Wednesday, February 11, 2004
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

JOHN L. SMITH: Joe Kelley fades from corporate memory along with his pride and joy

Esther Kelley greets you at her front door with a hand as warm and frail as an old memory, navigates the hallway with the aid of a cane, and leads you to a room where photographs of her Joe cover every inch of a bed.

She says the Jan. 7 death of her husband, Joseph Kelley, the man who ran the Showboat in its prime, went all but unnoticed. And that's not right.

The passing years have turned her hair from brown to white, and she's lost the spring in her step; but she gets downright fired up when she thinks about her husband departing without so much as a tip of the fedora from the industry he played a part in building.

Recently, the press ran to cover the awful last gasp of the foundering Castaways casino, formerly known as the Showboat. The Castaways closed Jan. 29 after 49 years in business and pushed 800 people out of work. Some of those employees had spent their best years working for Joe Kelley.

"I'm glad he wasn't here to see it," 86-year-old Esther says, her voice falling softly in a house kept as warm as a sweater in a sauna. "He'd be heartbroken, all my friends say, to see it closed. The Showboat was his pride and joy."

With its funky, wonderful riverboat theme and cocktail waitresses in their modified sailor suits, the Showboat was the home of such diverse entertainment as George Jessel, Western Swing king Bob Wills, a weekly fight card, big-time wrestling and roller derby, and most notably an annual Professional Bowlers Association tournament. The only "O" you'd find at the Showboat was on the roulette wheel, but its entertainment policy appealed to working locals and regular Joes and Josephines.

Bowling was her Joe's big idea, Esther says, and for many years it was a resounding success. The Showboat opened in 1954, and Kelley joined management a short time later. In 1959, the 'Boat installed 24 bowling lanes and became a PBA Tour stop a year later. Kelley kept adding lanes, gradually increasing the number to 106, and the 'Boat played host to a PBA tournament for 39 years. Along the way, Joe was named to the PBA Hall of Fame.

Like his casino racket contemporaries in the pre-Wall Street era, Joe worked constantly. He put in a full day, came home, changed clothes, had dinner with his wife, then returned to the Showboat before finally returning at 3 a.m.

"I was like his valet," she says without bitterness. After all, she knew the score. "In those days, bosses used to romance everyone in the casino. He was like a greeter in the evening. People expected to meet and have a drink with the boss. The Showboat was his whole life. He loved that hotel."

He loved Esther, too. They celebrated their 62nd wedding anniversary Dec. 25, but Joe's health went downhill. He lived to be 93.

Esther, from Chester, Pa., was raised on the boardwalk in Atlantic City in a carney's paradise and stayed close to the action when she moved West. It was at the Garden of Allah in Seal Beach, Calif., a nightclub that offered "sneak gambling" in the back room, that she met her future husband.

He landed a job on one of Tony Cornero's gambling ships before hooking up with Esther and moving to Las Vegas in 1941.

"We got here in August," Esther says. "And it was hot. There was no air conditioning in those days, you know."

He worked a dice table for J.K. Houssels Sr. at the Las Vegas Club. Esther ran cocktails at the El Rancho Vegas.

Kelley was an Air Force flyboy in World War II and provided air cover for Gen. George Patton.

After the war, Joe knocked around and landed at the Showboat, where he prospered through several expansions, the heyday of televised bowling, and taking the company public before retiring in 1988.

These days, Esther Kelley's home is a shrine to her late husband. Photos of Joe with celebrities, an original Showboat stock certificate, and a picture of a favorite airplane hang in the hallway.

But your favorite photo isn't of Kelley with his Spencer Tracy good looks, but of his handsome "Esther from Chester" with her bright eyes and disarming smile.

Was it long ago, or only yesterday, that she and lady Las Vegas were young?

John L. Smith's column appears Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. E-mail him at Smith@reviewjournal.com or call 383-0295.