Elvis in Vegas

This is Lee Habib, and this is Our American Stories, and we tell stories about everything here on this show, from the arts to sports, and from business to history. And our next guest has written a terrific book, “Elvis in Vegas: How the King Reinvented the Las Vegas Show.” And I welcome Richard Zoglin to Our American Stories. How are you, Richard?

Great. Great to be with you.

Well, you know, I want to start in the beginning, because you start by describing Elvis Presley and this town called Las Vegas. And it turns out that long before he did his big comeback show, he had actually played in Vegas, well, one time before when he had just become a star for RCA. Talk about that first show, that first time Elvis played Vegas.

Right, right. That was in 1956. He was just coming up. He had just, he had one hit song at that point, “Heartbreak Hotel,” and Colonel Parker, as manager, decided to put him into Las Vegas, which was a very strange venue for—

a young, hip-shaking rock-and-roller from Memphis.

He was on a bill at the New Frontier Hotel with Shecky Green and Freddie Martin’s orchestra. So it was a very strange kind of nightclub show for Las Vegas, and—

He didn’t do very well.

The middle-aged nightclub crowd that frequented Vegas in those years just really didn’t know what to make of this kid. But Elvis, it turns out, he really loved Vegas, and it became his kind of favorite getaway. He would go back there in between movie shoots just for rest and relaxation with his friends.

You see other shows, pick up women.

And he got married to Priscilla there in nineteen sixty seventy. Made, of course, “Viva Las Vegas,” the kind of quintessential Vegas movie there in sixty-three, so it became a very familiar place to him during the sixties.

Let’s talk about Vegas itself, because it’s a quirky city. It wasn’t a big city until fairly recently. In fact, I was shocked, Richard, how small Vegas was until right around the time of the nineteen fifties.

Yeah, it was a small town in. It got founded in 1905. It kind of hit the big started to attract people in the early thirties when Hoover Dam was constructed nearby, and Las Vegas was the place where everybody, all the construction workers, went downtown Vegas to gamble. Nevada was the one straightened union that had legalized gambling. The real boom in Las Vegas happened during the forties. There were first a couple of hotels that opened on what we now know as the Las Vegas Strip, which was the highway leading from Vegas to Los Angeles. But then right after the war in 1946, the Flamingo Hotel opened, and that was the hotel Uy Siegell and his mob friends from New York opened, and they began attracting really the top-line big stars. And the whole idea of Vegas, the Vegas hotels, was to get people into the casinos to—

gamble and pay top dollar for the biggest—

stars, because that would get people into the casinos, and they’d make the money back from the gambling. Then that was the money they could pay top dollar to the stars with.

And so, starting with the—

Flamingo in 1946, then all the hotels opened on the Strip in the early, late forties, early fifties: the Sands, the Sahara, the Desert End, etc.

By the mid-fifties, you had, it was really—

the entertainment capital of America in terms of live nightclub entertainment, and so it was really hitting its golden age, its heyday years, right around the time that Elvis first appeared in Vegas.

in ’56.

You wrote this in your chapter. You said there was just one rule: “Keep the show to a strict time, usually an hour or less, to make sure your patrons weren’t away from the casinos for too long.” For keeping people in the casino was the key to Vegas’s whole business model. That led to one of Las Vegas’s great innovations of the nineteen fifties, the lounge show. Talk about that.

Yeah, there were, of course, the big showrooms where Sinatra, Tony Bennett, everybody played. All the major, every major nightclub star in the country played Vegas sometime or another in the fifties and sixties. But then, starting in the mid-fifties, somebody had the idea to have a show in the lounge, which was kind of a bar lounge area right adjacent to the casino, in between the big shows in the big showrooms. It would keep people in the casino, in the hotel; they wouldn’t leave. They’d go and spend an hour or so at the lounge where a different performer: comedians, singers were performing, jazz groups… and the whole idea is to keep them from leaving the hotel, stay in the casino. But the lounge shows became a genre of their own. Louis Priman and Keeley Smith were a great duo back in the fifties, and they really set the model for lounge—

shows in Vegas.

So you had this double helping of entertainment in each hotel.

And let’s talk about a character who is from West Alice, Wisconsin, and his name, Americanized, it’s Wlad Zeo, or something really, really hard to pronounce. But Walter Liberaci. Talk about Liberaci, and by the way, talk a little bit about Liberaci and Elvis.

Sure, one of the big stars in Vegas in the mid-fifties was Liberaci. He had a really unique act: very flamboyant, you know, piano and talking with the audience, and musical, all sorts of, from classical to pop, popular, and very flamboyant. He was really one of the biggest stars in Vegas in the fifties. Elvis came in 1956, and he wasn’t doing very well at the New Frontier Hotel, so Colonel Parker went over to the Riviera where Liberaci was playing and doing very well, of course, and asked Liberaci if he could come over and help out his boy, you see, his show, maybe take some publicity shots with him. And Liberaci was a very generous performer did that for Elvis, and Elvis always appreciated that that Liberachi was nice enough to sort of help him out when he was struggling a little in Las Vegas. But also Elvis, I think, learned from Liberaci. Strangely enough, there was something about his showmanship. Liberachi had one piece of advice for Elvis after he saw his show. He says, “Elvis, your show needs more glitz.” And sure enough, not long after, Elvis was touring in a gold by a jacket very much like the one that Liberachi was wearing in Las Vegas. And I think that they were friendly throughout their careers, continued to see each other and occasionally, and I do think that Liberachi’s showmanship was a big influence on Elvis, particularly in those later Vegas years when he came out with the white jumpsuits and the flashy outfits and stuff. I think you can look back and see Liberachi’s influence there.

Well, we’ll continue with this conversation. The book is “Elvis in Vegas: How the King Reinvented the Las Vegas Show.” We’ll be back with more of Richard Zoglin’s story, “Elvis in Vegas,” after these messages. Folks, if you love the great American stories we tell and love America like we do, we’re asking you to become a part of the Our American Stories family. If you agree that America is a good and great country, please make a donation. A monthly gift of seventeen dollars and seventy-six cents is fast becoming a favorite option for supporters. Go to Our American Stories dot com now and go to the donate button and help us keep the great American stories coming. That’s Our American Stories dot Com. And we continue here on Our American Stories, “Elvis in Vegas.” We’re talking about this terrific book with author Richard Zogwin, “How the King Reinvented the Las Vegas Show.” Let’s talk about the Rat Pack. Who were they, and what impact did these guys have on Vegas?