Singer plays her final gig at Flamingo

Martin Kuz

Thursday, Sept. 24, 1998 | 10:50 a.m.

This is a story about a mother's dream, a son's redemption and how a casino rooted in Las Vegas' past helped both come about Wednesday afternoon. It is a story about celebrating life in death.

Betty Bowman always hoped to play the Flamingo hotel. A jazz singer with the Big Bands of the 1930s and '40s, she performed in clubs across the country, from Chicago to Toledo to Albany, N.Y. She sang with the Dorsey brothers, Tommy and Jimmy, and even cut a couple of albums.

But Bowman, born in 1911 in Chattanooga, Tenn., never made it to the Flamingo. Marriage and motherhood interrupted her career. She took the hand of John Kleinhans in 1940, and two years later they welcomed their only child, James, into the world.

Not long after the birth of Jamie, as his mother called him, John went off to help fight the Axis Powers. When he returned, something in the marriage cracked. By 1949 Betty and John were divorced, leaving her a single mom long before that appellation wove its way into the popular lexicon.

Betty packed up Jamie and their belongings and moved to Columbus, Ohio, where her parents lived. She doted on her son and worked as a secretary, while still finding time to indulge her second-greatest love.

When Jamie was old enough to stay up a little later, Betty would tote him to dinner clubs two or three nights a week. As patrons enjoyed dessert and sipped wine, Betty flitted across stage and crooned "Beale Street Blues," "Can't Stop Lovin' That Man of Mine" and a few of her other favorites. She also hosted a Columbus radio show, spinning blues and jazz standards from the likes of Duke Ellington, Count Basie and Cab Calloway, and playing the piano live on the air.

Jim Kleinhans, now 55, remembers how his mom wowed his high school classmates during parents' night talent shows. Betty's silvery voice combined with her blonde hair, crystal blue eyes and, by her son's recollection, "the most beautiful smile you ever saw" always left audiences wanting more.

"If she hadn't had me, she would've made her mark in the music business. She might've been a star," said Jim, who bears a resemblance to the late Robert Mitchum. "Deep down inside she really missed the entertaining. But she would never let on or say, 'Jamie, if it wasn't for you, I'd still be singing.' She was as happy being a mother and a secretary because she still found a way to sing."

As the years passed, Jim moved out of his mom's house and moved on. After a four-year stint in the Air Force and a series of odd jobs, Jim settled in St. Paul, Minn., working as a private investigator. Betty gravitated west, relocating to Santa Monica, Calif., in the 1970s and remarrying. But when her second husband died and her health began to fail, Betty came to Las Vegas to live closer to her son, who moved here in 1989.

After caring for Betty for 18 months, Jim made the painful decision to place her in a nursing home. To relieve her loneliness, he would take her to lunch once a week. Each time, she would ask her son to drive past the Desert Inn hotel and the only other "real" casino in Las Vegas.

"Let's go by the Flamingo, Jamie," she would say. "I always wanted to play the Flamingo."

When Betty passed away this January at age 86, her dream unfulfilled, Jim could still hear her voice echoing in his heart. He chastised himself for not spending more time with his mother, for giving in to his intense dislike of nursing homes and cutting short his visits. He wanted to fill in the hollowness.

A month ago the idea came to him. Jim sent a letter to Horst Dziura, president of the Flamingo Hilton, to make an earnest, if unusual, request.

"Is there any way possible that some of her ashes could be scattered somewhere on the Flamingo property?" Jim wrote. "...If there was, I could help grant her greatest wish, and Betty Bowman would finally 'play the Flamingo' and be a part of the hotel and casino she loved."

Dziura and other hotel officials were so moved by the note that a scant two days after mailing what he described as his "million-to-one shot," Jim received a call from Flamingo spokesman Terry Lindberg.

"His letter was just directly from the heart. You just couldn't say no," Lindberg said.

And so on Wednesday afternoon Betty Bowman's lifelong dream came true. Inside Bugsy's Celebrity Theatre, before a small gathering of friends and hotel officials, Jim gave a brief eulogy and read a poem he wrote for his mother. Members of the "Forever Plaid" cast paid tribute to Betty by singing "Moments to Remember."

"Jam on, mom," Jim said softly. "We miss you."

From there, he walked out to the Flamingo's rose garden. Under a towering palm tree that sheltered him from the sun-kissed Las Vegas sky, Jim poured his mother's remains on a patch of dirt. After placing a rose over the ashes, he quickly turned away to wipe tears off his cheek.

"She was a wonderful woman," he said later, his voice cracking slightly. "I didn't really do for her what I could have when she was alive. This is a way for me to do something."

His eyes hidden behind maroon-tinted glasses, Jim vowed to visit the rose garden as often as possible. As he spoke, a wisp of a smile rose on his lips, an expression that seemed to suggest relief and joy and wistfulness all at once.

"It's the least I can do."