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Displaying results 1981 - 1990 of 2016

Transcript from interview with Waldemar Jackson conducted by Claytee D. White, May 5, 2013

Date

2013-05-05

Description

Transcript from interview with Waldemar Jackson by Claytee White on May 5, 2013. Jackson's family was one of the first black families in the West Las Vegas neighborhood Vegas Heights. Jackson joined the Air Force and traveled overseas, encountering racism. He returned to Las Vegas and his employment history includes construction, slot floor man at the Marina, aircraft fueler and baggage screener. He discusses his troubles with substance abuse since his mother's death in 1999.

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Transcript from interviews with Katherine M. Joseph by Claytee White, October 25, 2004 and September 5, 2007

Date

2004-10-25
2007-09-05

Description

Two-session interview with Katherine M. Joseph by Claytee White, October 25, 2004, and September 5, 2007. Joseph is a community activist and was a co-worker of Lubertha Johnson, and involved with Operation Independence. In the interview, Johnson discusses her family, her employment, and life on the Westside.

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Transcript from interview with Essie Lee Jones by Claytee White, June 5, 1996

Date

1996-06-05

Description

Essie Lee Jones moved from the Tallulah, Louisiana, area to Las Vegas in 1969. In the interview, Jones discusses her employment in various positions such as maid, waitress, and casino porter at the Stardust, Frontier, and Aladdin Hotel/Casinos.

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Transcript of interview with Walter Weiss by Claytee White, November 2, 2010

Date

2010-11-02

Description

In this interview, Walter Weiss discusses how Judaism and boxing kept him out of trouble in his youth. Weiss grew up in the Boston area, and started boxing as a teenager. Weiss talks about his boxing training, becoming a runner for a bookmaker, and coming to Las Vegas in the 1950s to be a bookmaker for the Stardust Hotel, and working the slot machine floor. He had several different jobs in various casinos, and discusses different people involved in the gaming industry in Las Vegas.

Walter Weiss life story begins in a Malden, Massachusetts during the Great Depression. His early background was a blend of observant Judaism, secularism, and the effects of the era. He was a troubled youth whose older brother encouraged him to join him in boxing. As Walter explains: I was a wild kid and ... boxing saved my life. His aptitude for boxing led him to be a sparring partner in New York City's famous Spillman Gym. There he met and worked out with some of the greatest fighters of the era, including Rocky Marciano. He recalls how he turned professional while attending the University of Miami and how he first came to Las Vegas in 1958 to escape his personal troubles and find work with a local bookmaker. Thus began his diverse employment history in the casino industry. He details his various positions and the cast of famous and infamous characters of the times. For six years he return to New York and worked as a Wall Street broker before arriving back in Las Vegas in 1973. He talks about his property ownership, lobbying for an amendment to Senate Bill 208, his personal religious changes and a sundry of observations about the changes that occurred as the state took over gaming.

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Transcript of interviews with Louis Wiener, Jr. by Eleanor Johnson, January-February, 1990

Date

1990-01-24
1990-02-01
1990-02-09
1990-02-23

Description

In this multi-part interview, Louis Wiener, Jr. discusses coming to Las Vegas from Pittsburgh at a young age, attending Las Vegas High School and University of Nevada Reno. He attended law school at University of California at Berkeley and passed the Nevada State Bar in 1941. He established a practice, Jones, Wiener and Jones, with Bob Jones and Cliff Jones and later with Herb Jones. He had another practice with Neil Galatz and Dave Goldwater, retiring in 1988. Wiener had other business ventures that allowed him to do pro bono work as a lawyer. Wiener discusses his family, including former spouses, his children, and various aspects of his career as an attorney in Las Vegas, representing hotels in the Greenspun antitrust lawsuit, and as an attorney for Bugsy Siegel. He says of his success, "I'm just lucky. I was here at the right time and I picked the right people to help."

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Transcript of interview with Gary Sternberg by Barbara Tabach, February - April, 2015

Date

2015-02-12
2015-02-15
2015-04-07
2015-10-20

Description

In this oral history, Gary explains how the family came to live in the United States?Cleveland and Los Angeles. In 1957, he married Noreen and they eventually came to live in Las Vegas where Gary worked for Sears selling washing machines, had a repair business and an importing business with Noreen. Gary was an entrepreneurial soul and inventive much like his father. He owns three patents.

On August 25, 1931, Augusta and Herman Sternberg welcomed their second child, Gerd (aka Gary), into the world of Cuxhaven, Germany. Augusta was a devout Christian of Polish ancestry who had fled Russian persecution. Herman was a German-born Jew salesman and inventor. The couple fell in love and had two children, Gary and Ruth who was a year and half older. By 1938, German politics were targeting Jews and Herman was ripped away from his Christian wife and children and sent to a concentration camp. Fate and friendship rescued Herman with the option to go to China. And so begins the history of the Sternberg family and how they all would eventually live together during World War II in the confines of a Jewish ghetto in Hongkew, China from May 1939 to July 1948. Gary had an extraordinary career as a dealer. He was not the stereotypical young dealer-to-be: he was in his 40s when he signed up for the Michael Gaughn Dealing School in the mid-1970s. Gary?s charming wit and ease of making friends soon gained him a position at El Cortez and then Caesars Palace. It was the same personality that would sustain his stellar thirty-one year career at Caesars. He was employed there from April 1974 until his retirement May 8, 2005. Though Jewish tradition would identify Gary as Christian, he self-identified as Jewish, officially converted and has been an active member of the Jewish community. Among his anecdotes-and he has many-is one about securing a $30,000 donation from Frank Sinatra and Jilly Rizzo for Congregation Ner Tamid.

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Transcript from interview with Mike Unger by Barbara Tabach, January 21, 2016

Date

2016-01-21

Archival Collection

Description

In this interview, Unger reflects upon his long and successful career in hotel management in Las Vegas and also in Arizona and Pennsylvania. He shares stories as a local celebrity, particularly in the 1970s and 1980s when he worked at Caesars Palace, as well as the big projects he oversaw, including organizing the first big fight nights, World Series of Tavern Poker and Grand Prix race. He talks about working with Morris Shenker, Moe Dalitz, Cliff Perlman and Billy Weinberger, and the role of the Jewish community in the city, and specifically in the gaming industry. Unger also discusses his non-gaming industry ventures which have included a satellite communications business and a bagel business.

Mike Unger was born in Queens, New York in 1947, and spent most of his childhood in Long Island, growing up in a predominantly Jewish and Italian community. As a young adult, Unger was already working hard, running one of his family?s restaurant after school. When he was in high school, his family moved to Los Angeles to accommodate his father?s health needs, and eventually end up in Las Vegas by 1967. Over the next two decades, Unger would work at nine properties in the city. Unger is one of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas? first hotel management graduates, and started his career with Summa Corporation in its management training program at the Frontier Hotel and Casino. After a brief stint at the Airport Marina Hotel in Los Angeles in 1972, Unger returned to Las Vegas, serving in management capacities at the Aladdin Hotel and Casino, Summa Corporation headquarters and Landmark Hotel and Casino. In 1978, he joined Caesars Palace Hotel and Casino management team, and was integral in creating the city?s first large boxing events, the World Series of Tavern Pool, and the Grand Prix race. Unger also ran properties for the White Mountain Apache and Colorado River Indian Tribes in Arizona, as well as the Showboat Hotel and Casino. In this interview, Unger reflects upon his long and successful career in hotel management in Las Vegas and also in Arizona and Pennsylvania. He shares stories as a local celebrity, particularly in the 1970s and 1980s when he worked at Caesars Palace, as well as the big projects he oversaw, including organizing the first big fight nights, World Series of Tavern Poker and Grand Prix race. He talks about working with Morris Shenker, Moe Dalitz, Cliff Perlman and Billy Weinberger, and the role of the Jewish community in the city, and specifically in the gaming industry. Unger also discusses his non-gaming industry ventures which have included a satellite communications business and a bagel business.

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Transcript of interview with Maurice "Maury" Halfon Behar by Barbara Tabach, March 14, 2016

Date

2016-03-14

Description

In this interview, Behar reflects upon his childhood in France, and later adjusting to life in New York. He talks of his admiration for those that have cared for him in his youth, including Marie Cazous and his parents, Marco and Flora Behar. He details his career path, and how he ended up in Las Vegas. In addition, Behar describes a recent family trip to France, visiting his place of birth for the first time since leaving as a child.

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Transcript of interview with Thomas Barbarite by Dennis Chamberland, March 3, 1981

Date

1981-03-03

Description

Dennis Chamberland interviews Thomas Barbarite (b. 1932) in his home about his time in Las Vegas and his experiences in the casino industry. Barbarite discusses his time at the Four Queens and the Dunes as a dealer as well as his work as a pit boss at the Flamingo, the Aladdin, and Caesars Palace. Chamberland also asks Barbarite about the changes over time on the Strip, including the disappearance of lounge shows and expansion of larger shows on the Strip. Barbarite also discusses the involvement of the mob in Las Vegas, particularly the influence of Bugsy Siegel in the operation of various properties.

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Transcript of interview with William Boyd by Theresa Bradley, February 26, 1981

Date

1981-02-26

Description

Theresa Bradley interviews William W. Boyd, born in McNeil, Arkansas on January 27th, 1906, about his involvement in the gaming industry of Las Vegas. Boyd talks specifically about his experiences with five-card stud poker and his introduction of poker games without dealers to the poker room. Boyd also talks about his role as poker room manager at the Golden Nugget and how he was present to open the room when the casino first opened.

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