Ex-owner of Las Vegas’ Riviera, Meshulam Riklis, dies at 95

Meshulam Riklis, the billionaire businessman who owned Las Vegas’ Riviera for decades, died Friday at a Tel Aviv hospital. He was 95.

Riklis entered the Las Vegas casino world in 1973 when he bought the hotel, which stood on the north end of the Strip for 60 years, home to shows including “Crazy Girls,” and “Splash” as well as performances by his young wife, Pia Zadora.

The businessman bought the Riviera “because I thought the glamour of Las Vegas would help me get over my problems,” Rikilis told the Los Angeles Times Magazine for a lengthy profile published in August 1986.

Earlier in 1986, Riklis was asked by the Nevada Gaming Commission why he entered the hotel business. He laughed.

“I don’t know,” Riklis responded, the Review-Journal reported at the time.

While he oversaw the casino’s prime in the 1980s through early ’90s, he also faced criticism over his second marriage and scrutiny from the Gaming Commission.

In profiles from the ’80s, writers made sure to mention Zadora’s youth and Riklis’ desire to turn her into a sex symbol through movies he helped finance — he’s largely credited with paving the way for Zadora to win her New Star of the Year Golden Globe award for her 1982 role in “Butterfly,” co-produced by Riklis.

The couple met in 1973 backstage at a musical. She was 19 years old to Riklis’ 49. They married in 1977 and had two children — Kady and Kristofer. Zadora filed for divorce in November 1994, citing “incompatibility” with her then 71-year-old husband, the Review-Journal reported at the time.

During Riklis’ heyday in Las Vegas, he spotlighted his wife in shows at the Riviera. He also led the company through bankruptcy in the 1980s, facing off with regulators who questioned him about possible ties to organized crime associates and a $100 million debt to the Public Employees Retirement System.

The Gaming Commission eventually granted him a 10-year limited license in 1986 for him to pull the Riviera out of bankruptcy and pay back his debts.

He would later lose his ownership in the Riviera after another bankruptcy filing in the early ’90s.

‘Man of vision’

Riklis was born two months early in 1923 in Istanbul. His parents immigrated from southern Russia to Israel, according to the 1986 Los Angeles Times Magazine profile.

Riklis grew up in Tel Aviv before moving to the United States with his first wife and their two children. He studied at Ohio State University while teaching Hebrew.

He then made a name for himself buying up companies and building his business conglomerates on credit.

Zadora, who performs her show, “Pia’s Place,” at Piero’s Italian Restaurant in Las Vegas, told Review-Journal entertainment columnist John Katsilometes on Friday night that her ex-husband was a “brilliant businessman, who knew how to make money — and he had a great sense of humor.”

To those who worked with Riklis on the Strip, he was “legendary.” At a time when hotels were embracing star policy and booking individual headliners, Riklis took a shot with the show “Splash” and its 20,000-gallon water tank.

“Riklis was a man of vision willing to back what he believed in — and he believed in me — during a time when a hotel owner’s decision ruled,” the show’s producer, Jeff Kutash, told Katsilometes in a text message Friday. “We changed the Las Vegas entertainment landscape with ‘Splash.’ He was legendary. I learned a lot from him.”

Contact Katelyn Newberg at knewberg@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0240. Follow @k_newberg on Twitter.