Wednesday, Jan. 8, 1997 | 11:59 a.m.
Norbert "Norm" Jansen, a shrewd casino owner and developer who preferred to remain behind the scenes while putting together big deals on the Strip and downtown, has died. He was 78.
Jansen, a 50-year Las Vegas resident who owned the Pioneer Club in the mid-1960s, died Monday of cancer at his home.
Services will be 1 p.m. Friday at Calvary Chapel Spring Valley, 7175 W. Oquendo Road. Visitation will be 4 p.m.-9 p.m. Thursday at Palm Mortuary Eastern. Interment will be in Palm Valley View Memorial Park.
Jansen was business partners with Frank Schivo in the California Club from 1964-67.
Schivo, a longtime casino manager at the Sahara who was known for a warm smile and friendly handshake, died last November. Jansen was too ill to attend his former partner's services, but phoned Schivo's son, Las Vegas concert promoter Michael Schivo, to offer condolences.
"As a young man, I met Norm and thought I was meeting a character straight from a Damon Runyon book," Michael said. "He looked like a private eye out of a black and white movie."
Schivo said Jansen was a shrewd man, who one minute would put together deals worth hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars and another minute would dabble in trinkets.
"Once on my father's plane, I was sitting in the back with Norm and he had this big bag of fake diamond rings -- they couldn't have been worth a couple of bucks each," Michael Schivo said.
"He handed me a fist full of them and told me to go out and hustle them. I was in college at the time, and sold them to friends for $5 apiece. For a student, that was good money back then."
Schivo recalled how Jansen wore several of the cheap rings and even got his father to wear one.
"Norm just had a way of talking to people to get them to do things," Schivo said. "And, he was a backburner-type player, doing his work without fanfare."
As an example of that, Schivo noted that when his dad and Jansen owned the California, Frank's name was emblazoned across the building above the casino's name, while few people outside the industry knew who Jansen was.
Jansen's major development deals included the Holiday Casino, now Harrah's, on the Strip. He also was owner of the Holiday Casino Boardwalk.
Born Feb. 22, 1918, in Louisville, Ky., Jansen was an Army veteran of World War II, who settled in Las Vegas in 1946.
He is survived by his wife, Avis Jansen, of Las Vegas; two daughters, Linda Tijerina of Las Vegas and Judy Anderson of San Diego; six grandchildren; and five great grandchildren.
* DONATIONS: In Jansen's memory to Nathan Adelson Hospice.
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