Jackie Gaughan, the Las Vegas gaming pioneer who once owned the El Cortez, the Las Vegas Club and much of downtown, has died.

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Eydie Gorme, a popular nightclub and television singer as a solo act and as a team with her husband, Steve Lawrence, has died. She was 84.

Gorme, who also had a huge solo hit in 1963 with "Blame it on the Bossa Nova," died Saturday at Sunrise Hospital in Las Vegas following a brief, undisclosed illness, said her publicist, Howard Bragman.

Gorme was a successful band singer and nightclub entertainer when she was invited to join the cast of Steve Allen's local New York television show in 1953.

She sang solos and also did duets and comedy skits with Lawrence, a rising young singer who had joined the show a year earlier. When the program became NBC's Tonight Show in 1954, the young couple went with it.

They married in Las Vegas in 1957 and later performed for audiences there. Lawrence, the couple's son David and other loved ones were by her side when she died, Bragman said.

"Eydie has been my partner on stage and in life for more than 55 years," Lawrence said in a statement. "I fell in love with her the moment I saw her and even more the first time I heard her sing. While my personal loss is unimaginable, the world has lost one of the greatest pop vocalists of all time."

Although usually recognized for her musical partnership with Lawrence, Gorme broke through on her own with the Grammy-nominated "Blame it on the Bossa Nova." The bouncy tune about a dance craze of the time was written by the Tin Pan Alley songwriting team of Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil.

Her husband had had an equally huge solo hit in 1962 with "Go Away Little Girl," written by the songwriting team of Gerry Goffin and Carole King.

Gorme would score another solo hit in 1964, but this time for a Spanish-language recording.

For more on the story, click here.

Ray Manzarek, who along with his college friend Jim Morrison, founded the seminal 1960s group, The Doors, has died of bile duct cancer at the age of 74.

courtesy of mildequator.com

If you grew up in Las Vegas back in the 1960s, it certainly felt like a magical time. While our parents were enjoying The Rat Pack, Tony Bennett, Broadway shows, Harry Belafonte, Lena Horne and more, we, the younger generation, were able to see The Beatles, Iron Butterfly, Led Zepplin and The Doors (and more) in the Rotunda of the old Convention Center.

The Doors played there on August 25, 1967 opening the 8:00 show with Soul Kitchen.

"I was deeply saddened to hear about the passing of my friend and bandmate Ray Manzarek today," Doors guitarist Robby Krieger said in a statement.  "I'm just glad to have been able to have played Doors songs with him for the last decade. Ray was a huge part of my life and I will always miss him." 

Manzarek grew up in Chicago, then moved to Los Angeles in 1962 to study film at UCLA. It was there he first met Doors singer Jim Morrison, though they didn't talk about forming a band until they bumped into each other on a beach in Venice, California, in the summer of 1965 and Morrison told Manzarek that he had been working on some music. "And there it was!" Manzarek wrote in his 1998 biography, Light My Fire. "It dropped quite simply, quite innocently from his lips, but it changed our collective destinies."

Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/ray-manzarek-doors-keyboardist-dead-at-74-20130520#ixzz2Tzl5GqfI

courtesy of mildequator.com

In January 1968, Jim Morrison was arrested for public drunkeness, vagrancy and insufficient identification at the Pussy Cat-A -Go-Go.

If you remember seeing The Doors at the old Convention Center in the summer of 1967, we would love to hear from you!

                The pioneering Kenny Kerr

Before Frank Marino flourished in drag on the famed Las Vegas Strip, that journey had been pioneered by the one and only Kenny Kerr. Back in 1977, he brought drag shows out of the shadows and made them  accessible and popular on the famed Strip. The flashy Boylesque marquee as part of the Silver Slipper sign signaled to tourists and locals alike that it was okay to come in, have a drink and enjoy a night of comedy that you couldn't find anywhere else on the famed boulevard. He held court at the tiny Silver Slipper for eleven years.

Kenny Kerr passed away earlier today.

From Mike Weatherford at the Las Vegas Review Journal:

Kenny Kerr, the bad girl that Las Vegas fell hard for in the ’70s, died Sunday. He was 60.

The star of “Boy-lesque” was the Strip’s first must-see female impersonator, pulling a locals-heavy audience into a tiny casino called the Silver Slipper for 11 years with his deadpan stare, cutthroat wit and killer gowns.

“It’s now to the point where there are three things you have to see: Lake Mead, Hoover Dam and ‘Boy-lesque,’” Kerr said in 1988, when the show wrapped its long era at the Silver Slipper in anticipation of the casino’s eventual closure and demolition.

Kerr’s impressions of Cher and Barbra Streisand were matched by his comedic skills as the show’s saucy host.

Drag was still somewhat taboo when Kerr came to town in 1977, but by then, he had already been impersonating Streisand for years.

Growing up in Blue Anchor, N.J., he was 16 when a couple who saw him shopping at a mall noted his resemblance to Streisand. They soon had him riding the bus into Philadelphia to perform at night while he was still attending high school.

“These people had a show of the sort I do now and asked me if I wanted to work in it,” he recalled in 1982. They talked a lot of money. ... Most of my contemporaries had jobs for minimum wage or less.”

Going out on his own a few years later, Kerr and his original cast showcased their act for free at the Sahara and caught the attention of Herb Kaufman, the owner of Wonder World discount stores.

The Slipper show quickly became a low-cost novelty for locals to take out-of-town visitors. But it arrived fresh on the heels of Anita Bryant’s anti-gay crusade, and for years Kerr said the question “Are you gay?” was one he had to dance around.

“It’s a question I can’t win by answering,” he said in 1982. “If I said I am gay, there are an awful lot of narrow-minded people out there. And If I said I’m heterosexual, a lot of people wouldn’t believe me.”

Kerr kept working after the Silver Slipper era, with long runs at the Sahara and Plaza followed by smaller casinos and gradually diminishing returns, as the rival “La Cage” revue proved fierce competition and the shock value faded over the years.

For more click here.

Kenny Kerr photo courtesy of Eventful.com

Ernest Borgnine, Karon Kate Blackwell, Marty Allen and Breck Wall

He made his mark on the Las Vegas Strip by creating and defining the afternoon comedy revue.  Breck Wall has died at 75.  He had been suffering from Alzheimier's Disease and was in an assisted living facility.

He was born Billy Ray Wilson in Jacksonville, Florida.  He had a colorful life that included a brush with infamy.  He played nightclubs in the South including two owned by Jack Ruby in Dallas, TX.  He testified before the Presidential committee investigating President Kennedy's assassination.

In 1958, he created "Bottom's Up!" after being inspired by the 1938 Broadway revue, "Hellzapoppin".

He arrived in Las Vegas in March of 1964 and the Castaways Hotel was open to his idea of an late night comedy lounge revue that incorporated old vaudeville routines with pop music, modern dancers and blackout sketches.  After a successful run, he hit upon the idea of an afternoon comedy revue and moved the show to the Thunderbird.

"Bottom's Up!" had many homes including the Aladdin, the Hacienda, the Mint, the Flamingo, the Sands and perhaps its most succesful residence, Caesars Palace, where the cast was headed by Nancy Austin.

Breck Wall was many things but he never lost his love of showmanship and his talent for surrounding himself with the best creative talent he could find helped change the afternoon lounge scene of Classic Las Vegas.

Reports are that he will be cremated.