Narrator with nothing more than a few miners and railroad men trying to scratch out a living on this harsh, unyielding nevada desert. But even amid the hardship, there were glimmers of what this city would one day become. The ultimate place to work las vegas, nevada. Vegas has always marketed itself on its naughtiness. Of course, within legal constraints. Well, sometimes illegal. Man no one knows gambling better than organized crime. White eventually, vegas became the entertainment capital of the world. Say, as long as were all here together, why dont we have a drink . [ laughter ] anka the content of that town, what it has to offer you cant beat that. Dion every song would become a visual show. Every song would be like an adventure, like an experience. To be a headliner in las vegas, thats what i want to do. Luck, be a lady tonight luck, be a lady tonight tonight luck, if you ever were a lady to begin with luck, be a lady tonight luck, be a Ladyyyyyyyy Toniiiiiiiight Green whether youre driving into las vegas or youre flying into las vegas, you see it. It glows. Charles when i think about las vegas, first thing that come to my mind is in the 50s sammy davis, frank, and dean martin. I just loved it. It just seemed like a great playground. Back in the 70s, Elvis Banners and elvis spotlights. Dow schull las vegas, over each of its historical eras, is like a giant Experimental Laboratory for human desire. Zook but in the early 30s, las vegas was a very different town than it is today. Roberts the recent crash of the New York Stock Exchange lost millions of dollars. Yet it had the sanction of law. Life itself is but a gamble from the cradle to the grave, and in wideopen gambling, the man who places his money on the turn of a wheel at least has the satisfaction of knowing who gets his money. Mcbride las vegas was incredibly lucky. When the rest of the country was sinking away in the depression, las vegas was Bright Lights and fun. In 1931, here was a place where money was no object. You could make money really fast, you could lose it really fast. Las vegas became an escape from the depths of despair in those days. Schwartz after the country had been through world war i, theyd been through the boom of the 20s, and suddenly that goes away. In the 1930s, the United States is facing a real question of identity. And in vegas, they have a Triple Threat of positive factors that attract business and tourists. Number one, youve got hoover dam. [ explosion ] reporter build a dam in the wilderness, and the world will beat a path to it. Number two, you got the Quickie Divorce bill. Reporter when the explosion of a marriage leads to divorce, the next stop may be nevada, a place Long Associated with easy divorce. Schwartz and of course, number three, youve got legalized gambling, which makes nevada the only place in the United States where you can play casinostyle games legally. Geran without gambling, las vegas wouldve not been born. Gambling to las vegas is like water to the earth. Gambling put las vegas on the map. Mcbride the potential to build this city into a gambling mecca piqued the interest of the crime syndicates. So, the launch of the Gambling Industry in las vegas essentially was the launch of Mob Involvement in las vegas, too. Reporter smash gambling shouts new yorks mayor la guardia. Let the gangsters take notice that they have to keep away from new york from now on. In 1945, you saw the arrival of the new york mob, represented by meyer lansky and his associate, bugsy siegel. And they plowed their money into buying the el cortez hotel. And they used it almost like a training ground. Zook billy wilkerson, who was the publisher of the hollywood reporter, was already building the Flamingo Hotel. Ben siegel basically muscled Wilkerson Out of the picture and ended up finishing the flamingo with money from meyer lansky. Green when the flamingo opened in 1946, they had spent 6 million to build this hotel. And of that, there are stories that siegel stole a million. Zook benjamin siegels financiers lets just call them that were convinced he was pocketing the money. Schumacher june 20, 1947, siegel is assassinated in beverly hills, california. And not 15 minutes later, other people are at the flamingo, saying, were in charge, bugsys out. Were in. And the flamingo becomes one of the Iconic Hotels on the strip. And from then on, it was full speed ahead for the mob. Zoglin the Flamingo Hotel was the first hotel to really go after big, bigname entertainment. The mob people loved mixing with stars, and so they would shell out the money for them. You know, i walked out to the slot machine, and i put 11 in the slot. And what do you think came out . The manager. Haha zoglin they got Jimmy Durante to open the hotel. They had martin and lewis. They had the biggest entertainers in america. Geran the entertainment in the 50s in las vegas was centralized. Where, in la, you might have someone play one time, las vegas had them coming in back to back. You can see four people at one time, you know, in the same week. Newton the strategy for the hotel owners was if they had the biggest star who could fill that room, night after night, then, once that show was over, people would go gamble. Zoglin bigtime entertainers would make more money for the casino. That would mean you could pay more money for the best entertainers. So, it was a perfect business model. There was a pretty positive vibe in las vegas about the mob. They were people who cared about las vegas. Anka and they were very much involved in the community. It wasnt just the casinos. They were invested in the churches, schools, real estate. They made that a functioning, safe town. You could leave your doors open. I look back on it now, and i go, boy, were we lucky. We could walk around this town, and nobody would touch us. They really paid attention to cheating and everything. I remember being at the riviera one time when they pulled this guy off the blackjack table, took him in the back of the room, and they broke all his fingers. I dont think he ever cheated again. Schumacher in mob circles, las vegas became known as an open city. This is a place where there were no territories. You had new york and chicago and cleveland and kansas city, and all of these different syndicates had investments here. Everybody could win in las vegas. Green if you were outside nevada, you had to pay somebody off to operate. Here, its business. Las vegas was essentially the mobs atm. Hoover organized gambling is a vicious evil. It corrupts our youth and blights the lives of our adults. It becomes a springboard for other crimes embezzlement, robbery, and even murder. Give me a set of blue, george. Schwartz some people came to las vegas and were absolutely mortified by seeing gambling going on legitimately and openly. And they said, oh, my god. How can they allow this to happen . Then they found out just how much money you could make gambling. And suddenly, it didnt seem like that big a sin. Of course, the real money to be made in gambling is never on the gamblers side of the table. Its from the houses side. And by design, a lot of casinos back in the 50s and 60s were engineered so you could lose track of time and just be in your gambling zone. Ooh, im happy again. You never see clocks. You never see windows. Youre supposed to lose yourself. Thats the secret in it. Zook billy wilkerson, the original brains behind the flamingo he was an inveterate gambler. And he knew if you keep them at the table long enough, they might win a little, but ultimately, theyll lose more than they won. I had the time of my life. Man is this the first time youve gambled . Thats right this guy, i saw him lose 31,000. And he turned around, and he said, cant beat em tonight. I guess ill get a good nights sleep and try tomorrow. And i thought to myself, this guy just lost 30,000, and hes gonna go to bed. You know [chuckles] i would go to the top of the hotel and jump off. Schwartz the other thing about Vegas Casinos then is if you were gambling, you were pretty much guaranteed a drink whenever you were thirsty. Alcohol lowers inhibitions. So its actually pretty smart to give people free alcohol if you need them to gamble more. Announcer las vegas, nevada the entertainment and fun capital of the world, where the clock never stops and the doors never close. Vegas in the 50s was part of the postwar optimism and prosperity. We had come through world war ii, the middle class was booming, wages were rising, people could take vacations again. White las vegas becomes a city of the future. Its a city that is innovative. Its an adult disneyland that starts before walt disney gets started. Green the Tourist Population is certainly overwhelmingly white. Theyre middle class, and theyre coming from just about everywhere. Theyre coming from big cities. Theyre coming from small towns. Theyre being attracted at this point, in part, by efforts in las vegas to reach tourists. Announcer well, the primary purpose of the big casinos is gambling. And all the rest is no more than just setting the mood. But in the competition of the open marketplace, the big owners have entered into a new kind of sweepstake to determine who can pay the most money for the biggestname talent. Newton all of their advertisement was based on the entertainment. Thats how the casinos branded themselves. It was competitive, very competitive, in terms of performer against performer. Zoglin vegas hotels were very smart about marketing, particularly the sands. Green the sands opened in 1952. And the Ownership Group included Jack Entratter, who had been at the copacabana in new york. And las vegas already had bigname entertainers performing here. But entratter had more Entertainment Connections from the copa. Entratter sidney ill never forget that night i met Jack Entratter. He was tall and had prematurely gray hair and beautiful blue eyes. He just had a way of knowing real talent. And if you were booked at the sands, you could work 52 weeks a year. Everybody else would book you. Announcer and starring jerry lewis [ applause ] zoglin entratter brought a real new york glamour and sophistication and connections that vegas really hadnt quite seen before. He was close with Frank Sinatra and dean martin, and jerry lewis, Nat King Cole. And this great, big world will be divine, little girl when youre mine, all mine zoglin they were all at the sands, so the sands became known as the premier spot for topname entertainment. Announcer nowhere else in the world is there such a concentration of famous entertainers. Yes, indeed. Nighttime is always fun time in las vegas. White this didnt just happen. It was designed this way. Were bringing people here from all over the world, all over the country, with advertising. Thats what we do. [ laughs ] schwartz by 1955, las vegas really becomes the place where people in america went to party. They elope. They come out to get married. They come out to gamble. They come out to see shows. Where are you gonna get that . Heres why you should switch fo to duckduckgo on all your Devie Duckduckgo comes with a builtn engine like google, but its pi and doesnt spy on your searchs and duckduckgo lets you browse like chrome, but it blocks cooi and creepy ads that follow youa from google and other companie. And theres no catch. Its fre. We make money from ads, but they dont follow you aroud join the millions of people taking back their privacy by downloading duckduckgo on all your devices today. Join the millions of people taking back their privacy we have stepped up our camera speed to catch the picture of a great entertainer whose friends say it just kills him to sit still. Sammy davis jr. Is not just a star hes a meteor. Charles sammy davis is the best performer i saw live, and ive said it ever since i first saw him, to this day. You never wanted him to leave. You never wanted to walk off stage cause he was just so good. Binion sammy davis jr. Came here with the will mastin trio, which was his father and his uncle, and he was just a kid. This is my dad, sam davis sr. , and my uncle, will mastin. He could do so many things sing, do impressions, play drums. They used to label him as the greatest of them all. And away we go mckee being in the show every night and watching Sammy Perform was incredible. The energy level. He would go on for two and a half, three hours. It was all i could do to keep up with sammy back then, and i was half his age. [ applause ] geran one time, he went to the Movie Theater downtown. He had no idea there was a law that you have to sit in a certain area. And so, next you know, hes being slapped and dragged down the hallway and told, you need to go and be in your place. And that was something that he really never accepted. Sammy davis Always Rebelled against las vegas segregation. Announcer hey, hes smoking a white cigarette. [ laughter ] i tried smoking them brown ones and got arrested. You know how it is. White las vegas was the entertainment capital of the world. But African Americans who lived here and worked here could not enjoy that entertainment. Mckee i got to vegas, and i noticed that there were no black doormen, there were no black dealers. There were no black people in the casino, gambling. White the casinos in the 1940s employed African Americans only in the back of the house. They could not enter the front of the house. At the same time, were talking about Entertainment Starting in a great way here. People like Nat King Cole and pearl bailey and Johnny Mathis and the will mastin trio. They are coming here to entertain, but they cannot go into the front door of the casino. Trying to get an opportunity, trying to fight your way in, and hearing day after day, im sorry. We dont book colored acts. Sorry, colored people cant stay here, and it was just you know, you just become so mad that you just say, well, what is this . Charles racism was part of life in america. And vegas was the mississippi of the west back in those days. But thats the way it was. We didnt think anything about it. Wed just maneuver through it. You take it one day at a time, and you did what you could do. Back then, there were no black girls in any of the lines, Production Shows that i was in on the strip. And everyone that hired me for any show, i was always put the question, you know, you have such a beautiful color. What are you . Immediately, i knew. I could not say im black. I would come up with anything else other than black, because if i was black, i was out. I wasnt gonna get the job, period. I carried on this facade for a while, until i met sammy davis. Sammy knew that i was of mixed blood, and he protected me through a lot of the stuff that was happening. Hed say, dont ever do this. Dont ever leave the casino with someone, and dont you know, just simple little things. Vegas was changing and shifting, but still, it was very small and very slow. I was a queen to him whos gonna make me play now . Geran entertainers could play in major hotels, but you couldnt stay. The only black entertainer that was able to stay at that time was lena horne. And it was said that she was able to pass the paper bag test, where if youre darker than the paper bag then youre considered an undesirable to stay among whites. Too good shore certain performers who took a stand and caused the wheel to turn lena horne, who was. Yes. A tremendous draw in vegas, who literally, because she could not because was treated like a, you know like a. Her daughter went into the pool, and they drained it. She went swimming in the pool, and they drained the pool. White in 1955, we had the first integrated hotelcasino that could rival any of those on the Las Vegas Strip. And it was called the moulin rouge. Crowd alright white a lot of people think the moulin rouge was blackowned. It was not. It was owned by whites who knew that African Americans were earning money now and that they wanted to spend it. The moulin rouge was themed after the moulin rouge in paris, and you had some of the best entertainment that everybody wanted to enjoy, with the first line of black dancers. Geran we thought that, for the first time, maybe las vegas wants to become integrated, and it started to get a lot of attention all over the world. But it was only open for six months. That was very perplexing because everybody wanted to go there. Everybody went there after hours. All the entertainers went there. It was the place to be at night. White there are lots of reasons that people give why the moulin rouge closed. The authentic reason is probably that some of the subcontractors were not paid. In 1955, there was a downturn in the economy. So, it was not just the moulin rouge that was in trouble. The dunes was in trouble and the royal nevada. But other hotels on the Las Vegas Strip propped up the royal nevada and the dunes, allowing them to stay in business. No one helped the moulin rouge because the competition was just too keen. So, at this point we have progress, but we still have a long ways to go. Davis ive come to realize that if the people who hate, see, the bigots, gee, if they could concentrate a half of that time on discovering a cure for cancer, we would have had it discovered, you know, 20 years ago. But they spend and it becomes [panting] like this with them. And its this frightening the world over. Look, i dont want to add to that. Thats one group i do not want to belong to. Theres one thing that tops Two Of A Kind in our business, and that is one of a kind. A performer that is so unique and outstanding that theres no one else quite like him. We have such a star of such magnitude with us tonight. Ladies and gentlemen,