Julie McDonald interview, March 14, 1981: transcript

UNLV University Libraries Julie McDonald 1 An Interview with Julie McDonald An Oral History Conducted by Michael Richardson Ralph Roske Oral History Project on Early Las Vegas Special Collections and Archives Oral History Research Center University Libraries University of Nevada, Las Vegas UNLV University Libraries Julie McDonald 2 © Ralph Roske Oral History Project on Early Las Vegas University of Nevada, Las Vegas, 2020 UNLV University Libraries Julie McDonald 3 The Oral History Research Center (OHRC) was formally established by the Board of Regents of the University of Nevada System in September 2003 as an entity of the UNLV University Libraries’ Special Collections Division. The OHRC conducts oral interviews with individuals who are selected for their ability to provide first-hand observations on a variety of historical topics in Las Vegas and Southern Nevada. The OHRC is also home to legacy oral history interviews conducted prior to its establishment including many conducted by UNLV History Professor Ralph Roske and his students. This legacy interview transcript received minimal editing, such as the elimination of fragments, false starts, and repetitions in order to enhance the reader's understanding of the material. All measures have been taken to preserve the style and language of the narrator. The interviewee/narrator was not involved in the editing process. UNLV University Libraries Julie McDonald 4 Abstract On March 14, 1981, Michael Richardson interviewed Julie McDonald (b. 1945 in Torrance, California) about her childhood and life in Las Vegas, Nevada. McDonald shares her first impressions of Las Vegas, her schooling and the location of residential areas. Throughout the interview, McDonald also goes into detail concerning her occupations at the Guild Theatre, her secretarial work at Nellis Air Force Base, her singing career and being a “21” dealer. McDonald discusses the changes in the gaming industry, particularly the incorporation of women dealers, the use of the silver dollar and the requirements for dealers. McDonald ends by discussing housing, major happenings within Las Vegas, recreation as a kid and mass media in early Las Vegas. UNLV University Libraries Julie McDonald 5 The informant is Julie McDonald. The date is March 14, 1981 at 11 a.m. The place is 944 East Harmon Road, Las Vegas, Nevada. The collector is Michael Richardson, 4286 Aspen Street, Las Vegas. And the project is Local History Project Oral Interview with—about Long Term Las Vegas Resident. You’ve been a twenty-five year resident of Las Vegas, could you describe what Las Vegas was like when you came here? Well, I can try. I was ten and a half years old and I really wasn’t totally aware of population, that type of thing. But I do remember that when we first moved here we lived on—the North Las Vegas, a place called College Inn Trailer Park and it was way far out. And it was also considered quite elite because it did have a swimming pool. And now that particular trailer is more or less a part of North Las Vegas, not Downtown but just (unintelligible) general area of North Las Vegas. It’s not considered to be anywhere far reaching and swimming pools are very common. I went to—took a bus to school, J.D. Smith Junior High School and it was a fairly new structure at that time and was one of the only schools in this town that had a swimming pool. And it was considered very, very nice for that particular reason. The students from Rancho High School would utilize the facilities for their swimming teams and we were one of the few schools that got to swim for our physical education classes and things like that. I remember that Vegas Village, Downtown Vegas Village, was a long ways away. It was a definite dividing area between North Las Vegas and Las Vegas. They did not come right together, you actually had to travel to get from one to the other. And mostly it was just a lot of open spaces between the smaller town—between the areas. Hacienda hotel was considered to be a fluke, it was way out in the middle of nowhere and no one could figure out why anyone would wanna build a major hotel that far out. There was very little inner town residency. Just most of UNLV University Libraries Julie McDonald 6 the residents lived a ways away from the major hotels and casinos. And we, my friends and I, as children really had no concept of the gambling as such. What we had were just normal school kids activities and we didn’t really associate with the gambling. We went swimming in the summer, we went to Lake Mead, we went up to Mt. Charleston. We did everything that any kid in any other town does and did not realize that this town was different. There was no concept there, there was no concept of that until after I was grown and I actually became involved in the casinos as a dealer. I went to school, I went to Rancho High School after—let’s see, I started in probably 1960, 1959, 1960. And there were three high schools in this town, Vegas High and Rancho High were great competitors. And Western High was a brand new school. Vegas High was the older of the two and was really the established school and Rancho was the upcoming youngster school that competed against them. The competition was ferocious between the two. And that’s—. Okay. That’s really all I remember about the high school types. Could you describe how the city was spread out? Where most of the residential areas were centered, maybe the extent of the spread of, say, the Downtown area—. Mm. The Strip. Well, like I said before, everything was divided physically because in North Las Vegas was the residential area. Most residents were in North Las Vegas. I’m not too familiar with the Las Vegas residential at that time because we did live in North Las Vegas. But Fremont Street, there was no housing directly onto Fremont Street, everything sat back a ways at least a few blocks up to trailer parks and such that were on Pecos, which was way out. We had to travel between UNLV University Libraries Julie McDonald 7 Fremont Street and the Strip was a definite dividing. There was emptinesses there that you had to travel ’til—there was totally separate, there were no casinos connecting the two. The first casino on the Strip was, I believe, the Sahara. And when I came here, the Rancho Vegas was still here. It was jokingly the last casino on the Strip because we considered the Hacienda Hotel and the Tropicana Hotel to be somewhere in California, they were so far away from us (laughs). (Laughs) And Nellis Air Force Base was a great distance. When I first went to work at Nellis Air Force Base after I got outta high school and I lived on Flamingo Road, totally isolated, we took a carpool to get to Nellis Air Force Base. And everybody considered that very foolish to work that far away. Okay. Could you tell a little bit about, say, some of the major structures in Las Vegas? Like freeways, major streets, say, the airport, the condition of the airport. I know it isn’t as elaborate—it wasn’t as elaborate then as it is now. My information on that would be very, very probably incorrect. Because I was really not too aware of them. I was worrying about whether I was going swimming the next day (laughs) or not. Okay. Really, but the main thing that I remember was that all of those things were far away. Yes. You had to be going there on purpose to go. If you wanted to go to the airport, you planned ahead because it was so far, you know. Or in concept. The major casinos are—today we have all sizes of casinos, at that time they were either big casinos or there were tiny casinos. There didn’t seem to be any in-betweens. You had major structures or you had very small structures and there UNLV University Libraries Julie McDonald 8 was no competition between the two. At that time, what would you consider to be the most elaborate hotel on the Strip? Hotel and casino, or whatever. I didn’t gamble, I didn’t really pay that much attention. The ones that I think I remember from that time would be the Sahara. The Tropicana was elaborate. I guess that was the major one, it was fairly new at that time and it was very elaborate. There was no Caesars Palace, no MGM Grand of course. Distances between each of the casinos was sometimes a couple of miles. Okay. Okay, lets advance a little bit and talk a little bit about some of your occupations. I know that you held some pretty interesting jobs. Well I held normal jobs and I’ve had jobs that you could only have in Las Vegas. I started out working after school, in high school, at the Guild Theatre. The year before I started working there it was a condemned building, an old run down theatre that was remodeled, restructured. And I went to work there when they first opened it. During that period of time, I was a concessions girl, an usher, at cashier, everything inside the theatre building. And at that time, Wayne Newton was working at the Fremont Hotel with his family and it was the Newton show, it was not Wayne Newton. He was underage and would come down to the Guild Theatre—it was just a couple of blocks from the Fremont—in-between shows because he was too young to be in the casinos. And drink cokes or whatever in the lobby. Then I worked also doing secretarial work in this town. As I said before, when I lived out on Flamingo Street after I graduated and was married. On Flamingo Street just off Eastern was one little duplex which I lived in part of and there was nothing else on the street until you got to, I think it was Paradise Road. (Laughs) I don’t know if Paradise Road was there but about that area. It was also considered very far out because it was neither close to Downtown nor was it UNLV University Libraries Julie McDonald 9 close to the Strip and it was quite a distance. At that time I worked at Nellis Air Force Base. I was a secretary. And we actually had to carpool because it was so far to go to work. And Nellis, of course, now is right practically in town in North Las Vegas. The residency goes completely up to Nellis. The last residency when I was working there, in ’64, was approximately—Lamb Boulevard was still distant. There was very scattered residency at Lamb Boulevard and nothing further when I first worked at Nellis. Then I worked (unintelligible) I was married, I had a child by then. When I worked (unintelligible) jobs as secretary at KVEG Radio at the Cast Aways. I worked as a secretary again another period of time for a sign company in Las Vegas. Okay. Let’s take for instance when—you working at the Guild Theatre, what would you consider to be the average pay for, say, that type of job when you were working? I believe I went to work for, it was either sixty-five or eighty-five cents an hour. Okay. I worked six hours a night, five or six nights a week. Okay and you were telling about your job at Nellis Air Force Base. Could you describe some of your duties there? Oh, I was a secretary stenographer for the maintenance control section of Nellis Air Force Base. I did all of the paperwork involved on maintaining aircraft and putting aircraft in the air for testing. And I did all—handling all the normal military records and that type of thing for personnel. Doing the reports that the military has to do. Plus the supplies and making sure those aircraft got up and keeping the reports on those. Okay. And you had mentioned that you had been a dealer for like seven years in Las Vegas. Could you tell us about that? Sort of like where you started, a little bit of detail about the gaming industry at that time and maybe how it’s changed. UNLV University Libraries Julie McDonald 10 Okay. First, I wanna say I think it was very fortunate for me that I became a dealer after I was twenty-six years old. I say that because at a younger age I really don’t think I could have handled a complete, total difference that that field gives. It is not in your normal range of working facility or working surroundings. But being a little bit older, I really came to enjoy it. I went down in the Union Plaza the year after it was built. And applied for a job down there to be a break-in dealer. I did not go to dealing school, which you generally do have to do, because they had a new plan. They were trying something new, which was breaking in the dealers, teaching them how to deal on the tables, right on the job. And I worked that job for seven years and I think I can honestly say it is the most difficult job and the easiest job that I have ever worked in my life. Easy in the sense that anybody can learn to shuffle cards, deal cards and handle checking whether the man won or the man lost and paying him or not. Very simple thing to do, it can be done by anyone. Just a matter of practicing and doing it. Difficult in that you are dealing with people in the most strange circumstances you’ll ever find them in. People away from their homes, people who perhaps are drinking, who are gambling their money and to who you are very unreal. They do not—people generally do not look at a dealer as a human being with a normal lifestyle. These are very un-normal people. And handling that type of atmosphere and some of the, shall I say, idiosyncrasies of bosses and owners of casinos who also are dealing with their money. Have their money on the line in front of you. Very difficult in that sense. You must have a good strong head and you really, I believe, should have your own values already preset. You should be very strong at that point before you should veer—enter that type of environment. If you do have yourself set up to where you’re happy with yourself and you enter the gambling, it became for me the most interesting place to be in the world. I saw people from UNLV University Libraries Julie McDonald 11 everywhere doing everything. I was considered a strange dealer because I talked, I chatted, I was interested in the people. I was not bored. At no time do I remember being bored while I was a dealer (laughs). I don’t see how people could get bored with all thousands of people coming to them day after day, all new, all different. Different ways of life and different things, if you can get them to talk, if you can get them to come out of their shell a little bit, can keep you going for years (laughs). I’m considering writing a book (laughs) because you get a lot of strange happenings as a dealer. But some are great, some are terrible and you just have to keep going and wait for tomorrow ’cause maybe something new is coming tomorrow. But no dullness if you don’t let it be dull. Yes. Could you describe some of the peculiarities that you ran into as you were dealing? Peculiarities in the job field or in the people field? (Laughs) In the job, people field. Maybe some happenings that stand out in your mind or something like that. First, why don’t I ask you—I know now that with “21”, in playing “21”, the table limit is like, depending on where you go, like fifty cents to two dollars. What was the table limit then? Oh, okay. I got into gaming 1972, which is only—what, nine years ago? Mm-hmm. Okay, so that’s not—I’m not going to be able to give you too much difference. But I do know the Union Plaza was one of the larger Downtown Casinos—was the largest Downtown Casino. And the fifty cent minimum on the tables, blackjack tables. Twenty-five cent minimums on the Big Six tables. I believe they were ten cent minimums, originally, on the roulette wheels. And our table limits were five hundred dollars. And somewhere along the line, of course, the table minimums at the Union Plaza went to two dollars, was the smallest you could play in a blackjack UNLV University Libraries Julie McDonald 12 table, a dollar for the Big Six and a dollar on the roulette wheels but they never raised the maximum, it was still five hundred (laughs). (Laughs) But most memorably, I think, were the elderly. Out-of-town elderly people who would come in, as far as being beautiful people because my favorite people to deal to, which were a lot of dealers’ nightmares, would be elderly ladies who had saved for years to come to Las Vegas and would play fifty cents a hand. And would really give you a lot of dealing problems in that you had to take a lot of time with them, you had to you know really talk to and work with them. The beauty of them was their enthusiasm. You look at Las Vegas through their eyes and it was the most beautiful, magnificent, exciting place in the world. And it would bring you back alive a little bit from the boredom of that type of a job because suddenly you see Las Vegas through their eyes and maybe you could see a little bit of the excitement that you had forgotten was there because you live here. And I really enjoyed them because they did, they kept alive about, they kept me from getting very bored. One other thing I wanted to mention, whenever I’ve been out of town, I get some very strange reactions. When I was a child I did not understand them because if I would go to another town and I would say “I’m from Las Vegas,” I would get either “Oh, really? And what do you do in Las Vegas?” or you would get “Wow, neat, oh boy, yippee.” And then you had no place to go because you didn’t consider it exciting. They did, to me it was just another town. I just happened to live in this town. I was not aware that Las Vegas was a world-known exciting town. It was just happened to be where I lived. I went swimming, I went to school, you know. So I never knew quite how to react when people said things to me until I got actually into the gaming and started to understand where the reactions were coming from, what people were looking at. UNLV University Libraries Julie McDonald 13 Okay. The gambling or gaming sport, if you want to call it that, or just the mere practice of gambling, is a very emotional issue to some people. Can you recall any instances or anything particular in which—well, something that really stood out in your mind? Say as to an experience with somebody who has really gotten emotional over something? This is only an hour long tape, I worked there seven years and you get that type of thing daily. I had people—as a dealer you’re speaking about? (Unintelligible) When I was a dealer? I had people throw drinks in my face. I had people spit on me. I had one gentleman who was gambling evidently his company’s money and I’ve had threats. The man gambling his company’s money was physically shaking at the table, playing hundred dollar bills per hand, several at a time. At the point when he got down to the bottom of the company bill fold that he had in his pocket and was physically shaking, his hands shaking, his face red, he threatened of course to kill me, assumed I was cheating him, which by the way most dealers really do not know how to cheat at cards and have no interest in doing it anyway. At that point, I had to have a security guard standing behind me to deal that one hand of cards for fear of what this man would do if those cards happen to make him lose the hand. Fortunately he won (laughs). I never found out what he would—was capable of or would have done, but these are things that make the job difficult because if you concentrate on those things, if you remember those things tomorrow and only those things, then you become a very bitter cold person which you can see if you go into casinos now. You can see the dealers who have not turned around and looked at that little old lady who thinks that Las Vegas is marvelous and not let them affect them. I always tried, and I feel I succeeded because I still feel good about having been a dealer. I enjoyed it because I always succeeded in—even though the man spit in my face, I gave just as UNLV University Libraries Julie McDonald 14 much of my attention to the little old lady who thought Las Vegas was marvelous and tried to let her affect me as strongly as the other man had. Am I ratting you out? (Laughs) Again I think that’s why it’s important in gambling to make sure you have some kind of experience, some kind of background, your head should be on right, as the saying goes, before you ever, ever get involved in that business. If you’re very secure and very strong in your, you know, within yourself and go into it, it’s so interesting. Because I, at this point and at that point, could handle somebody spitting in my face. Made me angry, I got very upset, but it didn’t last, it didn’t stay with me. I could still turn around and say good morning to somebody who was very pleasant and very nice. But you get cursed, you get—I was never actually physically hit but it was tried. And you get a lot of bad, bad reactions. People who would not steal an apple out of the store where nobody was watching it, at home, will try to rob you blind in a casino. They had a different attitude, they bring a different attitude to a casino. They automatically assume every dealer in Las Vegas is a manipulator of cards, trained to manipulate. They assume that workers in the gambling are all swinging, high-living people. I have three children at home, I do my laundry. And those—if I would mention things like that, people would actually be shocked. People I was dealing to, if I mentioned I had to go home and do laundry, really could not believe that. They would say, “You do laundry?” And it took me—now that did take me a while because I always considered myself a normal person in a normal town and the first couple of years I worked in dealing, it would never cease to amaze me that these people couldn’t believe that I lived in a home, a house with a yard, a dog, a cat, a couple of kids and a husband. They didn’t wanna believe that, it was not in their realm. It was not what their picture of Las Vegas—and I slowly began to see what the picture of Las Vegas for the tourist was. The first visit tourist, now the person who was here for their first or second visit UNLV University Libraries Julie McDonald 15 only, not people that had been to Las Vegas and been here quite frequently. But those who were new to Las Vegas, their picture of Las Vegas dealer was somewhere along the line we lived up in the suite in the hotel and threw parties and danced a lot. We were all dope addicts, most of us, the females, were prostitutes and then I guess we came down and dealt on our spare time (laughs). I don’t know, and maybe a third of the time we spent learning how to manipulate the cards, you know, or some—this was the general concept that I got. And at first I was offended and fortunately I got over that and then I became amused. Once I became amused, I really started enjoying the job. It amused me that people would do that and I would say strange things to them. Okay. At that time what were the requirements in becoming a dealer? Oh. Have they changed much since then? At that time, when I became a dealer was when it changed. Just prior to my becoming a dealer it was—first of all, it was nearly impossible for a woman to become a dealer because the requirement was for the dealing school itself. Then in order to get into a job, an actual working atmosphere, you had to simply know somebody who could get you in unless you were extremely and just happened to be in the right place in the right time. Women in this town were very rarely seen in the dealing profession simply because you could always be turned down because you had no experience and they did not want women from the old gaming atmosphere. Women were bad luck in casinos. I think that comes from clear back in the Old West, it was just one of those little things that stayed with—at the back of everybody’s mind. Women did not belong in gambling. And this was all before the changeover for the Equal Rights Amendments and the women’s rights and this type of thing, was before, just prior to that big changeover. And when the Union Plaza opened—I’d like to give Sam Boyd a little boost here because Sam Boyd is the one who UNLV University Libraries Julie McDonald 16 was instrumental in Las Vegas I believe in putting women in to deal, in to the profession. Because Sam Boyd had the nerve to do what nobody else did, Sam Boyd opened the Union Plaza Casino in conjunction with the rest of the people who owned it with him at—with this break-in dealer program. Now the learning period of time that you had, you were being paid for plus the time you were learning was experience time where you could no longer be turned down because you had no gambling experience. You were an experienced dealer when you trained at the Union Plaza. And it was only a short period of time, a couple of years, a year, I don’t know exactly how long before many of the hotels were utilizing this break-in dealer program. And within I’d say three years after Sam Boyd utilized women in the “21” pit that we began seeing all of the female dealers on the Strip because with that Union Plaza experience and then the concept of other Downtown casinos experience, they could now go in and get jobs. You could not do that before at all and I happened into the profession right at that period of time that that changeover when the acceptance wasn’t there but everybody knew where it was headed and was starting to begrudgingly go a long with it. We were starting to see women behind “21” tables on the Strip. We’d see one woman and fifteen men and it took a couple of years before we would see four women and say ten or eleven men. We were still outnumbered (laughs) but the women were getting into the profession that they had been denied before and they were doing very well at it. So that was a very definite changeover period. Okay, do you notice any specific changes between the time that you started dealing and working in the gaming industry—? (Tape one ends) I’ve noticed quite a few changes in that women are into the field strongly now and they weren’t then. Can I tell you about the silver dollars? UNLV University Libraries Julie McDonald 17 Sure. We hated those. When I worked at the Guild Theatre, when I worked as a dealer and we had to have those silver dollars practically up to our ears. And they were heavy, bulky, in our way and we cursed them constantly. When we went into a grocery store, you would automatically say to each clerk or each person who handled money, “I am a local. Please do not give me silver.” And they would dig into the bottom of the drawer and give you paper dollars, but you had to ask for them. And we would have to, when I was in the theatre, they were stacked all over the counter. Everybody, all of the tourists, payed you in silver dollars because their pockets were loaded down. I remember one day a man’s pants fell off (laughs). (Laughs). (Laughs) I had almost forgotten that. When I walked in he had been to so many stores and been in different places in town and everybody would pawn all the silver dollars on anyone who would take them (laughs). Automatically, if they had ten dollars change coming, you gave them ten silver dollars unless they absolutely refused to take them. And this man walked in and he had been shopping or whatever and had his—his pockets were so full of silver dollars they actually fell down (laughs). (Laughs). But the economy—mostly I’ve noticed the difference between other places. I’ve only been out of state a few times in an adult capacity. And the casualness and the economies are so different. The other states that I was in, you couldn’t cash in a hundred dollar bill without practically having identification. I went to a bank to get change for a hundred dollar bill because the grocery store wouldn’t take it in another state. And would get three 20s, two 10s, 5s and ones instead of just handing you five $20 bills like they would here. And that type of thing has also changed UNLV University Libraries Julie McDonald 18 because—I guess the inflation also has a lot to do with it. But we handle so much money in gambling, in gaming, and yet if you went to your own private little neighborhood where you live, you were the oddity or strange, you were different if you worked in gambling because—the neighborhood I lived in in North Las Vegas as an adult when I became a dealer, we had clerks, secretaries, a janitor. All the normal professions, I was the oddball. And so I never really grew up with thinking Las Vegas was different because all of my neighbors were nice, normal people. We put women into a lot of gaming positions that they couldn’t get into before. Silver dollars, of course, disappeared and became a novelty. And the areas got closer to us. Okay. At one time you had been into the singing profession. Okay, could you elaborate a little bit on that and sort of give us an idea of when you were doing this? Yes. During high school, when I would go up on summer vacation to visit my folks in Idaho, my father, my uncle, different members of my family all played guitar, sang in little local clubs. And I would go up there and I would sing with the groups, with the bands. Whichever band they were in at that and whichever club they were in. Totally illegally, of course. I was underage and we just never bothered to mention that. Then when I would get back to Las Vegas, I wouldn’t really have the nerve to go into it fulltime. I never quite got enough courage to go after it completely. I always needed my security, my little job behind me which really cut down on the amount of time I could devote to it. But I sang locally, part-time here and there with—well I sang with Garn Littledyke before he was a known star for a couple of weeks. I sang at the Nashville Nevada Club before it was a good popular local club, it was considered a (unintelligible). I did mostly country western singing, by the way. The Silver Dollar, I would sit in with all of the bands, some of them would ask me to join them and I would never have the courage to do it because of all—I was just starting to think of Las Vegas as a different town, a different type UNLV University Libraries Julie McDonald 19 of town. It was finally sinking into me that we weren’t run of the mill and the entertainment was starting to come to my notice that these were big important stars to me that we were hearing about out on the Strip in the shows. And I guess it over-awed me a little bit and I was afraid to sing in Las Vegas professionally. I had it in the back of my mind that you had to be a big star to be a Las Vegas singer. So I would go up to Idaho and I would sing my little heart out fulltime as a job every night, come back to Las Vegas and suddenly become shy. So the town affected me a little bit at that time and—but it was interesting because that’s another thing that has changed. When I was singing country western music, it was not accepted as a form of art, as an entertainment form. It was just something that local people did and you lied about it afterwards (laughs). You really never, on purpose, told anybody that you liked country western music because you were automatically considered a hick. Now, of course, the—some of your major hotels are utilizing full country western stars in a full capacity, which was never the case before. The first time that country western music was put into a hotel as its main entertainment, not as a side show or a lounge show, a major entertainment was back before, according to my memory which may not be accurate—I think I remember Marty Robbins’ show was one of the first at the Mint Hotel Downtown. One of the first time—not maybe, the first time, it was one of the first times that a major casino actually showed country western. And I think that stopped me a lot too because my singing career was prior to that period where it was accepted as a major entertainment. It was always a side entertainment, only for locals. You could only perform country western in little local bars. No casinos had country western when I first started and in that respect I wish I was starting now because now it’s accepted. So that’s changed, they accept a lot of things. Okay. Singing is heavily in lounge shows now. Was that a common thing then? UNLV University Libraries Julie McDonald 20 Mm. I don’t know. I’m sorry, I really don’t know. I was not in lounge shows. So you never did attempt to get into (unintelligible)? I never attempted to it. It was just—at the time that I was singing, well first of all when I first started I was underage. And so I had to go to small places because they were the only ones who wouldn’t question that. There was no concept in my mind that I could ever entertain in a casino or a lounge. Simply because, first of all my type of music wasn’t accepted and also my age. And I really wasn’t aware of what they were doing in the lounge shows. I lived