Socialite, artist Boyers dies at 87

Wednesday, Nov. 17, 2004 | 9:30 a.m.

Shirley Boyers came to Las Vegas in the 1940s, a time when there were few, if any, places displaying works of art.

An artist who worked in oils and created intricate beaded jewelry, Boyers opened a gallery in the Landmark hotel in the early 1960s. It was frequented by celebrities, including Dean Martin and Elvis Presley, both of whom were throat patients of her late husband, Dr. Sidney Boyers.

"My mother once gave Elvis two of her landscape oil paintings that hung for a while in his mansion (Graceland) in Memphis," said Dr. Jerry Boyers, who like his father is a Las Vegas otolaryngologist, or ear, nose and throat doctor. "Elvis gave my parents a white Mark IV Lincoln Continental."

Boyers also enjoyed being a Las Vegas socialite.

"She attended every gala opening of Strip hotels, buying new couturier gowns for each occasion," her daughter-in-law Roberta Boyers said.

Boyers, who also was long active in Democratic Party politics and Jewish charity work, died Nov. 1 in Coronado, Calif. She was 87. She was a Las Vegas resident for 49 years, from 1945 to 1963 and from 1967 to 1998, when she and her husband moved to Coronado.

Boyers' work as a painter included desert scenes of Red Rock Canyon and, in her later life, seascapes of Laguna Beach.

Her beaded horns and upscale jewelry have long sold in La Jolla, Calif. Two of her granddaughters continue making jewelry, using the method the family matriarch taught them, her family said.

Boyers was born Oct. 6, 1917, in Poland, one of eight children of an Orthodox rabbi. Her family moved to the United States when she was a child.

Boyers' family said as a youngster she was a tomboy who was as comfortable playing on the sidewalks of Manhattan as she was riding horses in Jackson Hole, Wyo.

Boyers served a term as president of the Temple Beth Sholom Sisterhood and being an active member of Hadassah.

In the 1970s she was a founding director of Clark County Community Corrections, which provided courts verified background on criminal defendants.

In addition to her son, Boyers is survived by three other sons, Brad Boyers and Martin Boyers, both of Las Vegas, and Steven Boyers of Santa Monica, Calif.; and six grandchildren.

The family said donations can be made to Temple Beth Sholom, 10700 Havenwood Lane, Las Vegas, NV 89135.