Arlene Dahl: Classic Las Vegas Performer

Arlene Dahl may not be known by those who trip the light fantastic of the modern Las Vegas Strip but for thousands who remember the Classic Las Vegas Strip and it's heyday in the 1950s and 1960s, they know Arlene Dahl.

From Stephen Michael Shearer:

When beautiful red-haired film actress Arlene Dahl made her "world premiere nightclub engagement" for four weeks at the Flamingo in 1962, she had the creme de la creme of legendary Las Vegas entertainers to give her advice.

"On opening night (March 15, 1962), we had a tech and dress rehearsal," Dahl told me recently. "And this was in the afternoon about 3 o'clock. And it (the theater) was dark -- I didn't know anybody was in the audience except the waiters, maybe. The lights went up after our dress rehearsal before the opening, and I saw Marlene Dietrich, Sammy Davis Jr., the Ritz Brothers and Georgia Gibbs. If I had known they were there I would have been terrified!"

"What I was told was that Las Vegas was like family," she explained. "They all come to the rehearsals to give tips and suggestions. Dietrich relit my whole show because she said: 'Whoever you sent to New York for does not know how to light a redhead. Do you mind if I relight your show? ... She was almost late for her own opening. I learned everything from Dietrich."

"Now Sammy, because I danced with the boys, gave me a few steps to make it easier for me to get into the opening number."

Davis gave her other dance tips and rehearsed a chat number with Dahl and the boys, which was included in the show.

"The Ritz Brothers gave me a joke," she added, "and Georgia Gibbs gave me a spray for 'Vegas throat,' dry throat. I mean, I got something from everybody. I mean it was just an eye-opener -- I never had such an audience in my life in show business!"

I asked Dahl if she was nervous or frightened to perform before a live audience. "I didn't know enough to be afraid," she said, chuckling. But performing live was not entirely new. "I had started in theater before I went to Hollywood. I had done musicals, you know, before I appeared at the Flamingo. But I had never had an act. I never put an act together."

Of Norwegian descent, she was born Arlene Carol Dahl in Minneapolis on Aug. 11, 1928. She was active in a local drama group and theater at an early age. (Her mother was involved in local theater as well.)

After graduating high school, Dahl made her Broadway debut in 1945 as Mrs. Taylor in the short-lived musical-comedy-romance "Mr. Strauss Goes to Boston," which was choreographed by George Balanchine. (Dahl also appeared on Broadway in a revival of "Cyrano de Bergerac" in 1953, and "Applause" in the early 1970s.)

She was voted the Miss Rheingold Beer Girl of 1946 -- later winners included Grace Kelly and Tippi Hedren -- while pursuing her career in New York. That led to a brief Warner Bros. contract in 1946.

In 1948, she signed with MGM and later Paramount. Her best film work was in "Reign of Terror" (1949), "Three Little Words" (1950), "Here Come the Girls" (1953), "Woman's World" (1954), "Wicked As They Come" (1957), and "Journey to the Center of the Earth" (1959), opposite James Mason and Pat Boone.

Dahl married six times, including to actors Lex Barker (once a movie Tarzan) and the late Argentine heartthrob and fellow MGM contract star Fernando Lamas, father of her son, Lorenzo Lamas. Dahl and Fernando Lamas were wed on June 25, 1954, at the Frontier's Little Church of the West in Las Vegas. (Fernando Lamas himself headlined in Las Vegas with Margot Brander and Louis Basil and His Orchestra at the Sahara in December 1958, the year of Lorenzo's birth.)

Dahl's actor son, Lorenzo ("Falcon Crest"), has recently branched out to cabaret with his highly praised singing voice and style. Dahl has two other children: Carole Holmes McCarthy, born in 1961, and Stephen Schaum, born in 1970.

In 2009, Dahl celebrated her 25th wedding anniversary to Marc Rosen, a former vice-president of Elizabeth Arden Inc.

Known primarily as a glamorous movie star, Dahl was intrigued by the possibility of performing in Las Vegas when she was approached to do it in September 1961.

Her lawyer Louis Blau put Dahl in touch with Gordon and Sheila McRae. They said: "Well, you've got to get somebody who knows about lighting," Dahl continued. " 'You've got to get an orchestrator. You've got to do this, and you've got to do that.' And they were very helpful in helping put the act together. As was Lou, who got me in touch with the producers in New York, Lyn Duddy, who wrote music and lyrics, and Jerry Bressler, who was an orchestra leader and arranger. They flew in from New York, and we turned my garage in the Pacific Palisades into a rehearsal room with mirrors and a ballet bar. My piano was already there, so we started rehearsals."

"I had three weeks of rehearsals before I opened," she said. "I worked every day including the weekends with three boys. I was the fourth boy. And we got a well-known choreographer as well. I opened cold. I didn't even play it once, except for a group of neighbors in the garage."

Bob Mackie and Ray Aghayan designed her stunning costumes for her Las Vegas debut.

Dahl's reviews for her Las Vegas act were sensational. "The most delightful show surprise of the year ... an eyeful and earful of song and dance charm," wrote Hollywood-Citizen News reporter Abe Greenburg.

"Arlene sang, danced and looked ravishingly gorgeous," wrote Los Angeles Herald-Examiner reviewer Dean Gautschy. And on April 1, 1962, Joan Winchell of the Los Angeles Times continued with the praise: "The ravishing redhead continues to sing, dance, twist and clown her way through the show with all her motion picture know-how. Opening night saw tears flow freely from her pretty eyes as she got a standing ovation, which thanked her for switching her film talents to a successful nightclub show."

It took 26 technically skilled personnel to put the opening together at a then staggering cost of $60,000. There was one spot in the show as she sang "Picture Us" that Dahl would walk through the audience and randomly sit on a man's lap, just as a photographer snapped their picture.

The act also included a sexy motorcycle number, "Let's All Be Female Again," in which Dahl stripped out of leather-gear down to a black lace leotard.

"I was the headliner, which I couldn't get over," Dahl recalled. "But Dick Shawn opened the show for me. He was famous for doing 'Me and My Shadow,' and he played Las Vegas all the time. And I couldn't imagine that he would not be a headliner with me. But he opened the show, and I asked him to come back after my act was over and we both did "Me and My Shadow" together."

One particular incident from her Las Vegas tenure stands out in Dahl's memory. "I was married to Chris Holmes at the time," she said. "And I remember he was a famous gambler. And I was really on edge because he promised me he wouldn't gamble, because that would mean my huge salary was going to pay for his gambling debts instead of what we needed it for. And unfortunately, the last Saturday night that I was closing, he gambled, not at the Flamingo. He went to other clubs, and he practically gambled away my entire salary for those four weeks, which was horrendous."

During her run at the Flamingo, Dahl continued to write her three-times-a-week beauty column. "I had over 100 papers," she told me. "And I wrote that column (translated in five languages) for 20 years, from 1950 to 1970."

When she concluded her month in Las Vegas at the Flamingo, Dahl took her act to New York and successfully opened at Lou Walters' The Latin Quarter in June 1962.

For years, Dahl toured the country performing in musicals, dramas and comedies in summer stock. Throughout her lengthy acting career, Dahl has appeared on numerous TV shows; during the 1980s she had a continuing role on "One Life to Live." She continues to appear in feature films.

Creating her own company in New York, Dahlmark Productions (Arlene Dahl Enterprises), she also has authored 16 best-selling beauty and astrology books, designed a successful line of lingerie (including the "Dahl" cap, written about in Life magazine, as well as popularizing the "baby doll" pajama craze in the 1950s), a cosmetic line, and she was appointed the health and beauty editor for Sears Roebuck & Co. Dahl currently is designing a line of jewelry.

A member of numerous charitable organizations, including serving on the board of directors of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, Dahl also has been the recipient of several major industry and fashion awards, and she has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

But Dahl's time in Las Vegas is special to her. "I was treated like a queen at the Flamingo." About her career in film and on the stage, Dahl recently said: "I considered the years in Hollywood nothing but an interim. What I always wanted to be was a musical comedy star." In Las Vegas, she proved that she could be just that.

Danny Gans and Mike Weatherford: Gans held a grudge

Mike Weatherford, the entertainment columnist for the Review-Journal gets called out, though not by name, in the new, posthumous book by Danny Gans.  We like Mike Weatherford and his efforts to chronicle not only the modern Strip entertainment, but more importantly, the days when it was the Entertainment Capital of the World.

From today's R-J:

In a recent issue of Wired magazine, author Nicholas Thompson writes of the "Dead Hand." It's a Russian weapons system -- still operational, he claims -- that could fire back on the United States even after the Soviets had been hit with a nuclear strike.

I thought of the phrase after reading Chapter 34 of Danny Gans' posthumous autobiography, "The Voices in My Head" (published by Las Vegas Review-Journal sibling company Stephens Press).

Though I'm not named, co-author R.G. Ryan confirms the chapter is devoted to me. "He didn't want to call you out by name. Danny, if he was anything, he was a very sensitive guy."

You can read the actual book excerpts and detailed rebuttal in the Vegas Voice blog today. But in a nutshell:

• Gans claims that upon our first meeting I told him, "First of all, I'm not your friend (former entertainment writer) Michael (Paskevich) ... and second of all, I'm not a fan of what you do."

• He says I suggested he needed topless dancers in his show.

• And he says I promised him straight up I wouldn't review his opening-night gala at The Mirage. Then he opened up the paper a few days later and "there it was ... the first time in my career that someone had outright lied to me."

The first mostly wasn't true. The second I can only figure was a joke. So much for my comedy career.

The third issue is fuzzier. I don't remember what was said about reviewing the gala. Gans certainly knew I was there and, as his former publicist Laura Herlovich now agrees, "Your point in being there would have been to review it."

It's the fallout from the subsequent review that isn't in the book, but would be in mine if I ever get around to writing one. It's when Gans' manager, Chip Lightman, called to raise hell about the letter grade, which was an A-. Apparently that minus sign bothered them. "The No. 1 show in town should be an A plus-plus-plus, you should like everything about it," Gans later told the Los Angeles Times.

Ryan says the larger point of the chapter is that criticism is "not like water off a duck's back. ... It wasn't like, 'Hey, let's do a chapter where we can just kick Weatherford to the curb.' "

Gans and I were always cordial in our occasional interviews and chance meetings. It's his manager, Lightman, who got told, "I'm not your friend Paskevich" during the A- episode.

Sometimes Lightman and I are on speaking terms and sometimes we aren't. That's fine. We both do our jobs. Mine is calling 'em as I see 'em, and his was buffering his client while making his displeasure known.

But if Gans remembered everything this way, I feel bad about it. Wish we had talked about it when he was still around, instead of doing it like this.

And from Mike's Vegas Voices blog:

If you came here for the gory details after reading today’s column about Danny Gans' book, here’s the closer look at Chapter 34, “After Further Review ...” If you’re seeing this first, best to go back and read the column.
  I didn’t have room for the details, which if sloppy co-author R.G. Ryan had bothered to ask me about, might have kept the chapter out of the book to begin with.
  To set this up, it’s important to know that my friend and former colleague Mike Paskevich was an early supporter of Gans, and championed his 1996 breakthrough at the Stratosphere. In the book, Gans is rightfully grateful — even if Ryan doesn’t manage to spell Paskevich's name right.
  When Paskevich left in 2000 and I took over with a less-enthusiastic attitude and more subdued reviews, it was a change Gans and his manager Chip Lightman never seemed to get over:

  Chip called me one day and told me that Mike Paskovich (sic) was leaving the paper because he wanted to write books. A new critic had been hired and was going to re-review all of the shows on the Strip so the published reviews could reflect his opinion.
   At that time, my show at the Rio was so successful they were knocking walls down trying to create more seating. We learned that the new critic was going to write an article on all the current headliners before he wrote the actual reviews and that he wanted to meet me and ask some questions.
   Chip set up the meeting in the showroom at the Rio, so I found a table and sat down to wait. It was very noisy because a bartender across the room was mixing something in a blender. Chip brought the new critic over to my table and said, “I’ll ask the bartender to turn that thing off while you guys are talking.”
   Chip walked away and with no introduction the new guy began, “First of all, I’m not your friend Michael Paskovich ... and second of all, I’m not a fan of what you do. I consider impressionists one step above ventriloquists on the entertainment food chain.”
   I was dumbstruck and didn’t say anything, because I thought maybe he just had a weird sense of humor and there was a punch line coming.
   There wasn’t.

   Wow. Where do I begin? Honestly, I don’t recall ever meeting Gans before an interview at The Mirage for a story published March 31, 2000. I didn’t even see his show at the Rio or the Stratosphere.
   I do know this meeting at the Rio never took place. Gans performed his last show there on Dec. 23, 1999. Paskevich didn’t leave the Review-Journal until late February of 2000, so I wouldn’t have had the time or inclination to go talk to Gans at the Rio.
   The line about impressionists and ventriloquists? Wouldn’t be a good ice-breaker for a first interview, I don’t think. But it might have been a twist on something I wrote later in some other context, because I didn’t disagree with the sentiment. At least until Gans, Terry Fator and Jeff Dunham had the last laugh.

   Instead he said, “I just came from the adult entertainment convention. Have you seen that?”
   “No, it’s not really my thing.”
   “Oh, well I thought you’d be using some of that stuff in your show — you know, bring out some topless dancers or something — because you’ll probably be getting a lot of those people coming to see you.”
   “This is a PG-rated show for more of a family-type audience.”
   “Yeah, I’ve seen what you do,” he replied. “But I thought that maybe you’d want to personalize it for them, you know, do some adult humor.”
   He went on to ask me a few random questions for the article and the interview was over.

  This one is a real head-scratcher. I’d like to think I’d done enough pre-interview homework to know Gans was a born-again Christian. (The resulting feature talks about his Christian music album.) And knowing that should have made it more clear any such comment was a joke.
  I do remember making small talk on The Mirage sidewalk while we waited for the photographer to set up for a Neon cover shoot. Maybe sidewalk porn pamphleteers provoked a wisecrack. As Gans noted earlier, I have a “weird” sense of humor. But it was March and the porn convention is in January, during the Consumer Electronics Show. I didn’t cover it that year.
  Funny enough, impressionist Bill Acosta did open a show featuring topless showgirls. But that was several months later, so we couldn’t have been talking about Acosta then.
  The sad thing is, Ryan said Gans really did remember it this way. “I recall very distinctly when he was talking about this, it’s not like he was animated (or) angry. It was just like, ‘Let me give you a for instance of things that hurt me.’ ”

  Some time later I opened at the Mirage this same critic called and wanted to have an interview before he saw the show, so we invited him into my dressing room.
   The show was opening on a Tuesday, but the preceding Saturday I was doing an “invited guests only” show for Elaine Wynn and her charity. It was great for us, because it afforded us the opportunity to give back to the community and to try out some of the new material
with a live audience before we opened to the public.
  We had the interview, which consisted primarily of generic questions, and when we were wrapping it up, I asked if he would give me a couple of weeks to tweak the show before he wrote his review. In reply, he told me he’d received an invitation to attend the show on
Saturday night.
  I said, “That’s a private charity function.”
  “Well, I got an invitation and I’m thinking about coming.”
  I asked him not to come because it was going to be the first time on that stage in front of an audience. With the amount of material tailored especially for Elaine Wynn and her guests, it wouldn’t be a true representation of the new show.
   He stood up, shook my hand, and looked me straight in the eye.
   “You have my word that I won’t review the show. I’ll give you a couple of weeks to get things tweaked and then I’ll come back.”
   We did the show, and a few days later I opened the paper ... and there it was, his review. Stunned doesn’t come close to describing the way I felt. More like betrayed, because the man had looked me in the eye and promised he wouldn’t print it. It was the first time in my career that someone had outright lied to me.

   As noted in the column, this was my fuzziest memory. Only after reading this do I remember any debate at all about when to review the show and how different it would be from the usual act (not much, as I recall). I don’t recall the handshake promise at all and have to believe I would have a stronger memory if I made such a promise.
   Today, it would all be clearly established in advance who is reviewing and when. But there was no official "press night" for The Mirage show that I remember, and not for the Encore opening in February either. But this much is clear: They knew I was there. It was an invitation-only event. No way I could just buy a ticket. I still think they had agreed to the review plan in advance or I wouldn’t have been there at all.
   Again, it’s sad that Gans remembered it this way. “I don’t know anything about that other than what he reported to me,” Ryan said. “But he said, ‘That just really bothered me.’ ”

Boyd Gaming says Echelon Resort Not Coming Any Time Soon

For Halloween Happenings around the Las Vegas Valley, click here.

Ah, the Stardust, we remember you well.  Maybe not the grandest of places on the new Las Vegas Strip but still a fun, comfy place if you were looking for that classic Las Vegas vibe.  The Stardust was torn down back in 2007 to make room for Boyd Gaming new mega-resort, Echelon.

But then the economy cratered, taking Bill Boyd's dreams of a luxury resort along with it.  To stop hemorrhaging money on the project, he dialed construction back to the bare bones in hopes that he could ride out the crisis.

Early this morning he announced that it will be a tad longer for those waiting for Echelon to be finished.  Another three to five years longer before construction resumes.  That's an eternity in Las Vegas. 

From Howard Stutz at the R-J:

Boyd Gaming Corp. said this morning it doesn’t expect to restart construction of the $4.8 billion Echelon project for at least three to five years.

The company suspended construction of the Strip development on the site of the former Stardust more than a year ago.

"We continue to believe in the long-term viability of the Las Vegas market," Boyd Gaming Chief Executive Officer Keith Smith said. "But given the ongoing weak economic conditions, the significant new supply coming online and a difficult capital-market environment for projects of this nature, resuming construction in the near term is not an option."

The recession reduced Boyd Gaming’s third quarter profits. The casino operator said its net income fell about 27 percent in period that ended Sept. 30.

Boyd Gaming said its net income was $6.3 million in quarter, or 7 cents per share, compared with $8.7 million, or 10 cents a share for the same period a year ago. Analysts polled by FactSet Research estimated, on average, the company would report earnings per share of 12 cents.

Boyd said revenue fell 6.6 percent in the quarter to $398.2 million. The company blamed the slump on reduced consumer spending, especially in Las Vegas.

“Improved results in our Downtown Las Vegas, Borgata and Midwest and South regions helped offset softness in the Las Vegas Locals market,” Smith said in a statement. “While visitation levels remained fairly constant, spend per visitor continues to be down significantly year-over-year, as consumers are still being cautious with their spending.”

Garth Brooks coming to Encore

Don't forget, I'm giving a talk on the history of Las Vegas and doing a book signing today (Saturday) at 2:00 at the Atomic Testing Museum!

Garth Brooks is coming to Las Vegas.  Steve Wynn talked the singer out of retirement and offered him a deal that would allow Brooks to be in Oklahoma to help raise his daughters but spend some of his weekends in Las Vegas performing.

From our pal John Katsilometes at the Las Vegas Sun:

We could talk of numbers such as “1,” where Garth Brooks ranks among solo artists in terms of total album sales in U.S. history by the Recording Industry Association of America. We could simply point to the figure of 128 million, the figure that places him ahead of such iconic artists as Elvis, Led Zeppelin and The Eagles and trailing only The Beatles.

But to measure the type of fan devotion Brooks enjoys, mere numbers do not convey the full story. Jennifer Hiller does.

A heart transplant coordinator from San Antonio, Hiller heard of the news conference in Las Vegas just Wednesday, and by yesterday morning had booked a flight on Southwest Airlines to attend that day’s news conference at Encore Theater announcing Brooks’ five-year residency at the 1,500-seat showroom. Hiller said she first saw Brooks perform in 1990 at the Central Park Mall in her hometown -- a venue since razed -- and has spent nearly two decades communicating with fellow Brooks fans online. She has long wished for a time when Brooks would return to performing, his 2001 retirement preventing any formal touring.

“We’re in a sisterhood, us Garth fans,” Hiller said. “We communicate daily. It’s an extension of family.” The Web site PlanetGarth.com is a popular clearinghouse for fans seeking Brooks data, but as Hiller said, “We’ve met over the years at shows and swapped information, and that’s how we keep in touch, in e-mail. I know a lot of people here today.”

Several hundred fans of Brooks filed into the theater yesterday for the news conference. When asked if $125 per ticket for all seats was a little steep for fans used to paying $25 to see Brooks on tour, Hiller laughed and said, “No problem. I plan to see as many shows as possible.” More than even statistics, she is to be believed.

No ‘Vegas option’ for family

After the news conference, I asked Brooks' wife, country singer Trisha Yearwood, if there was any serious discussion of the family moving to Las Vegas.

“No, no,” she said, standing near the lip of the stage. “We’re firmly entrenched in Oklahoma. Our lives are there,” she said. Brooks’ three teenage daughters and mother, Brooks' ex-wife Sandy, all live in Owasso, Okla. “We’re going to come here to hang out once in a while, is all. … I think (Las Vegas) is fun, I’ve played Vegas many times myself. It’s always a good time, it’s always a good crowd. You don’t really have to define it.

“Everything will be the same, except Garth will be coming to Vegas once a month, and how cool is that?”

Brooks said Yearwood would definitely be among the guest artists he brings onstage, “but not every night,” which drew some laughs from the audience.

A man and a guitar

“It’ll be a one-man show, so there will be a lotta disappointment after that first weekend,” Brooks joked (presumably), a comment that also prompted laughter. “It’ll be me and a guitar. It takes me back to the first days I played, when I was fortunate to play a place called Wild Willie’s in Stillwater, Okla., before I started touring. I’m the band.” Brooks said he would enjoy the flexibility of testing certain numbers “to see what people do and don’t like.” Accustomed to playing spacious arenas during his touring days, Brooks said, “I’ve never played in a place built for sound like this. I hear myself and I think, ‘Who the hell is that?’ I thought that when I first played here for Steve and 1,130 of his friends.”