Notable Las Vegans share memories with famous fathers
Dad, where would we be without you?
Probably in a house with all the lights left on, the floor littered with toys, while the AC runs full bore with the front door wide open.
Seriously, though, spending a day celebrating Dad doesn’t seem nearly enough given his years of sage advice, helping hands and sleepless nights.
That holds true no matter if you’re a well-known entertainer, a reality TV star, a restaurateur, a magazine publisher or an entrepreneur.
For Father’s Day, we asked several notable Las Vegans to share memories of their dads and important life lessons.
Rick and Richard Harrison
They’re part of Las Vegas’ most famous family act outside of the Osmonds.
Rick Harrison, 53, and his father, Richard, 77, opened Gold & Silver Pawn Shop in 1988. Twenty-one years later, they made their debut on History’s “Pawn Stars,” and their lives haven’t been the same since.
“He was tough,” Harrison says of his dad, known to viewers around the world as the Old Man. “Discipline was key, since he had three boys to deal with.”
“Growing up with my dad, a military man, there were always inspections,” he says. “ ‘Done with the dishes?’ I would stand at attention and say, ‘Ready for inspection, sir!’ ”
Through that, though, Harrison says he learned “the importance of hard work, sticking with something, being persistent and always doing your best.”
— Christopher Lawrence
Deana and Dean Martin
When Deana Martin was a girl, “all my friends wanted to come over to my house and play.”
After all, there was a swimming pool, a tennis court, a pool table, a movie projection room — and her dad, Dean Martin.
“He was absolutely as cool off stage as he was on,” Martin, 69, says of her father, a legendary Las Vegas headliner who died at 78 in 1995.
When her dad wasn’t at the studio (recording, movie or TV), he was home, Martin says. “He would get up every morning to go play golf.” But by 5:30 p.m., Dean Martin was home.
“We could hear him coming in the back door,” she says, and he would go into the kitchen and get a slice of Wonder Bread and put a little butter on it,” accompanying his snack with “a cold Michelob on tap.”
When Deana asked for singing lessons, her dad asked her, “ ‘What for? You want to sound like everyone else in the choir? Get your own voice.’ ” And she had to audition before she could appear on his long-running TV show.
Decades later, Deana Martin’s still performing — including regular appearances at Las Vegas venues from The Smith Center to the South Point.
But it’s Dean Martin’s offstage advice that has lasted, she says. “Treat people the way you wanted to be treated. Be a good person — and always be on time. You’re no more special than anyone else.”
— Carol Cling
Kimberly Bailey Tureaud and Bob Bailey
Kimberly Bailey Tureaud, co-publisher and editor of Las Vegas Black Image Magazine, learned much from father William “Bob” Bailey, renowned entertainer, businessman and civil rights activist. But one of the most important lessons was advocacy.
“Before he died, he told me ‘don’t let people forget about me,’ ” Bailey recalls. “The most important thing I learned from him is if you believe strongly in something, you should say so.”
He believed in family, community, education and diplomacy — equal treatment for all. “He got things done,” Bailey says. “He was my best friend.”
“I always saw him taking such a big leadership role,” she says. “He was such a man of character — a leader. He would always say to me, ‘Kimberly, stay focused.’ So I try to maintain that sustainability with whatever I do. He was just bigger than life. He was the one person who would take that step when no one else would. He was my hero.”
— Mia Sims
Michael and Arnie Morton
Michael Morton was 11 or 12 years old when began washing dishes at one of his father’s restaurants.
“Washing dishes, mopping floors, I worked a buffet,” he says of the various jobs of his youth.
Morton’s father, Arnie, who died in 2005 at age 83, was a food and beverage industry legend. A third-generation restaurateur, he helped Hugh Hefner launch the Playboy Club in 1960 and later founded the Morton’s of Chicago chain.
“I can’t say he was the most balanced guy,” his son recalls of his father’s drive. “He lived for the restaurant business. We talked it. We lived it. We worked it. It was just our life.”
Michael, 53, has carried on the family business. He was a founding partner in the N9NE Group (which briefly partnered with Playboy at the Palms) and currently runs a restaurant empire that includes Crush at the MGM Grand, La Cave at Wynn Las Vegas, downtown’s La Comida and MB Steak at the Hard Rock Hotel (co-owned with his brother David). He still relies on what his father taught him.
“He used to say the business is 90 percent common sense, 10 percent a good eye,” Morton says, “and that’s still something that I preach all the time.”
Asked to elaborate on that “good eye,” he explains: “Whether it was setting up the room, or just the slight shift of a customer’s head that was looking to get somebody’s attention, being observant is critical in this business.”
Al Mancini
Kenny and Hae Un Lee
It was eye glasses before beer glasses.
At least that was once the plan for Kenny Lee at the behest of his father, Lee’s Discount Liquor founder Hae Un Lee.
“As a typical Korean parent, he wanted me to be a doctor or a lawyer,” Kenny Lee recalls. “I was a sophomore at Loyola Marymount, studying to be an optometrist, and I wasn’t doing very well in school. He called me out of the blue one day and said, ‘I think our business is doing really well, maybe you want to join me?’ ”
Lee would do just that upon completing his business management studies in 1992, returning to the family business, which now numbers 18 area stores, where he first began working when he was 12 years old.
“When I was growing up, he was very strict,” Lee, 49, says of his father, 75. “In order for me to go out to play or get any kind of spending money from him, I had to earn it.”
Nowadays, the two have a playful rapport with one another, as demonstrated by the cheeky Lee’s commercials they star in together.
“We have dinner together every night. We come up with ideas for the next commercial,” Lee says. “He’s old school. I’m new school.”
Jason Bracelin
Bryan and Bradley Ogden
Bradley Ogden, 65, earned a national reputation in the late ’80s and early ’90s for his Lark Creek Inn in Larkspur, California and opened an eponymous restaurant at Caesars Palace in 2003. He and son Bryan, 40, worked together at the Las Vegas spot, named Best New Restaurant by the James Beard Foundation in 2004 and winner of one Michelin star.
Bryan Ogden, director of culinary operations for the Sugar Factory, says his father taught him to “really respect everything you have. You’re fortunate to have the things that you have had and the people you have had in your life; never take anything for granted. In food, respect for ingredients and that every component of every single dish is as important as the whole.”
It was exciting growing up with him, Ogden says. “We got to see a lot of things, and were fortunate to grow up in San Francisco and Napa Valley, being around the wine markets, eating at great restaurants and experiencing the food world at a young age.”
Heidi Knapp Rinella
