Golden era showgirls talk about Las Vegas’ glamorous past
I walked into the Riviera knowing it had seen better days, but thinking it still looked pretty good for an old Vegas girl.
It certainly didn’t resemble the sort of joint that ought to be demolished and replaced with a convention center the size of Delaware. But there it is. Come May, the Riv will get slipped the shiv.
On this day, the convention center bustled with one low-rolling conference after another. The poolside was dappled with the pallid goose flesh of sunshine-seeking tourists. The casino was a babbling brook of tinkling slots with not much happening on the green felt.
The walls were graced with the faces of some of the great entertainers who have played in the showroom since the Riviera’s opening on April 20, 1955. Neon ghosts, one and all. Everyone remembers Liberace and Dean Martin, but through the years Bob Hope, Sammy Davis Jr. and Joan Rivers played there, too.
But that’s the way it is with the Strip’s old girls. They work what God gave ’m and smile at the customers as long as they can. Trouble for the gaudy old goddesses is, this is Las Vegas: The competition gets younger each year.
Ruthie Gillis and Claire Fitzpatrick can relate to the Riv’s fate. They are vintage showgirls from the resort’s mobbed-up heyday.
Ruthie, a longtime singer and entertainer, was part in the Riv’s original flock of showgirls. Claire, who as a teenager danced on Broadway in “Pal Joey,” was a showgirl at the Sands and the Riviera and elsewhere for 17 years. They were onstage with Liberace, Jeff Chandler, Mickey Rooney, and more.
I sat across from them in the Riviera coffee shop and listened to them laugh over lunch about earning a living on the Strip at a time when the lounges were bursting with talent, the showrooms full of sequined style and they had the run of every house they set foot in.
Did I mention they both had a fling with comedian Jack Carter? (At different times: This is a family newspaper.)
Claire: “I dated Jack Carter. Jack chippied on me, and I took off for the Continent with an oil heir.”
Ruthie: “Jack chippied on everybody.”
Claire: “Yeah, you’re right.”
Their paths crossed often, they roomed together for a time, and in the late 1950s they shared the Riviera stage with Ginger Rogers. It was one of many highlights that wound up in photographs on the walls of their homes.
Although the casino often struggled financially and was known for its connections to the Chicago Outfit, the Riviera was the Strip’s first high-rise. At its best, it epitomized Vegas class.
Claire: “There’s no show business today.”
Ruthie: “The corporations changed everything. There’s no Dean Martins, no headliners.”
Claire: “We talk about that all the time. We had the best era. I know every generation says that, but we really did.”
Ruthie almost missed Las Vegas completely. She bombed her Sands audition in 1954, retreated to California, but eventually was talked into returning for a tryout at the Riv. She stayed, eventually landed singing gigs that took her from Las Vegas Boulevard to South Korea and every stop in between.
How small was the show business world back then?
When Ruthie and Claire took off for Las Vegas from Chicago, singer Tony Martin gave them money for gas. When their car broke down on the hot road to the Boulevard, Sammy Davis Jr. had it towed.
It was the least Davis could do after trying to fix them up with a hip comedian friend of his in Los Angeles. Some guy named Lenny Bruce.
Ruthie: “We didn’t like him.”
Claire: “He didn’t smell good.”
Ruthie: “We’ve got some funny stories.”
Claire: “We had some fun times.”
Ruthie: “The Riviera was beautiful back then. Shecky Green was in the lounge.”
Claire: “It was packed every night. It was very magical back then, very exciting. People always dressed. A woman would come backstage and sell us sequined gowns.”
Ruthie: “There weren’t people running around in jeans pushing baby carriages. It was a different atmosphere. It’s too corporate now.”
These Vegas girls rolled lucky. They were glamorous in the golden era, and now they’re the golden girls.
With lunch over, I gave them a hug and watched them move through the casino like ghosts in the neon.
After all these years, they still had it.
I swear I heard somebody whistle.
John L. Smith’s column appears Sunday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday. Email him at Smith@reviewjournal.com or call 702-383-0295. Follow him on Twitter @jlnevadasmith.