I started going to Las Vegas around 1986, just in time to pay one (1) visit to the Silver Slipper casino on The Strip. I went in and walked around the place, absorbing the sense of Old Vegas that it had then….a sense that is nowhere to be found in that city now. I played a little Blackjack and as was my custom then, left when I was ≈$50 ahead. If you play long enough, you'll eventually lose everything so the trick to winning is to accept a modest win and move on.
The place intrigued me and I figured I'd go back on my next visit to Vegas and explore the Silver Slipper in greater depth…but on my next trip, it was in the process of being demolished. I was momentarily concerned that my big win had put them out of business but I decided that probably wasn't the problem. The land became a parking lot for the Frontier Hotel until the Frontier Hotel was demolished and now both their former sites are empty lots….very, very valuable empty lots. Some super-sized megaresort that costs zillions to build will sprout on that real estate someday.
But the Silver Slipper had an interesting history. It opened in 1950 and for most of that decade, it offered three things that brought players to its doors. It had one of the best buffets — great food at a teensy price, available 24/7. It had the rep, true or not, of offering slightly more beatable games than other casinos. And it had the most popular burlesque shows in town, usually headlined by some woman who was famous for disrobing and some comic who'd been a Top Banana back in the days of Minsky's. The comic was often Hank Henry or Tommy "Moe" Raft and they did three or four shows a night including often one at 3 AM.
Vegas doesn't offer shows at that hour anymore but it did then. All the headliners at other hotels — including Frank Sinatra and Johnny Carson when they were in town — were known to flock to that 3 AM show to watch the top comedians of that tradition.
All was well at the Silver Slipper until 1964 when the place was shut down by the Nevada Gaming Control Board for using "flat dice" at its crap tables. "Flat dice" are gimmicked dice and these were not gimmicked to favor the players. It was one of the very rare instances in Vegas history of an established hotel cheating its customers and all the other Vegas casinos demanded it be stopped and prosecuted.
One of the big selling points for wagering your paycheck in Vegas instead of your local bookie or backroom crap game was that in Vegas, the games were allegedly honest. The other hotels wanted to protect that reputation, as undeserved as it may have been at times. Eventually, new management reopened the Slipper but then in 1968, Howard Hughes bought it which was never good for any casino.
Thereafter, the Slipper struggled to stay competitive with the new hotels that were being built that could offer more comps, hire bigger performers for their showrooms, offer plusher rooms and just seem more modern. In 1977, the big sign at the Silver Slipper that said "BURLESQUE" changed to "BOYLESQUE" and the performers were thereafter female impersonators headlined by a guy who did Joan Rivers. Reportedly, this was good for business but still, the Hughes company sold it in '87 to the folks who turned it into a parking lot and that was the end of the Silver Slipper.
But getting back to those burlesque shows: I have a fascination with that kind of comedian and a regret that I never got to see any of them work in their natural habitats. I can still see Laurel & Hardy, Buster Keaton, the Marx Brothers — performers like that — at their peak. But very little film exists of the Hank Henrys or the Moe Rafts and what's around is amateurishly produced and obviously not them at their best. (Keaton, by the way, did a few tours of duty in the burlesque revues at the Silver Slipper. So did Billy Gilbert, as well as Joe DeRita in his pre-Stooge days.)
If I could go back in time with Mr. Peabody in his WABAC machine, I think I'd like to see this show that played the Silver Slipper…
Hank Henry…The Girl in the Champagne Glass…and Bela Lugosi, who was (I assume) their "Dracula in person" on the same stage? That had to be one hell of a show. "The Bela Lugosi Revue," as it was called in ads, ran from February 19 until March 27, 1954. Vegas then was a booming town with new homes and hotels being built at a brisk clip. Residential areas were springing up and often, streets were named for whoever was headlining in the town at the moment. There was (and may still be in some cases) a Fred Astaire St., a Peter Lorre St., an Elvis Presley Ct. and, yes, a Bela Lugosi St. That may have been the only honor Mr. Lugosi got out of his time at the Silver Slipper.
It was not a good time for him. He divorced his fourth wife in 1953, married his fifth in 1955 and was in the process of divorcing #5 when he died of a heart attack in 1956. Obviously, he was appearing in a Vegas burlesque show because he wasn't making a living in Hollywood, working only occasionally in movies like Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla (1952) and a couple of Ed Wood masterpieces. His last really good film — and I mean this, it's a great movie — was Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein in 1948.
What did the show consist of? I wish I knew…and unless I get a ride in one of them time machines, we may never know. But it's kinda fun to imagine…