Gertrude Rudiak was born August 2, 1915 in North Dakota to Russian immigrants. She grew up in Wisconsin until 1924. That year, her family drove to California via the Yellowstone Trail. Her father had a chiropractic practice in Los Angeles, California. After Rudiak earned a music degree at the University of California at Berkeley, she attended a business college, and she got a job as a social worker in northern California.

William H. "Bob" Bailey was born in 1927 and came to Las Vegas in 1955. First employed as an assistant producer and master of ceremonies in the first interracial hotel in Nevada, the Moulin Rouge, he describes the impact that hotel had on black entertainers during its brief existence. Bailey says the hotel brought life to the Westside where, in 1955, there were only a few telephones and the streets were largely unpaved.