Search Results
Transcript of interview with Brad Friedmutter by David G. Schwartz, September 12, 2016
Date
Archival Collection
Description
Brad Friedmutter is the architect behind a number of Steve Wynn’s prominent casinos in Las Vegas, Nevada and Atlantic City, New Jersey. He obtained his degree in architecture in 1973 from the Cooper Union School of Architecture in lower Manhattan and worked on a number of smaller projects before connecting with Steve Wynn. After meeting the famous Vegas tycoon, Friedmutter built a number of well-known casinos, like the Golden Nugget and the Mirage. In this interview, he discusses the development of his numerous projects, explains his process for starting and completing architectural projects, and the future of urban planning and casino design.
Text
B-roll footage for Mirage Hotel: video, 1991 January 11
Level of Description
Scope and Contents
Title card at start says "B-roll created for Mirage is divided into three sections: Resort interiors and exteriors; Siegfried & Roy's Royal White Riger habitat; Steve Wynn interview and may be used by news stations without restriction." First segment shows exterior views of the fountain (daytime) and volcano area (night), interior of nearly empty hotel and aquarium; rooms, outdoor areas, Mikado restaurant. Second segment shows Siegfried & Roy with white tigers as guests look on, tigers play in the water. Third segment is an interview with Steve Wynn (unknown interviewer) about the design of the Mirage, decision to spend money on building it. Wynn is wearing a Golden Nugget sweater. Fourth segment is more b-roll of the white tiger habitat and specifies it can be used about reports on Siegfried and Roy and the Mirage only. Original media Betacam, color, aspect ratio 4 x 3, frame size 720 x 486.
Archival Collection
Collection Name: The Production Company Audiovisual Collection
Box/Folder: Digital File 00
Archival Component
Events, friends and celebrities photos from Irwin and Susan Molasky, image 51
Description
Elaine Wynn, Susan Molasky, Steve Wynn, Irwin Molasky, and Jean and Billy Weinberger.
Visual materials, 1970-2002
Level of Description
Scope and Contents
The visual materials series of the MGM Mirage Corporation Records dates from 1970 to 2002. Included in this series are photographs, photographic slides, and photographic negatives. Subjects covered in this series are primarily MGM Mirage properties but also include entertainers and Steve Wynn.
Archival Collection
Collection Name: MGM Mirage Corporation Records
Box/Folder: N/A
Archival Component
Marketing, promotional materials, and events, 1973-2009
Level of Description
Scope and Contents
The marketing, promotional materials, and events series of the MGM Mirage Corporation Records date from 1973 to 2009. This series contains hotel brochures and ephemera, boxing match and concert programs, correspondence about events held at MGM Mirage hotels, and a transcribed interview with Steve Wynn.
Archival Collection
Collection Name: MGM Mirage Corporation Records
Box/Folder: N/A
Archival Component
Transcript of interview with Roger Thomas by Stefani Evans and Claytee D. White, August 31, 2016
Date
Archival Collection
Description
As he reveals in this oral history, Roger Thomas is, among many other things, a son, a father, a brother, a husband, a student, an artist, a visionary, and a philanthropist. As the second son of Peggy and E. Parry Thomas’s five children, Roger was raised a Mormon child of privilege and civic responsibility. The banking family summered in Newport Beach, wintered in Sun Valley, and taught their children by words and deeds that it is not up for debate if you will be involved in your community; the only question is how you will apply your talents and resources to benefit your community. Roger absorbed the lessons well. As a child who struggled in school but excelled in art, he attended his last two years of high school at Interlochen Arts Academy, graduating in 1969, finally finding himself “in an environment where what I did had currency.” From there he earned his BFA from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston and Studio Degree from Tufts University before returning to Las Vegas and eventually joining Steve Wynn’s team in 1981. As Executive Vice President of Design for Wynn Design & Development, he is the man in whom Steve Wynn places his trust to make real at each Wynn property the Wynn design philosophy: aim for a constituency of highly sophisticated, well-traveled, very educated people and give them a reality, a now, that is so fetching, so alluring they wish to be no place else. As he was mentored by his father and Steve Wynn, he too is mentoring those who will follow him. At Wynn, the next generation will carry forward the Wynn idea of evoca-texture, of creating “moments of experiential emotion that result in a memory so captivating and so unique that if you want to repeat that you have to come back.” At home, he collaborates with his daughter on a children’s book that has the potential to become a series; she is the illustrator, while he provides the words. Roger Thomas sat for this interview five days after his father, E. Parry Thomas, passed away in Idaho. Instead of postponing the interview to a more convenient time, Roger kept the appointment and explained, “This is for UNLV. If I’d cancelled my father would have killed me.”
Text
Transcript of interview with Paul Senzaki, Alan Hess, and Charlie White III by Stefani Evans and Claytee White, September 9, 2016
Date
Archival Collection
Description
Architect Paul Senzaki, and artist-illustrator Charlie White III recall their experiences of working in Las Vegas: Paul on Treasure Island, The Palms, Fremont Street Experience, and World Market Center and Charlie on Treasure Island and its successor, TI; New York New York. Architectural historian Alan Hess, who is an expert on Las Vegas architecture, offers historical context and asks pertinent questions. While this interview touches on several iconic Las Vegas buildings, the conversation mostly details why and how Steve Wynn's Treasure Island involved the labors of artists, illustrators, art directors, and designers of stage and screen as well as the those of architects, contractors, planners, and subcontractors.
Text
Photograph of Wilbur Clark's friends at the Golden Nugget, Las Vegas, Nevada, circa 1970s
Date
Archival Collection
Description
Image
Events, friends and celebrities photos from Irwin and Susan Molasky, image 33
Description
Standing (L-R): Hank Greenspun, unnamed, Steve Wynn, unnamed; Seated (L-R): Barbara Greenspun, Jerry Mack, Joyce Mack, Parry Thomas, Lillian Shenker.
Transcript of interview with Joel Bergman by Stefani Evans and Claytee D. White, August 03, 2016
Date
Archival Collection
Description
Born in 1936, architect Joel Bergman spent his childhood in Venice, California, the son of Edythe Klein and Harry Bergman, a baker who later turned to dealing in scrap metal. The award-winning designer of such Las Vegas projects as the International Hotel, the MGM Grand Hotel (later Bally's), additions to the Riviera Hotel and the Golden Nugget downtown, the Mirage, Treasure Island, Paris Casino Resort, Caesars Palace, Trump International Hotel and Tower, the Signature at MGM Grand, Rhumbar, Gilley's at Treasure Island, and the Tropicana Hotel and Casino first arrived in Las Vegas in 1968 to work on the International Hotel. In this interview, Bergman discusses his architectural career, which began with his graduation in architecture from the University of Southern California; he also discusses his work with Martin Stern, his sixteen years with Steve Wynn, and the formation of his own architectural firm, Bergman Walls and Associates. Throughout, he pays tribute to the three mentors who had the greatest influence on his work—USC architecture professor Carleton Winslow, architect Berton Severson, and client Steve Wynn—and the ways they visualized people moving through space. He acknowledges other professionals whose work he admired and talks about his wives Marlene Federman, Terrie Colston, Maria Nicolini, and Valentina Bogdanova as well as his children and stepchildren. Joel David Bergman passed away August 24, 2016, three weeks after he gave this interview.
Text