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*?╟≤ ?╓¬. Tfc* nrioinal item is available for research and handling at the UNLV GOIX si "WITH ESQUIRE Celebrity's celebrity: Jack Entratter of The Sands and its Copa Room Las Vegas takes celebrities in its If the name happens to have a face j stride, probably because it has that is familiar because it has ap- more "names" visiting it than any peared on the large and small screens, other strip of land anywhere on earth. he or she gets the accolade of turned Knowledge That Has Endured With The Pyramids A SECRET METHOD FOB THE MASTER heads, whispered recognitions, comments on how different?╟÷or how much the same?╟÷the name looks in real life. But the stir is never more than momentary; it's like a breeze passing through a room and then subsiding; visitors to Las Vegas are too busy having fun to waste too many minutes on those who matter little to them personally. Vegas is full of excitement and each attraction must compete with a hundred others for attention : the casinos, the shows, the beautiful hotels, the very atmosphere itself. In Las Vegas, the celebrities' position is reversed: here they have celebrities. One of these is Jack Entratter, a man who looks more like the head of an industrial organization than the president of one of Las Vegas' finest hotels?╟÷The Sands?╟÷and the producer of the spectacular shows for its Copa Room. Entratter has been in the business of producing shows for many years. He started at the French Casino in New York in 1936, as assistant to producer Clifford Fisher, then moved on to the Stork Club, and in 1940 became part owner of the New York Copacabana as well as the producer of the shows that made it so renowned. It was in the Forties that he laid the foundation for his role as a celebrity's celebrity. In that era, many of the people who are famous today were truggling young performers, their step up the ladder but helped them in many other ways: gave them advice, talked to other nightclub managers about their acts, helped them get jobs and found them return engagements when they were back in New York. He was interested in them as people, not only in what they could do, and that interest paid off. Entratter stayed at the New York Copacabana for a decade or so and it was no more than natural that the place which succeeded New York as the top supper-club town in America should attract him. He and a group of associates moved on to Las Vegas, found some real estate that pleased them, built a fine hotel, provided it with all the luxuries, and opened The Sands early in December in 1952. Of course the nightclub room was called The Copa Room: if it hadn't been, the stars themselves would have renamed it. Danny Thomas was the opening star, and filled it to its capacity. Since that time, the room has had other great names: Frank Sinatra (Entratter made him a vice-president of the hotel), Lena Home, Red Skelton, Carol Burnett, Jerry Lewis, Nat King Cole, Peter Lind Hayes and Mary Healy, Vic Damone, Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gorme, Paul Anka, Jan Murray, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis, Jr., Allen and Rossi, and Judy Garland. There have been lesser lights, of course, en- : of