Columnist John Katsilometes: Employees remember the old Maxim

Sunday, Oct. 17, 1999 | 10:10 a.m.

John Katsilometes' column appears Tuesdays and Sundays. Reach him at 259-2327 or kats@vegas.com.

Donna Dixon has been a cocktail waitress at the Maxim for 22 1/2 years, since the day it opened. Her hair is blond and locked in a branched-out bouffant by a few blasts of hair spray.

Donna wears brownish makeup for a healthy mid-October tan and is dressed in a snazzy purple-and-black cocktail dress with matching blazer. Hanging from her arm is a small black purse and her fingers flash with golden rings.

Earline Smith's work attire is much less grandiose -- a pale blue smock and matching slacks. Her hair is clipped short and her hands are hard, chaffed and calloused. Earline has been a Maxim maid since 1977, jumping on board a few months after the hotel's dazzling grand opening.

In less than two months Donna and Earline will be out of work, victims of monstrous mega-resorts that have sucked the life out of the craggy, unpretentious Maxim.

The 800-room hotel will close Dec. 6. The hotel's owner, Premier Interval Resorts Inc. of Dallas, has refused to inject the $300,000 needed to keep the property afloat.

It's an old tale. The Maxim has been atrophying for years. Two years ago casino executive Ed Nigro was retained to pump some life back into the casino. He succeeded, but only short-term. The Maxim's occupancy rates are fine, in the 90-percent range at $58 per night. But the hotel has become little more than a well-placed campsite, where tourists sleep for cheap but gamble elsewhere.

"When I heard I just about died," Donna says. "You always hear of this at the Maxim. We'd been struggling for so long, but when you get an actual date it just breaks your heart."

Donna remembers serving drinks to Tony Curtis, Redd Foxx and the omnipresent Evel Knievel. There was once a room filled with Knievel memorabilia and it was common for stars -- ranging from Robert Urich to Red Buttons to Andy Griffith -- to film movies at the Maxim.

"It was common for them to film right behind me while I was working," Donna says. "This was long before any of the other mega-resorts. We were it."

Earline remembers chasing boxer Sugar Ray Leonard down for autographs. Rodney Dangerfield and Marty Allen were frequent late-night visitors.

"Sometimes someone would be acting up real bad, and you'd wonder why they weren't getting thrown out," Earline says. "It was because they were someone famous, a comedian or someone."

But the memories are not all pleasant.

"I remember the saddest day, when the MGM fire happened," she says. "I remember the sirens and seeing the people climbing down from the windows using sheets. A couple of us went up to the 15th floor and looked across to see the helicopters taking the bodies out, one by one. We all helped in any way we could, because we were like a big family, right from the beginning."

As she speaks, Earline glances down at a napkin she's used to scribble a few notes for the interview. She begins to cry and dabs at her face with the cheat sheet.

"I promised myself I wouldn't cry," she says softly.

There's not much else to do for the 791 Maxim employees. Some have figured out if each employee kicked in $380 apiece, the hotel itself could pony up the $300,000 to stay open.

But, as Earline says behind the tears, "If it were only that easy."