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FREEMAN COMPANY pubficists - 5- Ezio Pinza, among others, presented a special problem at The Sands. Jack has made it a rule to discourage his stars from playing at the hotel, even though their presence at the tables invariably attracts huge crowds* If they lose in my place," he says frankly, "they might go away hating me, and I wouldn't be able to sign them again*" But Pinza wanted to play, so Jack Confided that there was one particular nickel slot machine geared to pay more than the others, and that only Pinza would know which one it was. "Another thing," he said, "people sometimes leave money in the slots, and if you search each one late at night, you're apt to find quite a few coins." Pinza went for the suggestion, Jack recalls, and for the next two weeks hotel patrons were treated to the unique spectacle of the world's highest paid basso intently playing one nickel slot machine, and surreptitiously salvaging a few forgotten coins from a hundred others* Jack Entratter has had this sort of uncanny affinity for show people since the day he lumbered into the French Casino at Miami ?╟÷ he was then only 19 years old ?╟÷ and got a job as a reservations clerk* Whoa the season closed he followed the emigrants to Hew York and became a floorman at the French Casino there. (A floorman is one who yanks you off the floor and throws you out into the street.) He was still in his early 20'a when Sherman Billingsley made him host at the Stork Club, and eventual- ly he wound up as a co-owner of the Copacabana* During these insomniac years, Jack met and conquered, as it were, the top personalities in the entertainment business. He was among the first to predict better times for some young unknowns named Peter Lind Hayes, Johnny Ray, Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, and Frankie Laine. He had such a sharp eye for feminine beauty that 78 of his Copa^irls ?╟÷ June Allyson and Lucille Bremer among than -- were inveigled into motion pictures. A few years ago, when the pressure began graying hi a hair and the doctors suggested a change of scene, Jack said goodbye to midnight Manhattan and went West with friends who were planning "The Sands." He took with him a ready-made roster of Thespian friends, and they've been making show business hi story -- in a desert oasis 33>0 miles from nowhere ?╟÷ since the December night in 1952 when Danny Thomas went on stage for the grand opening. That opening, incidentally, was a foretaste not only in luxuries that were to startle the hotel world, but of Jack Entratter*s fabulous connections with the kings said queens of the stage and screen. Chartered planes flew into Las Vegas from Hollywood, Houston, San Francisco, Chicago, New York and other - more - 9 50 8 Wl LSH I RE BLVD. ?╟≤ BEV ERLY HI LLS, CAL. * BRADSHAW 2-861 1