Fly on the Wall: Recollections of Las Vegas' Good Old, Bad Old Days
By (Author) Dick Odessky
Huntington Press
Huntington Press
15th June 2000
United States
General
Non Fiction
979.3135
Paperback
260
312g
Imagine what it must have been like to be in Las Vegas during its most glamorous and eventful years: the 1950s, when you could rub elbows with powerful politicians, famous entertainers, and notorious gangsters; the 1960s, when Howard Hughes' corporate invasion changed casinos forever; and the 1970s, which were immortalized by the movie Casino.
Back then, "the boys" ran the town, dinner shows were a dollar, and vacant lots on what is now the Strip sold for $5 an acre. Tallulah played baccarat, Shecky shot dice, and Frank dealt blackjack.
Fly on the Wall chronicles those times, as well as the men and women who shaped them. Benny Binion, Moe Dalitz, Dorothy Entratter, Wilbur Clark, Abe Schiller, Nick Dandolos, Ralph Lamb, the Copa Girls, Jackie Gaughan, Jerry Zarowitz, Artemus Ham, Barbara Greenspun, Marlene Dietrich, Bob Brown, and Eugene Murphy, to name a few.
As a reporter for two of the city's most respected newspapers and a publicist for two of the city's most infamous casinos, Dick Odessky was in the thick of it--the proverbial fly on the wall. His recollections of Las Vegas' good old bad old days put you in the thick of it, too.
Dick Odessky was a newspaperman in Los Angeles before moving to Las Vegas to ply his trade in the early 1950s. Later, he worked as a publicist and marketing director at several hotel-casinos.