Pioneer civil rights activist, real estate exec Elliott dies

Friday, Feb. 4, 2000 | 9:22 a.m.

Margie Elliott had already made her mark as a Los Angeles actress and restaurateur before she came to Las Vegas in 1954.

Initially able to find work only as a waitress in what was then a racially segregated community, Elliott, who was black, worked at the Moulin Rouge, the city's first integrated Las Vegas hotel, which opened in the mid-1950s.

"Mom used to work the swing shift but hung around for the 2 a.m. show when the Strip celebrities stopped by. She was friends with many of them from her years in Los Angeles," longtime Las Vegas optometrist Lonnie Sisson said.

"She enjoyed being there with (former world heavyweight boxing champion) Joe Louis, who was the host, Sammy Davis Jr. -- all of the stars who came in."

But Elliott was destined for much bigger things. In the mid-1950s, she shifted her career direction and became one of the city's first black women real estate executives. For five decades she sold homes to generations of Las Vegans.

Marjorie Ellen Elliott, a political activist who helped lobby for passage of Nevada's civil rights laws in the late 1950s and other legislation that gave more opportunity to minorities, died Monday of complications from Alzheimer's disease at Cheyenne Residential Home. She was 84.

Services for the Las Vegas resident of 46 years will be noon Saturday at Davis Funeral Home, 2127 W. Charleston Blvd. The Rev. Marion Bennett, her longtime friend, will officiate the services. Burial will be private.

"Margie was a lovely lady who understood the political system and used it to help those people who needed help the most," said longtime friend and former two-term Nevada Gov. Mike O'Callaghan, the executive editor of the Sun.

"She seldom raised her voice but usually won over her opponents with honesty and straight talk."

Elliott went to work in real estate at a time when she could sell homes only in the black community -- a time when what was called westside was in decay, blighted with many ramshackle houses and apartments.

"It was not easy for blacks, especially black women, in real estate back then," Sisson said. "She got her license in 1957 and decided to work on selling tracts in new developments like Casper Park 1 and 2. She even bought a home there, where she lived until two years ago."

When desegregation came to Las Vegas in the 1960s, Sisson could have sold real estate anywhere, but she chose to remain an advocate for West Las Vegas, selling homes there and otherwise working to improve conditions.

"She got a lot of referrals and put people into good homes," Sisson said. "As a result, the children and grandchildren of people she sold homes to came to her when it was time for them to buy because of the trust she had built."

Early on, she became involved in the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the Nevada Voters League.

Born Aug. 4, 1915, in Ardmore, Okla., Eliott was the elder of two children of General Motors worker Samuel Elliott and the former Odessa Hood.

The Elliotts relocated to Milford, Mich., a suburb of Detroit, where Margie graduated from high school. Although she stood 5 feet 6 inches and weighed under 100 pounds, she was a standout on the girls basketball team.

Elliott attended the University of Southern California, where she developed an interest in dance and acting.

She appeared in several Hollywood films, including the 1954 classic "Carmen Jones," with Pearl Bailey and Dorothy Dandridge, who in that title role became the first black to be nominated for the best actress Academy Award.

Also in the early 1950s, Elliott owned a Los Angeles restaurant.

She came to Las Vegas in 1954 and, after the Moulin Rouge closed, became a 21 dealer at the old El Morocco and Cotton Club, both located on Jackson Avenue in West Las Vegas.

"My mother saw back then how few job opportunities there were for black women and worked hard to change that," Sisson said, recalling Elliott's earliest interests in political activism.

In addition to her son, Elliott is survived by her daughter-in-law, Sandy Sisson; three grandchildren, Lori Lauth, Lon Sisson and Lyn Talbert; one great-grandchild, JaLon Sisson; and a cousin, Herron Elliott, all of Las Vegas.

She was preceded in death by a brother.