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Speaker 1: Our Way with yours truly Paul Anka and my buddy

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Speaker 1: Skip Bronson is a production of iHeartRadio. Hi, folks, this

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Speaker 1: is Paul Anka.

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Speaker 2: And my name is Skip Bronson. We've been friends for

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Speaker 2: decades and we've decided to let you in on our

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Speaker 2: late night phone calls by starting a new podcast.

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Speaker 1: And welcome to Our Way. We'd like you to meet

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Speaker 1: some real good friends of ours.

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Speaker 2: Your leaders in entertainment and.

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Speaker 1: Sports, innovators in business and technology, and even a sitting

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Speaker 1: president or two.

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Speaker 2: Join us as we ask the questions they've not been

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Speaker 2: asked before, tell it like it is, and even sing

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Speaker 2: a song or two.

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Speaker 1: This is our podcast and we'll be doing it our way.

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Speaker 3: Hey Paul, Hey Skip, Well, what do you think, my buddy,

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Speaker 3: We're going to have brother Steve on this podcast. I

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Speaker 3: can't believe it, can you?

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Speaker 2: No? You know? Look? You and I know Steve when

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Speaker 2: you know longer than I do. I know him forty

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Speaker 2: years and you how long do you know him?

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Speaker 3: Well? I know him since I met him at the

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Speaker 3: Sountain Blue with his grandmother, then out in Vegas. He

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Speaker 3: was my neighbor. I've known him for years and I

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Speaker 3: know him very very well. Travel together hung together, worked

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Speaker 3: for him, know the man? Well, so it's gonna you know,

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Speaker 3: it's gonna be kind of easy for me because I

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Speaker 3: don't think we're going to have enough time to really

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Speaker 3: cover everything. And he's going to give us some amazing

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Speaker 3: in depth answers because that's how brilliant he is. But

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Speaker 3: I think you've worked for him, so you know what

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Speaker 3: to touch upon, what subjects would touch with him too.

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Speaker 3: Where are you going to go with it?

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Speaker 2: You think, Well, you know, one of the things I

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Speaker 2: want to do is you are one of the great

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Speaker 2: practical jokers of all time. I have to say hate

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Speaker 2: being the victim of them. Though you know most people

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Speaker 2: would be flattered and thinks it's great. I fucking hate it.

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Speaker 2: But you know, hopefully you'll get into some of the

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Speaker 2: things that you've done to him, because you've gotten him

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Speaker 2: so badly. Maybe you can touch on that.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I'll hit the humor spot.

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Speaker 2: Look, everybody knows what he did. He took Las Vegas

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Speaker 2: to a whole new level. I think there should be

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Speaker 2: a statue of him on the Las Vegas Strip because

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Speaker 2: when he first created the Mirage and spent six or

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Speaker 2: seven hundred million dollars, no one had ever spent a

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Speaker 2: fraction of that, and that really started the entire renaissance

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Speaker 2: in Las Vegas, got everybody else up their game. But

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Speaker 2: I've never really as close as I am to him.

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Speaker 2: I've never really asked him about the inspiration. You know what, why,

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Speaker 2: what made you want to do that? So I think

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Speaker 2: that's what I'd like to touch on.

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Speaker 3: He set the new tone.

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Speaker 4: You know.

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Speaker 3: I was there back when the boys ran it, and

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Speaker 3: obviously no one had the vision that Steve's had. And

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Speaker 3: we look at what he's done on the landscape of

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Speaker 3: Vegas today, and everybody keeps coming second to him anyway.

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Speaker 3: Everybody they just they don't know how to build, They

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Speaker 3: don't know how to design the way that he has

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Speaker 3: and the kind of class.

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Speaker 2: How about his obsession with German shepherds. He's had so

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Speaker 2: many of those dogs. It kept people like me fearful.

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Speaker 2: You know, they talk about Biden's dog and how many

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Speaker 2: people the dog bit. I mean Steve's dogs.

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Speaker 3: I remember that very well.

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Speaker 2: I always gave those dogs plenty of room. I never

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Speaker 2: wanted to get too close to them, but they were

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Speaker 2: they were scary.

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Speaker 3: No, they were well trained. He had them trained at

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Speaker 3: Germany and you know it was and it should be cool.

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Speaker 3: Man got a lot to say. He hasn't worked in

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Speaker 3: once there.

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Speaker 2: No, it's longer.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm just chures to ask him. You can ask

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Speaker 3: him if he misses it. I think he'll give you

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Speaker 3: a real off.

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Speaker 2: I miss it when I go back there and walk

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Speaker 2: into the casino and I see all the old guys

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Speaker 2: in the casino. Hosts come up to me, and I

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Speaker 2: miss it. I don't know that he does, but we

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Speaker 2: can certainly touch on that. That'll be a good that'll

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Speaker 2: be a good topic.

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Speaker 3: It'll be fun. It'll be talking to a brother, you

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Speaker 3: know that.

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Speaker 2: I'm looking forward to it.

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Speaker 3: All right, So I have some dinner and we'll hit

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Speaker 3: him tomorrow.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it'll be fun. I'll see. We're actually going to

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Speaker 2: do it at his house.

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Speaker 3: His studio. I told him to go down in his studio,

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Speaker 3: you know the theater where it's quiet. Yeah, we'll get

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Speaker 3: some real Uh, it'll be real good for sound down there.

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Speaker 3: It'll be quiet with no interruption and easy for him obviously.

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Speaker 3: And uh, we'll get a free dinner out of it.

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Speaker 3: I think.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. After that, we'll have dinner, we'll have some more laughs.

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Speaker 2: It'll be great. All right, man, looking forward to seeing

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Speaker 2: you tomorrow.

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Speaker 3: Take care.

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Speaker 2: Love to Edie, Thanks Sam, to Michelle.

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Speaker 4: Okay, stand that Paul Anchor's on this show.

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Speaker 2: He is really love that guy.

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Speaker 1: I want to meet him. You know, when I was

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Speaker 1: sixteen seventeen, it was probably the luckiest teenager in the world.

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Speaker 1: Hit records of traveling everywhere, and I start working copa

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Speaker 1: cabana where you had to start and then you'd wind

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Speaker 1: up in Vegas. So there I am in Vegas and

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Speaker 1: with the rat pack, hanging with these guys. And from

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Speaker 1: there you'd go to the Fountain Blue in Florida. Now

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Speaker 1: that was more glamorous. It was on the ocean, and

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Speaker 1: it drew everybody from New York.

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Speaker 4: It was the place. Right.

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Speaker 1: So I'm working Vegas, work in the Fountain Blue. And

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Speaker 1: there was a grandmother who used to bring her young

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Speaker 1: little grandchild, grandson, actually her name was Rachel, and she'd

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Speaker 1: bring him to the Fountain Blue so he'd get a

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Speaker 1: taste of the entertainment business, you know, get what it

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Speaker 1: was all about. And this grandson of hers, on one occasion,

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Speaker 1: after being at the Fountain Bouf a few times, he

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Speaker 1: looked up at the building and he said, to Rachel

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Speaker 1: Rackel as a friend.

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Speaker 4: Just call her Rocklet.

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Speaker 1: That's what I want to do. I want to build

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Speaker 1: hotels like that when I get older. And that's exactly

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Speaker 1: what that kid did, and he's been doing. He's become

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Speaker 1: a friend of mine, a brother by another mother. He

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Speaker 1: then moved out to Nevada. This kid that I met

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Speaker 1: at the Fountain Blue, where I'm six months older than

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Speaker 1: he was. We became neighbors, and I realized when I

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Speaker 1: first met him, this was someone that, like me, was

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Speaker 1: a perfectionist. Anything that he was going to do, I

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Speaker 1: was so enthralled with him. And that kid's name, folks,

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Speaker 1: Steve Wynn. And he's our guest today. And I've got

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Speaker 1: to tell you this isn't Skip and I sitting here

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Speaker 1: looking at a bunch of notes. This is somebody we've

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Speaker 1: loved and adored and have known for many, many years.

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Speaker 1: And you're gonna listen to one of the brilliant minds

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Speaker 1: that I've ever been exposed to, mister Wynn. Welcome to

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Speaker 1: our way.

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Speaker 4: How were we supposed to follow such a lovely Thanks? Blini,

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Speaker 4: You're Welcomeini Bellini. Yeah, we've called each other Blini for

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Speaker 4: twenty five years, thirty years of the We've known each

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Speaker 4: other since. We're both nineteen and he was he was

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Speaker 4: not only six months older. He was the star of

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Speaker 4: the Faunham Blue, along with Frank Sinatra, Johnny Mathis, Dean Martin,

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Speaker 4: Sammy Davis. You know, it was the number one nightclub.

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Speaker 4: It was the Copa Comana in New York, the Sands

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Speaker 4: in Las Vegas, and the Faunham Blue in the fifties,

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Speaker 4: in the late fifties and sixties in Miami Beach. And

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Speaker 4: Paul was it was eighteen years old, seventeen years old

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Speaker 4: in nineteen fifty nine, we were both seventeen. I was

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Speaker 4: graduating high school. He was a star at the Blue,

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Speaker 4: and I think he had just come from the Sands

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Speaker 4: in Las Vegas. So there was this this this my

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Speaker 4: mother and father and my grandmother Rachel, who had come

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Speaker 4: from Poland years before but lived with us. She was

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Speaker 4: this really died in the wool, enthusiastic member of the Polyhanka.

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Speaker 4: She called him poly Hanka as if it was h

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Speaker 4: and and she would say, Stephen, polly Hanka is a

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Speaker 4: defund and blue. I know, Grandma, we should go to

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Speaker 4: see Polyhanka. And my father and mother and my grandmother.

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Speaker 4: We went to see Polyhanka and it was it was

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Speaker 4: you know, it was not unusual to look at a

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Speaker 4: stage and see as Sammy Davis or Frank Sinatra or

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Speaker 4: Dean Martin. They were, after all, twenty five years older

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Speaker 4: than us. But to go to the number one night club,

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Speaker 4: one of the top three performing places for performing artists

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Speaker 4: in America and see a guy that was your age,

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Speaker 4: that didn't compute. Even Johnny Mathis was older than us,

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Speaker 4: still is, but you were only you were only seventeen

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Speaker 4: years old as a headliner in fifty nine, fifty eight

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Speaker 4: to fifty nine, And that was something I had to process.

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Speaker 4: But it was great, you know, put your head on

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Speaker 4: my shoulder, Diana Pubby, I mean, all of it was

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Speaker 4: so great. And the point is you could do it live,

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Speaker 4: just like it sounded on the radio. You didn't need

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Speaker 4: any equipment or engineers. All you guys Sinatra, Martin, Johnny

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Speaker 4: Mathis and Frank and Dean they could stand up in

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Speaker 4: front of a microphone.

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Speaker 2: And just do it.

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Speaker 4: And they they could be in a crowded nightclub where

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Speaker 4: people were drinking or promoting their girlfriend. And then the

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Speaker 4: certain kind of person and you can't. I can't train anybody.

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Speaker 4: It's almost a gift. But whatever that person does when

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Speaker 4: they talk, the crowd hushes, the room goes quiet, and

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Speaker 4: everybody's head turns to the man or woman in the light.

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Speaker 4: And some of the most wonderful performers they get up,

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Speaker 4: and they had beautiful voices. But yet the crowd kept talking.

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Speaker 4: The conversations at the tables didn't change. And then a

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Speaker 4: guy like Sinatra or Martin, or Sam Davis or Paul

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Speaker 4: at nineteen stood up and said hello, and the noise

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Speaker 4: in the room and the band struck up the first

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Speaker 4: chords and first few bars, and all of a sudden,

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Speaker 4: the room went quiet, and everybody was now being entertained.

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Speaker 4: And I witnessed that when I was young, coupled with

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Speaker 4: the glamour of all the beautiful people in the beautiful lobby,

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Speaker 4: walking down the shops in the basement, going at the

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Speaker 4: beautiful pool with the cabanas and the gardens that you

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Speaker 4: walked across, and the fauna blue, and people like Sinatra

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Speaker 4: and Anka and those kind of people, that was better

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Speaker 4: than the real world. Inside that building. It was magical.

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Speaker 4: As Joel Gray says in the opening number of the

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Speaker 4: movie Cabaret. Inside everything is beautiful, The girls are beautiful,

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Speaker 4: even the band is beautiful. Leave your troubles outside, and

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Speaker 4: the Fauna Blue is at magic place and.

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Speaker 1: Well a magic country. You know, you think you go

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Speaker 1: back to your grandparents, all of us. You know, they

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Speaker 1: landed in this country for the dream. Right when they

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Speaker 1: came here. None of those people were making money. These

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Speaker 1: people came, they struggled, and all of a sudden when

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Speaker 1: they did acquire money and they went out, you know,

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Speaker 1: from post war, they appreciated what they saw. These were

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Speaker 1: hardworking people that evolved into this country, right into the

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Speaker 1: entertainment complex, and they were fascinating to see those people,

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Speaker 1: how much they cared, they worked hard, and that was

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Speaker 1: our audience. Unlike today you make that point. I've got

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Speaker 1: our grandparents and stuff. You know, you came from Canada,

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Speaker 1: so your children are firstborn Americans. But my grandparents, my

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Speaker 1: mother and father, and that whole generation born during World

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Speaker 1: War one, just before and during World War One, they

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Speaker 1: were all firstborn Americans, and they came from impoverished families,

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Speaker 1: immigrants that came through Ellis Island and they struggled in

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Speaker 1: places like Boston and New York. In the big metropolitan

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Speaker 1: cities of the Northeast, and then they came of age.

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Speaker 1: If they're born my parents born in nineteen fourteen. Frank

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Speaker 1: was Sinatra and Dean were both born in nineteen fifteen,

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Speaker 1: they all came of age in nineteen thirty two, right

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Speaker 1: into the Great Depression. So they grew up dirt poor.

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Speaker 1: None of them graduated high school. They were working when

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Speaker 1: they were fifteen or sixteen years old. They bump into

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Speaker 1: the Great Depression in the thirties, and then if they

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Speaker 1: don't get drafted into the war in forty forty one,

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Speaker 1: then they had defense jobs. So the country is on

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Speaker 1: its but they're worried about the Nazis and the Japanese.

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Speaker 1: And the war ends in forty four and forty five,

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Speaker 1: and everybody comes home from the war, and everybody is

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Speaker 1: now thirty years old, and for the first time in

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Speaker 1: their life, there's peace and an open road in front

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Speaker 1: of them. And we bumped into the greatest period of prosperity. Now,

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Speaker 1: what's important, you just remind him. And the reason I'm

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Speaker 1: bringing this up is.

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Speaker 4: That these people had never had any money whatsoever, no

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Speaker 4: excess disposable income. But they had seen on the herd

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Speaker 4: on the radio, or read magazines about the good life,

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Speaker 4: living big, going to New York, going to the Copacabana,

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Speaker 4: going to baseball games, having a Cadillac, a diamond ring,

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Speaker 4: a mink stole, and maybe even going to Las Vegas.

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Speaker 4: But to go to New York to stay in the

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Speaker 4: hotel on Broadway my parents, the Taft Hotel, to go

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Speaker 4: to Yankee Stadium was living big. And so we've noticed,

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Speaker 4: and this especially Drew and Macau, anywhere in the world,

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Speaker 4: this real strong consumerism, this desire to try the things

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Speaker 4: you've only dreamt about because you've finally got.

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Speaker 2: A buck to do.

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Speaker 4: It is a sign of first generation wealth.

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Speaker 1: And same game Vegas, Macal.

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Speaker 4: There's no old money in China. All these guys that

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Speaker 4: were gambling with us all during the last twenty years,

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Speaker 4: twenty five years, they're all brand new money. Our parents,

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Speaker 4: our grandparents when they came here, never did see any money.

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Speaker 4: But their children, our parents, the people born before nineteen twenty,

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Speaker 4: they made sure that their kids had the best of everything,

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Speaker 4: and they made sure that they could. And you have

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Speaker 4: a different attitude towards money when you're the first one

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Speaker 4: and you're history of your family. Never make it. You say,

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Speaker 4: wait a minute, I've survived. I overcame poverty and everything else.

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Speaker 4: I made this money on my own, so I can

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Speaker 4: afford to do what I want with it. I'm going

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Speaker 4: to try the things I've dreamt about, and I'll make

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Speaker 4: more money. So if I lose it playing blackjack in

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Speaker 4: Las Vegas, or I squander it going to New York

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Speaker 4: and going to night clubs. Things are not strictly productive activity,

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Speaker 4: why not. I've earned the right to do it. When

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Speaker 4: you get to send it. Second generation wealth. First of all,

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Speaker 4: our generation. We got to go to college, we got

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Speaker 4: to have drive a car. We had the best of everything.

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Speaker 4: The people born between nineteen thirty eight nineteen forty and

280
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Speaker 4: beyond the Baby boomers. We bumped into the greatest period

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Speaker 4: in world history between nineteen fifty and nineteen nineteen fifty

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Speaker 4: five sixty and even reach its peak in eighty to

283
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Speaker 4: twenty ten and fifteen. Nothing but bigger, better, everything was

284
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Speaker 4: no anxiety. Cold War came to an end Russia, the

285
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Speaker 4: Soviet Union collapsed, and boy, oh boy, we're sitting here

286
00:17:06,440 --> 00:17:09,320
Speaker 4: today talking to one other. You and Skip and I

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00:17:09,560 --> 00:17:23,879
Speaker 4: things show have changed my mind.

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Speaker 1: Your first time when you hit Vegas with your dad.

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Speaker 1: That's a wild story. Reminisce about that to where you

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Speaker 1: finally make your first move with a casino.

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Speaker 4: Father was in the bingo business and he had a

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Speaker 4: friend that he grew up with in Revere, Massachusetts named

293
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Speaker 4: Arthur Rosan, and Arthur Rosen had a bingo had rented

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Speaker 4: the second floor of the Silver Slipper and had a

295
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Speaker 4: bingo game. So he's making a living. But the Golden

296
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Speaker 4: Nugget downtown didn't like the idea that people were going

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Speaker 4: to the Silver Slipper up in the across from the

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Speaker 4: Desert End, which to casino like downtown Las Vegas didn't

299
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Speaker 4: have any rooms Silver Slippers saloon and bingo on the

300
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Speaker 4: second floor. And the people at the Golden Nugget, which

301
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Speaker 4: were the main powerhouse in downtown Las Vegas a Golden Nugget,

302
00:18:15,480 --> 00:18:19,360
Speaker 4: they had been there since nineteen forty six, and they

303
00:18:19,359 --> 00:18:21,200
Speaker 4: didn't like the idea that people were going to the

304
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Speaker 4: Silver Slipper and playing bingo when they could have been

305
00:18:23,359 --> 00:18:26,399
Speaker 4: playing slot machines at the Golden Nugget. So they opened

306
00:18:26,400 --> 00:18:30,000
Speaker 4: a bingo hall to compete with the Silver Slipper and

307
00:18:31,320 --> 00:18:34,760
Speaker 4: just gave everything free. The gay they were charging for

308
00:18:36,040 --> 00:18:39,800
Speaker 4: and Arthur Rosen called my father in Utica, New York

309
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Speaker 4: and asked him to come out and help him figure

310
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Speaker 4: out how to promote it and compete. My father went

311
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Speaker 4: out for a month and after two weeks called up,

312
00:18:50,280 --> 00:18:54,640
Speaker 4: called my mom and I was It was nineteen fifty two.

313
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Speaker 4: I was ten, and he said, send Stevie out and

314
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Speaker 4: my mother put me on a Colonial Airline plane at Utica,

315
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Speaker 4: New York that flew to Chicago Midway Airport and then

316
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Speaker 4: United Airlines from Chicago to Denver to Las Vegas. And

317
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Speaker 4: I was by myself at my little suitcase, and I

318
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Speaker 4: liked being independent, and my father picked me up and

319
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Speaker 4: I got off a plane in nineteen fifty two to

320
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Speaker 4: Las Vegas. That was early Las Vegas, just the desert

321
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Speaker 4: in seven or eight places. If you walked in front

322
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Speaker 4: of the Flamingo, the sands or the dunes of the

323
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Speaker 4: desert inn there was no sidewalk. There was edge of

324
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Speaker 4: the road, curb of the road and sand, and behind

325
00:19:43,840 --> 00:19:49,520
Speaker 4: those hotels was desert. There was nothing else. And I

326
00:19:49,560 --> 00:19:53,320
Speaker 4: went and stayed with my dad in the Frontier Hotel,

327
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Speaker 4: which was next to the Silver Slipper and between the

328
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Speaker 4: two places was the frontier village. They made a a

329
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Speaker 4: village just like in a movie. A western main street

330
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Speaker 4: would place to tie up the horses, and at the

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Speaker 4: end of the street, like a cap was a stable

332
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Speaker 4: where you could rent horses to go riding. And my

333
00:20:13,720 --> 00:20:16,240
Speaker 4: dad and I we'd rent horses every day and go

334
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Speaker 4: out in the desert. And they had a shooting gallery

335
00:20:18,640 --> 00:20:21,560
Speaker 4: there in the town and a saloon. You could go

336
00:20:21,600 --> 00:20:25,280
Speaker 4: in there for milkshakes and stuff and shoot a rifle

337
00:20:25,320 --> 00:20:28,960
Speaker 4: in a shooting gallery. And we'd go ride horses in

338
00:20:29,040 --> 00:20:34,080
Speaker 4: the desert and it was so cool. But that lasted

339
00:20:34,119 --> 00:20:37,280
Speaker 4: for ten days, and then we went home and back

340
00:20:37,320 --> 00:20:41,800
Speaker 4: to Utica for another twenty years or so.

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Speaker 1: Went an aesthetic change, right Oh your sand and blue sky.

342
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Speaker 4: Back to the East coast, back to Utica, and then

343
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Speaker 4: after college it was a new story.

344
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Speaker 2: Mike.

345
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Speaker 4: My father died. It was forty nine years old. He

346
00:20:58,680 --> 00:21:01,880
Speaker 4: died on the table in heart surgery at the University

347
00:21:01,920 --> 00:21:06,159
Speaker 4: of Minnesota. He had had rheumatic fever. He had a

348
00:21:06,359 --> 00:21:10,560
Speaker 4: large to heart and they didn't have heart replacements then

349
00:21:10,960 --> 00:21:13,680
Speaker 4: and so they couldn't fix him. And it was late.

350
00:21:13,760 --> 00:21:15,880
Speaker 4: He was having heart failure and they tried to save him,

351
00:21:15,880 --> 00:21:19,200
Speaker 4: and he died on the table. And I was maybe

352
00:21:19,320 --> 00:21:21,600
Speaker 4: three weeks since my twenty first birthday, and I was

353
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Speaker 4: about a month away from graduating from college in Philadelphia,

354
00:21:27,240 --> 00:21:30,080
Speaker 4: and all of a sudden, it was any meanie mighty

355
00:21:30,119 --> 00:21:34,360
Speaker 4: and there was no mo I, my mom, my girlfriend,

356
00:21:35,440 --> 00:21:40,240
Speaker 4: my ten year old brother, and it was da da

357
00:21:40,280 --> 00:21:40,840
Speaker 4: da da da.

358
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Speaker 2: Y're on.

359
00:21:42,800 --> 00:21:46,800
Speaker 4: And then the rest of my life from that point

360
00:21:46,840 --> 00:21:50,880
Speaker 4: on when I was twenty one, was something that where

361
00:21:50,920 --> 00:21:53,320
Speaker 4: I sort of had to figure it out for myself,

362
00:21:53,880 --> 00:21:56,000
Speaker 4: which is not a bad thing. I mean, but you

363
00:21:56,119 --> 00:21:58,320
Speaker 4: have to do twenty one years old, old enough to

364
00:21:58,359 --> 00:22:00,080
Speaker 4: take care of yourself should.

365
00:21:59,800 --> 00:22:02,159
Speaker 2: Be Yeah, I'm thinking about the way I met the

366
00:22:02,200 --> 00:22:05,320
Speaker 2: two of you. It was nineteen eighty four. I was

367
00:22:05,359 --> 00:22:07,320
Speaker 2: living in Connecticut, where I grew up, and I had

368
00:22:07,320 --> 00:22:11,160
Speaker 2: a shopping center development company and had made enough money

369
00:22:11,160 --> 00:22:14,399
Speaker 2: to get myself a place at La Costa was golf

370
00:22:14,480 --> 00:22:20,520
Speaker 2: resort northern San Diego County, and one day one of

371
00:22:20,560 --> 00:22:23,480
Speaker 2: the owners, Irwin Mulaski, came up to me and said, listen,

372
00:22:23,560 --> 00:22:25,800
Speaker 2: you're a good golfer, right, I said, yeah, pretty good.

373
00:22:26,560 --> 00:22:28,120
Speaker 2: He said, well, I got a guy coming over from

374
00:22:28,160 --> 00:22:30,160
Speaker 2: Las Vegas. He just took up the game. I really

375
00:22:30,160 --> 00:22:31,520
Speaker 2: want you to meet him, so I want you to

376
00:22:31,560 --> 00:22:34,479
Speaker 2: take him out and play golf. And I thought, oh

377
00:22:34,560 --> 00:22:37,760
Speaker 2: my god, that's anathema to a good golfer. Somebody just

378
00:22:37,800 --> 00:22:39,680
Speaker 2: took up the game. Are you kidding me? I said,

379
00:22:39,720 --> 00:22:41,600
Speaker 2: what if I have a drink with him? No, no,

380
00:22:41,600 --> 00:22:43,840
Speaker 2: you're going to take him to play golf. So, of course,

381
00:22:44,000 --> 00:22:45,680
Speaker 2: because he was one of the owners and he had

382
00:22:45,680 --> 00:22:49,320
Speaker 2: always be in good shape with him, You and I

383
00:22:49,400 --> 00:22:51,400
Speaker 2: went out and played golf. Who was you and your

384
00:22:51,440 --> 00:22:55,440
Speaker 2: brother myself and just hit it off, had the greatest time.

385
00:22:55,480 --> 00:22:58,439
Speaker 2: And you said to me, Connecticut, this is great. You

386
00:22:58,440 --> 00:23:02,360
Speaker 2: know my daughter is going to go to and I'm

387
00:23:02,400 --> 00:23:03,879
Speaker 2: going to be all the way out in Las Vegas.

388
00:23:03,960 --> 00:23:06,040
Speaker 2: Maybe you keep an eye on her. I said, oh yeah,

389
00:23:06,040 --> 00:23:09,639
Speaker 2: that's no problem, and just sort of hit it off.

390
00:23:09,720 --> 00:23:12,800
Speaker 2: We just had a great time. And two years later

391
00:23:13,680 --> 00:23:16,320
Speaker 2: I was in Las Vegas for a shopping center convention

392
00:23:16,400 --> 00:23:18,560
Speaker 2: and I figured, you know what, I'm going to call

393
00:23:18,600 --> 00:23:21,200
Speaker 2: Steve when he probably won't even remember me, but I'll

394
00:23:21,359 --> 00:23:24,320
Speaker 2: take a shot. So I called your office, went through

395
00:23:24,359 --> 00:23:28,440
Speaker 2: three people, finally got you on the phone, and you said,

396
00:23:28,640 --> 00:23:30,680
Speaker 2: you're kidding me. You're here in Las Vegas. You didn't

397
00:23:30,680 --> 00:23:33,959
Speaker 2: call me to tell me you're coming. And where he's staying.

398
00:23:34,119 --> 00:23:37,440
Speaker 2: I said, to Hilton, the Hilton. What are you doing

399
00:23:37,440 --> 00:23:39,040
Speaker 2: at the Hilton? I said, well, it's next to the

400
00:23:39,080 --> 00:23:42,439
Speaker 2: convention center. I'm here for a shopping center convention. You said,

401
00:23:42,480 --> 00:23:45,399
Speaker 2: pack up your stuff, somebody's going to be there twenty minutes.

402
00:23:45,440 --> 00:23:48,080
Speaker 2: Pick up. You're going to stay downtown at the Golden Nugget.

403
00:23:48,800 --> 00:23:51,120
Speaker 2: I said, you know, Steve, that's really kind, but it's

404
00:23:51,160 --> 00:23:53,280
Speaker 2: just not convenient. You know, I'm right next door to

405
00:23:53,280 --> 00:23:55,760
Speaker 2: the convention center. You said, well, I'm going to have

406
00:23:55,880 --> 00:23:58,040
Speaker 2: cars available to drive you over to the convention center

407
00:23:58,119 --> 00:23:59,880
Speaker 2: or anywhere you want to go. Twenty four to seven.

408
00:24:00,400 --> 00:24:01,840
Speaker 2: Just come on over here. Somebody to be there in

409
00:24:01,880 --> 00:24:04,359
Speaker 2: twenty minutes. There was no talking you out of it.

410
00:24:04,520 --> 00:24:07,560
Speaker 2: So I got packed up and guy picks me up

411
00:24:07,560 --> 00:24:10,880
Speaker 2: in a stretch limo, takes me to Las Vegas. They

412
00:24:10,920 --> 00:24:13,720
Speaker 2: take me to the front desk, They hand me the key,

413
00:24:13,760 --> 00:24:16,080
Speaker 2: they take the bellman takes me up and I get

414
00:24:16,080 --> 00:24:20,120
Speaker 2: into a suite two stories. It looks like something out

415
00:24:20,119 --> 00:24:22,040
Speaker 2: of a movie set. I'd never seen anything like this.

416
00:24:22,240 --> 00:24:24,800
Speaker 2: It was like, you know, Dean Martin as Matt Helman.

417
00:24:24,880 --> 00:24:28,800
Speaker 2: One of those movies, the most incredible suite I had

418
00:24:28,800 --> 00:24:31,159
Speaker 2: ever seen. I'd never even seen pictures of anything like this,

419
00:24:32,240 --> 00:24:37,240
Speaker 2: and I said, wow, this is crazy. And that night,

420
00:24:37,280 --> 00:24:41,400
Speaker 2: as it turns out, you were tied up and Paul

421
00:24:41,440 --> 00:24:44,000
Speaker 2: Anka was performing at the Golden Nugget. So I went

422
00:24:44,040 --> 00:24:48,160
Speaker 2: to see paul Anka perform. Thought paul had a residence

423
00:24:48,200 --> 00:24:50,040
Speaker 2: in those days. Yeah, I said, it was great. This

424
00:24:50,720 --> 00:24:55,160
Speaker 2: is just crazy. It worked twelve fourteen weeks a year.

425
00:24:55,560 --> 00:24:59,359
Speaker 1: Almost almost didn't work there after that. You want to

426
00:24:59,400 --> 00:25:01,760
Speaker 1: hear a crazy story over, I'm going to bait my friend.

427
00:25:01,880 --> 00:25:02,639
Speaker 2: Worst story.

428
00:25:02,760 --> 00:25:05,520
Speaker 1: So I'm loving it down there, and everybody's talking about him,

429
00:25:05,560 --> 00:25:07,560
Speaker 1: the Golden Nugget. The whole town here's built.

430
00:25:07,320 --> 00:25:07,879
Speaker 2: The room for him.

431
00:25:08,000 --> 00:25:09,600
Speaker 4: Can't we built a night club care.

432
00:25:09,840 --> 00:25:12,280
Speaker 1: For me, Sinatra and where everybody's happy, and they can't

433
00:25:12,320 --> 00:25:16,240
Speaker 1: believe that this jewel is downtown that Steve put together

434
00:25:16,320 --> 00:25:19,360
Speaker 1: right with a sign of what was to come. So

435
00:25:19,880 --> 00:25:22,360
Speaker 1: I'm working there and I'm loving it, Sinatra and I

436
00:25:22,680 --> 00:25:26,440
Speaker 1: everybody's happy, and my deal runs out and I've got

437
00:25:26,480 --> 00:25:28,959
Speaker 1: to make a new deal, right, And I was kind

438
00:25:29,000 --> 00:25:31,400
Speaker 1: of running my own show back then, so I called

439
00:25:31,440 --> 00:25:33,400
Speaker 1: my brother up and I say, on the.

440
00:25:33,359 --> 00:25:37,000
Speaker 4: Strip, the wages that you could make in those bigger

441
00:25:37,080 --> 00:25:40,639
Speaker 4: rooms that had more seats were two or three times

442
00:25:40,680 --> 00:25:43,560
Speaker 4: when I could afford it on Fremont Street.

443
00:25:43,480 --> 00:25:45,800
Speaker 1: Right, And I call Steve and I say, Steve, we

444
00:25:45,920 --> 00:25:47,960
Speaker 1: got to talk about a new deal. You take it

445
00:25:47,960 --> 00:25:50,320
Speaker 1: from there. This is here our guests go.

446
00:25:51,119 --> 00:25:56,560
Speaker 4: So Sinatra is making fifties seventy five eighty thousand a show,

447
00:25:57,520 --> 00:26:01,600
Speaker 4: and Anka and Guys and Martin in those days would

448
00:26:01,640 --> 00:26:04,800
Speaker 4: be that level of wages. You know, fifty grand a

449
00:26:04,880 --> 00:26:08,320
Speaker 4: show was a big star. He's making twenty at twenty

450
00:26:08,359 --> 00:26:12,080
Speaker 4: five thousand dollars a week, and he's doing the twelve shows.

451
00:26:12,560 --> 00:26:16,399
Speaker 4: He says, listen, we're paths. I love it down here.

452
00:26:18,240 --> 00:26:21,480
Speaker 4: It's great. But Steve, I got five daughters.

453
00:26:21,560 --> 00:26:22,639
Speaker 2: I can't you know.

454
00:26:22,800 --> 00:26:25,159
Speaker 4: I'm working so much at the hotel. I'm here, you

455
00:26:25,160 --> 00:26:28,040
Speaker 4: know a lot. I'm here a fourth of the year.

456
00:26:30,000 --> 00:26:32,120
Speaker 4: It's home and all that, and I love it because

457
00:26:32,160 --> 00:26:35,040
Speaker 4: I live in Las Vegas. He's talked about himself, but

458
00:26:35,119 --> 00:26:38,399
Speaker 4: I need to make more money. I said, Paul Jeeves,

459
00:26:39,320 --> 00:26:42,720
Speaker 4: you know I don't make any money. We lose money

460
00:26:42,760 --> 00:26:46,960
Speaker 4: to have you here because the room's small. It's great

461
00:26:46,960 --> 00:26:49,040
Speaker 4: for the audience to can touch you. I mean, it's

462
00:26:49,200 --> 00:26:52,800
Speaker 4: really old time intimate to have a big star that close.

463
00:26:52,960 --> 00:26:55,639
Speaker 4: But I can't afford it. And I know you're making

464
00:26:55,640 --> 00:26:59,200
Speaker 4: a sacrifice for me. I know that this is a gift,

465
00:26:59,680 --> 00:27:02,520
Speaker 4: but I'm feeling guilty about it. And remember we lived

466
00:27:02,600 --> 00:27:06,040
Speaker 4: next door to one another, had we're neighbors. He had

467
00:27:06,080 --> 00:27:09,760
Speaker 4: five daughters, I had two. We used to go on vacation.

468
00:27:09,960 --> 00:27:14,560
Speaker 4: We had nine women and two guys. The truth we

469
00:27:14,680 --> 00:27:16,280
Speaker 4: go on vacation and two families together.

470
00:27:16,320 --> 00:27:16,920
Speaker 2: It's all women.

471
00:27:17,320 --> 00:27:19,760
Speaker 4: Anyway, I said, go ahead and take the job. They

472
00:27:19,760 --> 00:27:22,760
Speaker 4: want you to work at Caesar's Palace. I can't ask

473
00:27:22,800 --> 00:27:25,840
Speaker 4: you to do this. It's not fair to you, and

474
00:27:25,880 --> 00:27:27,720
Speaker 4: really it's not fair to the joint here to lose

475
00:27:27,760 --> 00:27:32,159
Speaker 4: more money. We're on the phone this exchange. Is that

476
00:27:32,280 --> 00:27:36,720
Speaker 4: your final word? He gets real quiet, sort of pathetic.

477
00:27:36,760 --> 00:27:38,840
Speaker 4: He's that your final word? That's what you're going to

478
00:27:38,880 --> 00:27:42,600
Speaker 4: tell me? Well, Billini, I can't help, but I think

479
00:27:42,640 --> 00:27:51,600
Speaker 4: that's the bottom line. Okay, goodbye, just like that, not angry, Okay, goodbye. Well,

480
00:27:51,720 --> 00:27:56,720
Speaker 4: what happened next is one of those moments when you

481
00:27:56,920 --> 00:28:00,320
Speaker 4: love Las Vegas, and they're crazy people that make it up.

482
00:28:01,000 --> 00:28:06,920
Speaker 4: My secretary, Joyce Lumin, comes into my room, my office,

483
00:28:07,000 --> 00:28:08,840
Speaker 4: and I have one of those offices with two doors,

484
00:28:09,440 --> 00:28:11,760
Speaker 4: but you only you only you locked one, you only

485
00:28:11,800 --> 00:28:14,800
Speaker 4: open one half of the double door. But she comes

486
00:28:14,840 --> 00:28:19,240
Speaker 4: in and she's got red face like she's controlling herself,

487
00:28:19,640 --> 00:28:23,200
Speaker 4: and she unclips the door that was anchored and pushes

488
00:28:23,240 --> 00:28:26,240
Speaker 4: it against the wall and then opens the other door

489
00:28:26,320 --> 00:28:28,760
Speaker 4: so that the double doors for the first time are open,

490
00:28:30,200 --> 00:28:34,879
Speaker 4: and all of a sudden, two emergency guys in white

491
00:28:34,920 --> 00:28:39,280
Speaker 4: suits like in a hospital, pulling pushing a gurney with

492
00:28:39,440 --> 00:28:44,560
Speaker 4: a blood transfusion tower above it with plasma hanging on

493
00:28:44,600 --> 00:28:48,680
Speaker 4: it and tubes going in to a figure all in

494
00:28:48,920 --> 00:28:52,480
Speaker 4: wrapped up in bandages, the entire face except for the

495
00:28:52,520 --> 00:28:57,760
Speaker 4: mouth and the eyes, totally bandaged, hands, everything like a

496
00:28:57,840 --> 00:29:01,800
Speaker 4: mummade a person's spinning a terrible, terrible accident. And there

497
00:29:02,080 --> 00:29:06,840
Speaker 4: he's on the gurney with the blood transfusion tube going

498
00:29:06,920 --> 00:29:11,400
Speaker 4: in his arm, and there's a note pinned on the

499
00:29:11,440 --> 00:29:17,200
Speaker 4: top of the body said, Okay, do you want what

500
00:29:17,360 --> 00:29:20,760
Speaker 4: you actually say this? I give up? Do it to me?

501
00:29:21,040 --> 00:29:26,120
Speaker 4: What difference to make well? The whole floor of the

502
00:29:26,240 --> 00:29:28,560
Speaker 4: executives had to come and see it. You had to

503
00:29:28,600 --> 00:29:29,000
Speaker 4: see it.

504
00:29:29,120 --> 00:29:31,880
Speaker 1: Do you still have hired Do you have the picture? Still?

505
00:29:32,520 --> 00:29:34,400
Speaker 2: We do somewhere He.

506
00:29:34,440 --> 00:29:38,360
Speaker 4: Hired an ambulance, he hired the biggest emergency operation, had

507
00:29:38,440 --> 00:29:42,400
Speaker 4: himself all bandits prepared, and had himself brought down in

508
00:29:42,480 --> 00:29:46,040
Speaker 4: the ambulance. They took the the gurney, threw in the

509
00:29:46,080 --> 00:29:49,160
Speaker 4: lobby of the Golden Nugget down the whole corridor with

510
00:29:49,240 --> 00:29:53,200
Speaker 4: the shops, onto the elevator up to the top floor

511
00:29:53,240 --> 00:29:56,920
Speaker 4: where the offices were. Oh and everybody that worked up

512
00:29:56,920 --> 00:30:01,120
Speaker 4: there gotta laugh that day then, maniac. Well, of course

513
00:30:01,200 --> 00:30:03,280
Speaker 4: that was the end of the conversation about the money.

514
00:30:03,280 --> 00:30:06,480
Speaker 4: We had had a surrender, So will those a little

515
00:30:06,480 --> 00:30:09,560
Speaker 4: more money? We'll make it back somehow. Anyway, that was

516
00:30:09,680 --> 00:30:13,720
Speaker 4: That's one of the many Paul sort of famous for tricks.

517
00:30:14,760 --> 00:30:15,200
Speaker 2: Uh.

518
00:30:15,360 --> 00:30:18,840
Speaker 4: He's a prankster and he has done some of the

519
00:30:18,880 --> 00:30:23,720
Speaker 4: wildest things that ever. Ever, some of them can't be

520
00:30:23,840 --> 00:30:25,640
Speaker 4: used without getting bleeped on the air.

521
00:30:25,920 --> 00:30:29,400
Speaker 1: But who you do it here? You talk about us

522
00:30:29,400 --> 00:30:30,560
Speaker 1: traveling together, which we did.

523
00:30:30,600 --> 00:30:31,200
Speaker 4: We show.

524
00:30:33,480 --> 00:30:38,080
Speaker 1: In Venice, we got all the girls and we're at

525
00:30:38,080 --> 00:30:41,480
Speaker 1: the Chiprianichies for those of you out there is a

526
00:30:41,640 --> 00:30:47,280
Speaker 1: very exclusive little island, limited in rooms, but well appointed

527
00:30:47,320 --> 00:30:48,480
Speaker 1: in everything you'd ever want.

528
00:30:48,520 --> 00:30:51,080
Speaker 4: And we show the two best suites in the joint

529
00:30:51,440 --> 00:30:54,120
Speaker 4: are on the pool on the edge of the island.

530
00:30:54,280 --> 00:30:56,880
Speaker 1: And we show up first night. We blow the whole

531
00:30:56,920 --> 00:30:59,320
Speaker 1: place out because all the girls started using their dryers

532
00:30:59,720 --> 00:31:01,600
Speaker 1: right and the get go. So we blow that out.

533
00:31:02,360 --> 00:31:04,760
Speaker 1: But Steve and I got into the vibe and we're

534
00:31:04,760 --> 00:31:05,480
Speaker 1: sitting I.

535
00:31:05,400 --> 00:31:08,440
Speaker 4: Want to go shopping. They're into touring, you know, walking

536
00:31:08,560 --> 00:31:10,600
Speaker 4: on the bridges in Venice.

537
00:31:10,440 --> 00:31:12,440
Speaker 1: And we're sitting by the pool. We got into a

538
00:31:12,560 --> 00:31:16,160
Speaker 1: vibe of cigars and Billini's. That's where I got my knee, drinking.

539
00:31:16,000 --> 00:31:19,880
Speaker 4: Peach juice and champagne and Billini fresh peach juice in Italy,

540
00:31:20,280 --> 00:31:21,160
Speaker 4: white peach juice.

541
00:31:21,280 --> 00:31:25,160
Speaker 1: We're having a great stay and as you're having fun

542
00:31:25,200 --> 00:31:28,320
Speaker 1: in life, it goes very quickly. And I know we're

543
00:31:28,360 --> 00:31:29,280
Speaker 1: leaving the next day.

544
00:31:29,680 --> 00:31:31,840
Speaker 4: And just that's how we got the nicknames, because our

545
00:31:31,840 --> 00:31:35,640
Speaker 4: wives called us the Blini brothers. Anyway, so.

546
00:31:37,160 --> 00:31:39,440
Speaker 1: I call Steve and I'm gonna let you finish it,

547
00:31:39,600 --> 00:31:41,480
Speaker 1: knowing that we're leaving the next day.

548
00:31:41,600 --> 00:31:45,320
Speaker 4: The airplane. We had a plane. My plane was a

549
00:31:45,360 --> 00:31:49,480
Speaker 4: DC nine, and all of us could fly on this plane.

550
00:31:49,560 --> 00:31:53,440
Speaker 4: It's it's like, you know, an airliner equipped with furniture

551
00:31:53,600 --> 00:31:57,160
Speaker 4: for private plane. And but the airport, you know, the

552
00:31:57,200 --> 00:32:01,360
Speaker 4: airport's on a different island from everything's bern Islands in Venice.

553
00:32:01,960 --> 00:32:04,680
Speaker 4: But so the water taxi is arranged to take us

554
00:32:05,720 --> 00:32:09,560
Speaker 4: at ten thirty to go across and then take off

555
00:32:09,560 --> 00:32:11,840
Speaker 4: for the United States. It's the end of our three

556
00:32:11,880 --> 00:32:17,760
Speaker 4: weeks in Europe. We're going home from Italy at noon,

557
00:32:18,120 --> 00:32:21,719
Speaker 4: and we got to get up, pack everything, get ready,

558
00:32:22,320 --> 00:32:25,760
Speaker 4: leave by nine thirty or ten and get to take

559
00:32:25,800 --> 00:32:29,360
Speaker 4: the water taxi over. It's a little bit of a

560
00:32:29,400 --> 00:32:32,680
Speaker 4: schlep and you gotta get on and handle all the baggage.

561
00:32:32,840 --> 00:32:36,200
Speaker 4: We got a lot of bags. Three weeks, nine women,

562
00:32:36,400 --> 00:32:41,480
Speaker 4: two guys. Anyway, we're getting ready for dinner six o'clock.

563
00:32:42,240 --> 00:32:47,600
Speaker 4: I'm in my room. My wife is getting changed and ready.

564
00:32:47,600 --> 00:32:49,280
Speaker 4: If we're going to go out to dinner in Venice.

565
00:32:49,920 --> 00:32:54,000
Speaker 4: Phone rings and an Italian guy says to me, see

566
00:32:54,040 --> 00:33:01,280
Speaker 4: you win. This is Tony tonyo. Yeah, if I am

567
00:33:01,320 --> 00:33:04,920
Speaker 4: the manager in the front, there's here of the Gipriani

568
00:33:05,240 --> 00:33:08,560
Speaker 4: is very nice. I hope that you are a missus

569
00:33:08,600 --> 00:33:11,400
Speaker 4: Winn and mister Anka having a very good time. So

570
00:33:11,520 --> 00:33:15,280
Speaker 4: we having a wonderful time. We hate to leave. Ah, So,

571
00:33:15,520 --> 00:33:19,840
Speaker 4: Miss Senior Win, we have a problem. I would like

572
00:33:19,920 --> 00:33:22,800
Speaker 4: to speak to you. You know, you and mister Anka

573
00:33:22,920 --> 00:33:27,920
Speaker 4: have the two best rooms group of rooms in this hotel.

574
00:33:28,080 --> 00:33:28,320
Speaker 3: In the.

575
00:33:30,120 --> 00:33:35,800
Speaker 4: Of course, everybody books this Hotalian advance and tomorrow for

576
00:33:35,880 --> 00:33:41,840
Speaker 4: their annual two weeks. These rooms are booked by any

577
00:33:41,920 --> 00:33:51,040
Speaker 4: names shake hic and they're coming. They're coming on their

578
00:33:51,080 --> 00:33:56,840
Speaker 4: jets and they arrive Senior Win at eight thirty tomorrow.

579
00:33:58,360 --> 00:33:58,560
Speaker 2: Yeah.

580
00:33:58,680 --> 00:34:04,760
Speaker 4: So why but Senor Win, you and mister Ranka are

581
00:34:04,800 --> 00:34:08,879
Speaker 4: scheduled to leave Gipriani at ten thirty. We need these

582
00:34:08,960 --> 00:34:15,320
Speaker 4: rooms to clean up and get ready by a thirty,

583
00:34:16,120 --> 00:34:18,799
Speaker 4: and we'll have to come in and clean them at

584
00:34:18,840 --> 00:34:23,480
Speaker 4: seven thirty. Because you have all the rooms with your children.

585
00:34:24,600 --> 00:34:27,239
Speaker 4: You want to clean the rooms at seven thirty. See,

586
00:34:27,640 --> 00:34:31,480
Speaker 4: Signor Win is so important to us. We be so

587
00:34:31,640 --> 00:34:33,799
Speaker 4: grateful if you could help. But wait a minute, I.

588
00:34:35,320 --> 00:34:35,560
Speaker 2: Can't.

589
00:34:35,600 --> 00:34:37,919
Speaker 4: We can't get all these women out of here. We'd

590
00:34:37,960 --> 00:34:39,480
Speaker 4: have to get them up at five thirty in the

591
00:34:39,480 --> 00:34:43,480
Speaker 4: morning before they're packing and their makeup, and to give

592
00:34:43,520 --> 00:34:45,480
Speaker 4: you these rooms at seven thirty in the morning, we'd

593
00:34:45,480 --> 00:34:47,080
Speaker 4: have to get up at five. I can't do that.

594
00:34:47,600 --> 00:34:49,800
Speaker 4: I can't possibly get those women to do that. They'll

595
00:34:49,800 --> 00:34:54,359
Speaker 4: never ever signor and please, it's so important, mister Win.

596
00:34:54,520 --> 00:34:57,359
Speaker 4: If you can't do this, we will give you other

597
00:34:57,480 --> 00:35:00,720
Speaker 4: rooms and a complimentary breakfast in the bottom.

598
00:35:00,800 --> 00:35:01,600
Speaker 2: You know, we had just.

599
00:35:01,560 --> 00:35:06,000
Speaker 4: Paid you know, empteen thousand a day for this complimentary breakfast.

600
00:35:06,320 --> 00:35:08,680
Speaker 4: And he said, and we'll give you another room and

601
00:35:08,719 --> 00:35:11,400
Speaker 4: will help you pack. I said, no, no, no, you'll understand,

602
00:35:11,600 --> 00:35:17,000
Speaker 4: there's no chance whatsoever. Senor Francesco but whatever his name was,

603
00:35:17,400 --> 00:35:21,160
Speaker 4: I cannot help you. You're a new guests are going

604
00:35:21,200 --> 00:35:23,960
Speaker 4: to have to stand by. We can be out of

605
00:35:24,040 --> 00:35:27,200
Speaker 4: here by nine thirty or ten thirty, but not. You

606
00:35:27,239 --> 00:35:29,400
Speaker 4: can't have the rooms at seven thirty in the morning.

607
00:35:29,960 --> 00:35:34,160
Speaker 4: My checkout was supposed to be at noon. He says, Miss,

608
00:35:34,920 --> 00:35:37,719
Speaker 4: is there nothing that we can't do to get you

609
00:35:37,880 --> 00:35:41,040
Speaker 4: to help us? I said, I'm sorry, sir, but no.

610
00:35:41,800 --> 00:35:45,760
Speaker 4: And this is your last word, Senor Win. I said, yes,

611
00:35:46,320 --> 00:35:54,400
Speaker 4: he's in that case. Fuck you. For a good thirty

612
00:35:54,400 --> 00:35:59,480
Speaker 4: five seconds, my jaws dropped. Guys, there fuck you to

613
00:35:59,560 --> 00:36:04,160
Speaker 4: me on the goddamn phone. And then it took about

614
00:36:04,400 --> 00:36:09,200
Speaker 4: thirty five or forty seconds when I realized that that

615
00:36:09,280 --> 00:36:14,879
Speaker 4: Anka had believed me, and I got hysterical. He did

616
00:36:14,920 --> 00:36:29,520
Speaker 4: this all the time to people always it's really funny.

617
00:36:30,840 --> 00:36:34,440
Speaker 1: And meanwhile, back at the ranch here, you are the

618
00:36:34,560 --> 00:36:38,799
Speaker 1: golden nugget. You're the guy. Everybody knows you're the guy.

619
00:36:38,840 --> 00:36:42,320
Speaker 1: How are you dealing with the characters that I knew

620
00:36:42,840 --> 00:36:44,680
Speaker 1: because I was working there. I started with you were

621
00:36:44,719 --> 00:36:47,080
Speaker 1: there way before me, way before. So I worked for

622
00:36:47,120 --> 00:36:47,439
Speaker 1: the guy.

623
00:36:47,640 --> 00:36:49,440
Speaker 4: You're older in the sixties.

624
00:36:48,960 --> 00:36:51,520
Speaker 1: Oh, sixties and fifties. I started with Sophie Tucker in

625
00:36:51,600 --> 00:36:54,840
Speaker 1: nineteen fifty eight. Yeah, okay, right, sixteen years old, right,

626
00:36:54,880 --> 00:36:57,000
Speaker 1: fifty eight, And I get it. You don't show up

627
00:36:57,480 --> 00:36:58,759
Speaker 1: the midst yeah, much later.

628
00:36:59,320 --> 00:37:00,439
Speaker 4: And I knew the game.

629
00:37:00,480 --> 00:37:03,239
Speaker 1: I knew the characters, and I must say, gentlemen, all

630
00:37:03,239 --> 00:37:05,719
Speaker 1: of them. Carl Cohen was my guy. He looked after me.

631
00:37:06,239 --> 00:37:07,640
Speaker 1: But you and I know there were some.

632
00:37:08,960 --> 00:37:12,200
Speaker 4: That's the story. Here's why I love and Paul love

633
00:37:12,360 --> 00:37:17,839
Speaker 4: Las Vegas and why the place was a magnet if

634
00:37:17,840 --> 00:37:20,520
Speaker 4: you had any kind of fun in you In the sixties,

635
00:37:20,520 --> 00:37:22,919
Speaker 4: when Paul was working at the Sands Hotel. They didn't

636
00:37:22,960 --> 00:37:26,480
Speaker 4: have public companies and corporations. Ten or fifteen guys would

637
00:37:26,480 --> 00:37:29,439
Speaker 4: get together, put up one hundred thousand or one hundred

638
00:37:29,480 --> 00:37:32,279
Speaker 4: and fifty one hundred hundred and fifty thousand apiece, get

639
00:37:32,280 --> 00:37:34,480
Speaker 4: a million or a million and a half together, a

640
00:37:34,520 --> 00:37:37,600
Speaker 4: big group of guys, and they'd borrow another million or

641
00:37:37,600 --> 00:37:39,799
Speaker 4: two and they'd build a motel with a casino in

642
00:37:39,840 --> 00:37:42,080
Speaker 4: it and a big sign out front. And that was

643
00:37:42,080 --> 00:37:46,920
Speaker 4: a story with the Flamingo, the Sands, the dunes, the Riviera,

644
00:37:47,120 --> 00:37:49,759
Speaker 4: they were all the same, and the desert in and

645
00:37:49,840 --> 00:37:53,120
Speaker 4: so the guys who put up the money, they were

646
00:37:53,160 --> 00:37:56,320
Speaker 4: all gamblers and bookmakers from back east. They were always

647
00:37:56,320 --> 00:37:58,400
Speaker 4: worried about getting arrested. But now they could go to

648
00:37:58,440 --> 00:38:01,960
Speaker 4: Las Vegas and he could be legitimate, and they could

649
00:38:02,160 --> 00:38:05,080
Speaker 4: have there. They could belong to church or synagogue and

650
00:38:05,120 --> 00:38:08,200
Speaker 4: they didn't, and they could have respectability because gambling was

651
00:38:08,320 --> 00:38:11,400
Speaker 4: legal out there in the desert. And they would work

652
00:38:11,480 --> 00:38:14,360
Speaker 4: in the hotel and the standard pay was about one

653
00:38:14,440 --> 00:38:17,440
Speaker 4: hundred dollars a day. And each of these guys that

654
00:38:17,440 --> 00:38:20,160
Speaker 4: had put up the money would take shifts and they'd work,

655
00:38:20,320 --> 00:38:25,759
Speaker 4: you know, getting customers being hosts, et cetera. Well, in

656
00:38:25,800 --> 00:38:28,000
Speaker 4: the early days of the Sands, which was the main

657
00:38:28,040 --> 00:38:30,680
Speaker 4: hotel in the fifties in the sixties was the Sands

658
00:38:31,080 --> 00:38:35,160
Speaker 4: before Caesar's. That's where Sinatra and met King Cole and

659
00:38:35,239 --> 00:38:39,239
Speaker 4: Sammy Davis and every major star worked, Dean Martin and

660
00:38:39,320 --> 00:38:44,399
Speaker 4: Jerry Lewis. Anyway, they had these guys that had put

661
00:38:44,440 --> 00:38:47,920
Speaker 4: the money up that came. They were bookmakers and guys

662
00:38:47,960 --> 00:38:51,160
Speaker 4: that worked any illegal casinos. But they were a lot

663
00:38:51,200 --> 00:38:54,000
Speaker 4: of them were Jewish. They weren't hoodlums. They were the

664
00:38:54,040 --> 00:38:58,080
Speaker 4: guys that ran the casinos, that knew how to set

665
00:38:58,160 --> 00:39:01,920
Speaker 4: up the place and hire help and deal with games.

666
00:39:02,680 --> 00:39:06,400
Speaker 4: Now they're all out in Las Vegas, legitimate at last

667
00:39:07,000 --> 00:39:11,880
Speaker 4: and finally having real money that they've saved. But they

668
00:39:11,920 --> 00:39:16,160
Speaker 4: all had one other characteristic. They gambled at each other's hotels.

669
00:39:16,719 --> 00:39:20,080
Speaker 4: They couldn't gamble in their own hotels against rules, So

670
00:39:20,200 --> 00:39:22,839
Speaker 4: at night the owners of the Sands would go gamble.

671
00:39:22,480 --> 00:39:23,000
Speaker 2: At the Dunes.

672
00:39:23,040 --> 00:39:25,479
Speaker 4: The Dunes guys would go to Riviera to Rivie would

673
00:39:25,480 --> 00:39:29,520
Speaker 4: go to the Thera. Well one of these characters. This

674
00:39:30,200 --> 00:39:33,560
Speaker 4: is a snapshot of what early Las Vegas in the

675
00:39:33,600 --> 00:39:36,920
Speaker 4: fifties and sixties when Paul first started there. This is

676
00:39:36,960 --> 00:39:39,840
Speaker 4: what the town was about. Bears no resemblance to the

677
00:39:39,880 --> 00:39:45,200
Speaker 4: modern Las Vegas, which a giant destination hotels with billions

678
00:39:45,200 --> 00:39:48,680
Speaker 4: of dollars in costs. This are the old days. There

679
00:39:48,680 --> 00:39:53,480
Speaker 4: were maybe eighty ninety thousand people in the valley. It

680
00:39:53,600 --> 00:39:57,960
Speaker 4: was a company town, and everybody knew who owned each hotel,

681
00:39:58,680 --> 00:40:01,360
Speaker 4: that this guy had three percent, that guy at five percent,

682
00:40:01,440 --> 00:40:05,080
Speaker 4: this guy at seven percent. Everybody knew who the guys

683
00:40:05,080 --> 00:40:08,000
Speaker 4: had owned the points they call a percent a point

684
00:40:08,360 --> 00:40:10,919
Speaker 4: the points. And in the sands there was a guy

685
00:40:11,840 --> 00:40:15,840
Speaker 4: among others, one of the fifteen guys, a king guys,

686
00:40:16,120 --> 00:40:18,360
Speaker 4: was a guy, a little Jewish guy named Jake Friedman

687
00:40:18,480 --> 00:40:22,480
Speaker 4: with the boots. Jakie Friedman had been had come from

688
00:40:22,560 --> 00:40:26,440
Speaker 4: Russia or from Eastern Europe, one of the immigrants, you

689
00:40:26,520 --> 00:40:29,960
Speaker 4: know in the early days of the of the of

690
00:40:30,000 --> 00:40:32,759
Speaker 4: the twentieth century, you know, before World War One, just

691
00:40:32,800 --> 00:40:36,400
Speaker 4: like my grandparents. Jake Friedman came over and they couldn't

692
00:40:36,400 --> 00:40:39,480
Speaker 4: speak English very well. They had the accent. Whenever they

693
00:40:39,719 --> 00:40:42,839
Speaker 4: do Jewish humor, they talk about the vaded people talk

694
00:40:42,880 --> 00:40:46,040
Speaker 4: to him. They came from Eastern Europe's an accent. They

695
00:40:46,080 --> 00:40:49,160
Speaker 4: called Jews like that, well, Jake Frewman. Some of them

696
00:40:49,160 --> 00:40:53,399
Speaker 4: went to New York and Boston. But in Jake Friedman's case,

697
00:40:53,480 --> 00:40:58,040
Speaker 4: he went to Dallas, Texas or Houston. But he settled

698
00:40:58,600 --> 00:41:02,880
Speaker 4: this Russian immigrants and he was the handiest sort of

699
00:41:04,239 --> 00:41:06,719
Speaker 4: how to hustle, a living guy, and he became a

700
00:41:06,719 --> 00:41:13,400
Speaker 4: bookmaker and he took bets on sports in Dallas or Houston.

701
00:41:13,400 --> 00:41:16,000
Speaker 4: I forgot which city it was. And when they opened

702
00:41:16,040 --> 00:41:18,960
Speaker 4: the Sands Hotel, those are the kind of guys that

703
00:41:19,040 --> 00:41:20,960
Speaker 4: put up the one hundred and fifty thousand so they

704
00:41:21,000 --> 00:41:25,719
Speaker 4: could move and not and be legitimate. Jakie Friedman was

705
00:41:25,760 --> 00:41:28,480
Speaker 4: the owner of the Sands with maybe three or four

706
00:41:28,520 --> 00:41:31,600
Speaker 4: or five percent. But they were all eccentric, these guys.

707
00:41:31,920 --> 00:41:35,040
Speaker 4: Every one of them was colorful and different. And here's

708
00:41:35,080 --> 00:41:40,120
Speaker 4: the story. There was a tailor in Los Angeles called

709
00:41:40,560 --> 00:41:44,680
Speaker 4: Nudy and he made the Cowboys suits for Roy Rogers

710
00:41:44,920 --> 00:41:48,640
Speaker 4: in the movies, with the perfectly matched pants and the

711
00:41:48,719 --> 00:41:52,120
Speaker 4: gorgeous boots that matched in color, and the shirt with

712
00:41:52,160 --> 00:41:54,600
Speaker 4: the spangles on it and it had and everything with

713
00:41:54,680 --> 00:41:56,560
Speaker 4: color coordinated. Roy Rogers would.

714
00:41:56,400 --> 00:41:56,880
Speaker 2: Be in blue.

715
00:41:56,960 --> 00:42:00,600
Speaker 4: One day cream. The next you know, he was a

716
00:42:00,600 --> 00:42:05,080
Speaker 4: glamour rhinestone cowboy with a horse named Trigger. And everybody

717
00:42:05,120 --> 00:42:08,600
Speaker 4: went to see Roy Rogers and Gene Autry in the movies.

718
00:42:09,360 --> 00:42:13,000
Speaker 4: And it happens that the Roy Rogers tailor, if you

719
00:42:13,080 --> 00:42:15,319
Speaker 4: knew what was going on in Hollywood, was this guy

720
00:42:15,480 --> 00:42:20,560
Speaker 4: Nudy in Beverly Hills. Well, Jake Friedman decided he loved

721
00:42:20,600 --> 00:42:23,799
Speaker 4: this and he found Nudy. He was five foot four

722
00:42:23,840 --> 00:42:26,600
Speaker 4: and a half inches tall. He found Nudy the tailor

723
00:42:27,480 --> 00:42:30,680
Speaker 4: and decided he was going to be Jewish Roy Rogers

724
00:42:31,520 --> 00:42:33,760
Speaker 4: and had outfits made. And it was a boot maker.

725
00:42:34,400 --> 00:42:37,239
Speaker 4: So if he was wearing a navy blue pants tucked in,

726
00:42:37,480 --> 00:42:40,240
Speaker 4: the boots were navy blue. If he was wearing cream,

727
00:42:40,320 --> 00:42:43,320
Speaker 4: the boot, the cowboy boets were cream. The hat was cream,

728
00:42:43,640 --> 00:42:46,840
Speaker 4: the shirt, the belt, everything was cream. And the pants

729
00:42:46,840 --> 00:42:51,359
Speaker 4: fit inside the boot. And here is imagine his four

730
00:42:51,400 --> 00:42:54,480
Speaker 4: inch five foot four inch jew dressed up in a

731
00:42:54,520 --> 00:42:58,680
Speaker 4: cowboy suit, who learned to speak English with a broken

732
00:42:58,719 --> 00:43:03,080
Speaker 4: accent in Texas. So he was like this, how you

733
00:43:03,160 --> 00:43:06,879
Speaker 4: doing about that? You want to shoot some craps? Hey

734
00:43:07,000 --> 00:43:11,040
Speaker 4: is that Jewish immigrant from a Texas accent? Now he

735
00:43:11,160 --> 00:43:13,960
Speaker 4: was only five to four, but he was a degenerate

736
00:43:14,040 --> 00:43:17,040
Speaker 4: crap shooter, and like most of those owners who stole

737
00:43:17,080 --> 00:43:19,400
Speaker 4: the money in the casino at night that when they counted,

738
00:43:19,400 --> 00:43:22,040
Speaker 4: they would always take some that they didn't report. But

739
00:43:22,080 --> 00:43:25,240
Speaker 4: it was small money in those days, exactly. But they'd

740
00:43:25,440 --> 00:43:28,279
Speaker 4: run across the street and gamble all of them and

741
00:43:28,320 --> 00:43:30,680
Speaker 4: the next day they would pay off the markers. So

742
00:43:30,840 --> 00:43:33,799
Speaker 4: all the hotels knew that Jake Friedman was an insatiable

743
00:43:33,840 --> 00:43:37,120
Speaker 4: appetite to shoot dice, but he wasn't tall enough to

744
00:43:37,160 --> 00:43:38,600
Speaker 4: see over the rim.

745
00:43:38,760 --> 00:43:40,520
Speaker 2: So they they all.

746
00:43:40,600 --> 00:43:45,080
Speaker 4: Hotels, the six or seven hotels, they all had a

747
00:43:45,120 --> 00:43:49,239
Speaker 4: box underneath the tables. When Jake Freeman showed up, what

748
00:43:49,400 --> 00:43:52,640
Speaker 4: does cowboys suit? He could stand on the box and

749
00:43:52,760 --> 00:43:56,440
Speaker 4: shoot dice. Can you picture in your mind, I ask anybody,

750
00:43:56,560 --> 00:43:59,000
Speaker 4: this is not a television, it's not a movie. This

751
00:43:59,160 --> 00:44:01,719
Speaker 4: is real. Can you see a guy with a Cowboys

752
00:44:01,760 --> 00:44:05,960
Speaker 4: Sudan five foot four inches with cowboy boots standing on

753
00:44:06,040 --> 00:44:09,840
Speaker 4: a box saying give me out seven, give me out seven.

754
00:44:11,160 --> 00:44:12,759
Speaker 1: He and I saw on a.

755
00:44:12,760 --> 00:44:16,640
Speaker 4: Come out throwing the dice. Oh man, I love that

756
00:44:16,760 --> 00:44:19,239
Speaker 4: kind of stuff. Yeah, he was something. I was young,

757
00:44:20,040 --> 00:44:22,719
Speaker 4: but these guys were older, but they would talk in

758
00:44:22,719 --> 00:44:24,719
Speaker 4: front of me. You know, if you got to know

759
00:44:24,800 --> 00:44:27,319
Speaker 4: why of them and go for lunch in the coffee shop,

760
00:44:27,320 --> 00:44:29,560
Speaker 4: they'd all be sitting at the coffee shop making phone

761
00:44:29,560 --> 00:44:33,080
Speaker 4: calls to get customers to come. And if if you

762
00:44:33,080 --> 00:44:35,439
Speaker 4: were okay and you could sit at the table, you'd

763
00:44:35,440 --> 00:44:36,760
Speaker 4: hear all the stories.

764
00:44:36,800 --> 00:44:40,680
Speaker 2: So at that time, the only legal casinos were in

765
00:44:41,080 --> 00:44:44,680
Speaker 2: Nevada or in Atlantic City, New Jersey, way before four

766
00:44:44,760 --> 00:44:48,120
Speaker 2: Atlantic City, but then later on in nineteen ninety one,

767
00:44:48,760 --> 00:44:51,520
Speaker 2: the United State in touch. Throughout the eighties were friends.

768
00:44:51,560 --> 00:44:54,479
Speaker 2: We played golf, hung out whenever we had a chance

769
00:44:54,560 --> 00:44:58,400
Speaker 2: in New York or wherever. And in nineteen ninety one

770
00:44:58,440 --> 00:45:02,200
Speaker 2: there was a banking crisis, so a group of developers

771
00:45:02,360 --> 00:45:05,440
Speaker 2: like me, the banks that were loaning us the money.

772
00:45:05,440 --> 00:45:09,920
Speaker 2: The banks went under. So where I was based in Hartford, Connecticut,

773
00:45:09,920 --> 00:45:13,880
Speaker 2: Banking Trust out of business, Hartford National Bank out of business,

774
00:45:13,920 --> 00:45:17,040
Speaker 2: Colonial Bank out of business. So you're a developer and

775
00:45:17,080 --> 00:45:20,560
Speaker 2: you're building these projects and the contractors want to get paid,

776
00:45:20,800 --> 00:45:22,480
Speaker 2: and you have no bank to go to to get

777
00:45:22,520 --> 00:45:25,920
Speaker 2: the money. So my business went into bankruptcy and I

778
00:45:26,000 --> 00:45:28,040
Speaker 2: called you. I don't know if you remember this day.

779
00:45:28,440 --> 00:45:31,640
Speaker 2: I called you and I said, Steve, this is so

780
00:45:31,880 --> 00:45:35,120
Speaker 2: fucked up. I said, my company just went into bankruptcy.

781
00:45:36,440 --> 00:45:39,600
Speaker 2: You said, oh, that's great news. I said, what what

782
00:45:39,640 --> 00:45:42,560
Speaker 2: are you nuts? I said, my company just went into bankruptcy.

783
00:45:42,800 --> 00:45:45,680
Speaker 2: He said, yeah, that's great. I said, well, how's that great?

784
00:45:46,400 --> 00:45:49,560
Speaker 2: You said, skip. Listen. In my company, I've got every

785
00:45:49,600 --> 00:45:54,000
Speaker 2: conceivable job description from valley parker and housekeeper all the

786
00:45:54,000 --> 00:45:56,480
Speaker 2: way up to the president of the hotel. But what

787
00:45:56,560 --> 00:45:59,279
Speaker 2: I don't have is a developer. And I said, what

788
00:45:59,320 --> 00:46:03,160
Speaker 2: do you need to develop? You said, because the government

789
00:46:03,239 --> 00:46:06,279
Speaker 2: is going to allow the Indians to start opening casinos.

790
00:46:06,440 --> 00:46:09,680
Speaker 2: And when they Indians start to open casinos, the states

791
00:46:09,680 --> 00:46:12,239
Speaker 2: are going to want to get that money also, so

792
00:46:12,320 --> 00:46:16,120
Speaker 2: there's going to be an expansion of casino gambling throughout America.

793
00:46:16,360 --> 00:46:19,200
Speaker 2: I thought you were literally out of your mind. I said,

794
00:46:19,320 --> 00:46:22,120
Speaker 2: you got to be kidding me. So, because I was

795
00:46:22,400 --> 00:46:25,200
Speaker 2: in Connecticut and Connecticut was really hurting at that time,

796
00:46:25,239 --> 00:46:28,200
Speaker 2: and I knew some of the legislators went to high

797
00:46:28,239 --> 00:46:31,359
Speaker 2: school with them. I met with a group of them

798
00:46:31,400 --> 00:46:34,800
Speaker 2: and said, listen, you know we have the insurance companies

799
00:46:34,840 --> 00:46:38,360
Speaker 2: are getting ready to leave, and we're one industry town,

800
00:46:38,440 --> 00:46:41,120
Speaker 2: and you started it and I said, I think there's

801
00:46:41,160 --> 00:46:45,200
Speaker 2: a chance we could get casino gambling approved in Hartford, Connecticut.

802
00:46:45,280 --> 00:46:47,680
Speaker 2: And then you said to me, what are you nuts?

803
00:46:47,920 --> 00:46:51,400
Speaker 2: Are you crazy? The land of steady habits in Connecticut,

804
00:46:51,400 --> 00:46:54,600
Speaker 2: they're going to allow casino gambling. And we started this

805
00:46:54,960 --> 00:46:57,840
Speaker 2: process where I went to work with you to get

806
00:46:58,000 --> 00:47:00,600
Speaker 2: a casino approved in Hartford.

807
00:47:00,760 --> 00:47:03,600
Speaker 4: That was and you became the president of the development company.

808
00:47:03,680 --> 00:47:06,080
Speaker 2: Yeah, And that was the president of development company looking

809
00:47:06,120 --> 00:47:07,160
Speaker 2: at new opportunities.

810
00:47:07,200 --> 00:47:10,160
Speaker 4: And I couldn't travel because we were building in those days.

811
00:47:10,239 --> 00:47:14,760
Speaker 4: In those days, we were building Treasure Island. It started

812
00:47:15,360 --> 00:47:18,160
Speaker 4: when Mirage opened and then we're building Treasure Island, went

813
00:47:18,239 --> 00:47:21,479
Speaker 4: right straight to building Bolagio and Skip came and took

814
00:47:21,600 --> 00:47:23,600
Speaker 4: over all of that expansion stuff.

815
00:47:23,760 --> 00:47:26,440
Speaker 2: And while we were trying to get it approved in Connecticut,

816
00:47:26,920 --> 00:47:30,600
Speaker 2: we had a governor named Lowell Wiker who was dead

817
00:47:30,640 --> 00:47:33,560
Speaker 2: set against casino gambling. And at this point they had

818
00:47:33,640 --> 00:47:38,680
Speaker 2: legalized casinos for the Indians. There were two Connecticut casinos, Foxwoods,

819
00:47:39,360 --> 00:47:44,560
Speaker 2: and one of Paul's favorite places to Prosleagan Sun. And

820
00:47:44,600 --> 00:47:49,960
Speaker 2: in order to keep us out, Lowell Wiker, an absolute person,

821
00:47:50,160 --> 00:47:53,520
Speaker 2: was totally against casino gambling, made a deal with the

822
00:47:53,560 --> 00:47:57,160
Speaker 2: Indians to give them slot machines because the Indians were

823
00:47:57,160 --> 00:48:00,120
Speaker 2: not allowed to have slot machines when they first to

824
00:48:00,120 --> 00:48:02,400
Speaker 2: open their casinos, and used that as a way to

825
00:48:02,440 --> 00:48:05,479
Speaker 2: block us. And so we thought we were down the drain,

826
00:48:05,560 --> 00:48:07,600
Speaker 2: but we kept fighting and fighting, and we were working

827
00:48:07,600 --> 00:48:11,200
Speaker 2: the legislature and going around to the various cities in

828
00:48:11,239 --> 00:48:13,319
Speaker 2: the state and trying to convince people why this would

829
00:48:13,360 --> 00:48:17,279
Speaker 2: be a great idea. And we've actually started to turn

830
00:48:17,360 --> 00:48:20,040
Speaker 2: the page and Steve came and every time Steve came

831
00:48:20,120 --> 00:48:24,120
Speaker 2: to speak, people paid attention, got excited about what he

832
00:48:24,200 --> 00:48:27,000
Speaker 2: was talking about the fact that this is not about gambling.

833
00:48:27,040 --> 00:48:30,879
Speaker 2: This is about creating an entertainment facility where people will

834
00:48:31,040 --> 00:48:34,640
Speaker 2: come to eat and shop and have all these great experiences.

835
00:48:34,840 --> 00:48:37,320
Speaker 2: And they were loving it. And it's no better public speaker.

836
00:48:38,120 --> 00:48:41,440
Speaker 2: So we were working on this and then we finally

837
00:48:41,440 --> 00:48:44,480
Speaker 2: got to a point where the new governor, John Rowland,

838
00:48:45,640 --> 00:48:48,480
Speaker 2: the only governor in the history of America to go

839
00:48:48,560 --> 00:48:52,320
Speaker 2: to prison twice for two different reasons, two different offenses.

840
00:48:53,440 --> 00:48:54,440
Speaker 4: He tried to get it right.

841
00:48:54,520 --> 00:48:56,920
Speaker 2: The second Yes, a good time around and try to

842
00:48:56,960 --> 00:48:59,359
Speaker 2: get it right. So we were done in there, and

843
00:48:59,400 --> 00:49:02,560
Speaker 2: I called Eve and I said, Steve, listen, I'm not

844
00:49:02,600 --> 00:49:05,280
Speaker 2: a quitter. A winner never quits, and a quitter never wins.

845
00:49:05,400 --> 00:49:08,480
Speaker 2: But this just is not going to happening in Connecticut.

846
00:49:08,520 --> 00:49:11,200
Speaker 2: It's not going to happen here. And Steve said, oh,

847
00:49:11,239 --> 00:49:14,120
Speaker 2: that's great. I said, that's great. What are you talking about?

848
00:49:14,480 --> 00:49:17,239
Speaker 2: This is great news again, this is great news. Now,

849
00:49:17,320 --> 00:49:19,239
Speaker 2: this is the second time you told me that there

850
00:49:19,280 --> 00:49:22,200
Speaker 2: was a catastrophe, and there's great news. You said, I've

851
00:49:22,200 --> 00:49:25,600
Speaker 2: got an opportunity in Atlantic City, New Jersey, making a

852
00:49:25,640 --> 00:49:28,520
Speaker 2: deal with the governor to go back to Atlantic City,

853
00:49:28,520 --> 00:49:31,080
Speaker 2: where I originally had the golden nugget. We've got this

854
00:49:31,120 --> 00:49:33,600
Speaker 2: big piece of land that we've identified out undern in

855
00:49:33,640 --> 00:49:36,840
Speaker 2: the district, and we need somebody that can quarterback this.

856
00:49:36,920 --> 00:49:39,359
Speaker 2: So take your whole team that was working in Connecticut

857
00:49:39,719 --> 00:49:42,200
Speaker 2: and go to Atlantic City, which was a five hour

858
00:49:42,880 --> 00:49:45,280
Speaker 2: drive from you know, where I was living at the time.

859
00:49:46,120 --> 00:49:50,239
Speaker 2: And that started this odyssey that went on throughout all

860
00:49:50,320 --> 00:49:52,920
Speaker 2: the nineties where we worked on approximate.

861
00:49:53,000 --> 00:49:56,760
Speaker 4: You had the governor build a tunnel off the highway.

862
00:49:57,680 --> 00:49:59,880
Speaker 4: What a what a you know, it was such a

863
00:50:00,120 --> 00:50:04,840
Speaker 4: drama for five years and Skip was totally in charge

864
00:50:04,920 --> 00:50:07,839
Speaker 4: of the whole group back on the East coast that

865
00:50:08,080 --> 00:50:10,600
Speaker 4: he wrote a book about it called the War at

866
00:50:10,640 --> 00:50:15,040
Speaker 4: the Shore. Then involved the guy who had three hotels

867
00:50:15,040 --> 00:50:17,279
Speaker 4: there and I had already sold the Golden Nugget and

868
00:50:17,400 --> 00:50:23,800
Speaker 4: was building on the strip was Donald Trump. And Donald

869
00:50:23,880 --> 00:50:28,239
Speaker 4: decided he and another guy that had hotels there, Arthur Goldberg,

870
00:50:28,280 --> 00:50:32,000
Speaker 4: decided they were going to stop Skip from building the

871
00:50:32,040 --> 00:50:38,640
Speaker 4: tunnel and stop his company, Mirage Resorts, from coming back.

872
00:50:38,800 --> 00:50:41,239
Speaker 4: Because when we were in Atlantic City the first time,

873
00:50:41,280 --> 00:50:44,319
Speaker 4: we dominated the market and we sold took our money

874
00:50:44,320 --> 00:50:46,799
Speaker 4: and went out and built the Mirage. But now we

875
00:50:46,840 --> 00:50:48,600
Speaker 4: had a chance to come back on one hundred acres.

876
00:50:48,680 --> 00:50:50,320
Speaker 4: We're going to give us to us for a dollar

877
00:50:50,600 --> 00:50:53,400
Speaker 4: if we'd come back a buck for one hundred acres

878
00:50:53,960 --> 00:50:57,279
Speaker 4: at a place called the Marina. And Trump and Goldberg

879
00:50:57,400 --> 00:51:01,200
Speaker 4: had three four hotels between them and they weren't interested

880
00:51:01,239 --> 00:51:04,720
Speaker 4: in having us back, but they had a deal with Brunson.

881
00:51:05,600 --> 00:51:08,800
Speaker 4: Skip was in charge. He was the president of development company,

882
00:51:09,960 --> 00:51:13,080
Speaker 4: and he said to me, listen, this is going to

883
00:51:13,120 --> 00:51:16,480
Speaker 4: be a pain. I'll take care of this part. You

884
00:51:16,520 --> 00:51:19,280
Speaker 4: pay attention to your p's and q's. On a strip

885
00:51:19,280 --> 00:51:24,200
Speaker 4: and I'll go do this, and he did and it

886
00:51:24,280 --> 00:51:29,480
Speaker 4: was five years. The saga is the people at Netflix's

887
00:51:29,480 --> 00:51:32,000
Speaker 4: place are trying to buy that script. They want to

888
00:51:32,040 --> 00:51:35,120
Speaker 4: make a series out of it. The War at the Shore,

889
00:51:36,239 --> 00:51:39,319
Speaker 4: it was an amazing, amazing thing I lived through with

890
00:51:39,360 --> 00:51:39,880
Speaker 4: you guys.

891
00:51:39,920 --> 00:51:44,040
Speaker 1: I was working there, working for Trump, working for gold

892
00:51:44,120 --> 00:51:45,680
Speaker 1: Work or my buddy.

893
00:51:46,239 --> 00:51:46,479
Speaker 2: Yeah.

894
00:51:46,600 --> 00:51:49,480
Speaker 1: Every time I'd come home to you, we'd sit and

895
00:51:49,480 --> 00:51:51,320
Speaker 1: we'd have a and listen.

896
00:51:51,600 --> 00:51:55,239
Speaker 4: Fortunately, you know, because of Skip I was, I was

897
00:51:55,280 --> 00:51:57,680
Speaker 4: cut out of it. It was I got a vacation

898
00:51:57,840 --> 00:52:00,960
Speaker 4: from it. But it aggravated hell out of him for

899
00:52:01,000 --> 00:52:03,759
Speaker 4: a good sixty months. I mean he took it to

900
00:52:03,800 --> 00:52:06,439
Speaker 4: bed with him every night. Trump and those guys did

901
00:52:06,520 --> 00:52:08,200
Speaker 4: every dirty trick it would.

902
00:52:08,680 --> 00:52:08,920
Speaker 2: You know.

903
00:52:09,120 --> 00:52:23,600
Speaker 4: Those guys took no prisoners. I got one more old

904
00:52:23,680 --> 00:52:27,400
Speaker 4: Las Vegas story for anybody that's listening to us. I

905
00:52:27,640 --> 00:52:29,920
Speaker 4: have something to contribute, a sort of an insight, like

906
00:52:29,920 --> 00:52:32,920
Speaker 4: you said, of the old days, the original Las Vegas.

907
00:52:33,600 --> 00:52:36,520
Speaker 4: And I told you with the JK. Friedman, you can't

908
00:52:36,719 --> 00:52:39,480
Speaker 4: write that. You have to picture in your mind. I'm

909
00:52:39,480 --> 00:52:42,120
Speaker 4: going to paint another picture for you. It's in the fifties.

910
00:52:42,280 --> 00:52:45,320
Speaker 4: The casinos are owned in the fifties by the original

911
00:52:45,360 --> 00:52:49,799
Speaker 4: groups of these immigrant bookmakers that came from Boston and

912
00:52:49,880 --> 00:52:52,640
Speaker 4: Chicago and Saint Louis and Texas and New York and

913
00:52:52,680 --> 00:52:56,840
Speaker 4: all that. All these guys, there were like eight hotels,

914
00:52:56,880 --> 00:52:59,600
Speaker 4: the Sahara, and the riv the Thunderbird, the Desert in

915
00:53:00,480 --> 00:53:05,360
Speaker 4: the frontier of the dunes, the Sands, and the Flamingo

916
00:53:05,400 --> 00:53:08,360
Speaker 4: and the Tropicana. That was that was the town. Nothing

917
00:53:08,360 --> 00:53:12,560
Speaker 4: in between. And these guys was a company town. And

918
00:53:14,080 --> 00:53:19,200
Speaker 4: Carl Cone was the president and ran the casino at

919
00:53:19,200 --> 00:53:21,799
Speaker 4: the Sands. He had cutten out of the service. He

920
00:53:21,920 --> 00:53:25,160
Speaker 4: learned how to deal blackjack and craps, and he got

921
00:53:25,200 --> 00:53:28,000
Speaker 4: an early job in the forties after the war in

922
00:53:28,080 --> 00:53:30,279
Speaker 4: Las Vegas. And when the people came to open the

923
00:53:30,320 --> 00:53:33,680
Speaker 4: Sands from New York, they wanted to hire the young

924
00:53:33,800 --> 00:53:36,279
Speaker 4: Jewish kid that knew all about how to run these

925
00:53:36,320 --> 00:53:40,000
Speaker 4: games and teach people how to deal. So Caryl Cone,

926
00:53:40,000 --> 00:53:42,840
Speaker 4: at a young age, became the casino manager at the

927
00:53:42,920 --> 00:53:46,200
Speaker 4: Sands and eventually the president. During the years of the

928
00:53:46,280 --> 00:53:50,120
Speaker 4: rat Pack. He did have some ownership, but he was

929
00:53:50,160 --> 00:53:52,840
Speaker 4: really the guy that ran the gambling part of the place.

930
00:53:53,080 --> 00:53:56,359
Speaker 1: Old no, he I don't know where he came from.

931
00:53:56,440 --> 00:53:59,680
Speaker 4: Was he born. I didn't know that poem. I pick

932
00:53:59,760 --> 00:54:02,440
Speaker 4: him up, you know, you know, as part of the

933
00:54:02,480 --> 00:54:05,480
Speaker 4: history of the town when I get there in the sixties.

934
00:54:05,880 --> 00:54:08,520
Speaker 4: But Carl had been there, and he was the most

935
00:54:08,560 --> 00:54:11,440
Speaker 4: respected guy who was the president of the synagogue in town,

936
00:54:11,719 --> 00:54:13,920
Speaker 4: all that kind of stuff. We got to be friends,

937
00:54:15,000 --> 00:54:18,600
Speaker 4: and he tells me this story. One night we were

938
00:54:18,840 --> 00:54:21,959
Speaker 4: going to a big benefit for charity and we both

939
00:54:22,000 --> 00:54:23,799
Speaker 4: got bored and we ended up in a bar, and

940
00:54:23,840 --> 00:54:26,080
Speaker 4: he wants to tell me a story. Because the movie

941
00:54:26,120 --> 00:54:30,279
Speaker 4: The Godfather was a big smash in all the theaters.

942
00:54:30,320 --> 00:54:33,360
Speaker 4: Mario Puzzo had been hanging out at the Golden Nugget

943
00:54:33,400 --> 00:54:35,400
Speaker 4: when they were making the movie, so I got to

944
00:54:35,440 --> 00:54:39,759
Speaker 4: meet him. But The Godfather was the rage great movie.

945
00:54:39,840 --> 00:54:44,000
Speaker 4: And I'm asking Carl Khone. Hey, Carl, what was it

946
00:54:44,160 --> 00:54:47,960
Speaker 4: like back in the fifties when all the bad guys

947
00:54:48,000 --> 00:54:51,479
Speaker 4: were supposed to be here but they really weren't. He says,

948
00:54:51,480 --> 00:54:53,560
Speaker 4: you know, Steve, the places are small. They had two

949
00:54:53,640 --> 00:54:56,520
Speaker 4: or three hundred rooms each, little casinos. They had a

950
00:54:56,560 --> 00:55:00,720
Speaker 4: showroom and the big signs out front. He said, today,

951
00:55:01,200 --> 00:55:05,719
Speaker 4: you know, hundreds of millions of dollars. Is one of

952
00:55:05,800 --> 00:55:09,359
Speaker 4: your places makes you know, one hundred, two hundred million dollars,

953
00:55:09,400 --> 00:55:14,440
Speaker 4: He says. These places used to make three four five

954
00:55:14,760 --> 00:55:18,279
Speaker 4: million dollars. There were little places, but it was only

955
00:55:18,320 --> 00:55:21,799
Speaker 4: owned by a dozen guys or something. And they were legitimate,

956
00:55:22,320 --> 00:55:26,160
Speaker 4: he said. In the fifties, two things happened. Every one

957
00:55:26,200 --> 00:55:30,239
Speaker 4: of the guys. A lot of Jews ran these casinos,

958
00:55:30,280 --> 00:55:34,400
Speaker 4: and Italians and you know, and Protestants, he said. But

959
00:55:34,520 --> 00:55:37,880
Speaker 4: one thing. The Desert Inn had a golf course, the

960
00:55:37,960 --> 00:55:40,760
Speaker 4: first one on the strip. And they had a Desert

961
00:55:40,800 --> 00:55:43,680
Speaker 4: In Country club. And if you lived in Las Vegas,

962
00:55:43,760 --> 00:55:46,160
Speaker 4: you had to belong to the di I Country Club

963
00:55:47,160 --> 00:55:49,960
Speaker 4: because of the eighteen holes right on the on the strip.

964
00:55:50,440 --> 00:55:55,640
Speaker 4: And they had a beautiful clubhouse, and the clubhouse had

965
00:55:55,640 --> 00:56:00,000
Speaker 4: a card room where guys could play gin and peanut.

966
00:56:00,760 --> 00:56:03,759
Speaker 4: Gin was the game for those guys. And anybody that

967
00:56:03,880 --> 00:56:06,480
Speaker 4: owned any points in any hotel on the Strip was

968
00:56:06,560 --> 00:56:09,920
Speaker 4: a member of the di and they gambled at each

969
00:56:09,960 --> 00:56:13,120
Speaker 4: other's places. They all were buddies with each other. If

970
00:56:13,160 --> 00:56:15,560
Speaker 4: one owner went into another hotel, he could always get

971
00:56:15,560 --> 00:56:16,200
Speaker 4: a free meal.

972
00:56:16,280 --> 00:56:16,480
Speaker 2: You know.

973
00:56:16,560 --> 00:56:20,200
Speaker 4: It was a club. But the hangout in the afternoon

974
00:56:20,280 --> 00:56:23,760
Speaker 4: was to play cards at the di country Club because

975
00:56:23,840 --> 00:56:26,360
Speaker 4: all of the owners that these guys with the points

976
00:56:26,760 --> 00:56:30,120
Speaker 4: all worked on swing shift, all the big money, any gambling.

977
00:56:30,280 --> 00:56:33,239
Speaker 4: Everybody worked at night from you know, seven thirty eight

978
00:56:33,280 --> 00:56:35,600
Speaker 4: o'clock until two or three in the morning, and they

979
00:56:35,600 --> 00:56:39,160
Speaker 4: would go home. So everybody watched played cards, and there

980
00:56:39,200 --> 00:56:42,560
Speaker 4: was a television set in the Desert and country club

981
00:56:42,600 --> 00:56:46,840
Speaker 4: card room on the wall, maybe a thirty centence television

982
00:56:46,880 --> 00:56:50,160
Speaker 4: set in those days. Was in the fifties. But in Washington,

983
00:56:50,239 --> 00:56:55,920
Speaker 4: d C. Senator from Kentucky, I think Estes Kivolver or Tennessee,

984
00:56:56,320 --> 00:56:59,280
Speaker 4: had decided that he was going to have organized crime

985
00:56:59,400 --> 00:57:03,960
Speaker 4: hearings to expose organized crime in the United States of America.

986
00:57:05,080 --> 00:57:08,239
Speaker 4: And he was absolutely certain that the seat of organized

987
00:57:08,239 --> 00:57:12,840
Speaker 4: crime was Las Vegas. And all of my fear guys

988
00:57:12,920 --> 00:57:17,520
Speaker 4: were Stephen raising one hundreds of millions of Donaldson and

989
00:57:17,600 --> 00:57:21,840
Speaker 4: finance and organized crime through the cities of America. And

990
00:57:22,040 --> 00:57:25,320
Speaker 4: they did this on the movie The Godfather. They got

991
00:57:25,360 --> 00:57:28,560
Speaker 4: this from the caf Farber hearings. They subpoened Charlie rich

992
00:57:28,680 --> 00:57:32,880
Speaker 4: the president of the Dunes. Typical guy had ten percent

993
00:57:32,920 --> 00:57:35,200
Speaker 4: of the Dunes. He was the president of the Dunes.

994
00:57:35,920 --> 00:57:39,000
Speaker 4: The federal government, the Justice Department, this I mean Senator

995
00:57:39,000 --> 00:57:43,160
Speaker 4: aster S. Kith Farber subpoenaed Charlie rich to testify, just

996
00:57:43,400 --> 00:57:46,760
Speaker 4: like the scene and the Godfather. And the idea was

997
00:57:46,760 --> 00:57:48,400
Speaker 4: they knew that Charlie Richard was going to take the

998
00:57:48,440 --> 00:57:51,480
Speaker 4: Fifth Amendment. He wasn't going to answer any questions because

999
00:57:51,480 --> 00:57:56,480
Speaker 4: he had good lawyers. But the idea is asking the questions.

1000
00:57:56,560 --> 00:57:59,840
Speaker 4: Kiff Farber would get the publicity and use the television

1001
00:58:00,040 --> 00:58:03,800
Speaker 4: as because it was televised hearings to make his reputation,

1002
00:58:04,440 --> 00:58:06,600
Speaker 4: and so he knew he wasn't going to answer, but

1003
00:58:06,840 --> 00:58:09,280
Speaker 4: he could ask the questions in a way that would

1004
00:58:09,320 --> 00:58:13,480
Speaker 4: of course pretend that the guy was guilty. And here's

1005
00:58:13,480 --> 00:58:17,880
Speaker 4: what it looked like, and it's on television, Carl tells

1006
00:58:17,960 --> 00:58:20,680
Speaker 4: me in at the Desert In card room at the

1007
00:58:20,680 --> 00:58:24,080
Speaker 4: Desert and Country Club at two or three in the afternoon.

1008
00:58:24,880 --> 00:58:28,840
Speaker 4: You know it was one two o'clock.

1009
00:58:29,880 --> 00:58:35,400
Speaker 5: Mister Ridge, is it not true? As the Ridge that's

1010
00:58:35,400 --> 00:58:38,240
Speaker 5: you and your co houts at the Dunes Hotel on

1011
00:58:38,320 --> 00:58:43,600
Speaker 5: the Strip in Las Vegas, Nevada, regularly skim tens of

1012
00:58:43,640 --> 00:58:47,720
Speaker 5: thousands of dollars every night from the counting rooms of

1013
00:58:47,760 --> 00:58:49,120
Speaker 5: your gambling casino.

1014
00:58:50,960 --> 00:58:56,440
Speaker 4: Senator I respectfully refused, Hanchair, I like to take advantage

1015
00:58:56,480 --> 00:58:59,280
Speaker 4: of my rights provided by the Fifth Amendment and not

1016
00:58:59,360 --> 00:59:05,800
Speaker 4: answer your question, mister Rich, is it not true, not

1017
00:59:05,880 --> 00:59:09,439
Speaker 4: only you and the cohorts of the Dunes, but all

1018
00:59:09,480 --> 00:59:12,600
Speaker 4: of your core holts up and down the strip, not less,

1019
00:59:12,840 --> 00:59:17,600
Speaker 4: kim millions of dollars of ill gotten games, avoiding or

1020
00:59:17,680 --> 00:59:22,880
Speaker 4: tax responsibilities and finance organized crime throughout the United States

1021
00:59:22,920 --> 00:59:29,000
Speaker 4: of America. Is that not true, mister Rich, Senator I respectfully. Now,

1022
00:59:30,080 --> 00:59:34,760
Speaker 4: while he's saying this, fourteen guys that are playing gin,

1023
00:59:35,560 --> 00:59:39,040
Speaker 4: Carl said, they jump up out of the chairs and

1024
00:59:39,760 --> 00:59:42,680
Speaker 4: stop playing Gin, and you start yelling at the television,

1025
00:59:42,760 --> 00:59:45,880
Speaker 4: said you turney pastward. We never got that kind of money.

1026
00:59:46,000 --> 00:59:48,800
Speaker 4: We didn't steal that much. We only cut up, you know,

1027
00:59:49,680 --> 00:59:52,520
Speaker 4: one hundred a night. And the guys are yelling at

1028
00:59:52,520 --> 00:59:56,480
Speaker 4: the television. The kid fover is exaggerating how much money

1029
00:59:56,520 --> 01:00:01,360
Speaker 4: they stole. Carl coins to Steve. I was young, he says,

1030
01:00:01,360 --> 01:00:04,960
Speaker 4: I was. They're playing gin and it was greatest show

1031
01:00:05,040 --> 01:00:08,240
Speaker 4: on earth to see these old guys yell on the

1032
01:00:08,280 --> 01:00:12,680
Speaker 4: television set saying they were exaggerating how much money they

1033
01:00:12,760 --> 01:00:17,920
Speaker 4: stole off the counting room. Oh those are my memories,

1034
01:00:18,080 --> 01:00:21,680
Speaker 4: Jake Friedman, guys yelling at the television set. We didn't

1035
01:00:21,720 --> 01:00:22,520
Speaker 4: steal that much.

1036
01:00:22,680 --> 01:00:24,720
Speaker 1: Steve Carl used to take me in the count room.

1037
01:00:25,320 --> 01:00:28,080
Speaker 1: N I'm this kid and they're looking after me, and

1038
01:00:28,120 --> 01:00:29,960
Speaker 1: he used to take me in the count room skip

1039
01:00:30,840 --> 01:00:34,520
Speaker 1: and he's right. There was no money. There was no

1040
01:00:34,560 --> 01:00:36,200
Speaker 1: you know, you know what it is. Today they bring

1041
01:00:36,320 --> 01:00:38,040
Speaker 1: armored trucks in with seventy eight.

1042
01:00:37,960 --> 01:00:41,280
Speaker 4: They made ten. Carl told me the Sands Peak made

1043
01:00:41,360 --> 01:00:45,280
Speaker 4: ten thousand a day, which meant three million, six hundred

1044
01:00:45,320 --> 01:00:48,640
Speaker 4: thousand a year. But they'd have a big Christmas or

1045
01:00:48,680 --> 01:00:51,680
Speaker 4: a big holiday and they'd get to four four and

1046
01:00:51,720 --> 01:00:54,280
Speaker 4: a half million a year. The top joint in Las

1047
01:00:54,400 --> 01:00:57,320
Speaker 4: Vegas made four and a half less than five million

1048
01:00:57,360 --> 01:01:00,000
Speaker 4: a year, and they would steal three and a half

1049
01:01:00,000 --> 01:01:02,439
Speaker 4: half of it. They'd cut up ten thousand dollars a night,

1050
01:01:02,800 --> 01:01:04,720
Speaker 4: so if there were ten owners, they'd each get a

1051
01:01:04,800 --> 01:01:07,560
Speaker 4: thousand dollars, but there were usually twenty, so if you

1052
01:01:07,560 --> 01:01:09,800
Speaker 4: were an owner, you could steal five hundred dollars a night.

1053
01:01:10,280 --> 01:01:12,520
Speaker 4: So now these guys would have two or three thousand

1054
01:01:12,520 --> 01:01:15,040
Speaker 4: a week to gamble, and that's what they did.

1055
01:01:15,080 --> 01:01:17,640
Speaker 1: And apropos what you're saying. One of my great memories

1056
01:01:17,720 --> 01:01:21,000
Speaker 1: I'll never forget. After every show skip, when they shut

1057
01:01:21,040 --> 01:01:24,880
Speaker 1: the show down, they would clear a portion of the

1058
01:01:24,920 --> 01:01:28,400
Speaker 1: showroom and they'd bring out these two big white work lights,

1059
01:01:29,400 --> 01:01:32,720
Speaker 1: and all these guys, Carl four or five, there must

1060
01:01:32,720 --> 01:01:35,120
Speaker 1: have been four or five, six of them. They'd take

1061
01:01:35,120 --> 01:01:38,640
Speaker 1: their coats off, which I never saw these guys without

1062
01:01:38,680 --> 01:01:41,280
Speaker 1: a jacket. They'd take off the coat, take off the ties,

1063
01:01:41,320 --> 01:01:44,200
Speaker 1: and they would sit and play gin till five in

1064
01:01:44,240 --> 01:01:47,640
Speaker 1: the morning, like some ridiculous number a point, you know,

1065
01:01:47,680 --> 01:01:49,040
Speaker 1: at bucket Point wherever it was.

1066
01:01:49,200 --> 01:01:52,320
Speaker 4: They got a lifestyle. Yeah, it was a simple lifestyle,

1067
01:01:52,960 --> 01:01:55,600
Speaker 4: very sick. And when they went legitimate in the fifties

1068
01:01:55,600 --> 01:01:59,400
Speaker 4: and got to Las Vegas, they never changed their life.

1069
01:01:59,600 --> 01:02:04,760
Speaker 4: But they're children, all went to college, they all grew

1070
01:02:04,840 --> 01:02:08,240
Speaker 4: up and turned their noses up about Las Vegas. The

1071
01:02:08,320 --> 01:02:12,960
Speaker 4: kids too fancy for that. And then public companies came

1072
01:02:13,000 --> 01:02:13,800
Speaker 4: to Las Vegas.

1073
01:02:14,040 --> 01:02:17,320
Speaker 1: They got Old Steve, they got old Hughes, bought out

1074
01:02:17,320 --> 01:02:17,800
Speaker 1: a bunch of them.

1075
01:02:17,880 --> 01:02:20,920
Speaker 4: Yeah, he brought Hughes came in sixty five, sixty six

1076
01:02:21,520 --> 01:02:25,480
Speaker 4: and bought out the Sands, the desert in cleaned out Modalitz,

1077
01:02:25,560 --> 01:02:28,600
Speaker 4: the Cleveland Group, the New York Group from the Sands.

1078
01:02:29,400 --> 01:02:32,520
Speaker 4: The only thing that ever happened after was all over.

1079
01:02:32,600 --> 01:02:36,640
Speaker 4: In sixty six. Paul Laxalt was the governor. Reagan was

1080
01:02:36,680 --> 01:02:40,800
Speaker 4: the governor in California. Laxalt was in Nevada. They were buddies.

1081
01:02:41,440 --> 01:02:43,640
Speaker 4: I got a picture at home of me with lax

1082
01:02:43,680 --> 01:02:46,640
Speaker 4: Halt and Reagan when I was twenty six, twenty five

1083
01:02:46,720 --> 01:02:54,800
Speaker 4: years old. But then somehow the movie The Casino, the

1084
01:02:54,800 --> 01:03:00,360
Speaker 4: movie with de Niro and Cho Seshi, a guy, a

1085
01:03:00,360 --> 01:03:02,520
Speaker 4: group of guys, two or three of them, got a

1086
01:03:02,520 --> 01:03:06,840
Speaker 4: whole of the stardust with a teamsters Loan, Lefty Rosendal,

1087
01:03:07,600 --> 01:03:12,200
Speaker 4: Lefty Rosenthal and those guys, and it was a throwback

1088
01:03:12,240 --> 01:03:15,040
Speaker 4: to the forties. And all the rest of us in

1089
01:03:15,080 --> 01:03:17,320
Speaker 4: that town we looked at the stardust and said, these

1090
01:03:17,360 --> 01:03:20,240
Speaker 4: guys are all going to go to jail. I mean,

1091
01:03:20,640 --> 01:03:23,360
Speaker 4: they're living in another world there. They're fifteen years out

1092
01:03:23,360 --> 01:03:23,720
Speaker 4: of sync.

1093
01:03:24,000 --> 01:03:25,120
Speaker 1: That was Spilatro brother.

1094
01:03:25,240 --> 01:03:27,920
Speaker 4: Yeah, and they loved They got rid of them, and

1095
01:03:28,080 --> 01:03:31,920
Speaker 4: they lost the hotel, they lost everything.

1096
01:03:35,840 --> 01:03:38,760
Speaker 6: Hey, folks, this is Jordan Runtog, the executive producer of

1097
01:03:38,760 --> 01:03:41,920
Speaker 6: Our Way. This concludes the first part of our epic

1098
01:03:41,960 --> 01:03:45,919
Speaker 6: conversation with the great Las Vegas visionary Steve Winn. We've

1099
01:03:45,920 --> 01:03:47,960
Speaker 6: got plenty more to come in part two, so we'll

1100
01:03:48,000 --> 01:03:49,200
Speaker 6: catch you back here next week.

1101
01:03:49,680 --> 01:03:50,800
Speaker 2: Thanks so much for listening.

1102
01:03:51,200 --> 01:03:54,000
Speaker 1: Our Away with Paul Anke and Skip Bronson is a

1103
01:03:54,040 --> 01:03:56,000
Speaker 1: production of iHeartRadio.

1104
01:03:56,440 --> 01:04:01,480
Speaker 2: The show's the executive producer is Jordan Runtog, Supervising producer

1105
01:04:01,480 --> 01:04:03,200
Speaker 2: and editor Marcy Depina.

1106
01:04:03,560 --> 01:04:07,360
Speaker 1: It was engineered by Todd Carlum and Graham Gibson and

1107
01:04:07,400 --> 01:04:09,720
Speaker 1: mixed and mastered by Doug Boum.

1108
01:04:10,080 --> 01:04:12,480
Speaker 2: If you like what you're heard, please subscribe and leave

1109
01:04:12,560 --> 01:04:13,160
Speaker 2: us a review.

1110
01:04:13,520 --> 01:04:20,520
Speaker 1: For more podcasts on iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

1111
01:04:20,640 --> 01:04:24,280
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite children