Super ‘Fly’: Veteran Vegas watcher Dick Odessky chronicles the town’s ‘good old, bad old days’

Melissa Schorr

Sunday, Jan. 10, 1999 | 9:30 a.m.

Dick Odessky was there.

He was there when the very first traffic light went up on the Strip.

He was there when an inebriated Shecky Greene drove his Buick backwards down the Strip.

And he was there when the Las Vegas Sun only had one full-time reporter.

In fact, he was it.

Odessky's new book, "Fly on the Wall: Recollections of Vegas' Good Old, Bad Old Days," a memoir of his days working in Las Vegas from the '50s through the '70s, is sure to create quite a buzz.

The former reporter/publicist tells tales observed from his days working for the Sun, the now-defunct Valley Times, the Flamingo Hilton and the Stardust casinos -- or, as the Huntington Press bookjacket puts it, "two of the city's most respected papers and two of the city's most infamous casinos."

At breakfast at the Gold Coast buffet, his fork full of bacon and blintzes, the distinguished, goateed, gravely-voiced Odessky, 65, leans in, and lets loose this bombshell: "I just re-read the book, and I didn't really enjoy it."

Please, let him explain: It's just that for an ex-daily newspaperman who writes a story and never looks back, re-reading copy is still an unpleasant chore.

Readers, though, will sail through the breezy memoirs.

Among his insider anecdotes are the fact that the Rat Pack's legendary antics of dealing blackjack to delighted patrons was actually originated by comedian Joe E. Lewis; the time camera-phobic casino owner Howard Hughes picked up the bills for a newspaper photographer injured in a plane crash in Nevada; and the time when Wayne Newton wasn't yet Mr. "Danke Shoen," but just "the little fat kid from the Fremont."

But the best stories are no doubt the ones Odessky couldn't include: the "graveyard" stories he'd been told by the likes of Benny Binion and Moe Dalitz but has sworn to hold in secrecy to his death.

"When we left town, everybody figured I was going to leave here and write the big expose, because I knew most of the secrets," he explains.

This, however, is not that book. And Odessky has no plans to write it.

"I touched on bad things that happened here at the time, but I sure wasn't trying to do anything to hurt the town," he notes in his deliberate manner. "It was the same with my column -- people unloaded to me (because) they knew I was never writing with any malice. I didn't want to hang our dirty laundry out into the world. They would tell me things because they knew if it was news, I'd use it, but I wouldn't color it."

Longtime friends such as Stardust spokesman Jim Seagrave, a former colleague, confirms this take. "He was very well trusted by the people he interviewed as a journalist," Seagrave notes. "He was very good about protecting sources and quoting them accurately, not betraying information that was accumulated in his other capacities."

Local casino owner and friend Michael Gaughan, who just finished reading the memoirs when contacted in his office at the Orleans, gives the book high praise, declaring in a comment simply begging to be excerpted: "That book is much more accurate than the "Green Felt Jungle" ever was. It's about 90 percent correct."

As for the other 10 percent? "Most everybody's dead," he quips. "(They) can't get mad."

Instead of a tell-all, Odessky plans to write a sequel to "Fly on the Wall" (entitled "Come Fly With Me," perhaps?) to bring the current book about the past into the present.

"I would love to see the book in the hands of all the people visiting Las Vegas during that time period, they would enjoy reminiscing," he says.

And though Odessky swears he didn't write the book with an agenda, he thinks today's corporate suits would do well to read it as well.

The corporate takeover of Las Vegas, which Odessky traces to the Hilton's purchase of the Flamingo in 1970, is "why I wanted out of this industry," he explains. "(Flamingo casino manager) Chester Simms said that gambling is the most personalized business there is, separating a man from his money. You're not giving him any product or service, so you better at least give him a kiss. Corporations don't know how to give a kiss."

The continued success of Las Vegas under cookie cutter control is because the companies are simply "holding on to the rocket that has been ascending for 40 or more years," he writes in the book's epilogue.

Still, Odessky is guardedly optimistic about the future of Las Vegas. He predicts the town will be forced to return closer to the service-oriented days of yore, when Sunday nights were "locals night out" on the Strip and "chuckwagon" meals really were a gourmand's bargain, if only to stay competitive.

Because the "New Vegas" is "still a toddler," Odessky says that the future has yet to be determined.

Odessky was almost a toddler himself when he arrived in Las Vegas at the tender age of 19 to be a cub reporter for the Sun, covering everything from the county to the casinos.

"I was young, green, and in my glory," he recalls. The year was 1953, and the town held about 44,000 people, Odessky says, adding giddily that "about half of those were jackrabbits."

Following his Sun stint, Odessky worked for the Los Angeles Herald-Express, then was offered a job at the Flamingo Hilton in 1960 by Morris Lansburgh. At 27, he was the youngest casino publicist in history.

During Odessky's time at the Flamingo, he recalls breathless customers who'd found bullet holes or a pair of "Virginia Hill's underwear" left behind in the suites she and founder Bugsy Siegel once occupied. Meanwhile, the hotel was being scrutinized for financial hanky panky, causing Odessky to leave shortly before several of his former bosses were charged with skimming more than $25 million.

Again, he fled to California, founding his own public relations firm that kept him going for four years, but again he was lured back by Las Vegas' siren song to work for the Stardust. Odessky joined the casino in 1971, and stayed on when it was sold by to the Argent Corp., headed by Allen Glick, who in turn brought in Frank "Lefty" Rosenthal as his "chief aide."

His employment was not to last much longer.

Odessky writes vaguely that he "foresaw Rosenthal bringing great embarassment to the legalized gaming industry of Nevada." Rather than immediately departing, he began tape recording staff meetings and otherwise gathering evidence to protect himself.

Odessky's suspicions proved correct. He was soon asked to resign, and did so gladly. "I sensed that something very bad would happen before long," he writes.

Soon, another of Odessky's former employers was being investigated for skimming by rigging the scales.

By this time, Odessky had been hired to write a six-day-a-week column on the gaming industry for the newly created Valley Times.

His columns began raising questions about the goings-on at the casino. Tipped off by an insider, Odessky covered what became known as the "Stardust Slaughter," in which Rosenthal fired a floorful of employees.

Finally, the casino's gaming licenses were revoked and new management came in 1981. Yet again, Odessky abandoned his column and returned to the Stardust.

"I was hot to rejoin the industry I'd helped to shape and come to love," he explains in the book.

In person, he elaborates on why he returned. "I wanted it, because I wanted the important job I had had, plus, I wanted the opportunity to vindicate myself against some bad stories that had been spread by some of the people of Argent." Those accusations included theft and kickbacks, "which I didn't care for very much," he says dryly.

However, about six months later, Odessky realized that despite his hopes for a cleanly run operation, "Chicago" was back in charge. "I knew what was about to happen, and I knew it was going to be bad -- again."

He and his wife, Joyce, left, beginning what they call their "Gypsy tour," moving umpteen times in umpteen years, retiring to New Hampshire, Reno, and back to New England. As she jokes, "I've been married to Dick 45 years and the one thing I can say is ... it's never been boring."

Eventually, in 1994, in an ironic turnabout, the two became managers of a joint of their own -- the Thundercloud Resort in Big Bear Lake, Calif.

Will they ever return to Las Vegas again? The odds seem good. They still have close ties to Nevada -- their daughter, Robin, works in Las Vegas at a travel agency and their son, Jeff, is a dealer for the Silver Legacy casino in Reno. In fact, when they left, friends, in typical Las Vegas fashion, were betting on when they'd be back.

Odessky refers to a quote in his book by casino manager Simms, who likened Las Vegas to "Devil's Island -- with privileges." Las Vegas, he said, is a spot "300 miles from anywhere" where there are "no releases -- only paroles. And almost everyone ever paroled violates that parole and is back here."

In a way, Odessky admits, his writing did have a criminal element to it.

"I always felt like I was a cheater," he says, laughing, "getting paid for doing something I love to do."

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