Sands Casino Rat Pack
- Using the Sands, one of the best known of the classic properties, home of the Rat Pack (not Frank Sinatra’s favorite name – read the book and you will learn why), and a great exemplar of the rise and fall of automobile-oriented casino design, Schwartz provides an accessible account of the growth of classic casinos and their changes, from a.
- Frank Sinatra and the Rat Pack at the Sands Casino in Las Vegas poster. Measures approx 24 x 34 inches. Shown left to right: Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr, Peter Lawford, Joey Bishop.
- The Copa Room at The Sands Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas was home base for the Rat Pack that included: Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., Peter Lawford and Joey Bishop (left to right).
by David G. Schwartz
227 pp., Winchester Books, 2020
$19.95
THE RAT PACK IS BACK! Relive the days of the Rat Pack with Las Vegas’ most famous Entertainers and their live big band as they appeared live in the Sands Hotel Copa Room. The only Vegas based show with national touring companies and an award from the “Congress of the United States”. The Sands Hotel in Las Vegas was the wildest joint in town when Frank Sinatra and the Rat Pack were in town. But its death was slow and painful, and far from glamorous.
There are several good authors currently working the casino/gaming genre, but in my view, David Schwartz is at the top of the list. He came to my attention almost 15 years ago upon publication of his Roll the Bones in 2006. It was, and is, a definitive history of gaming, beginning in Pompeii and ending at the opening of Wynn Las Vegas in late 2005. Schwartz is an academic with a Ph.D. in History from UCLA and was serving at the time as the director of the Center for Gaming Studies at UNLV. I have to confess that I initially bought that book to have it sit on my shelf and, ideally, impress my bosses. I hoped they would think that I had read this two-inch thick tome. I was pretty confident that they’d never read it themselves, nor did I have any intention of doing so either, at least not initially. Funny thing was, once I perused the first few pages, I was hooked. That book is probably now required reading in some college courses, since in true textbook fashion, it’s full of seemingly endless notations, along with 19 pages of index. But surprisingly – or maybe not so surprisingly, considering what an engaging writer Dr. Schwartz has proven to be – it’s also a great read. I knocked off all 500 pages in a few days. Ironically, over the years, I’ve used countless factoids gleaned from this book to – you guessed it – impress my bosses. Since that time, I’ve never missed any of Schwartz’s 11 other books, including the updated Casino Edition of Roll The Bones, which was published in 2013 and covers roughly five more years than the original did.
It’s an overworked reviewers’ compliment, but so be it: I honestly couldn’t put down his latest work, At the Sands: The Casino That Shaped Classic Las Vegas. Brought the Rat Pack Together and Went Out with a Bang.
Sands Casino Rat Pack
Like his other works, this book is meticulously researched. There are literally 30 pages of notes gleaned from dozens and dozens of sources, the most impressive being the extensive oral histories Schwartz surveyed.
Perhaps that’s why reading the book makes it seem like Schwartz was in the room with a tape recorder when notorious characters like “Doc” Stacher and Meyer Lansky were carving up Las Vegas. Schwartz has a way of crafting single paragraphs that function as mini-treaties on the very culture of gaming operations in the 1950s: “…a hotel guest betting a dollar on roulette or his wife putting a nickel in a slot machine was not, in their minds, a gambler; they were mere tourists, to be tolerated and even humored, but never truly respected.”
And if the names of brilliant early operators at the Sands like Al Freedman, Jack Entratter and Carl Cohen don’t ring a bell with you, how about Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, and Sammy Davis Jr.? They are as tightly linked to the Sands legacy as any of the casino managers, and this book has some insights on them that are fascinating. Schwartz debunks the myths and rumors surrounding what really happened the night that Mr. Sinatra’s front teeth encountered the fist of a Sands manager – and what Frank did or didn’t do about it.
You might also find it interesting that the Sands casino began as the French-themed LaRue (you could probably win a few bar bets with that bit of trivia, once the bars open again.) The property was also instrumental in helping guide the Las Vegas paths of both Howard Hughes and Kirk Kerkorian. And of course, Sheldon Adelson would eventually join them as one of the richest men in the world, after he blew up the place. Along the way, he built the most impressive convention center in town and completely changed how Las Vegas made its money. The details on that, too, are all in this book.
There are lots of good reasons to read this book, but it’s particularly interesting to consider its subject matter in light of the recent and incredibly timely rumblings on the Strip that Adelson may be putting a For Sale sign on the Sands once again (for non-locals, it’s known as the Venetian, Palazzo and Sands Convention Center these days).
Dr. Schwartz has now been promoted to UNLV’s Associate Vice Provost for Faculty Affairs, whatever that may be. But, even without any such lofty title, he’s one of the top gaming historians working today, with a knack for making that history readable, entertaining, and over much too quickly.
Sands Casino Rat Package
At the Sands is timely, relevant to today’s news, a great read, a thorough and thoroughly entertaining slice of Las Vegas history, and with a little luck, the stories you’ll learn will enable you, too, to impress your bosses. Trust me.
Sands Casino Rat Packages
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