build a resort hotel in Las Vegas." They said, "Well, you don't know anything about gambling." He says, "Don't worry about that, I'll find someone who does. I'm going to put a swimming pool out in front, and with that summer weather, we'll stop the people." And that's how it started. Now, during 1940, after he opened, there was an architect by the name of Bill Moore that worked for the Texas Theater people, and he was on his way to Albuquerque to build a motel and a theater. And he was so impressed with the El Rancho and the potential here, he delayed his trip, went back to Dallas and said, "I want to build a hotel." So he TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 7 built the Last Frontier. And the years they opened were 1940 and '41. And it was all western. And they built the El Rancho for about $300,000. MR. ANDERSON: Now, were these kinds of things inspirational to people like Walt Disney and others who later went on to build other resorts? MR. McDONALD: No, at that time, Walt Disney wasn't even aware Las Vegas was here. But we made it aware because we had great entertainment, and we were a weekend town. For instance, to get help, we had to hire school teachers, carpenters, mechanics and stuff on weekends to be cocktail waitresses, to be bartenders. And when I was there, there happened to be a fella by the name of Sam Boyd. MR. ANDERSON: Oh, well, that's a very prominent name now. MR. McDONALD: Yeah. MR. ANDERSON: And what was Mr. Boyd up to those days? MR. McDONALD: Mr. Boyd then was a dealer with a little apron. MR. ANDERSON: Amazing. He's still around, isn't he? MR. McDONALD: No, Sam has passed on. But his son, Bill Boyd, is doing a great job running that company. MR. ANDERSON: Yeah, I've heard that that's one of TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 8 the best-run companies in town. So what kind of people played there? You know, you were in the entertainment end of things. MR. McDONALD: Oh, well, we had great. We had Sammy Davis and the Will Mastin Trio, for 750 bucks a week. We just had top stars. Sophie Tucker, all those kind of people played there. And for little money because they couldn't get the money in Los Angeles, so they got it in Las Vegas. Room and board we had to give them. And Gordon MacRae came off the Railroad Hour there, you know, and played. And we did very well with it. MR. ANDERSON: And if you could just sort of give me your personal recollections of your time at the El Rancho. MR. McDONALD: Well, I think the highlight of my stay there was that Billy Wilkerson, who was the owner of the Hollywood Reporter in Los Angeles, who I had visited on my trips around, the variety and so forth, called me and said, "I'm coming up with a man named Benjamin Siegel, and he's thinking about building a new hotel further out on The Strip. And I want to stay with you, so we need two bungalows." And I said, "No problem." So they came, and I didn't see Mr. Siegel for about a week or two. And then one day I was by the pool, and my office was in the back there, one desk and a wall. Billy Wilkerson said, "Hey, Herbie, is this your lunch hour?" And I said, "Kind of." He says, "You got time TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 9 to play gin rummy?" I said, "Well, not for a lot of money. I'll play for half a cent a point." So I met Mr. Ben Siegel, who was the president of the Flamingo Hotel. So anyway, I was very lucky and I won $28. And about a week or so later, I was at the front desk getting my mail. We didn't have mail delivery, we had to go get that out of a bag. And someone hit me in my ribs and said, "Hey, kid, when do I get my $28 back?" And very smartly, which was wrong, I said, "Anytime, buster, you think you can get your money back, just come at me." And he laughed and walked away. He says, "I'll get to you." And one of the dealers walked out and said, "Do you know who you were talking to?" I said, "Yeah, Ben Siegel." He said, "That isn't Ben Siegel, that's Bugsy Siegel, president of Murder, Incorporated," I said, "Hell, had I known that, I would have dumped." And everyone in the place knew that and thought it was a big joke. So when I'd walk through the casino, they'd say, "How's Bugsy?" You know, you didn't say that word around him. I mean, as close as Billy Wilkerson was, he never called him Bugsy. MR. ANDERSON: Do you have any idea where he got that nickname? MR. McDONALD: Nope. MR. ANDERSON: There was a fire at the El Rancho. MR. McDONALD: I was long gone. That was June 17th, TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 10 1960, and it burnt to the ground, but not the bungalows, of course, because they were a hundred yards away from there. And the night of the fire, Red Skelton came down from the Sands and was standing in the parking lot saying, "Save the new plans for the new buildings." And everyone was laughing. The firemen weren't, but he really did that. And at that time, Beldon Katleman was the owner of the hotel. MR. ANDERSON: I don't know how true it is, but I heard a story that some of the other guys from The Strip wanted some points in that, and the reason it burned down was because they didn't get their way. MR. McDONALD: No, that's not true at all. MR. ANDERSON: It was purely accidental? MR. McDONALD: Beldon was the total sole owner at that time. MR. ANDERSON: But other people wanted in and he wouldn't let them in, so they burned it down. MR. McDONALD: No, that place had been wired and redone and refixed and rechanged through the years from '40 to '60, so there were like three roofs. That's why it spread so fast. MR. ANDERSON: So a lot of that old material just... MR. McDONALD: Then Beldon came to me -- I was then at the Sahara -- and offered to sell us the 45 acres between the Sahara and the Thunderbird because the Thunderbird was TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 11 then built. And Milton Berle said, "Stay out of the real estate business. We'll never need that land." And all he wanted was $60,000. In fact, when I got there, Wilbur Clark was there one night and said, "Kid, buy some land, that land across the street from here where the Sahara is." Says, "You can buy ten acres there for 150 an acre." I said, "But I just got out of the Navy. I haven't got any money." He said, "I'll loan you the money." And I said, "No." I said, "What would I do, put scorpions and centipedes in and have a convention?" And he laughed and he says, "Well, you'll be sorry some day." And I'm sorry some day. MR. ANDERSON: Oh, man. So after the El Rancho, you went to the Silver Slipper? MR. McDONALD: I went to the Silver Slipper. Bob Cannon, the late Bob Cannon, asked me to come down there. And that was 1950, and I opened up the Silver Slipper and the Last Frontier Village. And it was the most fun job I've ever had in my life. I had about 27 occupied rentals that had gun shows and candy stores, and it was just a great spot. MR. ANDERSON: And you used to have people riding in on horseback for lunch, didn't you? MR. McDONALD: Oh, yeah, sure. Harry Claiborne, Cliff Jones, the sheriff, they used to ride up there and tie up. I had a riding stable, and naturally they had a place to TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 12 tie up. They'd tie up and come in and have lunch and ride back to work. MR. ANDERSON: And did the Rat Pack ever frequent the Silver Slipper? MR. McDONALD: Oh, yes, absolutely, when they were at the Sands. They loved Hank Henry, our show, and they had a rapport with him because he was the old-time gusto comedian with the real yaks. And when they got in, I used to feed them in a special area, and then they'd go out and deal. They'd deal 21, and so forth, which now is against the law with the gaming control. And the people knew that about 1:00 o'clock or 1:30, they'd be there. And I had their man call me, Harry, that they were coming down. And then I had food for them on the rear end of the Silver Slipper restaurant. We had excellent food. And I ordered in special foods for them. And they gambled, but they had more fun dealing to the customers. You know, and I had girls dancing on the bar with powder puffs. If you were sitting at the bar, a very pretty girl, almost naked, would give you a powder puff in your face. You'd have to explain that to your wife when you got home. But the people loved it. MR. ANDERSON: Would all the guys come down, all five of them? MR. McDONALD: Mostly all of them. And Sammy Davis, TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 13 you know, if he dealt some 21 with his little -- he'd take the apron right away from the dealer. He'd go out around there and do a little tap dance all the way around the people and pat them on the head and say, "See, come here, win money." But they didn't come every night. So people would come every night thinking they were going to be there. So they were great headline entertainment without paying them. MR. ANDERSON: Great draw. Now, Jackie Gaughn's been a prominent member of this community for a long time. MR. McDONALD: Terrific. MR. ANDERSON: Can you tell me anything about Jackie Gaughn? MR. McDONALD: Oh, yes, Jackie and Mel Exber were two of my first friends here. They came from Omaha, Nebraska, and they were bookies. And they had a book on South First Street on the alley, one counter, one little store. And I used to take football tickets down to them. They were very glad to have them. One day Jackie said to me, "Hey, if you can get quite a few of these, we'll give you commission." And, of course, I liked that, so I did. And I'd get an extra 25 or 35 bucks a week by bringing in cards for them. MR. ANDERSON: What year would that have been? MR. McDONALD: That would have been '47 or '8. MR. ANDERSON: An extra 25 bucks was all right. TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 14 MR. McDONALD: That's right. And at that time, by the way, I lived in Henderson, 208 Victory Road. I was in one of those plants out there, houses. And I had one bedroom and one bath and one sitting room, $33 a month, which included water, heating and telephone. MR. ANDERSON: 33 bucks a month. MR. McDONALD: Right where the Showboat is now, there used to be signs there that said $10 a front foot. And it was a thousand feet deep. MR. ANDERSON: That would have been the time to have some money. Well, I guess anytime is the time to have some money, but to be able to get a hold of that property like that. Benny Binion was another big man in town. You knew him? MR. McDONALD: Quite well. And everybody knew everybody in this town, you know. We'd go downtown and go from joint to joint and have lunch one day and so forth. And I knew Binion quite well, and I knew Benny when he had the prison sentence. And at that time I was the head of the Chamber of Commerce. So I wrote a letter to try to get him pardoned, and I wrote it on Chamber of Commerce stationary. And I want to tell you that I got ACLL. I was young. I didn't think anything, and it was handwritten so no one else knew that I had done it. But when he got out, I was TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 15 one of the first people he had go to lunch. And he said, "Any guy who will write a letter like that on Chamber stationary, I want to be friends with you. You're going to be my friend for life." And I was. I really miss the dear man. He was a legend in his time. MR. ANDERSON: And a very grateful friend, too. MR. McDONALD: Yeah. And as big as he was, he and I worked very hard in bringing the National Finals Rodeo here. And during that time he'd call me up and say, "What are you doing for lunch?" I'd say, "Oh, let me look." He said, "Don't look, cancel." He says, "I'm lonesome. Come down here and have lunch with me." And one thing he did, one time when I was having lunch with him, Steve Wynn had just opened the new Golden Nugget. And he and Bobby Baldwin came to lunch. And when he walked in, Benny said, "I want to thank you, Steve, for housing my customers." And they both laughed very hard. They loved Benny. Well, who didn't? He used to say to me, "Now, don't follow any empty wagons 'cause they're not going anywhere." MR. ANDERSON: Good advice. MR. McDONALD: I was sick with the flu, pretty sick at home one time. And Benny -- and Jack was a neat guy. I'm sorry they're having problems there now in their family, 'cause they've got a great family -- sent a limousine and TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 16 food to my house for a whole week. The only problem is, he sent so much that my wife had to give some of the food to the neighbors. We couldn't handle it all. But I did like that cracked crab. MR. ANDERSON: I guess so. A friend in need is a friend indeed. MR. McDONALD: To kind of pay him back, or honor him for his time and his hard work on the National Finals Rodeo, I arranged for his family to be on the stagecoach and to go around the arena and give his acknowledgment to as much help as he did to get the rodeo here. MR. ANDERSON: It's been a real financial bone to this community. MR. McDONALD: Oh, absolutely. It's starting here very soon now. We have a 173,170 seats. They've all been sold out since April 1st this year. And there's ads in the paper. You people who are listening, look and see where people are offering 3 to $500 for tickets. MR. ANDERSON: Now, one of the purposes of this was to get some money moving through the town. MR. McDONALD: In December. MR. ANDERSON: Yeah, slow period. MR. McDONALD: But the side part of this that a lot of people don't think about, Tim, is the fact that the hotels woke up to the western entertainment. So we ran ads in the TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 17 L.A. Times saying that Nashville had moved to Las Vegas during the period of the rodeo. 'Cause where else could you see all those top western stars at one time? So we figure between another 10 and 12,000 people come, not even to go to the rodeo, but to see the western stars. You can't go to L.A. and see ten stars at one time. MR. ANDERSON: So, it was a perfect combination. MR. McDONALD: Perfect combination. MR. ANDERSON: Great. You know, you had been involved in entertainment for so long, so it was perfect for you. MR. McDONALD: Right. MR. ANDERSON: That's great. Well, that's what makes the town run is people with experience. MR. McDONALD: We're becoming the Orlando of the West, you know, Tim. MR. ANDERSON: Orlando. I'm not really that familiar with Orlando. MR. McDONALD: Orlando, Florida. MR. ANDERSON: Oh, yeah, I know. MR. McDONALD: Because in the '60s and '70s, we were the entertainment capital of the world with great stars, and food, shows, and stuff. And now every hotel has a gimmick, and you see more people out on the sidewalks walking around than you see in the hotels. That will make some people mad. TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 18 I really feel that the attractions here are terrific. Don't misunderstand me. But while they're looking at the attractions, they're not inside where the tables are. MR. ANDERSON: True enough. You were involved with the Chamber of Commerce for years and years. MR. McDONALD: Yes, I was drafted by Bob Cannon in 1954. And I went into the Chamber of Commerce, and I had Howard Cannon. I had M. J. Christensen. I had terrific presidents and a great board. And one thing we decided we needed was a convention center because in 1955, three of our hotels closed in 55 days. That was the Riviera, the Dunes, and the Royal Nevada, which is now part of the Stardust. In fact, I can tell you a story. The night the Riviera opened -- Liberace opened it, and he was the first entertainer to make 50,000 a week. A very smart thief put on a visor and garter belts on his sleeves and went in with the fill slip for 25,000 in checks. They were so busy they gave them to him, and he just walked out the side door. MR. ANDERSON: Somebody must have caught hell for that. MR. McDONALD: But I want to give credit to Harold Laub, the late Harold Laub, and his son, Bill, who ran the gas company. They said, "We've got to do something," because FHA TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 19 in Reno stopped our funding. So we quickly organized a southern Nevada financial thing. And we used to go around the country explaining to people how good Las Vegas was 'cause Life Magazine had an article in there, "Las Vegas: Boom or Bust," and it really hurt us. So we had to get on that in a hurry, and we worked very hard on it. MR. ANDERSON: So you traveled throughout the country to promote Las Vegas? MR. McDONALD: Yeah, give speeches. Took a lot of people with me. Took the governor, took pretty girls, had drawings for trips, and just told them, "Don't believe everything you read in the paper. We're not closing." Of course, the people picked up the Riviera Hotel, and people picked up the Dunes. And the Royal Nevada sat empty for a while, and then the old Stardust bought it. MR. ANDERSON: Did you tell me about the man who brought life back into the Riviera? MR. McDONALD: Well, I'm not sure. It was a group of people that did that. I know that the governor's father was part of that, and he's the late Governor Miller. I used to go fishing with him. I know he was part of that, but I can't pinpoint one man that did that. MR. ANDERSON: Well, Gus Greenbaum, as manager, got a lot of credit for helping it run properly and profitably. MR. McDONALD: Well, he also jumped in at the TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 20 Flamingo when Mr. Siegel was shot. By the way, the movie was wrong. He wasn't killed the next night it opened. He was killed on June 27th, 1947, and they opened on New Year's Eve. MR. ANDERSON: Could you tell me a little bit about the advertising campaign and the Las Vegas News Bureau and how that all worked to build up the town? MR. McDONALD: Well, the Las Vegas News Bureau certainly deserves all gold medals because in those days, we used to call it hometown pictures. It had seven hotels when it was really going big, and their office was next to mine on Charleston. They were taking pictures of people around the pool, celebrities and so forth, putting captions on them and sending them to the photo editors of all the national publications. And what were we doing? We were doing the photo editor's job in the Des Moines paper. So we got great publicity. In fact, one of our greatest pictures was Al Freeman's floating crap game in the Sands pool, showed people in the pool playing craps. That ran all over. Then another break we got was, going back to 1951, is when the atom bomb went off here for the first time. And that brought 600 press here. And as a result, it exposed them to do side stories on everybody. MR. ANDERSON: So you had an Atom Bomb-Watchers Association. TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 21 MR. McDONALD: Exactly. MR. ANDERSON: And how did that work? MR. McDONALD: That worked great. We had meetings, and a lot of them went out there and saw it. It was too cold for me to get up and be out there at 4:00 o'clock in the morning. And, of course, the story is now that some of them that went got cancer. I know a lot of people in St. George got it. That's a national story. MR. ANDERSON: Now, in your promotion of the town, a very prominent man helped you out because you were an L.A. boy, had lived in Vegas for a while, so you really didn't know much about the rural counties of Nevada. So who was this guy? MR. McDONALD: Lieutenant Governor Rex Bell. MR. ANDERSON: Now, for those people who are not familiar with Rex Bell, who was he before he was lieutenant governor? MR. McDONALD: Oh, he had a great western store here and, of course, he was married to Clara Bow. And he was quite a figure, very handsome. People loved him. And he read in the paper where I was going to be president of all of the state chambers, and he said, "Let's have lunch at Lucy's," which was the top restaurant in the Golden Nugget. And we had lunch. He said, "Herbie, you can't go out there with a suit. You can't go to these cow counties." He TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 22 said, "Come on down. We're going to go back to my store." So he gave me jeans and boots and all that stuff. And he said, "Wrinkle them up," and so forth. And he said, "Study now what their home product is, whether it's watermelons or cattle or whatever it is. And when you go in, you talk about that for a while. And then you eventually talk to what you want to do." And why was I doing that? I was lobbying for those counties to support the Las Vegas Chamber to start the tourism because the state didn't have tourism. And, as a result, we got all their votes. And then we made a pledge that none -- the state association -- that Las Vegas or Washoe County would not take the chairmanship of this until the very end, which means the little town of Ely got money for the Lehman caves, the ice caves. And we became a hero overnight. But I really thank Rex Bell for it. He was so wise. MR. ANDERSON: What year was that? MR. McDONALD: 1954. MR. ANDERSON: So he gave you some advice about your new boots, too, didn't he? MR. McDONALD: He says, "Get some horse shit on them." Sorry, folks. That's exactly what he said. And he said, "Let your car get dusty. Don't go in there with a shiny new car, 'cause they'll say here's one of those Las Vegas hot shots coming to town." TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 23 And I mapped out the state. I'd take about eight cities in a week, then I'd take another eight cities. But I did it so I didn't double back. I was in Austin and Winnemucca and, you know, all the different cities. MR. ANDERSON: This is a unique state. I've lived in other states, but this is a unique state. What did you learn while you were out there? MR. McDONALD: Well, I learned how genuine the people are in Nevada, and how proud they are of their heritage, and how they want to keep it the way it is. They don't want it to modernize too much. I felt like their word was their bond. And when they asked for something, they didn't say, "Herb, I want to say" -- just for instance, "I want to see Siegfried and Roy." They'd say, "We're coming to town. Is there a chance we could see you and have a cup of coffee? There's a couple of shows we'd like to have you help us get." It was a piece of cake. And I have to admit that I was the giftee of nice watermelons, and canteloupe, and some bacon and stuff because they were my buddies. I got a plaque at home that shows that. MR. ANDERSON: Now, I don't know if you had much to do with this, but I saw a picture of it in a book. Wasn't there a beauty contest surrounding the Atom Bomb-Watchers group? MR. McDONALD: Yes. TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 24 MR. ANDERSON: Could you tell me about that a little bit? MR. McDONALD: Well, I just know that I was sick that week, and I didn't attend it. But I know that they had that, and it was national news. I'm trying to think of the guy's name. Considine, was the president of the Atom Bomb-Watchers. And there were 600 members. And we all had a little pin, "Atom Bomb-Watchers." And we'd meet at different hotels. It was great. And they would go out there when the shoots were going to go up. But I'll tell you, that first one that went up and lit the town here and rattled all the glass really scared this town. MR. ANDERSON: There was a certain guy in town later on, when the underground tests were going on, who was really afraid of these and didn't like them at all, and was trying to use his considerable influence. MR. McDONALD: A guy named Howard Hughes. MR. ANDERSON: What can you tell me? MR. McDONALD: In fact, he did everything, he did, but he had to be convinced. By the way, Hughes stayed at the El Rancho during my time there. I used to go out to the airport and pick him up. He was a very quiet guy. In fact, I saw him the day that he flew the Goose, and he never knew my name. And I caught him. I said, "Mr. Hughes, please, sir, congratulations on flying TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 25 the Goose." And at that time I had my naval aviators ring on. He said, "Mr. Naval Aviator, thank you. There are going to be planes that fly 600 miles an hour and carry 600 people." What foresight. Now, he used to fly in commandeered Constellations in L.A. and bring up the movie stars and stuff. He stopped that when he was flying that fighter and landed on the roof of Beverly Hills Hotel, and he got burned. And a marine who had been mustered out of the service was walking by and saw the plane, didn't know it was Howard Hughes, went up the latticework and rescued him or he wouldn't be here today. And that's why he became -- what would you say? MR. ANDERSON: Eccentric? MR. McDONALD: Yeah. See, before, he was the glamour boy. And by the way, after the Flamingo was built, he took a suite of rooms over there. I compare Steve Wynn and Mr. Siegel as the visionaries that exploded this town. We'd have been a long time coming without it. MR. ANDERSON: I've heard a lot of people say that Howard Hughes ruined this town. MR. McDONALD: No, that's not true. He saved this town in a way because he put finances and sold them to people who could handle it. And his team was not running them the way they should be run. TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 26 Tell me, do you think he had vision to buy all of the land at Summerlin? MR. ANDERSON: I would say so. MR. McDONALD: Every time I go out there, I see his image in the foothills. MR. ANDERSON: I think that's going to be that way for a long time. Nobody's going to be able to look at this town and say that he didn't have a tremendous impact. MR. McDONALD: Well, one thing -- coming back about the promotion -- Stan Irwin, our show producer, and I used to go around the country to find acts and stuff. And we got to know the Earl Wilsons and the Herb Cupsits (phonetic) in Chicago, and Erskine Johnson and Llewelyn Parsons and Ed Hopper and so forth. And we were on the phone to them all the time. We invited them to all of our openings, and they came. So, other cities weren't doing it. They were just sitting there. In fact, I forget the year, but the Chamber, we started the first Las Vegas train. Round trip, 12 bucks one way, buffet. And, then, of course, freight took over with that. Why did they stop? Because they made more money on freight than they did on our passenger trains. In fact, to get that, I had lunch on the president's car with Frank Scott, who still, I think, is maybe part of the Union Plaza, but who built the Union Plaza. And he got it on TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 27 for us. MR. ANDERSON: You know, there's one name that comes up when I talk to a lot of people about Las Vegas of the '40s and '50s, Gracie Hayes. MR. McDONALD: Oh, yeah. MR. ANDERSON: What can you tell me about Gracie Hayes? MR. McDONALD: Well, she had her lodge out there, and she had great performers. And, of course, she had her son and his wife, who was a great act. And that was the hangout. Good food. She would spread it out and it was just great. And, of course, she was the last one that Steve Wynn had to get the land from. And to do that, he gave her one of his big suites, plus a lot of money, to live in the Golden Nugget in her last days, which was a good business deal, but very gracious on his part. MR. ANDERSON: If you could just say her name for me. MR. McDONALD: Gracie Hayes. MR. ANDERSON: Now, I also understand that as far as The Strip went, her place was the only place that was integrated; is that right? MR. McDONALD: That's right. That's the only place that the entertainers used to go and entertain. And she'd call them up and say, "Sing for your dinner." Gordon MacRae or Sammy Davis or all of these people, you know. And it was TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 28 terrific. MR. ANDERSON: "Sing for your dinner." MR. McDONALD: That's right. MR. ANDERSON: Oh, that must have been something. MR. McDONALD: And she didn't have full course dinners. She just had hamburgers, pizza, chili, hot dogs, but the best. MR. ANDERSON: Amazing. MR. McDONALD: You know, the Sahara was the leader in entertainment. Stan Irwin did one hell of a job. In fact I was at the British Open in '64 and in the Ruesak Hotel (phonetic), which is the one that goes right down the 18th green. I was rooming with Gary Player. And the concierge there came and knocked on the door and says, "Mr. McDonald, you have a phone call." I woke up Gary, which didn't make him too happy. And I went down and it was Stan. "How are you?" I said, "Fine. What in the hell do you want at this hour?" "Well," he says, "You got to do me a favor. You got to do me a favor. I got you a suite at the London Hilton, but you've got to go see the Beatles." I had just come back from Tokyo, trying to find an office over there, because in '65 they were going to let the Japanese leave with $500 apiece. I hadn't heard anything. I said, "Stan, I'm not an exterminator, why would I go see the Beatles?" Well, he laughed so hard, he told me later, he wet TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 29 his pants. I don't know. But, anyway, I went in, and that night it was raining. And he said, "By the way, your golfing friend, Sean Connery, will be there." Buddy Greco, one of our entertainers, and still entertains here at the Desert Inn, is playing at the Talk of the Town. But he didn't tell me the trouble I'd have getting there. So it was kind of a light, rainy night. And I went outside and I said to the concierge out there, I said, "Get me a cab." He said, "You'll go eight or ten blocks within there." He said, "Go get a paper and put it over your head because you're going to walk the rest of the way because there's a half a million people trying to see the Beatles." I said, "You're kidding." He said, "No." So that was true. And they were waiting for me at the back door, and I went up and saw them. Then we watched Buddy Greco's show. And then later Sean and I and Buddy Greco took them out for dinner. And they had cobblestone shoes, no socks, wrinkled pants. And the drummer -- MR. ANDERSON: Ringo. MR. McDONALD: Ringo said to me, "I've heard of Las Vegas. I've heard of a neat place called the Silver Slipper." That's all those kids had heard of it. So I said, "Well, you're coming to Las Vegas, and we'll treat you right." TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 30 So when they come into the Sahara, it was in August, we put them in the penthouse suite so nobody could get at them. We put slot machines up there that would pay jackpots. The only problem is, Stan and I were supposed to go up Wednesday and get a picture, and we never did it. And Wednesday night, the movie people got them out of town on special jets. I regret that because I've got a lot of nice pictures in my office. But anyway, we played them at the convention center, two shows. I think their fees were 5 and 8 bucks. They were sold out. 25,000 people in the parking lot. So, I mean, it was just great. So we made 18,000 after paying them, which was unheard of. But it was the biggest one day -- still to this day -- handled ever in Las Vegas. MR. ANDERSON: You know, I look back on that. I was very young. I was 12 years old when the Beatles came out, and that's what I remember as the biggest thing that has happened in my life in entertainment. You've been in entertainment for a long time. You've seen a lot of acts. I'm sure many who you like maybe better than the Beatles because that really maybe wasn't your kind of music. But what was it about those guys that made such a big splash? MR. McDONALD: They were magic at the time. There was a lull in our country, you know. The Korean War had come in, and we had lost a lot of people down there, and the Vietnam War was worse. But they just had a magic to them. TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 31 And because they were clean, mean machine and sang, they just -- I'm telling you girls fainted at the convention center. We had three ambulances standing by to revive these girls. Screaming and yelling, it was unbelievable. Now, usually when a hotel has from 50 to 60 people who are 2,000 to $10,000 potential customers in a hotel, you've got a crowd. And that's hard to do today. We had 600 of our rooms with big players. Why? Because all those gamblers had kids in L.A. who wanted to see the Beatles, and "You'd better take me, or else, Dad." Anderson Dairy had to supply us. Our coffee shop was open around the clock. Lines, lines out in the swimming pool. And we put them up 18 stories. And these kids had to have stiff necks because they were all looking up there hoping to see them. But they were in there, playing the slot machines and watching TV. I've got to tell you one story. You might be interested in this. But all the personalities we've played, and believe me, they have them, the Buddy Hacketts, the Johnny Carsons, the Marlene Dietrichs, that's the one I want. Whenever she came and played, Stan and Mr. Perrell would leave town because she was so hard to handle, very demanding and spoke down to you and so forth. So I was at home, and it was around 4:35. She called me. She said, "Who are you? Who am I talking to?" I said, TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 32 "Well, this is Herb McDonald." She said, "What do you have to do with entertainment?" I said, "Well, Stan's out of town and I'm covering it." Says, "Well, I just want to let you know that unless you take all the white tablecloths out of the Sahara that don't have reservations," because it was a rainy night, "I'm not going to appear." I says, "Well, I'll tell you what. Why don't you meet me in the lobby of the hotel?" She said, "I should meet you in the lobby?" I said, "If we want to settle this thing, yes." So I dashed through the hotel, went down to Ralph Greco, and he's gone, darn it. And I said, "Do we still have that sign you put up when a star's sick that says 'Show Has Been Canceled'?" I said, "Put it up." Then I raced down to the lobby just in time to meet Marlene Dietrich. She's looking around. She says, "Where is this Mr. McDonald?" And I raised my hand, and she come over. She said, "Well, I've made up my mind. I'm not going on if you've got the tablecloths." I said, "Miss Dietrich, there's no problem." She says, "What do you mean?" I said, "I've already canceled the show." "You canceled the show?" I said, "That's correct. But I read your contract, it's going to cost you $7500." "Oh, no, no, I'll go on. I'll go on." MR. McDONALD: She later found out about it. I wouldn't take her calls. I can't speak German. She's gone too, but she was great. She drew. She wore the first TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 33 peekaboo gown on The Strip. No bra. MR. ANDERSON: Bob Mitchum got into a little trouble in California, and I guess you're a friend of his? MR. McDONALD: Yes, I know him through Perry Lieber, who was head of the RKL Studios, that Mr. Howard Hughes owned, and he called me up and he said, "I got a real problem." Mitchum and Jane Russell was making a movie of Las Vegas, and it was to be premiered that night. And she was married to Bob Waterfield, a quarterback of the L.A. Rams, very handsome guy. And he come up and caught Mitchum and Jane together, and he blacked her eye. So Perry says, "What are you going to do?" I said, "No problem, we have a lot of wind here. We'll just say that she leaned over to pick up something and the door swung open and hit her eye." So we put the patch on, and downtown that night, we closed all the streets for all the stars and stuff. And that's how it went. MR. ANDERSON: I'm thinking of another occasion too. MR. McDONALD: Oh, you're thinking of the time when he got nailed for marijuana. And then that was really yak. It was all over the papers, Daily News. Erskine Johnson had a headline on it. So Perry says, "What are we going to do?" I says, "No problem, I'll hide him out on the lake on our boat." He TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 34 says, "Well, how will you feed him?" I says, "Every day, I'll send out food by limo and have a boat go out, and I'll have him out at the lake so no one sees him." He says, "You'll do that?" I says, "You bet." So I did that. And then later on, I was at the Hollywood Roosevelt, and I had been on the sets at RKO 'cause I always do that. And Mitchum called me up at 6:00 in the morning and said, "I want you to come out and see my new house on Stone Canyon Road." And he says, "Now, Herbie, I haven't got any furniture, but I'm going to cook you breakfast because I still owe you." So my first wife, Phyllis, and I went out to his house. He had no furniture in this lavish home. And he fed us breakfast, great breakfast, and I ribbed him. I said, "Well, how did you get this?" He said, "I cooked this, you turkey. Eat it." But he was a neat guy. I'm sorry he's gone. MR. ANDERSON: Say his name for me. MR. McDONALD: Bob Mitchum. MR. ANDERSON: Okay. I'll edit that and put it on the front of that story. MR. ANDERSON: I'm trying to think of anything else. We've covered pretty much everything on the list. And I know that Frank was hoping to be here today, but he had to do something else on short notice. He wanted to know, are there TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 35 any other stories about The Strip or anything else about the early Strip? Because you were one of the first to be there and one of the few people still around who remembers it. MR. McDONALD: Well, there's some startling things about The Strip. There's a famous story about Mario Lanza. He was playing the Frontier Hotel, but he had stage fright and failed to show up, didn't do his show. And Governor Reagan played there in Death Valley days. And I knew him slightly, you know, but he had a good show. But that's how the town's changed. Everyone wore a coat and a tie. And in the summertime they even dressed up, you know. And now it's come as you are, you know. I just feel that we need more courtesy in this town. We need our state, county, city governments to get together and figure out the traffic problems that we've got because they're horrendous. And with the growth of another 12,000 rooms next year in the hotels, it's going to be worse. So we need to get on that because people are beginning to complain. Comdex, the parking lot, you know, some guy said it took 40 minutes for him to get out and get back to Caesars Palace, and in that time he lost his show reservation. So we've got to get onto these kind of problems. Our growth is great, but our intrastructure really needs attention. TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 36 And I hope for the people listening, that you pass the quarter cent tax because we need water. And ask your grocer when you go, whatever your tab is, ask him what would a quarter cent cost you? Would you rather have that or no water? I mean, I'm really for the one-quarter cent. MR. ANDERSON: Okay. I think we've covered it all. MR. McDONALD: Okay. (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 ??