Former Las Vegas adult theater owner Glass dies at 77

Thursday, Nov. 19, 1998 | 11:19 a.m.

Erwin Glass was a soft touch when it came to helping local charities.

In that way, he did not fit the typical image of an adult theater operator.

But in person -- a portly, jovial man who enjoyed chomping on his trademark cigar -- Glass filled that bill as though he came from central casting.

As owner of the Four Star Theater at 112 N. 4th St. from the late 1960s to the early 1990s, Glass once took Clark County officials to the Nevada Supreme Court to win the right to show adult movies.

Glass, who once co-owned a string of movie theaters and was a longtime official for the American Guild of Variety Artists in both Chicago and Toronto, Canada, died Monday of heart failure at Desert Springs Hospital. He was 77.

Private services for Glass, who lived in Las Vegas for 43 years, were arranged by Davis Paradise Valley Funeral Home.

"If my husband felt he was right on an issue, he'd argue with everyone and a fence post," said Mitzi Glass, one of Las Vegas' first female casino hosts who today is slot host at the Stardust hotel-casino. "He fought the county as far as he could -- all the way to the state Supreme Court -- and won."

On Dec. 30, 1969, Glass was arrested by vice detectives and district attorney investigators who seized two movies -- "The Muthers" and "Wanda the Sadistic Hypnotist" -- that were being shown at Glass' downtown theater.

Glass faced up to six months in jail and a $500 fine for showing the films that had not previously been ruled obscene.

In February 1970, then-Justice of the Peace Joe Pavlikowski, now a district judge, threw out the misdemeanor obscenity charges after Glass' attorney David Goldwater argued that they violated Glass' First, Fourth and 14th Amendment rights.

"You can't just walk in willie-nillie and rule something obscene," Goldwater said during that hearing. "No one has the right to arrest a theater owner and seize his films on the basis of one investigator's ruling of what is obscene."

"Erwin was a really nice man who (officials) tried to close down," said Goldwater upon learning of Glass' death. "Over the years, he made a lot of friends of other downtown businessmen."

In June of 1970, a district judge on appeal ruled that the arrest of Glass and seizure of the films were constitutional, forcing the matter to the Nevada Supreme Court, which ruled in favor of Glass.

The Four Star Theater closed several years ago when its lease ran out.

Mitzi says it is not fair to remember her husband only for the adult movies he showed.

"He had a fantastic memory for classic Hollywood films," she said. "He would watch old movies on TV and recognize bit actors and say 'that's so-and-so.' He'd also identify the band members and tell you what songs they wrote."

And, Mitzi said, local prominent citizens representing major charities were not afraid to step inside the Four Star Theater to hit her husband up for money.

"He emptied his pockets to anyone with a sob story," she said. "I used to tell him don't carry so much cash and they won't be able to take so much. But he just said they really needed it and he couldn't say no."

Longtime Sun entertainment columnist Joe Delaney echoed those sentiments.

"Erwin was always there -- whether it was for St. Jude's Ranch for Children, the Variety Club, whatever," Delaney said. "He especially liked to support charities where the donations stayed and worked in Southern Nevada."

Born March 13, 1921, in Chicago, Glass was the eldest of four boys of Joseph Glass and the former Fannie Goldstein. The family moved to Winnipeg, Canada, when Glass was 10 months old and operated a grocery store there.

At age 16, Glass returned to Chicago to be a truck driver. Eventually, he became part of a partnership that operated a string of movie theaters from Chicago to Baltimore.

After a lengthy stint with American Guild of Variety Artists, Glass came to Las Vegas in 1955, where he represented the guild at the old Dunes hotel-casino, where the Bellagio now stands.

In 1978, Delaney introduced Erwin to Mitzi, who has long worked at Strip resorts, including the Tropicana and Frontier. They married in 1982 at the Stardust.

Glass was a member of the Lake Mead Marina Yacht Club and the Stallion Country Club. He took up golfing in the mid-1980s and stopped about a year ago, when his health began to fail. He quit smoking cigars about four years ago, Mitzi said.

In addition to his wife, Glass is survived by two brothers, Matthew Glass of Winnipeg and Alfie Glass of Toronto. He was preceded in death by a brother, David Glass.