It was a melting pot in Las Vegas. You got every age level, every ethnic background, every social aura - it was an absolute Americana audience... people who were there to celebrate occasions; people who were there to gamble; people who were there because they were awed by the whole Vegas operation. Tourists.
Las Vegas is amazing because of the clientele you have here. People come from all over the world; it really is a melting pot.
Sure, we loaned money to build hotels and casinos in Las Vegas. So what? Las Vegas borrowers were good customers.
All my memories of being in Las Vegas with Bobby were great. Frank Sinatra brought us to the Sands Hotel in 1965. When we worked that lounge, it was a great lounge. I think it was bigger than the showroom. We were two 25-year-old dumb kids from Orange County in Las Vegas with The Rat Pack.
The last time I appeared in Las Vegas, they were wearing hoop skirts and Davy Crockett hats, ... But they say 'What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas.' And as far as fashion is concerned, that's a good thing.
When I lived in Las Vegas, I was meeting everybody: Sammy Davis Jr., Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley, Engelbert Humperdinck, Tom Jones - we won't go there - but all these people that were working in Vegas a million years ago, way before I was Elvira.
My impression of Las Vegas was in the movies and on TV. So we were all gonna go see somebody perform - I can't recall who it was - and we went out and rented tuxedos because I thought that's what you did in Vegas.
We were going to do 'Reno 911!: New York, New York, Las Vegas,' which was like a 'Die Hard' set not in New York, but in the New York, New York casino in Las Vegas. We were really excited about being locked into the one casino and doing a bad action movie.
I never envisioned that I would be able to bring something to the entertainment table that would fit Las Vegas. Vegas is so presentational; it's live theater and, for me, it's always been film or television, which isn't why people come to Las Vegas. So it's exciting to be apart of all of this, the thrust of the entertainment of Vegas.
Actually, I was born in Las Vegas. My parents moved to Utah when I was eight because, after 40 years in Vegas, they were tired of it. We ended up in Nephi, a really small town in Utah.
When I first went to Las Vegas, I thought I would never go to Las Vegas; you can't get anything. But then I realized that they were trucking in almost everything; you could get a lot of your product, and I think that's why a lot of chefs actually went there.
My parents have a pawnshop in Downtown Las Vegas for quite awhile. I grew up seeing people come in and want - need - money so they could go and gamble again or so they could pay their bills or whatever reason, and try and sell items that were of value to them.
In every age 'the good old days' were a myth. No one ever thought they were good at the time. For every age has consisted of crises that seemed intolerable to the people who lived through them.
I go to Las Vegas--or at least I went to Las Vegas--because even though I knew everything that was sinister, calculating, and evil about it, I loved Las Vegas. Only in Vegas could I dare to fantasize that I was a Friend of Frank. Or that I was throwing the dice at Dino's favorite table. Or that I might luck out and sip bourbon with Rickles after his last lounge show. The D.I. oozed that kind of heady fantasy.
My schools were quite diverse - those who serve their country come from every race and religion - and so the military schools I attended were a wonderful melting pot.
I do think that people go to Las Vegas for 'whatever happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.' They go for the spectacle.
Any artist who goes to Las Vegas is an idiot as far as I am concerned. Whoever goes to Las Vegas can stay in Las Vegas.