Saiger, Mort (Morton Saiger), 1903-1997

Morton "Mort" Saiger was born July 22, 1903, in Opatov, Poland. He fled Poland in 1920 three days before he was to be inducted into the army. Settling in Denver, Colorado with his father, he showed an early interest in show business, winning awards as a ballroom dancer, appearing in several silent films, and performing as a baritone in a 1939 Los Angeles, California production of Mozart's opera, "Bastien and Bastienne."

In May 1942, Saiger took a job at the newly opened Colony Club in Las Vegas, Nevada. It was here that he met R. E. Griffith, a Texas theater chain owner who built the Last Frontier Hotel. Griffith hired Saiger as an all-around assistant at the new hotel in the fall of 1942. By 1945, he had become a 21-dealer on the casino floor.

When Griffith sold the Last Frontier in 1952, Saiger moved to the Desert Inn as dealer and floorman until 1969, when he returned to the renamed New Frontier Hotel-Casino as a floorman. In 1972, he became the hotel-casino's first host and was dubbed "Mr. Frontier" by Summa Corporation entertainment director Walter Kane. Saiger held the position of host until his retirement in the mid-1980s. After his retirement, he was invited to write a personal narrative on the history of Las Vegas by the University of Nevada, Reno's oral history program.

Mort Saiger died in 1997, at the age of 93.