1 NEVADA STATE MUSEUM & HISTORICAL SOCIETY LAS VEGAS, NEVADA THE LAS VEGAS I REMEMBER INTERVIEW WITH WILLIAM H. BAILEY 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. BAILEY: I'm Bob Bailey. My real name is William H. Bailey, but everyone knows me by Bob Bailey, and therein is a story within itself. MR. ANDERSON: I'll bet. Could you tell us about your arrival here, and when it was and why you first came to Las Vegas. MR. BAILEY: Well, we first came to Las Vegas to open the Moulin Rouge Hotel. And I was with the show, Clarence Robinson's "Tropicana Review." I was the co-producer and the master of ceremonies and production singer for the show. And that was in 1955. So that was my purpose of arrival in this great state of Nevada. MR. ANDERSON: And you had come from New York; right? MR. BAILEY: Yes, we came from New York. Actually, we were working in Boston at the time, the "Tropicana Review" was. And Clarence was given the invitation to come out to Las Vegas and discuss the possibility of bringing the show out here to open the Rouge. I stayed in Boston and kept the troupe there going. We had two shows that were actually on the road at that particular time, but I was living in New York. But, you know, as show people go, you're everywhere. So the prior engagement to Las Vegas was in Boston. MR. ANDERSON: Now, how about your first impressions TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 3 of Las Vegas? What did you first think when you got here? MR. BAILEY: I thought I was back in Mississippi somewhere. It was very Southern. And, of course, the desert can be a very attractive place at times and a very sullen place at other times. When I drove into town and came down Main Street and turned on Bonanza, there was this big underpass there where the trains go over, and D Street, which is your first street that you get to going west on Bonanza, I was greeted with all of these houses with outside privies. And it was really a shock how the houses were littered. Really shacks, a lot of shacks. There were some nice homes, of course, spread here and there. But for the most part, they were shacks and a lot of outside privies. You didn't get to any pavement until you got to about Van Buren, and that was because they had built two subdivisions to house the people that would be working at the Moulin Rouge. Cadillac Arms was the apartment complex, and Berkeley Square was the housing complex. And they were very nice, very nice indeed. And, of course, I guess the prerequisite of the development for the city was that you had to put in curbs and gutters and sidewalks and what have you. So that was a departure from the original first glimpse I saw of where the African-American community resided in Las Vegas at that time. TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 4 MR. ANDERSON: Now, when you came to a new town, wherever it was, how did you know where to find black people? MR. BAILEY: Well, there was an old standard direction: Look for the railroad and on one side of the railroad tracks, whatever side the whites are living on, whatever side of the railroad tracks, go to the other side, and that's where you'll find, usually, the African-Americans. Or in some cases, depending on the area, Chinese, and in some areas Hispanics. Somebody was always across the railroad tracks. And, in fact, across the railroad tracks is where all of the bawdy houses used to be, also. MR. ANDERSON: Are you talking about sporting houses? MR. BAILEY: Sporting houses, yeah. MR. ANDERSON: Brothels? MR. BAILEY: Bordellos. MR. ANDERSON: Okay. Were there any in West Las Vegas at that time? MR. BAILEY: No, not to my knowledge. MR. ANDERSON: You mentioned Hispanics, were there any Hispanics living on that side of town at that time? MR. BAILEY: Yeah. The Hispanics were living on the Westside, as well as blacks, at that particular time and raising gardens and getting along pretty well. There was a real dichotomy in that the schools were TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 5 integrated but not the living patterns. They only had a few elementary schools and only one high school, Las Vegas High School, and everybody went there. But when it was time for the prom or those kind of things, these segregated patterns set in. But, very interesting. MR. ANDERSON: So you came to open up this brand new hotel-casino, and you thought it was going to be good, but it really turned out to be greater than your expectations. Could you tell us a little bit about what the Moulin Rouge looked like, what the decor looked like inside, and what they had done, how they had built this place? MR. BAILEY: Well, the Moulin Rouge was a hotel that was quite adequate in that it mirrored the par excellence of the establishments on the Strip. It had the same kind of appointments, and in some instances, especially as far as the theatrical portion of the program was concerned, the equipment was actually better than what they had in the Strip hotels, because it was the latest equipment that was developed at that time. The lighting equipment, the sound equipment, it was all state of the art. The kitchen, of course, was one of the finest in the city in that one of the owners, Ruben, had a very famous restaurant in New York City, and he emulated the kind of par excellence cuisine that he had in New York. And we featured a lot of Chinese food. In an African-American place, it was TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 6 kind of a strange dichotomy, but it worked very well. The rooms were excellence. The furniture, everything was just first class. It would compare not only with any hotel in Las Vegas at that time, but I believe any hotel anywhere in the world. It was just that first class. MR. ANDERSON: Now, they went to great lengths to hire the best personnel in the country as well, did they not? MR. BAILEY: Right. Of course, the consideration was that there were not enough African-Americans here in Las Vegas that were master craftsmen in the various areas that would be able to compete with the service that was being given at the Strip hotels in downtown. So they sent across the country for the very finest waiters they could find, cocktail waitresses, beautiful girls, the managers at the desk. And from the East, primarily, and the Midwest is where most of the service help came from. There was no expenditure too great to bring in the best people they could find. And they went across the country and found them. The service was just absolutely first class. I think, probably, we had the best service as far as waiters are concerned, cocktail waitresses, bartenders. We may have had the best in the city. I may be a little prejudiced in saying that, but I had worked in some of the finest hotels and restaurants, nightclubs across the country in show business, and I had a point of reference as to comparing the service of TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 7 the Moulin Rouge with other top restaurants and nightclubs across the country. And it was not only comparable, but I would say it was superior. MR. ANDERSON: Tell me about the interracial aspect of the Moulin Rouge, because this was one of the pioneering first interracial resorts in the country where people of all races could mix and come and be entertained and gamble and drink and eat and rub shoulders together with people maybe that they had never seen before. Tell me about how that all worked. MR. BAILEY: Well, it worked very well. In fact, it worked too well in the final analysis. One of the marketing thrusts of the hotel itself was to provide a playground, so to speak, where people of all races and colors who come to Las Vegas could come together and enjoy each other. The contemporary cultural attitudes that were prevalent in the country would not be prevalent there. It was kind of a heyday place. Back East, we used to know these kinds of gatherings, and they called them "Black and tan joints," if you will. And that, of course, started in Harlem, and many other areas, in the urban areas, Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, Buffalo. Most of the larger towns did have clubs in the African-American communities where blacks and whites went because they couldn't gather in white establishments. TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 8 So this was the particular theme of the Moulin Rouge as an interracial spot, and it provided for a meeting place for even the stars. The African-American stars that worked on the Strip could not entertain and work with their white contemporaries in those establishments, so everybody came to the Moulin Rouge to do it. And after the working hours of the last show on the Strip and downtown, everyone gathered at the Moulin Rouge to have a ball. And it went on till 7:00, 8:00, 9:00 o'clock in the morning. It was just something out of a storybook. You would have to have been there to really be able to properly articulate the kind of atmosphere, the kind of electricity that was generated at this hotel. And especially in the late hours of the morning, that's when it really, really began to happen. It possibly could be compared to, in some ways, to the Cotton Club in New York. It was that kind of thing where it was located in a black area. It was on the rim of the African-American community, not set inside, but on the rim. And I would venture to say that 70 percent -- and I don't think I'd be far wrong -- 70 to 75 percent of the patronage was white. And that just made it even more exciting. I stumble over myself verbally when I start thinking about it and getting pictures of the wonderful times that we used to have and the thrill I used to get when I'd walk out on TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 9 the stage for a third show, which we had. They started at, I think, 2:00 o'clock in the morning. It would be nothing to walk out and see Gregory Peck. Just so many different stars that would be there -- Bob Hope, Frank Sinatra. You name it and they were there. And it was so exciting to be able to entertain people at this level that had come over to the Westside to enjoy themselves and have a good time, let their hair down and just be people. Just great. MR. ANDERSON: Wasn't that really sort of one of the benefits of segregation, though? Because without segregation, that may not have happened. MR. BAILEY: Well, I won't say that was one of the benefits of segregation, but I will say it was one of the outbursts, one of the outgrowths of discrimination. The hotel, as it was, could not have happened unless the times were what they were. I think I indicated that I felt this was a window in time where you had a condition that forced this kind of activity, this kind of a project, like the Moulin Rouge. Even though it was born out of inequity, it still had some positive merits to it that created a market that otherwise would not have been there. MR. ANDERSON: Yeah, that's really ironic. MR. BAILEY: Um-hm. MR. ANDERSON: That's really amazing. Gosh, I wish I could have been there. TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 10 A lot of people, I hear, who came to Las Vegas, this was their first exposure to Las Vegas. They heard radio programs that emanated from the Moulin Rouge. They may have heard Count Basie on some of the stations in Chicago or New York. Were you involved in some of those broadcasts? MR. BAILEY: They had an NBC weekend show that used to come from Las Vegas. It was one of the stops that they would make on the radio show. And I did a couple of appearances on behalf of the Moulin Rouge, but normally, I would introduce the stars who were being featured at that particular time in the showroom. And I didn't participate as a full-fledged announcer at that time, but I did introduce them for NBC. I think it was called Weekend Roundup or something of that nature. Most of our exposure was through media, quite a bit. Life magazine did a tremendous cover. In fact, we were on the front cover of Life magazine, and Life was a very big magazine at that time. And they did probably an eight- or ten-page spread on the Moulin Rouge and its significance, and the excellence of the entertainment, and of the service, and what have you. It was just a great article. In fact, all across the country, most of your leading magazines had come out to Las Vegas to do a show, to watch the shows, and to do an article on the Moulin Rouge. Because, as I said, there was nothing in the country like this, nothing TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 11 whatsoever like this. There were hotels in the various towns that were owned by and were in the African-American community, but they did not have the par excellence that the Moulin Rouge had. Like I said, the Moulin Rouge was a reflection of anything, including the Flamingo and the Desert Inn, and you name it, that was on the Strip. So there were nothing like this anywhere. And the various different writers for periodicals, when they would come out and see it, they were so impressed that we got all kinds of free publicity that normally we would have had to pay for. MR. ANDERSON: This reminds me of something that I hear, that the Strip bosses used to say that one of the reasons that they discriminated against black people especially was that they didn't think if they let black people into their establishments that white people would come and mix with black clientele. But, actually, the Moulin Rouge showed that to be absolutely false. MR. BAILEY: Well, I'm sure there were some of the white patrons that came to town that didn't come to the Moulin Rouge, but I think that they were quite possibly in the minority rather than the majority. One of the presidents of one of the hotels that I had a relationship with that developed in New York, he sat down and we talked about this situation and how different it was TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 12 from some of the things that we did in New York. And he was very, very clear in that he was not operating the hotel in a discriminatory fashion because he thought that was the right way to do it, but the fact that many of the players, the big players at that time, were from Texas, and Mississippi, and Arkansas, and Georgia, and they brought their mores with them from where they came. And they refused to gamble or socialize in any degree with black people. So this was an economic thing, I think, to a great degree. And I'm sure some will disagree with me. But I think economics had more to do with it than social segregated patterns that were set forth arbitrarily by the owners of these hotels. MR. ANDERSON: Okay. I guess, next, if you could, the stars that you remember best, tell me about some of the relationships with the really big stars who came to the Moulin Rouge and who came to Las Vegas that you knew personally quite well. MR. BAILEY: Well, Nat "King" Cole, of course, he was my running buddy when he came in town. Lena, I had a friendship with her, and Dinah Washington. Sammy Davis and I were very close. Billy Daniels, Billy Eckstine, of course. Sarah Vaughan. Just about all of the big stars that came to town, I had known them from the days when I was with Count Basie, and that was over a period of three years. So we had TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 13 an opportunity to work together in theaters and in nightclubs, and you just transfer those relationships on as you go along. But Louie Armstrong, Pops, was a great feature out here and a great guy, and one who, even if he would have been able to stay in the hotels at that time, would still probably have stayed with some of the friends of his in the African-American community. He was that kind of a guy, just a great guy. Sam Smith, Duke Ellington, of course. Benny Carter. All of these people, we pretty much clung to each other across the country, because, let's be honest about it, Las Vegas was not the only place where there was discrimination as far as social patterns were concerned at that time. And we all had a tendency to meet when we worked in various cities, which were mostly the urban areas, so you were always running across each other. Even if you weren't on the same show, you were working in the same town, and you get together in the after hours, whether it's the theater or whether it's the nightclub. And that's where all the jazz sessions and the jam sessions and the sing-outs and what have you occurred. And a lot of that was because of the segregated patterns that we had socially across the country. So Vegas wasn't the only place where this went down. It was just so predominant here without there really being any laws that said it had to be that way. The only segregated TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 14 laws in the state at that time were against Orientals, not against the African-Americans. So it was, here again, an economic thing as well as a social pattern to discriminate. MR. ANDERSON: Do you have any favorite stories or anecdotes about some of the stars with whom you were close that might have something to do with the Moulin Rouge or might illustrate something about the town or your relationship with them or some of the things that happened at the Moulin Rouge you think might be historically interesting or interesting to our audience? MR. BAILEY: Well, quite contrary to belief, we had no physical problems at the Moulin Rouge during the six months it was open. The one that we had was two white guys that were fighting over a black woman, and one fell in the pool. That was the only one that everybody thought was really hilarious. And, of course, that was covered up immediately, if not sooner. But Harry Belafonte used to come in. Whenever he would come in, he would start at the steps walking down in the casino and start singing one of his songs that was from the Indies. And everybody would stop until the pit would tell him, "I know, you're Belafonte, but you're getting into my money. Would you please be quiet?" We had all kinds of crazy things. Pop, Louie Armstrong, used to come in when Wild Bill Davis was playing in TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 15 the lounge, which was right adjacent to the casino pit area. And Pops would come in and tell everybody to stop gambling, that he had a story to tell. And, of course, they couldn't get into the casino areas where they were working on the Strip, so they thought this was a funny thing. And he wasn't embarrassed or anything. But we did pull him to the side and said, "Louie, we love you very much, but if you come in again and you stop the gambling, we're going to have to have the security guards put you out." And nobody would believe that this would happen with Pops, but there were all kind of little things that went down. Some stories that I dare not tell. MR. ANDERSON: Oh, those are probably the ones we really want to hear. MR. BAILEY: I know those are the ones you really want to hear. But, you know, in those days you had a lot of people that were involved in the administration of the hotels that today would be in the black book. But during those days, you had people that understood gambling, and they had to be utilized in order to protect the investment dollars that were on those tables every night. So, I ran into people at the Moulin Rouge that I had known in New York, not personally known, but known of them in New York, who were some rather radical fellows. But they ran the pits, not only at the Moulin Rouge, but also on the Strip, or I should say on the TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 16 Strip and the Moulin Rouge. And I'll leave that right there. MR. WRIGHT: Was there a lot of play on the tables; do you recall? MR. BAILEY: Play was very good on the tables. I don't know whether or not it was apropos to the dollar play that went on, say, at the Flamingo or at the Desert Inn, but the table stayed full. And the tables were excellent in the morning from about 1:30, 2:00 o'clock on to 6:00, 7:00, 8:00 o'clock in the morning. That's when we had our third show, and that's when everybody would come over from the strip and from downtown to have the morning festivities at the Moulin Rouge. So the tables really filled up at that time. Prior to that, you're looking at what came from the rooms, and those who came to catch the first and second show. You know, as they dumped out, they would go through the casino. But the real heavy play was in the morning between probably 1:30 and 6:00 or 7:00 o'clock in the morning. That's when the heavy timber came in. MR. WRIGHT: Did the strip hotels actively try to prevent their patrons from going to the Moulin Rouge? MR. BAILEY: Well, that's an interesting story. Gamblers follow the ladies. That's just the way it is. I didn't make that rule up. What began to happen was this third show that we had in the morning was attracting not only the stars of the shows, but the girls in the lines, the TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 17 showgirls. And as the showgirls went, the guys would come. And every morning what was happening was half of the showgirls from the various hotels would end up at the Moulin Rouge, and they would bring the gamblers over with them. And it began to kind of hurt. At first it was novelty, and all of the hotels were satisfied with the Moulin Rouge because they felt it would take the pressure off of them at that time from having to integrate. But they did not count on the kind of freak thing that happened where the girls were going to come over, and the guys were going to follow the girls, and these were the heavy gamblers, so that made our early morning thing. And some of the hotels, they economically felt it very badly. So what they did, they posted notice on the boards in the backstage that any of the dancers caught in the Moulin Rouge would be automatically fired. And they sent spotters over to the hotel, to the Rouge, to make sure that they would make some examples out of an initial few, but they stopped it pretty much. And as a result, it didn't help the Moulin Rouge because it took some of the large players away. I think that quite possibly this was one of the detriments that the hotel suffered maybe after two, two and a half, three months that we were into the opening and performance. Let's see, we opened in May, and we closed in October. I'd say, May, June, July, somewhere around there is where they started posting these notices in the backstages. TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 18 So that was not a good thing. A number of girls did get fired as a result of that. And it started a strained kind of relationship, whereas prior to opening and during the initial months of opening, it was a very warm relationship between the Rouge and downtown and the Strip. In fact, a lot of African-Americans that were coming through and stopping at the train station, which was a predominant intersect of transportation at that time, they would be escorted or would be directed toward the Moulin Rouge. And everybody was happy that there was a place they could recommend that was a first-class place to blacks that were coming into the town. So it was a very amiable relationship until the economics factor took place with the girls bringing the gamblers over. And from that point on, there was a relationship between the hotels and the Rouge, but it wasn't at the same level that it was originally, unfortunately. MR. WRIGHT: Do you know if significant numbers of African-Americans came to Las Vegas specifically because of the Moulin Rouge? Or did they tend to stay away because they couldn't go on the Strip, and they wouldn't come to Las Vegas. MR. BAILEY: Well, you had different tiers in the African-American market economically today as there was then. Joe Lewis was responsible for bringing a lot of people in, a TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 19 lot of black players in. And during those days, there were a number of blacks who handled large sums of money that were in the number business back East, and the clearing house, and the various different gaming that was in the communities, policy. And these guys had long pockets, and they followed Joe Lewis. As today, gamblers and everything follow sporting events. Well, it was the same thing then. And as you have, even today, there are certain people who work in the casino who have books, what they call books. And they're gamblers that are friends of them that follow them to whatever hotel they go to. Well, we had the same kind of people there. Sonny Boswell, who was the manager at that time, had the very big following in Chicago. Joe, of course, had following all over the country. And there were five or six other African-Americans who were involved as hosts in the casino that have had good following of doctors and lawyers. And they depended on that tier of black marketing to bring in the large players, and that's basically what happened. So they did have a significant number. They didn't have the volume that we look to today, but none of the hotels at that time worked on volume, they worked on big players. They might bring one big player in that would make the whole night. And I can think of a number of different guys that I know, or knew, from Buffalo, and from New York, and from Cleveland, Detroit, who came out with TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 20 suitcases full of money. And I'm sure that was money that the IRS was not aware of. So, you know, that goes on and on and on. But to answer your question, yeah, there were some significant African-American players that came out at that time. MR. ANDERSON: So the Moulin Rouge was open from May '54 to October '55, is that it? MR. BAILEY: I don't know. No, May '55 to October '55. It closed in six months -- MR. ANDERSON: Okay. MR. BAILEY: -- to standing room only. MR. ANDERSON: I mean, this was a glorious six months. If you could, just sort of summarize what that meant to you and so many other people and to the Las Vegas community for us. MR. BAILEY: Well, I think it provided a point of reference that a hotel of this type that had predominant African-American service, that had integrated administration all the way through, can work, and it did work in a time that was very precarious in the social development of this country. And I think that same thing could happen today. But it took two Caucasians to put together the idea and to be able to get access to the kind of capital necessary to put a hotel of this level together. I think today that same thing could TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 21 be done, and certainly it could be done with capital that's coming out of the African-American community to a great extent. My gratification of being a part of the Moulin Rouge is that I was a part of something that was very significant in the history of the development of this industry and the state of Nevada, and moreover, a part of an institution that represented an integrated force that was America. It really was. MR. ANDERSON: So, this was one of the best of the best things that ever happened in this country? MR. BAILEY: Absolutely. I hear people talk about what can't be done rather than what could be done. And I saw something that did happen, and it was a glorious six months. And it could not happen again because the conditions that made it what it was don't exist anymore. And if you weren't there, you'll never have that experience. You'll never have that. It was great. MR. ANDERSON: A lot of people find it difficult to understand how a place that was so successful, took standing room crowds -- and Alice Key told us this same thing. What happened? Why did it close? MR. BAILEY: Well, here again, there's a lot of speculation as to why it closed. The closest that I would proffer for the reasons, they had a number of short-term notes TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 22 that had come due. They had some problem also in financing, getting the proper financing, long-term financing, high-leverage financing that the other places were getting in their development. And most of the people that were holding these short-term notes were being very patient. Some were purveyors for the most part. And what happened, as the hotel started reaching a level of success beyond really anybody's expectation, some of the hotels indicated that they were not being given the same kind of breaks, if you will, that the Moulin Rouge was getting, and they weren't carrying their paper, but they were carrying our paper, and said, "Well, we'll stop buying from you if you don't call your notes due, and you'll have to come up to the plate the same way we do." That was one of the issues that came up in the bankruptcy court. Another reason was that there certainly was money going out the back door, I think, that was unaccounted for, because the drops that were coming out of that hotel should have been more than sufficient to be able to handle its debt service, as far as I could see at that time. So I think those were the main reasons that it happened. And, like I say, it just went beyond anybody's dream of what was going to happen. Everybody thought it would be a nice hotel, and, you know, they'd have their place in the system. It would be a place where they could send the TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 23 African-Americans that come in. But they didn't count on 75 to 80 percent of the clientele being white, and that was supposed to be going to their hotels. They thought it was going to be primarily black. It just didn't turn out that way. As you mentioned earlier, a lot of blacks did not come because that was the only place they could go to. And they didn't want to come out and be restricted to one hotel in Las Vegas, so the masses did not come at all. So that has contributed also. But it was a number of contributing factors, and I think the predominant one was the fact that there was malfeasance in the handling of the capital that was coming in, of the income that was coming in. As you probably are aware, Bismo, who was one of the original owners, was found selling fraudulent stock, and he went to the penitentiary for two years. There were people that had bought shares all from the Northwestern part of the country that came in. And I remember very vividly sitting around waiting to meet with Bismo to find out what was happening with their life savings, in some cases, and it was just really a pure mess. And I can't think of the name of the individual that tried to take over in the bankruptcy with I guess it was a Chapter 11, I guess. He was the head of Miracle Whip at that time, and he was involved in some things in Hollywood, TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 24 producing some movies in Hollywood. And he came over and tried to pull it out, but it was going to take more capital than what he was willing to put in to satisfy the indebtedness that was present at that time. So, it was a number of contributing factors that did it. And I don't think any one is more relevant than the other, other than draining the income that was coming in, and that definitely was happening. MR. WRIGHT: Might it also have been a factor that Las Vegas was over-built that year, with five hotels opening that summer? And I think they all got into difficulty economically. MR. BAILEY: Yeah. Well, see, they had access to capital to be able to stay afloat until they could turn that around. The Moulin Rouge didn't have that. And it's like in any business cycle, those that have deep pockets can last until the cycle turns around, but if you're pockets are shallow, you go under. Also at that time, you had money that was coming from all kinds of income streams that were being put into the Strip hotels to keep them afloat. You didn't have that same resource at the Moulin Rouge. Ruben was not a gangster as such, as far as I know. Bismo was not. Bismo was a construction man. Ruben was a restaurateur. And I don't think they had the same kind of connections that the Desert TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 25 Inn had, or that the Sands had, or that Beldon Katleman had. There was a different kind of capital injection that put it together than was supporting and that built the other hotels. So that had a little something to do with it, too. There's a lot of underlying factors that none of us really know for sure. MR. ANDERSON: But the demise of the Rouge didn't stop you. You were involved in many different business enterprises after that, one of which was a television program. Could you tell us a little bit about that. MR. BAILEY: Yeah. I had gone to television school back in New York at the Columbia Theater wing. I took television/theater production back there. I left Basie in 1949, and I went to school, I guess, in '51, because I came out to California and did a show. And I had been trying to get a television show back in New York. And everywhere I worked theatrically, I would try in that town to get a television show. No dice, no dice. So, finally, when we came out to the Moulin Rouge, I guess in about the third month or so, we were doing television spots. And I said, "Well, why don't you let me put a show together?" And I wrote a show up, and it was a good show called "The Talk of the Town." And Alice Key, incidentally, was my co-host at that time. And I went to Hank Greenspun -- Hank owned Channel 8 TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 26 at the time -- and told him what I wanted to do and told him that the Moulin Rouge was going to back it. And he said, "Okay, you're on. Let's put it on." So that went on the third or fourth month -- I don't remember now -- that the Moulin Rouge was open, and we introduced all of the different stars on the Strip. And different people would be people coming in, and they would come up on the show. And Nat would come up and do his thing. Duke, everybody supported it. It was a great television show. After the Rouge closed, the show had become so popular that the television station wanted to keep it on. And they said, "We'll sell it, and we'll give you a little taste," which was fine. What was significant to me was I finally had the opportunity to put a television show on and to do what I wanted, really, to do for the past four or five years since I had come out of the school. After six weeks, we signed another contract, and they sold that. So in the meantime, the hotel closed, but the television show was still going. So I stayed, and I got a radio show. I guess the latter part of the year, October or November, it went on radio KENO, which was the radio station at that time. And I continued to do television and radio and was very -- well, very successful at it for about 18 years. I was TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 27 on and off radio, but I was on television consistently during that time. And I went to Los Angeles and did a 13-week show. I had an offer up in San Francisco. But in the meantime, what had transpired was that I had each reached a certain pinnacle at that time which the market would allow as far as your salary was concerned. You can only make as much as the market will absorb, which was much less than what I had been making in show business, the difference between maybe $1,000 a week and about $200 a week. So it was a big disparity there. So what I did was I opened a nightclub to try and utilize some of the publicity that I was getting out of the television show and making a buck out of it. And it became kind of the "Black and tan club" over on the Westside. Of course, there's many things that happened in between there, too. We had the opening of another hotel called the Carver House, which was on Jackson Avenue. And they had started building before the Moulin Rouge closed because it was going to be another injection of activity in the black area. So when the Moulin Rouge closed, the Carver House continued to build off of the popularity that the Moulin Rouge had established, that it could be done. And I worked there as the theatrical director and the publicist for them. In fact, we put a radio show in there, and we used to broadcast from right out of the lobby of the TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 28 Carver House. And Sammy Davis was involved in that. Billy Eckstine was involved in that. I don't know if they had much investment, but they served as hosts for it and did some of the publicity that went out across the country, that they were involved. And that, of course, was before I opened my place. I got a little ahead of myself I guess. That was in probably '56, '57 that the Carver House opened up. Then later on it changed names to The Cove. And I was involved in that doing some of the public relations and all of the radio and television advertizing. So all of these things kind of kept me on television. And I left Channel 8 in '58, and I went with my cousin, Pearl Bailey, on the road for a couple of years as her manager. And I came back in '60 and went back on Channel 8. No, I'm wrong. I left Channel 8 in '57 and went on Kay Show TV, Channel 13, when they first opened with Gus Guiffre. I don't know if you've ever heard the name. I know Frank knows him. Gus was the engineer at that time, and Channel 13 was on the top of the Fremont Hotel, and that's where we used to emanate from. I wasn't allowed to come through the lobby, through the front door. I had to go through the back entrance, the employee's entrance, to go up to the television studio, which while it was indignant to me to some extent, it did not deter my wish to be on television. You know, some bad TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 29 comes with some good. And I knew that one thing would be solved. But in the meantime, as prejudiced as the town was at that time, or I will say as discriminatory as the town was, people let me in their homes on the television set because I had one of the top ratings at that particular time of the local people in town. So it was just kind of gratifying that everywhere I had been and I couldn't get a television show, all of the places back East that were so-called liberal and what have you, but here in Las Vegas, where I couldn't walk through the front door, I could get a television show and stay on. And the station sold it to some of the top sponsors in the city. In fact, I had some of the hotels as sponsors. I mean, it's just a crazy thing. How do you explain it? I don't know. I didn't have the Fremont Hotel, though. But there was the Desert Inn and their classic from time to time. The Sands gave me a good play. The Dunes, Major Riddle at the Dunes gave me good spots. I had a number of the hotels on, but the blacks couldn't go in the hotels I was advertizing for. So I think it's just a crazy thing the way it happened. How you explain that, I don't know, except that I had the listening audience and the television audience, and that's what people buy. They buy the statistics of who watches and who am I reaching as opposed to who it is that's doing it. TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 30 And later, of course, the Fremont opened their doors for me to come through the front. The station manager was Alex Gould at the time. Flora Duncan was the accountant for the station, and she was very well involved with the general manager of the Fremont. I think his name is Eddie Levinson, I believe. And she talked to him about the fact that I was going to take a situation and put it on the air and let people know I couldn't walk through the front door and to please ask people to come down and stand in front of the hotel and support me while I walked through. Of course, I wasn't going to do all of this, but it was good copy. And Eddie Levinson set up an appointment with Flora for me to come down and talk with him. He indicated at that point, he said, "You come through the front door when you want to. But I'd appreciate it if you won't go into the casino and do any gambling." And he again reiterated the fact that a lot of his gamblers were not as sophisticated as those on the Strip and would object very strongly to a black being able to stand next to them and gamble. See, I don't gamble. I've never gambled. I'm not interested in gambling. It just destroys my dignity to not be able to come into the hotel through any door I want to, to get up to my place of work. So that was the agreement we made. And from that point forward, I was allowed, as one of those few blacks, to walk through the front door. That didn't mean TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 31 everybody, you know. It was so many different kinds of little things that happened. But at any rate, that's how I stayed in television and radio for 18 years here, up until about, I guess, '76, '77, somewhere around up in there. I was doing things back and forth from '72 on, not on a regular weekly basis, but I did a lot of specials, and I did a lot of pick-ups for NBC here. In fact, I did a number of things for some of the studios. If something would happen here and they would want the on-the-spot interview, I did some of those, quite a few with NBC at that time. MR. ANDERSON: All of this was in a town or a state that you referred to as... MR. BAILEY: The "Mississippi of the West." That's what it was. That goes through 1962, 1961, actually. Grant Sawyer opted to run for governor of the State of Nevada. And at that particular time, he was trying to get as much support out of the various ethnic communities as possible. He was from upstate and really wasn't known down here in Southern Nevada, so it was going to be quite a hassle for him to be overcome. I don't remember who he was running against at that particular time, but it was certainly someone who was diametrically opposed to the kinds of philosophies that he had, which were in tune with Jack Kennedy. And I was, frankly, a Republican at that time. I TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 32 came here from New York as a Republican. I had been a Republican all of my life, since I was 18, since I was first allowed to register. And I sit and listened to this man, and he so impressed me that I committed myself to work for him. I went out the next day, and I changed my registration from Republican to Democrat and went to work for him, went out in the streets. And we registered voters and really put a juggernaut together, which he always indicated had a lot to do with his election, that first gubernatorial election. Once he was elected governor, he had promised one of the first things he would do, he would have a public policy of the state which was something that we could deal with, and that was to open up avenues of the economy and of social accommodations to all people regardless of race, creed or color. That had never been done. No public policy had ever been stated. And with a public policy, though, it does not mandate anything. It can be worked into a commitment that anyone using government licenses to do anything would have to relate to that public policy. So that gave us a beginning. He also promised that he would establish a committee or commission that would hear the conditions and actually come up with some sort of solutions that could be suggested to the legislature. In 1961 he did that. It was the Nevada State Equal Rights Commission. It was an investigatory commission originally. I chaired the commission. John -- oh, goodness, TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 33 the judge. John -- MR. WRIGHT: Mendoza? MR. BAILEY: John Mendoza. We had -- oh, goodness. George Rudiak. I'm trying to think. He's with UNLV -- UNR now. John -- oh, goodness. I can't think of his name. There's two of them. It was he and the lady from one of the counties, and we held hearings throughout the state. We had no money except our per diem and some money that was allowed for transcripts and that was about it. The commission, of course, was inaugurated because the governor had promised it. So the legislature in their wisdom said, "Well, they can have a commission, but we're not going to give them any money." Which is another way of saying, "Get off my back, fly." But anyway, we fooled them, and we did some very successful hearings across the state, where, actually, at that time, we could not get a place to hold our hearing in Reno. The state didn't have a building in Reno, so we had to go to the federal courthouse. The city would not even allow us to use their auditorium for the hearing. So what we did was we held it at the federal courthouse in Reno. We held it at the federal courthouse down here in Las Vegas. It wasn't state, of course, as it was in Reno. But once we set the pattern of being able to get in the federal courthouses, it was easier to just go there than to try to go through a hassle, trying to get city accommodations or other accommodations that might fit TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 34 at that particular time. We had our hearing in Hawthorne, and that's where we ran into the Smith brothers at the El Capitan Hotel. And they were just rabidly segregationists. I was not allowed, as the chairman of an executive commission for the State of Nevada, was not allowed to stay in the hotel. Two of the members on the commission did stay in the hotel, the other ones didn't. They stayed with me in a little, crummy motel. I wouldn't want to remember the name, even if I could. And we had hearings there. They did not answer the subpoenas. We did have the right of subpoena. That was the big tool that we did have. We didn't have money, but we could subpoena you. And we actually ended up subpoenaing more people than the Kefauver Committee when it came through. And we subpoenaed the top people who were the licensees on the gaming licenses so that we could have a factual document to turn into the legislature at the end of our two-year period. What happened, of course, is we were cut short after about a year and two months or so by an injunction that the Smith brothers at the El Capitan brought against the commission, that it was unconstitutional. And, oh, they had all kind of legal jargon. At any rate, we had to cease and desist our hearings at that point. But we had gathered sufficient information to be able to write a report that was unarguable as to the fact that TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 35 discrimination did, in fact, exist in the various areas that it existed in, in the procurement and the expenditures of public funds in the private sector. We proved it really in the public and private sector, which we had to deal with. And having done our work well, we finally were released from the judgment that the Smith brothers had gotten. And they subsequently sold the hotel, which is just kind of like the bottom note. Rather than to comply, they said, "We don't want to be here anymore." So they sold the hotel, which I was very happy about because I could stay in it then. But here we're talking about a place like Hawthorne where you had the second largest federal installation in the state, a naval base up there. And we had to eat at the base because there was no place in Hawthorne to eat. It was quite a time during those days. Bottom line, of course, is that the report itself justified some legislation. And we went to work in putting together the statute that has been enhanced to some degree as we know it today. But the initial legislation was put together by Dan Walsh, who was with the Attorney General's office, and myself, Earl White, and Charlie Kellar. And what we did was we sent and got legislation that had been passed in other states. And we tried to tailor something that was going to address what our problems were here, which are a little unique because of the industry that it is than other areas. TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 36 And there was no intent to do anything that was going to negate the successful patterns that we had here, only to adjust the social patterns and to provide for equal opportunity in the employment in the hotels. Those were our main objectives, and those were the objectives that were written into the law as it stood at that time and basically as it stands today. So I got into the equal rights thing and into the political scene just basically on necessity in doing so. And because we had a man like Grant Sawyer, who provided the necessary leadership under which we could accomplish some things, that had to be good for the state, not bad for the state. But the overall picture was that it was a good thing for the state, and it opened up to a lot more volume than what was coming in at that time. What was beginning to happen in the industry was that you were beginning to lose some of the big players, which is what they depended on. And the state was kind of gradually going over to volume as its marketing program as opposed to marketing just the heavy players, which was the beginning of what we have now. It's all volume, how many heads come through the door. So I stayed as the chairman of the permanent commission. The regulatory, the investigatory commission ended, I think, in '63, '62 or '63. And the regular TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 37 commission, as we know it today, I stayed chairman of that until Sawyer went out of office. And then from that point on, I went back to being a Republican. MR. ANDERSON: That seems amazing in that time that a young black man would be a Republican back in those days. MR. BAILEY: Well, you know, in the South, most blacks were Republicans before Franklin Roosevelt. And even after that, you had a preponderance of blacks that were Republicans because that was related to the Civil War. In Cleveland and in New York -- Chicago and Detroit were still more Democrats because of the Union participations. In Cleveland and New York and Atlanta, you had a preponderance of blacks that were Republicans. My father was a Republican, a staunch Republican. And all my uncles were Republicans in Cleveland. MR. ANDERSON: Did they vote for Barry Goldwater? MR. BAILEY: No, they weren't Republicans then. But I'll tell you one thing, I had some very interesting conversations with Barry Goldwater. MR. ANDERSON: He's quite a guy. MR. BAILEY: Yeah. I didn't necessarily support some of his areas of thought, but there were other ones that where we clashed was on his opinions about where the country should be going socially. And I don't believe that you can say one thing and then practice another. I don't think that you can TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 38 take the Constitution and make it for just one group of people and the Bill of Rights and make it for one group of people and not for all. And that's basically where my difference is. And I still have some of those differences, which I don't want to get off into now. MR. ANDERSON: Barry's very ill right now. He's almost gone. MR. BAILEY: Yeah, I read in the paper about that. But during those days, we had a very extremely conservative Republican party in the state, extremely conservative. But the principles were the things that you follow, and that's how I followed Grant Sawyer. I would have followed Grant Sawyer anywhere. He was not only a man of vision and foresight, but he was a man of commitment. And he had a word. If he told you he was going to do something, you could take it to the bank. And I haven't had the opportunity of being exposed to too many politicians of that kind in my lifetime. So that was my interesting episode with going from Republican to Democrat and back to Republican. MR. ANDERSON: I know our time is growing short here and I really want to cover that time between February, March in 1960 when you were also involved with the NAACP and with Dr. James McMillan and many others in pushing for public accommodations. Could you sort of give me your version of the blow-by-blow of what happened from the time that the ultimatum TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 39 letter went out to Oran Gragson until the time that this situation was resolved? MR. BAILEY: Well, there was a strategy that was developed prior to the actual incident as anticipated, the march. We pretty much had figured there was so much that the commission could do. There was so much that the NAACP could do. There was so much that the Voters League as such could do. And these were the two major entities that had any kind of significance as far as their actions were concerned, the only three organizations that I think could make a difference. But no one separately by itself was strong enough to be able to bring down what would necessarily be a rationale in the white community that segregation and its pattern should change. So what we did was we used the same methodology, I guess, that is used in the service. I was heading the commission, and we had the support of the state and the equal rights laws at that time or the investigatory and the public policy. Dr. McMillan was the head of the NAACP, and Dr. West was in charge of the Voters League. So we got together to put together sort of a triad approach to how we would deal with this, each one doing what they could do best. Mac, with the NAACP, was going to be the spearhead, as the NAACP had been in its activities all across the country. Dr. West was going to be dealing with all of the TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 40 politicians who we had supported and who had some commitment to that black vote. My job was to work with the governor and to use the force of the state to be able to implement the public policy of the state and the support for the activity. We recognized that we might not be able to get the number of people out that we anticipated or that we would claim. So we had to pick a time that was going to be a proper time, and that was when the eyes of the country were going to be on Las Vegas. Recognizing at the time that every third picture that went out over the AP wire was something from Las Vegas, we knew that if there was an event that was coming here that we would get the kind of press and exposure that would be necessary to add the kind of emphasis that would be necessary to get some attention. The big fight that was coming up -- I can't remember now who was fighting -- but it was a big -- who in the world? MR. ANDERSON: Liston-Patterson? MR. BAILEY: That might have been it. MR. ANDERSON: Was that in '60? MR. WRIGHT: No, '63 was Liston. I'm just wondering if there were two separate events. Right around March or February of '60, I couldn't find any big fights, but in '63 was Liston-Patterson. MR. BAILEY: Well, that must have been the Liston-Patterson, then. It must have been '63 'cause the TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 41 governor was still -- that was the strength of the whole thing. But anyway, let me go through the strategy of it. So the idea was to send out a notice to the AP and UP at that time that a march was being planned to march on the Strip because of the lack of public accommodations and equal job opportunities and what have you. Hank Greenspun was notified of what we were going to be doing, and the Strip kind of used Hank as an entree into our group because everybody had a relationship with Hank. I had a particular one, but Dr. West and Mac also had good relationships there. So what we did was we put the notices out that we were going to march. Mac did most of the front press work. Dr. West contacted all of the politicians, and I stayed with the government and our commission. It was a total support. We got up until, I guess, the day prior to the march and the governor was out of the state. I had to get in touch with him. I called Bob, his right-hand man. He's with Lionel Sawyer now. Anyway, I called him and told him I who was coming up. MR. ANDERSON: Bob Collins? MR. BAILEY: Not Collins, no. Frank, you know. MR. WRIGHT: That one escapes me. MR. ANDERSON: Lionel? MR. BAILEY: He's with Lionel and Sawyer. Oh, TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 42 goodness, I am so embarrassed. I can't think. MR. WRIGHT: Tom Faiss. MR. BAILEY: Faiss. Yeah, Bob Faiss. Exactly right. Bob was Sawyer's right-hand man, and I did most of my business through him when the governor was away. So I told him what was happening. And I said, "If the governor doesn't come in and intercede in this, that the march is going to come off. It's just that simple." So he gave me a number to call, and I called this number and it was in New York. The governor was in New York at that time being interviewed, talking about Las Vegas. And he called me back, and I told him, "We're getting ready to march, and the only person that I think that can intercede in this thing is you, and you're going to have to get back here." So he got on a plane and came back. That's when we met him at the airport and took him to the Moulin Rouge, and that's when the meeting came about. MR. ANDERSON: Now, this was 1963. Okay. I'm trying to recreate the 1960 scenario as well. Now, in 1960, in February, March there, Dr. McMillan recalled that things got pretty tense there for a while, that he was threatened, that you and a couple of others even -- MR. BAILEY: Yeah, we stood guard. MR. ANDERSON: Right. MR. BAILEY: Yeah, yeah. I'm trying to remember if TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 43 Dr. West had his newspaper out at that time. I don't think so. Yes, he did have it, The Voice. And we were talking about doing some marching at that particular time. It was happening all over the country, and we talked about it. And Mac started getting these notes. Mac was pretty vocal at that time. And there was only two things really going then, that was the Voters League and the NAACP because the commission had just been formed, but it was an investigatory commission; it didn't have any teeth at that point, only to hold hearings and to have the right of the subpoena. But he had two or three threats that were pretty serious threats. And so we sat vigil around the house, I guess, for about a week taking different shifts with the shotguns and the whole bit. I mean, very serious situation. But nobody ventured to come because you'd had to come too far into the Westside to get to him. And that was the best protection that he had. MR. ANDERSON: Then you couldn't get out. MR. BAILEY: Exactly. So we were pretty well strategically situated. And a lot of the guys were former Army guys, and they had some pretty good sense of how to set up and where to establish bulkheads and what have you. But it was an exciting time. And there was a lot going on on the Westside at that TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 44 time. The black community itself was torn into maybe more than one faction, a couple of factions at least. And there are always those in the community who take advantage of conditions and play the race card, so we had some of those, too. But that's about all. Some certain things trigger other things as you go along. But the meeting that was brought about by the triad and the various different prongs that we put together to bring that meeting about. And of course, what happened in the final analysis was that when the governor came in, he and Hank took the position of talking to a lot of the hotel owners, primarily the Riviera, the Sands, the Desert Inn, the Dunes. I think those are the primary ones. We still have had a problem with Fremont Street. Fremont Street was the last one to come in. 'Cause it was a very different class of patronage that went on the Fremont Street than went on the Strip. MR. ANDERSON: I know Binion was pretty tough. MR. BAILEY: Oh, very tough. The Golden -- MR. WRIGHT: Golden Gate? MR. BAILEY: Yeah, they were the toughest, though. They were just adamant. They threw a paraplegic out. MR. ANDERSON: Dr. McMillan told us that story. MR. BAILEY: Oh, yeah. They threw a paraplegic out, and he sued and won some money, too. And there was two or TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 45 three places down there that were just absolutely rabid. And here, of course, the same thing that I went through at the Fremont, that was still prevalent at that particular time. The most significant march that happened here, of course -- and you should talk with her if you get a chance -- was Ruby Duncan's march on the Strip. They marched; it was a march. There must have been 2, 3,000 people in the march. A lot of people came from out of town. And I know you've heard the story. They went in the Frontier and into the buffet there and took the whole room over. Everybody ate, belched, and then got up and walked out. Here they come, "Who's going to pay the bill?" And they just kept walking. Of course, later, she had to pay for that, I think. I don't know how it went down, but they brought a suit against her and everything. But that was the only real march that happened. The rest of it was based on a threat. That primarily was what it was. If we would have had the march, we would have marched. But it was better not to have marched because the economy still affected us as well as everybody else if the economy went down. It was just you get to a point where you're not going to go any further, and you're going to use the benefits of the Constitutional guarantees to demand your rights. We were at that point at that time, but realistically recognizing that if there was more than one way we could skin the cat, TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 46 let's try a number of other ways without having to go to the extreme measure. MR. ANDERSON: Go to the wall, right? MR. BAILEY: Exactly. MR. ANDERSON: Now Alice Key was here the other day, and she told us some other complimentary angles to this whole story. And she says that in 1960 that on the corner of F and Jackson there were a number of people ready to march. Did you know anything about that? MR. BAILEY: Oh, yes, absolutely. That was the Town Tavern that was there at that particular time. And right next to that, we had a little political headquarters, and that's what generated that activity. And here we're talking about going downtown on Fremont Street, that was the energy that was put together on that. I don't know exactly how that resolved itself. I don't remember how that resolved itself, but it did. MR. ANDERSON: Alice says that someone rode up with a telegram from the bosses, a forward telegram saying the doors are open. MR. BAILEY: Yeah, I think that does sound familiar. I'm not really clear on that, but she's absolutely right. There was a telegram, and I think Jimmy Gay had something to do with that. Have you heard his name much? Jimmy was very important before we got here. When I say "We," TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 47 I mean myself and West and McMillan. And Jimmy was kind of like the connection from the Strip to the black community. He and Woodrow Wilson, at that particular time, and old man McCants. I don't know whether you've heard McCants' name or not, but he was very significant at that time. And there was a minister here that was rather outspoken. But Jimmy, as I remember, brought that wire over and that dissipated the crowd. I don't think that was '60, though. I think that was after '60. MR. ANDERSON: Okay. MR. BAILEY: I don't really have a handle on that. MR. ANDERSON: What can you tell us about Oscar Crozier? MR. BAILEY: Oscar was a restaurateur, a gaming entrepreneur, and really a high fashion guy. He had the club called the El Morocco, but he had a club prior to the El Morocco. I wasn't here then. But they talk about they used to dance on the floor. And they didn't have any sewage or anything at that time, so they had septic tanks. And when they danced on the floor and it would get too hot, everything from the septic tank used to start coming up. And they'd have to empty the club out for a while, then everybody would come back in. This was prior to the El Morocco opening. He opened, well, I guess you could say, the first class operation for a TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 48 small club on Jackson Avenue. It was very well run. I had the entertainment in there at the time. I don't know what really happened. Oscar got into some kind of a problem, and he left town. And a guy from Reno took it over, a Caucasian. I don't remember his name now. Nice guy, too. He took the El Morocco over, and he stayed until a certain period. And then Jackson Avenue kept deteriorating, and it finally closed. But Oscar was a class act. MR. ANDERSON: Dr. McMillan tells a story that it was Oscar Crozier who acted as an intermediary between the NAACP and some of the bosses on the Strip, and that he played an instrumental role in 1960 in helping to diffuse the situation. He had gone to Mac and said, "Hey, look, these guys are serious. They're going to kill you and put you in Lake Mead unless you stop this." And Mac finally said, "Look, I'm not trying to hurt anybody's business. I don't know anything about gambling. We figure this will be better for everybody if black people can come into these casinos and spend their money, too. I don't want to hurt anybody." And that Oscar went back to them and told them that, and that that's sort of when they began to change their attitude. MR. BAILEY: Well, I was with Pearl for a while during that period of time. MR. ANDERSON: I was just wondering about that, yeah. TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 49 MR. BAILEY: I know that Oscar had interceded as far as trying to get some of the black dealers on the Strip. I'm aware of that. He might have been with one hotel where he had a relationship, but possibly the magnitude with which Mac is describing of the role he played was one that was going along while I was out of town. So I was never aware that Oscar was really an intermediary for the effort on the Westside. I know he had relationships with some of the gamblers that were in the white establishments, and I do know that he tried to get some dealers. In fact, he did get some dealers some jobs. My relationship with the connection that we had to the Strip was through Hank Greenspun. Now, here again, I'll go back to my relationship with Oscar was in '56, '57, '58, when he had the places over there and I was helping him with it. I don't know remember him as being a fiduciary as such, but he certainly had a relationship. MR. ANDERSON: Okay. MR. BAILEY: See, during those days, the only people that could get inside was somebody else white or somebody that had some sort of a relationship going. I got into the Sands all of the time, whenever I wanted to, because I was on television and because I worked with Jack Entratter back in New York at the Coppla (phonetic), because it was a relationship. But as far as there being an intermediary, I just TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 50 can't address that other than what I have shared with you that I'm knowledgeable of as far as Oscar's relationship is concerned. MR. ANDERSON: This is a very complex picture, and we've been trying to sort of piece it together from different angles. MR. BAILEY: Well, what happened, of course, is like sitting in the room here. You can hear what I'm saying one way and reinterpret it, and Frank can hear it in another way and reinterpret it. And I think that is what you're looking at. You're looking at a number of us who were involved from different angles, and we come at answering your questions with a different point of reference. And you're going to get that. We didn't always agree on what our steps should be. I was in favor always of using the outside pressures to come in and the legal things because everything I knew of that had happened had happened in the courtroom. You motivate with the marches, but the real action goes down in court; that's where you can get law. But Dr. West felt that the political aspect was the most important aspect, that if we had political clout, through that political clout, we could get what we want, which is valid. Mac felt that the NAACP pressure tactic was the only TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 51 way that we would get anything. But the NAACP did most of their fighting in the courtroom, not in the streets. The other fragmented organizations went to the street more so than the NAACP did. So we would sit down and we would have differences of opinion as to how we would go certain ways to get certain things down. Naturally, you're going to hear different opinions of the approach to even just the meeting that we had at the Moulin Rouge, what transpired prior to that time, and then what the followup was and who were the main players. And from each one of us, we get different players. Now, I don't know how much you've heard about Hank, but Hank was one of my main sources of entree and I know what he did. Now, everything that I dealt with with Hank might not have stayed in Mac's memory because he was dealing with something else. MR. ANDERSON: Everybody gives Hank a lot of credit. MR. BAILEY: Sometimes I never hear his name. I never hear George Rudiak's name. George Rudiak was extremely important in making a lot of things happen, quietly. But he had a relationship with the Jewish gaming community that was very strong, but he was very quiet; that was the way he operated. Louie Wiener, very helpful in getting things done as far as capital was concerned. Louie could call the bank and TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 52 make it okay for you to get some money. There were a lot of different things that were going on and each one of us, I guess, had the same names that we could deal with as far as getting things done in the white community, but we had different approaches to it. MR. WRIGHT: You mentioned Louie Wiener, who was an attorney. One of the lawyers for the Moulin Rouge in getting the licensing was a Foley. MR. BAILEY: Um-hm. MR. WRIGHT: Was one of the Foleys sort of very helpful during that? MR. BAILEY: Well, the Foleys were always helpful if you needed information or if you needed some pro bono work for some black that was in trouble. They were very helpful that way. When Robert Reid came to town, one of our first black attorneys admitted to the bar, you had to go to work in some office or something before you could get recommended to take the bar exam. I went to Roger Foley. I told Roger what we were trying to do. We needed a black attorney in the town, and he could not come here, though, unless he had a job. And he had an opening I had found out from his brother, George, who we were good friends, as a law clerk. And this was unheard of. And I asked Roger would he consider bringing Robert TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 53 in as his law clerk. He says, "Send him over to see me." First, surprise, you know, because I didn't know what I was going to get when I went up to ask him. And he hired him. First time this had ever happened in the state of Nevada. And those were the kind of things that the Foleys would do. I will always have a very high regard for the family. Every one of the Foleys was open to any kind of support that you asked them for. I never went to one of the Foleys that I didn't get a good response from, not one of them. Very, very fine family of people, really fine family of people. Tom Foley. All the Foleys are great. George and I used to hang together. George used to come on the Westside all the time, especially when he became the district attorney. And George probably met more black people, though, than any other district attorney in the history of the state. He'd call me up and say, "Bob, what do you know about this?" This is the way things used to happen in those days. It was a small town. Everybody knew everybody. And you could call the justice of the peace and tell him to speak up for him, and they let him go, or her go, whatever the case may be. But in answer to your question, they weren't out in the leadership ranks, but they were there as support resources. And my experience was that they never turned down TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 54 anything that I reasonably asked for their support on. They were always there. MR. ANDERSON: How about Oran Gragson? MR. BAILEY: We made a believer out of Oran. Oran was always a good guy, but Oran was a part of the establishment. And there is very significant activities that I experienced with Oran that I could never forget. He was a Republican, of course, and Woodrow Wilson was the outstanding black Republican at the time. I knew Oran prior to him running for mayor, when he was in the furniture business. And he advertised with me for a while, okay, on my television show. So when he ran for mayor, he asked for my support, and I was this big television man. So Woodrow came to me also and said, "We've got to get together and help him." I said, "Well, he doesn't answer some of the questions right, though. He's not giving me the kind of answers to things that relate to our people that I think he should be dealing with." I asked him about the police department, can he expand the participation there, open it up. Is he going to give us some jobs at city hall, so on and so forth. And Oran was very vague about what promises he was going to make at that time. So it went right up to the wire. And I think he was running against Bunker. Well, Bunker, in the meantime, was TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 55 promising the world. And, of course, we were all a little naive to believe he was going to be able to do all of the things he said he was going to do. But Bunker had done a few things as a city councilman. I think he was a councilman prior to that time. And he had showed a good faith. So I was going to stick with Bunker. The night before the election, Woody came and got me. And I'm trying to think, who else was it? West or McMillan. Anyway, went over to his house, and we went in the back room and talked. And he made pledges and what have you and said, "I want your support tomorrow at the polls," so on and so forth. Well, we said, "No, I can't do it. We've made commitments. At least for myself I speak, I can't do it." The next day, the big election, Oran won the election. You know the first stop he made? Oran came to the Westside, in an open-air Lincoln, to the Voters League, which was on the corner. We were then on the corner of D and Jackson. Big crowd. He made the announcement, "You all didn't support me for this office, but I made certain commitments that if I was elected I would do it whether I had your support or not. You didn't support me, I won, but I'm going to do everything I told you I was going to do if you would have supported me." And he did. And I got more respect for him in that next year than I've ever had for anybody TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 56 outside of Grant Sawyer. He did everything he said he was going to do and then more. He put us on commissions and all different kinds of things. The Civil Service board, and, I think, five or six very important committees that he followed through on and made appointments to. And Oran had the support, then, of the Westside until he decided not to run. That was just a great way of showing character to me. First stop he made. He didn't go to the places that supported him, he came to the Westside. So that's a significant story. MR. ANDERSON: I was deeply impressed when we spoke to him. MR. BAILEY: With Oran? MR. ANDERSON: Yes. MR. BAILEY: Did he tell you the story I'm telling you? MR. ANDERSON: Yeah. MR. BAILEY: Well, it's the truth. MR. ANDERSON: He didn't say about the first stop. But he did say some of the things that he had done for the Westside, because when he first came to town, he lived in the Westside. MR. BAILEY: Yeah, that's way back. MR. ANDERSON: That was during the Depression. MR. BAILEY: Right. TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 57 MR. ANDERSON: And he said it was a difficult place. There was no water over there. MR. BAILEY: Yeah. MR. ANDERSON: Remember that story he told us about Pop Squires or one of those guys? They were talking about bringing the water to the Westside, and some guy who had mules and had been a prospector said, "I'll bring more water over here on my mules than these people are going to do." He thought that was real funny because he probably could have done it, because it was still a good while before they got any water other there. MR. BAILEY: Oh, yeah, before they got the sewer lines over there. MR. ANDERSON: Do you remember Mr. Bunker challenging Oran to a debate? MR. BAILEY: Yeah, uh-huh. MR. ANDERSON: And that this was perceived by the community as sort of a low blow because Oran stuttered. MR. BAILEY: Yeah, I remember that. Bunker did a lot of things that I won't discuss. They weren't of the character that Oran proved to be. Let's put it that way. But I do remember something of that nature, that he challenged him to a debate, but I don't think Oran did it, though. Yeah, I don't think he did it. I think he backed out on it. He got too smart to get involved in that. TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 58 And Oran really used to stutter. And when he would get nervous, he stuttered even worse. Sometimes he would take two minutes to get a sentence out. And then he would just get disgusted and be quiet for a minute and then come back out again. I see Oran quite a bit. I live down the street from his son. And whenever he comes to visit his son, he always hollers at me. When did you have him in? Recently? MR. ANDERSON: That wasn't too long ago. It was earlier this year. MR. WRIGHT: Yeah. January, February. MR. BAILEY: Yeah. He's quite a guy. I know he has some stories to tell. MR. ANDERSON: Yeah, he did. He told us some good ones. I'll probably make one whole radio episode, and especially with what you've given me just now, in addition to what he told me, about the election and the reason that he ran. And nobody gave him a snowball's chance in hell of winning. MR. BAILEY: Nothing whatsoever. Woodrow Wilson ran as a Republican when there was open districts. There was no districting at all. It was all open election, and he won. I'm trying to remember what year he ran for the assembly. He's a little slow right now, but if you could get Woodrow, he would be great. Have you gotten him TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 59 yet? MR. WRIGHT: No. MR. ANDERSON: No, I didn't even know he was still living. Okay. MR. BAILEY: Yeah. He's still alive. If you get him wound up, he's all right. But really, he could tell you some inside stories as a black Republican, and as a black politician, and the first black to go to the legislature. That's really something you should have. MR. ANDERSON: He must have been a pretty lonely guy as a black Republican. MR. BAILEY: Here again, there were more out-of-the-closet black Republicans then than there is now, with the exception of those that are coming into town. MR. ANDERSON: That's amazing. MR. BAILEY: See, because you've got a lot of black Republicans that were coming out of the South. MR. ANDERSON: They weren't mostly Democrats by then? MR. BAILEY: No. No, huh-huh. MR. ANDERSON: That's surprising to me. MR. BAILEY: No. See, what people don't understand is the black culture when it goes back from slavery time up forward, you're talking about a very independent people who just wanted to do for themselves and do for their families. TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 60 And they were made dependents rather than given opportunities to work and to succeed educationally. When you've got a law against a man being able to read or to write, you automatically put handcuffs on until such time as there is the ability to be able to reach out and grasp education. And people who came out of the Civil War were beholding to the North, which was Republican. Democrats didn't start until later on with the Ku Klux Klan. That was a part of the stimulation of the Democrats. But anyway, that's another story. That will take some time to get into that one. MR. ANDERSON: I only have one more question, Frank. MR. WRIGHT: I've got one more small question. MR. ANDERSON: Okay. MR. WRIGHT: I just wanted to ask a question about your wife. She was sort of responsible for crossing a milestone on the Las Vegas Strip, was she not? MR. BAILEY: Yeah, she was the first black dancer that worked on the Strip. She first worked with Pearl, of course, when Pearl came with the show. There were other blacks in that show. But Anna went to work at the Flamingo with -- I can't think of the guy's name. But they were kind of Indian dancers. And she was not a test case as such, but she was recognized as being black. And she worked there with -- gee, I can't think of this guy's name. Had a great lounge act. She worked there for about a year, I guess, a TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 61 year, year and a half. MR. ANDERSON: Was this '59, '60, around then? MR. BAILEY: Yeah, '50 maybe. I don't know. Let me make a quick call. MR. ANDERSON: Do you know Kathy Saxe by any chance? MR. BAILEY: Kathy Saxe. MR. ANDERSON: Because I think Kathy Saxe was in that same show. Was it belly dancing? MR. BAILEY: Yeah. MR. ANDERSON: Kathy Saxe was in that, and I interviewed Kathy Saxe. MR. BAILEY: I'm trying to think of the guy's name. MR. ANDERSON: Barry. I'm thinking about the choreographer that she mentioned. It was so funny, the story that she told me. MR. WRIGHT: Not Georgy Tubbs? MR. BAILEY: Cleopatra's Dancers. Some name, though, can't remember who it was. But she remembers the name, but she can't get a face from it. MR. ANDERSON: The only other thing I had was if you could tell us about your attempt to open a place on the Strip and the Merry-go-round and your association with Nat Cole. MR. BAILEY: Yeah, well, this was right after the Moulin Rouge closed, I guess '56, '57. Nat and I had hung out at the Sands, so we were talking about how there was no place TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 62 to go now that the Moulin Rouge was closed to really hang out. And it was a thing that was desirous by the white entertainers as well as the black entertainers because they couldn't get together except backstage. You don't come out in the lounge and socialize. So there was a little place called the Merry-go-round Bar that was right next to the Sands and the motel that was next to it there. And we got word that the owner was interested in selling the place. So we went in and talked to him. Actually, Nat's manager went in and talked with him. And he indicated that, yeah, he would be willing to sell it. He wouldn't mind selling it to Nat, whatever the case would be. I went to, I think it was the Doumani brothers. I'm not positive, but I think it was the Doumani brothers that had -- if it wasn't the Doumani brothers, it was two other brothers, but I think it was Doumanis that had it. Anyway, they said that they would give us the lease. It would be no problem, transfer the lease from the existing owners. So the next step was to go and get the forms for the license, et cetera. So I went to the sheriff's office then, and that's when everything came out of the sheriff's office. You didn't go to the license department, he was the license department. And asked for an application and then told him what the location was where Nat "King" Cole and I were going TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 63 to go in business there. He let us fill the application out, and he said, "Bob, I'm going to have to check a few things out first, and I'll get back to you." MR. ANDERSON: And this is Butch Leypoldt, right? MR. BAILEY: Butch Leypoldt, yeah, was the sheriff at that time. So in a day, I guess a day or so, he called back and he indicated that he wanted to see me in his office. So I went out to the office. In the meantime, Nat had finished his engagement and was going back to California. He indicated that he could not issue me the license, that he had talked to some of the owners of the hotels, and they didn't feel that that kind of establishment was going to mix in with what their programs were and so on and so forth so, "I can't issue you the license. It's just that simple." So we went to George Rudiak at the time and asked George if he would intercede for us. George called back in a couple of three days. He says, "Bob, I've talked to a number of people. I think you're going to have a tough one. You can take it to court if you want to, but I don't think it's going to do you much good because they have the basis of the license." So that went down the tube. The next time we tried was with Sammy Davis and Al Freeman, who was the publicist at the Sands at that time. And I think this was in the '60s. There was a club out on TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 64 Tropicana and it was a very fashionable nightclub, but they hadn't been able to really make it. So we wanted to go in there and do the same thing that Nat and I wanted to do in previous years. It came out in the newspaper that Sammy Davis, Jr., was negotiating to purchase this bar. And I think within 24 hours the bar was burned down. And there was a note left at the bar with the bartender indicating that "There will be no niggers buying no joints out this way." And that was the end of that. So that kind of quieted my ambitions down for trying to get a place out there, to have to go through all of that. And that, coincidentally, was the forerunner of my thinking of putting together a nightclub on the Westside. So it all kind of intermingled. But it was a very serious situation here in this town at that time. And if people are burning the joint down, then there's no telling what else they might do. So sometimes, you know, enough is enough and you just leave it alone. But if we would have had the opportunity of purchasing that business at the Merry-go-round, there's no telling what that could have led to. No telling what this could have led to positively. But, you know, some do and some don't; some work and some won't. MR. ANDERSON: So then you opened the Sugar Hill after that. TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 65 MR. BAILEY: Yeah, we opened Sugar Hill. We had the gardens out back and the palm trees. And Johnny Carson used to come and play drums every time he'd come in town. Frank used to come over, the Rat Pack group come over. It was a very exciting place. For 25 years I had it. So we saw a lot in that period of time. And, finally, I closed it when all of the crack cocaine started getting into all of the communities and they kind of took over the corners around the place. And I just didn't want to be involved, or my wife, who was the accountant and the business manager for the store. So we closed it down. There was another very colorful figure. He's passed now. It would have been good for you to have talked to him. Ruben Bullock. He was kind of a connection between the Strip and the black area. He was a bartender and a bar manager. And he was a bar manager for, I think, the Riviera for a while. Food and beverage they called it. Lewis -- I'm getting so many names they start getting mixed up. He had two or three outstanding blacks that were in charge of food and beverage on the Strip. Bailey was quite a man, out at the Hacienda, when he first came in. He had some very key Afro-Americans that were working for him at the time at the Stardust. I think we talked about this before, and I couldn't TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 66 think of his name. He owns the Western Cab Company now. MR. WRIGHT: I couldn't find it. MR. BAILEY: I'm so embarrassed. I can't think of his name. He was the assistant hotel manager at the Moulin Rouge, and then he became, later on, the president of the Stardust. Isn't that something? I can't think of his name. I get a block. And I see him once a month as the Taxi Commission. But he would be a very interesting character to interview, very interesting character. He could give you a different view of what happened at the Moulin Rouge, a different perspective, through white eyes. A New Yorker and quite a sophisticate and tells funny stories. MR. ANDERSON: Oh, that would be great. MR. BAILEY: Tells funny stories. MR. WRIGHT: It's not Herb Tobman, is it? MR. BAILEY: Herb Tobman, of course. MR. WRIGHT: Okay. MR. BAILEY: God, I'm embarrassed. MR. WRIGHT: I met him one evening at the Moulin Rouge. MR. BAILEY: You could call Herb and tell Herb I suggested that you talk with him. MR. ANDERSON: Okay. That would be a great perspective. MR. BAILEY: Herb was great. Herb was at the TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 67 Stardust when a lot of the things were going that were going on out there, too. MR. ANDERSON: Did he know Frank Rosenthal? MR. BAILEY: Oh, hell, yeah. MR. ANDERSON: I'm trying to get an interview with Frank. MR. BAILEY: With Frank? MR. ANDERSON: I know he lives in San Diego, and I'd love to talk to him. MR. BAILEY: Herb could be a key. MR. ANDERSON: Really? Oh, okay. All right. MR. BAILEY: So you won't call in cold, tell him that Bob told me that you'd be very interesting to interview from your perspective of the Moulin Rouge, and some of the other things that happened in Vegas. MR. ANDERSON: Oh, great. That's a great tip. That's how we've done this whole project. We've started out with a small list of names, and then referrals just pop up just like this. MR. BAILEY: Well, Herb will be a good one for you. MR. ANDERSON: Okay. MR. BAILEY: And prepare to laugh. MR. ANDERSON: Well, great. That's great. MR. WRIGHT: There's one small sideline about something that you said earlier about the Carver House. They TRIPLE J STENO - 702-648-5584 3420 EDGEHILL WAY, NORTH LAS VEGAS, NEVADA 89030 68 actually started building that before the Moulin Rouge. MR. BAILEY: Exactly, and they stopped. MR. WRIGHT: And it was called the Moulin Rouge when they started building it. When I was doing newspaper research, I saw Moulin Rouge. I looked at the newspaper and it's on Jackson Street. MR. BAILEY: Right. Well, you know, there was another one that was further down D Street that never got off the ground. MR. WRIGHT: The first Moulin Rouge was the Carver House. MR. BAILEY: Carver House, and then they changed to The Cove. Frank, I don't think they had started building it then. MR. WRIGHT: Well, there might be another hotel, then. (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 ??