Monday, June 2, 1997 | 11:59 a.m.
Services will be Tuesday for Morton "Mr. Frontier" Saiger, a Las Vegas legend whose career grew from Hollywood's silent movies to a 50-year post with the Frontier hotel-casino. He was 93.
Saiger's family was at his bedside when he died Saturday at Columbia Sunrise Hospital and Medical Center. He died of kidney failure, which followed circulatory problems that plagued his last six months of an otherwise vibrant and healthy life.
A graveside service will follow Tuesday's 10 a.m. memorial service at Palm Mortuary downtown. The family requests donations be made to the Kidney Foundation of Nevada.
A passion for music, especially opera, is what many say was key to Saiger's strong spirit.
"He had an unbelievable will to live," remembered his daughter, Deborah Palladino of Henderson. "He was still driving up until three years ago. Even when he was losing his hearing, his vision, and he developed arthritis in his back and couldn't walk, he would put his earphones on and listen to his opera. It kept him going."
A loyal supporter of the arts, legend has it that Saiger brought the first legitimate opera to Las Vegas by borrowing $25,000 from casino mogul Moe Dalitz to attract a touring cast of "La Boheme."
Yet it was his character that endeared him to thousands of guests and celebrities he served during five decades in the casino industry.
Saiger took great pride in his work, especially his executive host position that saw the self-taught man strive to make all hotel guests feel at home.
He would learn guests' hobbies, favorite sports and musical tastes, as well as treat them to gifts and blackjack advice. He loaned a $10 silk tie to billionaire Howard Hughes so he could dine formally (a tie Saiger would later joke that his longtime friend never returned).
"A good host, no matter how wrong the customer is, tries to make him feel he is right," Saiger told the SUN in a 1981 interview, his voice marked by a rich Polish accent. "Do not argue with him. Cater to him and do everything that he expects of you. Make him feel you can't wait for him to get back again."
Born July 22, 1903, in Opatov, Poland, a town about 60 miles west of Warsaw, Saiger was working in stables by age 9. He fled his homeland in 1920 three days before he was to be inducted into the army. He went to work in a Denver grocery store owned by his father, who escaped Poland in 1912.
An accomplished dancer, he won the Colorado State Ballroom Championship before appearing in Hollywood silent films, including an extra part in "The Crown that Lies" with fellow immigrant Polla Negri, and as a stunt double for Rudolph Valentino.
A lyric baritone, Saiger sang the part of Colas the Magician in a 1939 Los Angeles production of Mozart's "Bastien and Bastienne." The death of his voice teacher ended a promising opera career.
A trip to Palm Springs in May 1942 opened a new life chapter when a friend who was building the short-lived Colony Club on Charleston Boulevard hired Saiger as a steward.
It was at the club that Saiger met R.E. Griffith, a Texas theater chain owner who launched the Last Frontier hotel-casino and hired Saiger in fall 1942.
An all-around gopher who tended the Frontier's 18-horse stable, Saiger also worked nights manning the spotlight that shined upon the likes of Liberace and Sammy Davis Jr.
Saiger took Davis, his father and uncle under his wing in the 1940s when they performed in town as the Will Mastin Trio, feeding them sandwiches and transporting them to and from rooming houses on Jefferson Street, west of the railroad tracks, where they were forced to stay when racism ruled the Strip.
Saiger married his wife Reba, a Gordon's Jewelry Store clerk, in 1945. That same year, he became a 21 dealer.
He left the Frontier in 1952 when the casino changed owners, moving to the Desert Inn as dealer and floorman until 1969. He opened the Landmark as a shift boss for two months, then returned to the Frontier as floorman.
It was during a Frontier dinner in 1972 that Summa Corp. entertainment director Walter Kane dubbed him "Mr. Frontier," the same year Saiger became the hotel-casino's first host.
Saiger left the Frontier with much bitterness, forced into retirement after 50 years by its owners, the Elardi family.
"My father loved his job," Palladino said. "He would say, 'I will work until they have to carry me out of here.' It hurt him a greatly when they told him to leave."
He was invited by University of Nevada, Reno's oral history program in 1985 to write a personal narrative on the history of Las Vegas, now on library shelves at UNLV and UNR.
A room in UNLV's special collections library is also named after him.
Retirement afforded Saiger more time for grandsons Matthew Skurow, Andrew Skurow and Max Saiger, with whom he played ball and toy cars, taught opera and culture, and cooked his special "Mr. Frontier sandwiches" -- hot pepper cheese and salami on rye.
"My father taught us to believe that you should always see the best in everyone and the best in every situation," Palladino said. "That was how he lived his life."
Saiger is also survived by his son Gordie Saiger of Henderson and sister Gertrude Saiger of Los Angeles.
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