People of Las Vegas
The people behind the stories. Explore their lives, the places they shaped and the traces they left around the city.
21 people
B. B. King
B. B. King brought the blues from Mississippi to audiences around the world, while making Las Vegas his home for much of his later life. The singer and guitarist was more than an occasional casino…
Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel
Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel was a New York racketeer whose brief involvement in Las Vegas helped attach Hollywood glamour—and organized crime—to the Flamingo. His reputation has often overwhelmed the history of the resort itself, including the…
Bob Stupak
Bob Stupak was the casino owner and promoter behind Vegas World and the Stratosphere tower. His projects stood near the northern end of Las Vegas Boulevard, away from the biggest concentrations of Strip resorts. He…
Derek Stevens
Derek Stevens is a casino developer whose Las Vegas career has centered on Fremont Street. With his brother and business partner Greg, he moved from investing in the small Golden Gate to remaking Fitzgeralds as…
Elvis Presley
Elvis Presley helped make the Las Vegas residency a defining form of popular entertainment. His relationship with the city included an early engagement that met a cool reception, a famous wedding, and a triumphant return…
Frank “Lefty” Rosenthal
Frank “Lefty” Rosenthal was a sports gambler and casino executive whose Las Vegas career joined sophisticated bookmaking to organized crime’s hidden control of casino revenue. He became closely associated with the Stardust and inspired the…
Frank Sinatra
Frank Sinatra helped make the Las Vegas showroom a destination in its own right. His appearances at the Desert Inn, Sands, Caesars Palace and Golden Nugget connected several eras of the city’s entertainment history. The…
Gus Greenbaum
Gus Greenbaum was a casino operator whose career connected the Flamingo and Riviera with organized crime's expansion into Las Vegas. He helped manage the Flamingo after Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel's death and later took charge of…
Howard Hughes
Howard Hughes brought an industrial fortune and a nationally famous name to the Las Vegas Strip. Between his arrival in 1966 and departure in 1970, the aviator and businessman assembled a collection of hotels, casinos,…
Jay Sarno
Jay Sarno created two very different Las Vegas landmarks: Caesars Palace and Circus Circus. One offered an extravagant interpretation of ancient Rome; the other placed circus entertainment beside gambling. Together they made the resort's setting…
Joe Louis
Joe Louis was one of boxing’s defining heavyweight champions and, later, a familiar presence in Las Vegas casinos. His connections to the integrated Moulin Rouge and to Caesars Palace brought a sporting celebrity into two…
Kirk Kerkorian
Kirk Kerkorian repeatedly changed the scale of the Las Vegas hotel. The International, the original MGM Grand and the later MGM Grand each opened as the world's largest hotel, making his career a useful guide…
Meyer Lansky
Meyer Lansky was an organized-crime financier whose gambling interests linked New York, Florida, Cuba and Las Vegas. His relationships with Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel and other investors placed him behind important early casino ventures, especially the…
Michael Jackson
Michael Jackson's music and movement became enduring ingredients of Las Vegas entertainment. The singer's connection to the city is visible in Michael Jackson ONE at Mandalay Bay, a Cirque du Soleil production created after his…
Phil Ruffin
Phil Ruffin built a business career in Kansas before becoming a major independent casino owner on the Las Vegas Strip. His Las Vegas history runs through purchases and sales of established properties, particularly the New…
Ralph Lamb
Sheriff Ralph Lamb became one of the most recognizable figures in twentieth-century Las Vegas: a Nevada rancher policing a city increasingly shaped by casinos, organized crime and rapid growth. Known as the “Cowboy Sheriff,” he…
Steve Wynn
Steve Wynn helped change Las Vegas from a city of gambling hotels into a destination built around elaborate resorts. His career links the Golden Nugget downtown with the Mirage, Treasure Island, Bellagio and Wynn Las…
Tony Spilotro
Tony Spilotro was the Chicago Outfit’s enforcer in Las Vegas during the 1970s and early 1980s. His role was to protect the flow of money secretly removed from casino takings, while his own burglary operations…
Virginia Hill
Virginia Hill became one of the best-known women associated with American organized crime, but her Las Vegas story is often obscured by legend. Her relationship with Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel connected her to the Flamingo’s difficult…
Wayne Newton
Wayne Newton built a career so closely associated with Las Vegas that “Mr. Las Vegas” became his familiar nickname. A singer and multi-instrumentalist, he developed from a child performer into a showroom headliner whose songs,…
William “Bill” Harrah
Bill Harrah built his casino business in Reno and Lake Tahoe, yet his surname became one of the best-known hotel names on the Las Vegas Strip. The distinction is important: the Strip property took the…