A Cut Above

Friday, Oct. 4, 2002 | 5:10 a.m.

WEEKEND EDITION: Oct. 6, 2002

Steve Cutler has been a passionate collector most of his life.

Combine that with his admiration of Las Vegas entertainers -- and the result is the Casino Legends Hall of Fame, a museum at Tropicana.

The latest group of inductees into the Hall of Fame includes Nelson Sardelli, Mafalda, Frankie Randall, Norm Crosby, Mamie Van Doren, Donald O'Connor and Lou Rawls. Their induction ceremony, which is by invitation only, is set for Friday.

The 51-year-old Cutler, a native of Santa Monica, Calif., recently discussed his museum and the upcoming Hall of Fame ceremony with the Sun.

Las Vegas Sun: Why did you feel a need to create a museum in the first place?

Steve Cutler: Without a past, there is no future.

Sun: When did you start your collection?

SC: I've always been a collector. When I was a kid I collected baseball cards before it became a big business. And I collected coins -- there was a newspaper article in California about me being the youngest coin dealer in the state.

I started collecting casino memorabilia in '72, before anyone saw any value in it. Now, casino collectibles is a huge hobby.

Sun: What got you interested in casino items?

SC: When I got off work I played poker. Every time I won I would save a chip from whatever casino I played in. But I didn't look at them as collectibles. It was kind of a piggy bank. But I ended up with a whole bunch of duplicates from several casinos. I used the duplicates to trade for others. I ended up putting together the largest collection of Nevada gaming chips in the world -- over 15,000 different ones. The largest behind mine is probably around 8,000 chips.

Sun: What about the rest of the items in your collection?

SC: As I started collecting the chips, I started collecting anything else that had a casino name on it -- photos, documents, whatever. I was just a collector. Over a 30-year period I have amassed over 100,000 items, from matchbooks to costumes.

Sun: How did your museum evolve?

SC: In 1994 I opened up the Nevada Gold Museum, a little tiny display at the Pioneer Club downtown, probably 500 square feet. It quickly became the only thing that brought anybody into the Pioneer, and I became aware people were really interested in this stuff. When the Pioneer Club closed about a year later, I made a presentation to the Hilton Corp. and we put together a traveling museum. Eventually it was was supposed to go to the Flamingo Hilton in Las Vegas, but they decided their space was better for slot machines or retail sales.

Sun: Where did you take it from there?

SC: In 1998 I took my museum idea to the Aztar Corp., which owned the Tropicana. They declined the Nevada Gold Museum idea so I went back to the drawing board to reinvent the museum and to turn it into something that would be of interest to everybody. That's when Jonathan Swain, who was then president and general manager of the Tropicana, and I came up with the Casino Legends Hall of Fame concept.

Sun: What was Swain's interest?

SC: Jonathan was looking for a way to get people into the Tropicana, and I was looking for a way to house my collection.

Sun: How did it do, initially?

SC: We created an institution -- that being the Hall of Fame itself, a place for those who made Las Vegas the entertainment and gaming capital of the world to be recognized.

Sun: How big is the museum?

SC: We have 5,200 square feet of display space. At any given time there will be 10,000 to 15,000 items on display. The displays constantly change.

The museum exhibits also recognize the builders and visionaries, people like Howard Hughes and Hank Greenspun. Another section is set aside for Las Vegas in the movies and another is an area for good guys, such as Grant Sawyer and Harry Reid. There is a section for famous gamblers, like Amarillo Slim, and another for showgirls and one for bad guys, like Bugsy Siegel.

Sun: How are the Hall of Fame inductees selected?

SC: We have a selection committee made up of Tropicana executives. But at some point in the near future, voting on inductees will be turned over to those who have already been inducted. Ultimately, we would like this to become the Las Vegas version of the Academy Awards.

Sun: You seem to honor a lot of lounge entertainers. Why?

SC: In the old days lounge entertainment was not considered secondary entertainment, as it is today. Back then it was just a different venue. Some of the greatest acts were in lounges -- Shecky Greene, Don Rickles, Wayne Newton.

Sun: Who were your first inductees?

SC: Among the first group were Kenny Rogers, the McGuire Sisters, Shecky Greene, Louis Prima and Sam Butera.

Sun: What are your hopes for the future?

SC: I truly believe we are creating an institution here, something that will be around 200 years from now.

archive