Showgirl Reale remembered as loving mom

Monday, Oct. 25, 2004 | 8:47 a.m.

The children of 1950s Las Vegas showgirl Dusty Reale -- whose real name was Betty Jean Villareale -- used to boast that they had the prettiest mom of any students in their schools.

They said they were proud of their mom's years as a pioneering dancer at such fabled resorts as the El Rancho, Riviera, Desert Inn and Sahara.

And, despite working nights, she always found time during the days, they said, to attend their school functions and cook them meals -- albeit while wearing hot capri pants and sporting big fluffy hair and gobs of makeup.

Villareale, who performed as a background dancer for such artists as Frank Sinatra, Vic Damone, Danny Thomas, Red Buttons and Perry Como, died Oct. 19 from complications of a stroke. She was 76.

Services were earlier today for the Las Vegas resident of 55 years. Interment was in Palm Valley View Cemetery.

"I am always so proud to talk about what my mother did as a showgirl because she was a dancer in such a glamorous and special time in Las Vegas," said Amy Hardy of Las Vegas, a home health care provider.

"She loved Las Vegas and all of the growth, especially its cultural explosion of recent years. Sure she knew there were those who looked down on her profession as part of the old Sin City image. But it was what she did, she loved it and she made people happy when they came to see the show."

Daughter Laurie Kinner, of Fox Island, Wash., who works with special education children, said that while her mother was proud to be part of an industry that helped build the glittery international image of Las Vegas, she was more proud of her role as a mother of three.

"She loved her family and made sure she was always involved, whether we needed rides to places or she needed to scramble to find the money to pay for our tennis lessons," Kinner said.

And she did so, her children said, often in pain from neck and back problems attributed to her years of carrying the weight of awkward, heavy headdresses and sequin-ladened costumes on her 5-foot-4-inch, 106-pound frame.

Born Betty Jean McCants on Sept. 6, 1928, in Gulfport, Miss., she was the oldest daughter of nurse Mable McCants and her husband Robert McCants, who died when Betty Jean was 4, leaving the family impoverished.

Amy and Laurie said their mother developed a natural dancing talent early on, and, from ages 10 to 14, often was taken around the region by her mother to compete in talent shows, where $20 cash prizes at times got the family by.

At age 15, Betty Jean quit school, got a fake ID and went to work as a showgirl in New York City night clubs. At age 20, she went to Florida to work. There she met and married Joseph Villareale, a bartender.

The couple moved to Las Vegas in 1949 and he worked as a bartender at many of the resorts where she danced. A 1953 local magazine article dubbed them "the plankwalker and the hoofer."

Taking the name Dusty Reale, she went on the road to perform on the East Coast for the last time in 1951, appearing as one of the Beachcomber Lovelies backing up the legendary Lili St. Cyr at the Dade Boulevard Club in Miami and as a Copa Girl at New York's famed Copacabana.

She returned to Las Vegas and got a job in the chorus line at the El Rancho. As a showgirl, she also was a hostess at major pro golf tournaments in Las Vegas and did cheesecake pool photo shoots to promote Wilbur Clark's Desert Inn.

In the 1960s until her retirement in 1971, Villareale worked as a photo girl in the showroom at Caesars Palace.

At age 50, Villareale got her general education diploma and took psychology classes at UNLV. For many years, she taught catechism classes at St. Viator Catholic Church.

She also did volunteer work as a receptionist at Sunrise Hospital and she assisted children with special needs at Variety Day Care.

Villareale was a regular at local showgirl reunions, where in more recent times the conversations of yesteryear's stunning beauties focused on loneliness from losing husbands or their personal struggles battling cancer and other ailments, her children said.

Joseph Villareale died in 1999.

In her later years, Betty Jean Villareale enjoyed attending dance recitals of her 11-year-old granddaughter Madison. Kim said Madison often would ask grandma for dancing tips, including positioning of hands and feet and how to hold her head, hoping one day she might walk in her footsteps as a professional dancer.

In addition to her daughters and granddaughter, Villareale is survived by a son, Chris Villareale of Las Vegas, and five other grandchildren.