Filmmaker draws on her Las Vegas upbringing

Kimberley McGee

Friday, Nov. 17, 2000 | 9:47 a.m.

As a little girl, filmmaker Michelle M. Leddon dreamed of what the Las Vegas compound of entertainer Wayne Newton held behind its thick walls.

His large estate, Casa de Shenandoah, was a symbol of glamour and one man's dream come true.

"We would drive by that wall, and we were very, very poor, and I always imagined that this is Mr. Las Vegas, what's behind there," the 29-year-old Leddon said. "He is so involved with the community and has worked it and loves Las Vegas."

Almost as much, it would seem, as Leddon, a young director who uses Las Vegas as the backdrop for her upcoming film "Dealer Takes All," in which Newton plays a pivotal role.

"He was such a large part of my childhood. I remember seeing the image of him everywhere," said Leddon, who now lives in Brooklyn, N.Y. "It will be interesting to compare my myth with reality."

Leddon's film, to be completed by spring, is about one woman's daily struggle living in a trailer park with a dead-end job and a dependent mother. She enrolls in dealer's school to break out of her rut, but her overbearing mother and controlling instructor undermine her shaky confidence.

An encounter with Newton, who plays himself, offering encouraging advice to the floundering woman renews her goal to make a better life for herself.

Newton, who donated his time to the film, could not be reached for comment for this story.

Leddon's first film, 1999's "Utilities," is based on her own experiences growing up at the Silverado Mobile Home park in southeast Las Vegas. In the short film, a 10-year-old girl outwits the gas man for one more day of heat in the small trailer where she lives with her younger brother. The film will be screened at the CineVegas film festival at Paris Las Vegas this month.

Francisco Menendez, chairman of the UNLV Film Department, has followed Leddon's career from her days at UNLV as his student in the early '90s.

Leddon, who attended Eldorado High School, recently graduated with honors with a master's degree in fine arts in film at Columbia University in New York. She won the 2000 Polo Ralph Lauren Award for Development, as well as Best Screenplay, and she was selected by cable network Nickelodeon as Comedy Writer of 2000.

Her homegrown talent is an example of what Menendez has tried to accomplish during his 10 years with UNLV's film department.

"I'm proud of her," he said. "Everybody talks about making films in Nevada, but the only way to do that is to develop writers and producers from here."

Las Vegas is Leddon's location of choice not for its mystique, she said, but for the people who live in what strangers to the community may consider a fantasy land.

"(Film making), it's about the story, not what you know about lighting, but what's in your heart," she said. "There's just something about Las Vegas."

A question that frustrates Leddon, and one that she attempts to answer in her films, is, "What was it like to grow up in Las Vegas?"

"People thought we lived in a hotel or in tents behind the casinos," she said. "It is a real flesh-and-blood place. What people don't know about the real part of it, that's what I show."

Her past is her inspiration.

Leddon's mother, Dixie, moved to Las Vegas in 1978 with her five young children after divorcing her military husband of 14 years. She didn't want to go home to her family in Kansas and felt Las Vegas was a place she could make a living -- without being judged.

"She's a professional clown, unorthodox for someone from Kansas," Leddon said. "Las Vegas was a place she could be who she was without controversy."

The family scrambled for funds as their mother worked as a change girl at Jerry's Nugget, a truck stop and other minimum-wage jobs.

It wasn't easy.

Although the family car caught fire in the driveway and the Leddons moved sporadically from trailer parks to weekly motels, they stayed together and focused on the future.

"We had nothing," Leddon said. "But there was a community there that really affected me growing up."

Leddon remembers a particular act of kindness when money was tight.

A nun at St. Viator Catholic Church had a dream one night that a woman with five children had no food nor presents for Christmas. She looked within her congregation and found Leddon's mother fit that description, and was determined to wear the proud mother down and accept the church's offerings. The nun persevered and delivered Christmas to the family, trimmings and all.

"There were always little angels around us," Leddon said. "It's transient at times, but there's a spirit there (in Las Vegas) and I wouldn't be who I am today without those people doing those things for us."

Perseverance is a common theme in her body of work, a trait she said she learned from her hometown.

"That's the beauty of the city," Leddon said. "You can go there with nothing and make something of yourself."

Leddon's siblings have gone on to complete college and start careers and families of their own.

"(My mom) was able to instill values in us and," Leddon said, pausing for effect, "yes, it was in Las Vegas."

archive