Inside the Crystal Bay Club Casino at Lake Tahoe, Nevada, 1960s

1966

A 34-year-old 21 dealer at a Crystal Bay Club Casino at Lake Tahoe slipped $100 worth of gambling chips into her bra each day for a week before getting caught.

Once busted, she accepted termination of employment there.

Sandra Giles

1956

The Fremont in Las Vegas commissioned a large oil painting that depicted a “lady of chance” to grace a wall in its casino.

The hotel’s press agent, Shelly Davis, asked aspiring actress Sandra Giles to pose for the piece for renowned artist, Philip Paval.

During the hotel’s grand opening, the piece of art was unveiled. It showed the voluptuous Giles nude, lying provocatively on her back with gambling chips scattered on and around her body.

“I don’t want to be a Marilyn Monroe! I want to be an actress. I didn’t pose that way! I wore a bathing suit,” the blonde 22-year-old yelled.

Giles slapped Paval then Davis. The painting’s debut had unexpectedly evolved into a jackpot for the roughly 100 news people there covering it.

Paval explained that, yes, Giles’ intimate body parts had been covered during the sitting, so he’d used his imagination and artistic license to render her naked.

An irate Giles sued the Fremont and Paval for $250,000, claiming she’d suffered “mental anguish” and “humiliation” when the picture was revealed.  She later claimed the attention she’d garnered from it led to her breakup with boyfriend, Harold Lloyd, Jr., a famous actor and singer.

The story was reported nationwide and even made the front page of the Los Angeles Times.

About three weeks later, the Fremont’s president, Ed Levinson, paid Giles $15,000 in silver dollars during a news conference as settlement. (Paval had received $2,500 for creating the piece.)

This outlandish sequence of events, though, had been a stunt that Davis dreamed up and staged and Giles, Paval and Levinson had been in on. This scoop came out years later in the brief biography, “From Hooker to Hollywood,” by Michael Piller.

Sources

1967 & 1970

Apparently, the beloved crooner had a temper, which he sometimes unleashed when casino operators denied him additional, excessive amounts of credit when gambling.

In one instance when Frank Sinatra lost control, he wound up losing two front teeth. That was in 1967, when he provoked a fight with Carl Cohen, the manager of the Sands in Las Vegas, Nevada, yelling obscenities at him and hurling a handful of chips into his face.

The 250-pound Cohen, who also got angry, punched the star in the mouth, knocking him to the floor. Sinatra tore up the hotel switchboard, drove a golf cart through a glass window and tried to call Howard Hughes, who’d just purchased the hotel.

It’s unclear what the kerfuffle was about. The media reported it was because Cohen closed the singer’s $200,000 (about $1.4 million in today’s dollars) line of credit. Others said it was related to Sinatra ending his 16-year professional relationship with the Sands and contracting with Caesars Palace instead. Maybe it was both. You’d think the dental consequences of that incident would’ve cured Sinatra of future behavioral eruptions, but they didn’t.

Tantrum Turned Assault

In 1970, Sinatra had just begun a three-week engagement at Caesars Palace when he got into an argument with Sanford Waterman, Caesars’ casino manager. Sinatra had been playing baccarat for $8,000 a hand at a table where the limit typically was $2,000. He asked Waterman to double the limit to $16,000 (about $98,000 in today’s dollars) and let him play on credit. Waterman refused.

Sinatra threw gambling chips, squeezed Waterman’s throat hard enough to leave marks and threatened, “The mob will take care of you.” In response, Waterman pulled a 0.38-caliber revolver from his waistband and pointed it at Sinatra, which ended the scuffle. But Sinatra cancelled the remainder of his scheduled performances at Caesars because, according to his spokesperson, Sinatra was suffering from exhaustion and a recent hand surgery. Sure.

Waterman was arrested but released, as law enforcement and the district attorney figured Sinatra had been the instigator. The local sheriff, Ralph Lamb, had enough of Ol’ Blue Eyes’ rudeness and antics.

“If Sinatra comes back to town Tuesday, he’s coming downtown to get a work card, and if he gives me any trouble, he’s going to jail,” Lamb said. “I’m tired of him intimidating waiters, waitresses, starting fires and throwing pies. He gets away with too much. He’s through picking on the little people in this town. Why the owners of the hotels put up with this I plan to find out.”

Sources

Caricature: “Frank Sinatra” by Andy McDougall, ©2013 / License