Friday, Oct. 12, 2001 | 8:41 a.m.
Jerry Fink's lounge column appears on Fridays. Reach him at 259-4058 or jerry@ lasvegassun.com.
"Here's a little Las Vegas trivia for you," said former showgirl Betty Petty as she sat in the open-air dining area of the Jazzed Cafe while listening to the Marv Koral's All-Stars band one evening last week. "Who was Marlene Dietrich's piano player when she worked at the Sahara?"
Pause.
"Barry Manilow," Petty, a robust 69 years old, laughed.
Petty and George Kavanaugh, 83, came to the restaurant to listen to the All-Stars, who are there every Thursday, but the evening turned into a reunion.
The Manilow-Dietrich story has floated around Las Vegas for years. Whether it's fact or fiction has never been confirmed, but there are so many myths in this city of a million illusions it's hard to be sure what's real. One documented fact is that Manilow was the pianist for Bette Midler when she performed in Vegas in the mid-'60s.
Kavanaugh moved to Las Vegas from Southern California in 1947 to tend bar and ended up owning and managing several clubs here in the decades spanning the '50s through much of the '70s, until he went to Reno. He returned to Vegas after retiring 11 years ago.
"This was the greatest city in the world," Kavanaugh said of Las Vegas. "There has never been a city like it."
Petty arrived in 1953 and danced in chorus lines at El Rancho. She never left.
Most of the musicians with the All-Stars worked for Kavanaugh at one time or another: pianist Gus Mancuso (who has performed with Quincy Jones and Sarah Vaughn, among others); trombonist Carl Fontana (with Stan Kenton, Benny Goodman); drummer Pat Sherrod (Joe Williams, Lou Rawls) and on sax and flute Koral (Tommy Dorsey, Harry James).
Bass-player Chris Gordon (backup soloist for Jack Jones) is about half the age of the other musicians, all of whom are in their 70s, so he missed the glory days of Las Vegas when the mob kept things running smoothly and musicians were kings.
Between sets Mancuso and the others dropped by to say hello to Petty and Kavanaugh.
Mancuso once was married to Lt. Gov. Lorraine Hunt, a great lounge entertainer in her own right (and she still performs occasionally at her restaurant, the Bootlegger). Now he is married to Maggie Peterson, who played the role of Charlene Darling, daughter of Denver Pyle, on "The Andy Griffith Show."
"I worked for George at five different clubs," Mancuso said. "We opened and closed a lot of clubs together. He would call me up and say, 'Are you ready?' " Listening to the banter among the old-timers was an education in Las Vegas history.
"I worked at the Shamrock Hotel (at Bonanza Road and Main Street) and Martha Raye was living there," Kavanaugh said. "Her hair was dyed blonde. She came through the bar and dived into the pool and when she came up it was green, absolutely green."
Comedian Joey Lewis, entertainer Sophie Tucker and burlesque star Lili St. Cyr were in the Las Vegas limelight.
So were Dorothy Dandridge, Josephine Baker and French singer Edith Piaf -- all of them entertainers of international stature.
Dandridge and Baker were black and although they were famous around the world, after they left a Las Vegas stage they were not allowed to enter the major casinos or hotels or restaurants.
"Dorothy Dandridge put her foot in the pool at the Last Frontier and they drained the pool," Petty said.
Kavanaugh felt no such prejudice.
In 1965 he started the Black Magic Club, a jazz place at Tropicana Avenue and Paradise Road, one of the first jazz clubs in town not on the Strip or downtown -- it may have been the first.
"Jack Dennison, who was maitre 'd at the Flamingo, built the building and I bought it," Kavanaugh said. "Dennison married Dorothy Dandridge."
Kavanaugh owned the club twice.
"One night Abe Noles brought in six trombones to perform," he recalled. "One of the trombonists was working at Caesars Palace where Tony Bennett was starring. Tony called everyone in town to come hear the six trombones. Bobby Darin was there, Jayne Mansfield, Robert Goulet, Harry James and Betty Grable."
Mancuso was there, too.
"The place was packed and this guy from (back East) said it was just the kind of place he always wanted so George sells it to him," Mancuso said. "The first thing the new owner did was get rid of me. Two weeks later I walk in and nobody's in the joint but the owner. George bought the place back from him."
"I made more money buying and selling bars than I did selling liquor for 50 cents a shot and beer for 40 cents," Kavanaugh said.
Although Kavanaugh hired a lot of jazz musicians, he said he wasn't much into music.
"Except for big bands. I loved the big-band era," Kavanaugh said. "(In World War II) I used to fly missions over Germany out of Italy. I was the radio operator.
"Up in the air, I could pick up Glenn Miller from England, so I'd tune in Glenn Miller in the morning and we'd all listen to him on the way to the bombing target."
What a blast.
Lounging around
Among the other performers who donated their time for the show were Loui Velez (a Sammy Davis Jr. impressionist with "Legends in Concert"); Bill Whitten (a Dean Martin impressionist at Tropicana) and Jack Cane (who performs a Frank Sinatra tribute).
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