Clifford Perlman, Caesars Palace exec who ushered in corporate age of Vegas gaming, dies at 90

By Ed Koch, Special to the Sun

Friday, Sept. 9, 2016 | 10 p.m.

Clifford Perlman erected towering makeshift arenas in Caesars Palace’s parking lot to host major boxing matches involving Sugar Ray Leonard and Muhammad Ali. He also built a winding auto race track on the site were actor Paul Newman raced. And Perlman presented the long-running Alan King Tennis Classic, which featured stars such as Jimmy Connors and Bjorn Borg.

During Perlman’s 13 years as president and CEO of Caesars Palace, the resort experienced its greatest period of growth, adding 1,200 rooms, making it the megaresort it is today. And, along with his brother Stuart, Perlman left an indelible mark on the history of Las Vegas gaming.

Clifford “Cliff” S. Perlman, who also was the first chairman of MGM Grand Inc. en route to being enshrined in the Gaming Hall of Fame in 2007, and who also co-founded the Lum’s restaurant chain, died Sept. 4 in Bel Air, Calif. He was 90. (His death was not made public until Friday.)

Perlman, by using his Lum’s restaurant chain to purchase the then 500-room Caesars Palace in 1969 for $60 million, made history as Caesars became the first publicly held company in the Las Vegas casino market, ushering in the corporate age of local gaming.

In his years at the Caesars helm, Perlman added 1,200 rooms to the resort and initiated the first overseas marketing office at a Las Vegas gaming property that brought in high-rollers from Mexico, Hong Kong, Japan, Australia and other international sites.

Also under Perlman’s reign, entertainment superstar Frank Sinatra, long a Las Vegas headliner, played Caesars Palace’s main showroom regularly for 10 years — the longest engagement of the singer’s illustrious career.

But Perlman may best be remembered for his work to establish Caesars Palace as a major sports entertainment capital during the early 1980s.

He worked with promoter Don King to bring so-called “Fights of the Century” to Caesars, most notably the Larry Holmes vs. Muhammad Ali world heavyweight title fight in 1980, the Sugar Ray Leonard vs. Thomas Hearns world welterweight title bout in 1981 and the Holmes vs. Gerry Cooney world heavyweight title match in 1982.

All were held in 25,000-seat makeshift arenas that were erected in Caesars’ parking lot weeks before the scheduled shows and dismantled within a few days after the events.

Perlman long employed as one of his casino hosts a down-on-his-luck and ailing former world heavyweight champion Joe Louis. Perlman also gave Louis a star-studded funeral in the boxing ring at Caesars Sports Pavilion following Louis’s death in 1981. Among those to speak at the memorial service were Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr. and the Rev. Jesse Jackson.

Also in 1981, Perlman used practically all of Caesars’ parking lot to build a winding track for the Caesars Palace Grand Prix. Newman, who also was an accomplished race car driver, came to town for the inaugural event to compete in a preliminary race prior to the Formula 1 Grand Prix.

The Alan King Tennis Classic, which, under Perlman’s oversight from 1972 to 1982, featured the world’s top players of that era, including Connors, Borg, John Newcombe, Rod Laver and Ivan Lendl — all champions of the event — and John McEnroe.

But when the Perlmans sold their interest in Caesars (for $92 million) in July 1982, such sporting events faded away from the resort. Many big boxing shows moved to newer resorts with huge, permanent indoor arenas. The Grand Prix limped through two more years before it was canceled and the King Tennis Classic was held only twice more — 1983 and 1985 — before it too was gone.

Born March 30, 1926, in Philadelphia, Perlman was a World War II Army combat veteran who earned the Combat Infantry Badge, the Bronze Star and three Battle Stars during action in the European Theater. After the war, in 1951, Perlman earned a law degree from the University of Miami and practiced law in Florida for nine years.

In 1956, the Perlman brothers, for an investment of just $10,000, founded the Lum’s fast food chain in Miami. The business eventually grew to 400 restaurants worth more than $23 million.

In 1969, the brothers used their Lum’s corporation to buy Caesars Palace from its builder Jay Sarno. Two years later, the Perlmans sold Lum’s to former Kentucky Gov. John Y. Brown, then-owner of Kentucky Fried Chicken.

Cliff Perlman’s other career highlights include:

• Purchasing in 1972 the old Thunderbird hotel-casino on the Strip and five years later selling it to fellow gaming legend Major Riddle.

• Becoming appointed as the first chairman of MGM Grand Inc. (He left the post in 1990.)

• Buying in 1983, along with his brother, First Air Airline. The project never fully took off, suffering financial losses, and was sold in the mid-1980s.

• Attempting to purchase the old Dunes resort in 1983 and controlling it long enough for Clifford and Don King to host the first-ever world heavyweight championship double-header featuring both the World Boxing Council and World Boxing Association title matches on the same card.

The 1997 CBS made-for-TV movie “A Match Made in Heaven” is based in part on Cliff Perlman’s life — specifically the period when his late mother Vitta, while dying of cancer, focused on fixing up her son with Nancy Denton, an oncology social worker who Vitta had befriended at Long Island Jewish Medical Center, where Vitta was being treated.

John Stamos portrayed the Clifford Perlman character, attorney Tom Rosner, while Olympia Dukakis played the Vitta Perlman character, Helen Rosner. When the wedding scene from the movie was being filmed, Clifford and Nancy Perlman were present to, in effect, watch themselves get married.

Perlman was married four times and had five children. A complete list of survivors was not immediately available.

Ed Koch is a former longtime Las Vegas Sun reporter.