Friends from afar: Duo maintains ties since childhood in Germany

When Louisa Meyer sits with friends at her Spring Valley neighborhood pub, her German-accented English gives special emphasis to her stories.

She grew up in Ludwigslust, East Germany, escaped to the West, took New York by storm, found her way to Las Vegas and recently celebrated the “best birthday of her life” with childhood friend Karsten Bartels.

Meyer is outspoken and freedom-loving.

“The Communists in control told us how to think, what to think and when to think,” she said. “I didn’t like that.”

Meyer and her mother disagreed about many things, including politics, “and my mother threw me out.” So, at 18, Meyer confided in only three people: two school friends and an aunt with whom she was going to escape to West Berlin. Her aunt gave her money, and under the pretense of having a university interview, Meyer took a train to West Berlin, then immediately went to a refugee camp there.

The West German government cared for Meyer while she completed another high school degree and earned a scholarship to college. Buckling under the discipline of college, she attended for only a year before securing passage to America and a job as a waitress.

“When my ship entered New York harbor, and I saw the Statue of Liberty,” she said, “it was thrilling.”

Meyer’s original employment in New York was as a domestic worker. She was young and found English an easy language to learn, so she applied and was accepted as one of the Playboy bunnies to open the Playboy Club in New York City.

Meyer worked at the club when feminist writer Gloria Steinem spent two weeks as a bunny for a magazine piece she was preparing.

Meyer then became a showgirl for burlesque pioneer Harold Minsky. She also modeled and was known as a local personality. Earl Wilson wrote about her in his gossip column. David Susskind featured her on a program with a number of current and former Playboy bunnies.

Then Meyer met a man she calls “the love of my life” and “a real SOB.” They moved to Los Angeles and then to Las Vegas. Their relationship ended when Meyer discovered he had other “wives.”

Picking herself up again, Meyer found work as a hostess at Cafe Roma at Caesars Palace, 3570 Las Vegas Blvd. South, where she worked for 17 years. She took in teenagers as a temporary foster parent and survived breast cancer. She also reconnected with one of those two friends who knew about her escape to West Germany many years before: a boy, now a man, named Karsten Bartels.

As high school classmates, they had shared an interest in the theater and movies. Over the years, they kept in touch with greeting cards, but once the Berlin Wall came down in 1989, Meyer invited Bartels to visit her in Las Vegas, and he came.

Bartels’ life had been a love affair with theater, working behind the scenes in a number of capacities and later teaching the history of theater. In Las Vegas, he has reconnected with one of his former colleagues, actor Jorg Lemke, who appears in Cirque du Soleil’s “KA” production.

What do Meyer and Bartels do together?

“In the early years of the visits, we went to lots of shows and really saw the town, but lately, we talk more — reminiscing about the old days at home,” Meyer said.

She reads books on American history, and Bartels takes many walks. He also talks theater with Meyer’s neighbor, David Harris, who was a star in “Bottoms Up” in Las Vegas for 30 years. During his most recent visit, Bartels took a tap dance class at a Las Vegas senior center. Bartels laughs when he says his yearly visits have astounded his German friends, who assume the mild-mannered Bartels “is like an angel going into hell.”

For Meyer’s friends, Bartels’ visits have become a tradition they love.

“When is Karsten coming?” they ask.

Meyer has been a customer at Irene’s Cocktail Lounge, 5480 Spring Mountain Road, for 40 years — the last 20 under owners Tammy and Mike DeBauche.

“Other than my dogs, Thelma and Louise, Irene’s’ owners and customers have become my family,” said Meyer.

Her recent April birthday was her 75th, made sweeter by Bartels’ 25th visit.