Friday, Aug. 5, 2005 | 11:01 a.m.
Mickey Miller enjoyed spinning yarns about his days as an art collector, culinary artist, lousy husband and failed business proprietor.
He told of serving Vice President Richard Nixon as a headwaiter and teaching Nixon's daughter Tricia how to twirl spaghetti on a spoon. He recalled working as a chef at the Chicago Playboy Club and being fired for having a romantic interlude with a Playboy bunny in an elevator that he had trapped between floors.
And Miller was self-deprecating, admitting his first four marriages combined lasted about one year, each ending in divorce. He was a self-admitted womanizer and alcoholic who boasted that he was sober the last 27 years of his life.
What Mickey Miller did not talk much about was being haunted by the horror he witnessed storming Guadalcanal as a Marine in 1942 or of his generosity that was evidenced by his purchases of paintings by homeless or disabled veterans. He displayed the paintings in his galleries in Florida, Arizona and Las Vegas.
But when Robert Burks "Mickey" Miller died July 13 in Las Vegas at age 81, he was as broke as the hundreds of starving artists he had helped.
He was so broke that, while his body sat in the freezer at Bunker's Mortuary, his paperwork was sent to Clark County Social Services to determine if he qualified to be buried in a pauper's grave.
In the meantime, a few loyal friends raised $1,000 to fulfill Miller's last wish -- to be cremated. Also, as the county was determining what to do with Miller's earthly remains, it was learned that in 1995 Miller had pre-registered with the Southern Nevada Veterans Memorial Cemetery in Boulder City.
Services and a free burial with full military honors are pending there.
"It does not surprise me that Bob died broke -- he just lived on the edge," said fellow veterans rights activist Frank Perna, a longtime friend. "He just enjoyed life.
"Bob helped a lot of people who did not realize just how much he had helped them. Many of the paintings he bought from disabled veterans had little or no economic value. But the money he gave them helped feed them and helped build their self-esteem."
Miller owned VIP Executive Art Gallery, operating stores in Bullhead City and in Las Vegas near Paradise Road and East Tropicana Avenue. Miller said in a May 22, 1995, Sun story that he lost $30,000 running his art shops.
Miller had trouble holding onto a buck, even though at times in his life he had considerable sums of cash. In Florida, he hit a lottery jackpot for $80,000.
But 10 years ago Miller began selling off his extensive art collection that included handmade jewelry boxes, oil paintings, bible and cookbook collections and 900-plus autographed 8-by-10 black-and-white photographs of famous people including presidents Nixon and Harry Truman, actors and sports figures.
"I don't need the money," Miller told the Sun in 1995. "I have enough to last me the rest of my life -- provided I die tomorrow morning."
Born Nov. 10, 1923, in Chicago, Miller served four years in the 1st Marine Division and was discharged in 1944. After the war, Miller went to the Institute of Contemporary Arts in Washington, D.C., to study acting. Mickey became his stage name, though close friends like Perna called him Bob.
During his lifetime, Miller said he lived in 78 cities in 15 states, but he knew his road would come to an end in Las Vegas.
"I'm gonna die here," he told the Sun in the 1995 story. "I've been fighting against coming to Vegas since I started traveling. I knew once I got here I'd stay."
Miller is survived by his fifth wife, Kathryn, of Las Vegas.
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