Longtime casino exec Shoofey dies at age 91

Alex James Shoofey, the casino executive who signed Elvis Presley to a long-term contract, died Wednesday in Las Vegas at age 91.

Shoofey was a Canadian-born orphan who rose to become a top gaming executive at the Sahara, Flamingo and International.

Casino owner Kirk Kerkorian brought Shoofey from the Flamingo to the International, which eventually became the Las Vegas Hilton, as president and general manager in 1969.

Kerkorian had purchased the Flamingo in 1967 and installed Shoofey as president, hiring the casino executive away from his position as the Sahara's vice president.

The Flamingo was being used to train employees for the new 1,500-room International, the largest hotel in the world at the time. Kerkorian had Shoofey try to land high-profile talent for opening night.

Shoofey wasn't able to convince Presley's manager, Colonel Tom Parker, to let the singer open the new Showroom Internationale. Instead, he booked Barbra Streisand, then a 27-year-old rising singer, to perform on opening night.

Presley began a four-week engagement at the resort at $100,000 per week on July 26, 1969. After a successful opening, Shoofey and Parker negotiated a new deal to book Presley four weeks a year for five years at a salary of $125,000 per week.

Shoofey called it "the best deal ever made in this town."

The Las Vegas Hilton shows helped relaunch Presley's career. He played the property from 1969 until 1976.

"My dad was a private man that didn't talk a lot about his years in the casino business," said Shoofey's daughter, Teri Shoofey.

Alex Shoofey was born Adeeb George Shoofey in Montreal on Aug. 11, 1916. As a toddler, he and his brother, Charles, were handed over to an orphanage in Montreal when their parents died. They later were moved to St. Vincent's Home for Boys in Brooklyn, N.Y., where Alex Shoofey graduated from a Catholic high school.

After graduating from St. John's University and serving in the Army, he moved to California, where he owned a gasoline station with his brother.

Teri Shoofey said her father's arrival in Las Vegas was an accident.

After deciding that pumping gasoline was not for him, Shoofey was heading back to New York in 1947 when his car broke down in Las Vegas.

Interested in the growing desert town, he applied for jobs at various clubs under construction before being hired by Milton Prell for $50 a week as a bookkeeper at Club Bingo.

"I was willing to do anything, even dish washing," Shoofey said in a newspaper interview in February 1968.

Shoofey became comptroller when Prell opened the Sahara in 1952, and rose to become vice president and general manager in 1963.

Shoofey left the Sahara in August 1967, accepting Kerkorian's offer to run the Flamingo.

He left the casino industry in March 1972 after serving as president of the Hilton working as a freelance casino consultant before retiring in 1980.

Shoofey also was a philanthropist, working with Boys Club of America, National Jewish Hospital in Denver and the Nevada Safety Council.

Shoofey was married twice, to Joan Adams in 1962, who was Miss Nevada in 1957, and to Debbie Faiman in 1978.

He is survived by his daughter, Teri, and two grandchildren, Hannah and Dylan Alterwitz.

Teri Shoofey said her father was an avid tennis player who enjoyed traveling after he retired.

Visitation and a service will be held Sunday at the Palm Mortuary at 7600 S. Eastern Ave. Viewing starts at 1 p.m., with the funeral at 2 p.m.