Force, longtime newspaper reporter and PR exec, dies at 91

Thursday, July 29, 1999 | 9:51 a.m.

Art Force, a veteran newspaperman turned publicist, was discussing a public relations campaign with his superiors at the Last Frontier resort in 1953 when a controversy arose that would forever define his sterling character.

A photo of a renowned violinist and the resort's owner holding violins prompted one executive to suggest a caption noting that both men enjoyed playing their Stradivarius instruments. When Force pointed out that the resort's owner was not holding a Stradivarius, his boss said: "So what, who's going to know the difference?"

"I'll know," Force said. When finally ordered to print and distribute that erroneous information to the news media, Force, a man of unquestionable integrity, stormed out of the room, went to his office, typed up his letter of resignation and never looked back.

Arthur Robert Force, who as a reporter covered the Lindbergh baby kidnapping trial and the crash of the Hindenburg and later became one of Las Vegas' most respected public relations executives for a third of a century, died Wednesday at his Las Vegas home from complications of emphysema and cancer. He was 91.

There will be no services for Force, a Las Vegas resident of 50 years who co-founded the Variety Club Tent No. 39 and worked as PR man for, among others, two utilities, the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority and the old MGM Grand hotel-casino.

Force, who was decorated with the Croix de Guerre for his news coverage under fire during the liberation of France in World War II, will be buried in the Southern Nevada Veterans Memorial Cemetery in Boulder City.

"On a scale of one-to-10 regarding the importance he played in the growth of the Las Vegas Strip in its early years, Art scored a 9.5," former LVCVA Executive Director Barney Rawlings said from his summer home in Logan, Utah, Wednesday.

"As a public relations man -- and that was a very important job in Las Vegas' early years -- he knew what the public wanted. He was totally pragmatic, totally professional, totally honest and tremendously talented. Yet he was quiet and unassuming."

Born Dec. 24, 1907, in Toledo, Ohio, Force was adopted at age 4 by Frank Force and the former Myrtle Goodfrey. After graduating from high school in Toledo in 1925, Force went to work as a sportswriter for the Toledo News-Bee.

In the early 1930s Force, who never went to college, took a job with the Newark Star-Eagle, where he covered the 1934 fire aboard the ocean liner Morro Castle that killed 137, the 1935 conviction of Bruno Richard Hauptmann in the Lindbergh baby kidnap/murder trial and the 1937 crash of the Hindenburg that killed 33.

At the outbreak of World War II Force joined the Army and, because of his news background, was made chief of the radio news section at the Office of War Information in Washington, D.C. He later was assigned to the public relations office for the headquarters of the 26th Infantry Division in Europe.

Force eventually became a reporter for the Stars and Stripes military newspaper, covering the Allied Forces' liberation of Paris, where he not only earned the Croix de Guerre from the French government but also a Bronze Star from the United States.

After the war Force returned stateside, where he worked in public relations for the Air Force during its formative years. He often was teased for being Art Force of the Air Force.

After his military career, Force went to work for Steve Hannagan Associates, a New York public relations firm, which sent him to represent Electric Auto Lite in Toledo in 1948 and to Las Vegas the next year, where he was the firm's representative for the then-newly formed Las Vegas News Bureau.

Throughout his lengthy career in Las Vegas, Force represented numerous companies and entities at the same time. In 1952, while working for the Last Frontier, he became PR consultant for Southern Nevada Telephone Co.

In 1963 Force, a Democrat, was named news media coordinator for the Las Vegas visit of President John F. Kennedy.

Although Force served as a paid consultant and spokesman for the LVCVA for 10 years, he declined to accept the job as the agency's first full-time PR man when the post was created -- some say especially for him -- in January 1972.

That year, Force became public relations consultant for the Bonanza Hotel on the Strip and remained in the position after the old MGM Grand was built on that site.

Force was with the MGM through the tragic November 1980 fire and retired in the early '80s after the resort was sold and renamed Bally's.

In addition to being a charter member of Variety Club, Force played a key role in the formation of the Las Vegas Press Club and was a member of the Las Vegas Rotary Club, Elks Lodge, American Legion and the National Press Club in Washington, D.C.

A longtime cigarette and pipe smoker who quit in 1974, Force was diagnosed with emphysema and cancer four years ago.

He was preceded in death by his wife Marion Force in 1970. Force is survived by his longtime companion, Connie Walker.

Donations can be made in Force's memory to Variety Club Tent 39 or the Hospice of Integrated Health Services.

Force