In the 1950s and 1960s, the Copa Room at the Sands Hotel and Casino featured glamorous showgirls. For a few years, the Houston Chronicle sponsored a contest that added the Texas Copa Girls to the line. In 1958, one of the winners was 17-year-old Judith Lee Johnson. For the "wild" but "naive" Judy, the experience was a period of funfilled freedom, followed by relentless encouragement of others to attend college, which she reluctantly did. To her surprise, she embraced the college life, took her studies seriously, and received an education degree. She also became Miss Houston. Four years later she returned to Las Vegas and the Sands. As she stepped into her role as a showgirl this second time, she was no longer the newbie. She experiences the lifestyle with more maturity. She talks about the celebrities she met, the lasting friendships she formed, performing in the Elvis movie Viva Las Vegas, and her trip around the world, a trip that included her personal dream of going to Paris. Judy shares details of her family heritage and she wonders to what extent she might have been living her mother's dream. Though her love of performance and theatre is keen, Judy channeled her passions into a 29-year career as an educator. She married a Marine in 1965, raised their children, moved with his career. She and her husband, Walter F. Jones, live in Virginia.
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Interview with Corinne Entratter Sidney by Claytee White on June 5, 2007. In this interview, Sidney talks about growing up with privilege in California, where her father served as the attorney general. She attended school at UCLA and took acting classes and signed with United Artists. She met Jack Entratter in Los Angeles and moved to Las Vegas and worked as a Copa Girl. She discusses Jack Entratter's generosity and influence in town, and his style, and their lifestyle together. She mentions the likes of Frank Sinatra, Lena Horne and Sammy Davis, Jr. and her extravagant life living at the Sands. After Jack's death in 1971, she moved back to Los Angeles, returned to acting, and wrote a newspaper column. On a visit to Las Vegas with George Sidney after Sidney's wife Jane died, Corinne and George began dating and were married shortly after. They moved back to Las Vegas together for a slower pace. She describes her love of Las Vegas and its continued growth.
Corinne Sidney's life story makes for fascinating reading. She was born in 1937, the daughter of Alice Polk, former Ziegfeld showgirl, and Carl Kegley, an attorney. She attended U. of C. Berkeley, transferred to UCLA, and was spotted by a talent scout who convinced her to enter a Miss USA contest. Corinne's runner-up status in the Miss USA contest led to job offers in acting, so she decided to study acting. This, along with her childhood lessons in ballet, piano, singing, tap dance and horseback riding, led to a contract with United Artists, freelance work, television parts, and plays. Around the age of 18, Corinne met Jack Entratter. Their relationship brought her to Las Vegas, where she worked as a showgirl at the Sands for a few months, and where she married Jack a few years later. They lived a fabulous lifestyle which included travel, beautiful homes, and friendships with noted celebrities. Corinne went back to acting in Los Angeles after Jack passed away, but then segued into writing a gossip column and hosting a television show. She reconnected with an old friend (George Sidney) by writing the obituary for his wife, and within a few months they were married. The Sidney's moved back to Las Vegas, where Corinne still makes her home today.
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Joy Snyder, born and raised in Pennsylvania, is the daughter of Jean Dasinto and stepdaughter of Ray Hunt. Though she was raised thinking she was an only child, she shares that as an adult, she was contacted by an aunt who gave her information about an Austrian half-sister. The half-sister had tracked the family through WWII records on her biological father! Joy was raised in a very large extended Italian family (her maternal grandmother was first-generation Italian) and became the first in her family to attend college. She had decided early on that she wanted to be a nurse and chose to attend Temple University Hospital in Philadelphia. She recounts memories of her earliest work there, which began the first week of school. After graduation from nursing school, Joy married her childhood sweetheart, William (Bill) Snyder. They made the move to Las Vegas in 1978 and Joy found work right away at Desert Springs Hospital. She worked there about six months and then took maternity leave after the birth of their second son. When she returned to work, it was at Sunrise Hospital (early 1979) in the newborn nursery. Joy comments on many aspects of her career, including the informal approach to health care, the effects of desert climate on mothers and newborns, and the changes she has seen at Sunrise Hospital. She also comments on adoption practices in Las Vegas, drug-addicted babies, and cultural attitudes that appear during the birthing process. Today Joy is retired and her husband Bill is close to retiring. They feel a strong connection to Las Vegas (Bill has a school named after him), but maintain a second home in New York for their trips back East to visit friends and family. They also keep up with various community activities, including book clubs and running clubs for the children at William Snyder Elementary School.
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Commencement program from University of Nevada, Las Vegas Commencement Programs and Graduation Lists (UA-00115).
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Commencement program from University of Nevada, Las Vegas Commencement Programs and Graduation Lists (UA-00115).
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Oral history interview with Rocio Rodríguez-Martinez conducted by Elsa Lopez and Monserrath Hernández on June 21, 2019 for the Latinx Voices of Southern Nevada Oral History Project. Rocio shares her personal history growing up in Bogotá, Colombia and how she immigrated to the United States. She talks about motherhood, her Latina identity, and her experiences raising her daughter in Los Angeles and Las Vegas with her husband. Rocio also discusses her employment history and how she was able to achieve her professional goals of becoming a Spanish and English teacher for the Clark County School District (CCSD)'s Family and Community Engagement Services (FACES) program. Her interview is conducted in Spanish. Subjects discussed include: Bogotá, Colombia; El Salvador; Family and Community Engagement Services (FACES).
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Commencement program from University of Nevada, Las Vegas Commencement Programs and Graduation Lists (UA-00115).
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Oral history interview with Kathia Quiros Pereira conducted by Monserrath Hernández on March 6, 2020 for the Latinx Voices of Southern Nevada Oral History Project. Pereira discusses her personal history and immigration from Lima, Peru to the United States. She also talks of her educational background as a student at the William S. Boyd School of Law at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas and her current work as a founding partner of Pereira Immigration Law Group where she exclusively practices immigration law in Las Vegas.
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From the Roosevelt Fitzgerald Professional Papers (MS-01082) -- Unpublished manuscripts file.
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From the Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Incorporated, Theta Theta Omega Chapter Records (MS-01014) -- Chapter records file.
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