April 3, 2024 • 55 mins
In the second installment of our interview with the Las Vegas visionary, Steve Wynn opens up about how the Broadway musical South Pacific inspired him to take a half-billion-dollar gamble on The Mirage — a hotel that transformed The Strip — and why the first guests to check in were wild animals. He also reveals how an Italian trip with Paul helped inspire him to create the iconic Bellagio — and also looks back on the time he and Skip got epically pranked by the singer while visiting Prince Rainier of Monaco.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Our Way with yours truly Paul Anka and my buddy
Skip Bronson, is a production of iHeartRadio. Hi, folks, this
is Paul Anka.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
And my name is Skip Bronson.
Speaker 3 (00:16):
We've been friends for decades and we've decided to let
you in on our late night phone calls by starting
a new podcast.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
And welcome to Our Way. We'd like you to meet
some real good friends of ours.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
Your leaders in entertainment and.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
Sports, innovators in business and technology, and even a sitting
president or two.
Speaker 3 (00:35):
Join us as we ask the questions they've not been
asked before, tell it like it is, and even sing
a song or two.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
This is our podcast and we'll be doing it our way.
Speaker 4 (01:26):
Hey, what do you have to did you hear? Beyonce's
new album, Cowboy Tarter System came out this week.
Speaker 5 (01:31):
Yeah, everybody should be in the country music because I
think it's the tourist form of American music is country music.
I mean, I grew up on it back in Canada.
You know. It was just it's the greatest form that
we have that in jazz. But it's a great album.
The single's very very cool, and the Joelene they changed
the lyrics. I think she sings it with Dolly Partons.
Speaker 4 (01:51):
You know, it's just amazing. Isn't country music the number
one format now?
Speaker 3 (01:55):
I think so.
Speaker 5 (01:57):
I don't know the answer to that. I know that
it's a very important part of the whole mosaic of
music because it's not just country anymore. It's country pop.
It's got a little country R and B to it.
You've got, you know, a lot of the performers, the stars,
they've got the it. They're all glammed up. You never
saw that years ago. Beyond that story, the force today
(02:20):
in music for me, and she tops it off now
are women. There's a song out now by a girl
called Dasha and it's called Austin, and it's so real
and authentic. The way this girl sings it and the
way they've produced it. It's an amazing, amazing record. Dasha Austin.
(02:42):
You've got all these women who've come out now and
they've got stronger presents than the men.
Speaker 4 (02:46):
And talking about country. When you first started, wasn't rockabilly
that was sort of the precursor to rock and roll.
Speaker 5 (02:53):
Well, rockabilly started. There was a guy in England called
Lonnie Ganigan and I used to sing it as a kid.
It was that kind of music, the first of its kind,
and who tried to make it, Pops little rear. It
was Bobby Darren. Bobby Darren's first record on Decca was
Rock Island Line David Diggen When You Getting In and
(03:16):
it was exactly that. That was Darren's first record on Decca.
Of course after that he went rock and roll, But
you're right, that was probably one of the first. Ronnie
Donogan I think his name was a British artist.
Speaker 4 (03:27):
Huh, yeah, can you remember what you had for breakfast?
Speaker 5 (03:31):
Me? What's that? God? I don't know where I get
this from. Yeah, you know what? You know what I'm
excited about. Man. The response to our brother Steve, Steve
Winn for the rest of them. I can't believe the
response I got. How was it for you?
Speaker 2 (03:48):
Unbelievable?
Speaker 4 (03:49):
Got so many calls, texts? Yeah, people were you know.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
The stories.
Speaker 4 (03:53):
Look the guy, he's got great stories and is a
great storyteller.
Speaker 5 (03:58):
He's a wordsmith, you know the way he puts it
all together. And but you and I know that for years,
I think what would be cool? Do you want to
call him or do you want me to call him?
I think we should get him for one more episode.
Speaker 4 (04:12):
Yeah, no, it should because I want to get into
the design process. You've probably heard this. He does a
whole thing about how conflict and tension are so critical.
You know, when he first did the Mirage, a tropical
themed resort in the middle of a desert, like the
last thing you'd ever expect, And that's always been sort
of his thing. And I also know he always told
(04:32):
me that the movie South Pacific, you know, that really
inspired him. So it'd be fun to ask.
Speaker 2 (04:37):
Him about that.
Speaker 4 (04:38):
I think it'd be cool.
Speaker 5 (04:39):
Yeah, I think we should take a shot at him
and get him on again.
Speaker 2 (04:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (04:44):
And then also, we didn't have time to talk about
what you did to he and I and Monte Carlo,
which was cruel but funny.
Speaker 5 (04:54):
He didn't think it was so you didn't think it
was so funny.
Speaker 4 (04:57):
No, I didn't like it, all of it.
Speaker 5 (04:59):
Everybody, You'll never you you know what you want to
tell everybody? How do you guys? You've ever had an argument?
You and Skip? I said, you know what, We've never
ever had an argument because Skip is very, very very
smart and I'm always right.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
The perfect combination.
Speaker 5 (05:22):
There you go. Okay, let's let's take a shot at
let's get them.
Speaker 4 (05:27):
Yeah, let's do it. Okay, you remember what you had
for breakfast as well as you remember the rockabilities think thinking,
I'm thinking. So you always can remember everything, but you
can no longer guarantee same day delivery, right.
Speaker 5 (05:40):
No, I can't. It's very very eclectic day delivery are out.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
Here is not very well. I'll you.
Speaker 3 (05:57):
And look at the way you've changed everything. I mean
with the Mirage that was the first absolute game changer.
Was what seven hundred million dollars and changed everything with
the Mirage became a place where everybody had to see it.
It was a musty attraction. Didn't matter where they were staying,
if they were in Las Vegas, they had to come.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
It was the first three thousand room hotel on earth
in the.
Speaker 3 (06:20):
World, and a level of quality that had never been
seen in the town. And then with the Belagio getting
to the next level after that, in a town that
was known for no good places to eat and no
really no good shopping, turned it around to a place
that where Las Vegas became a culinary capital and where
(06:41):
every major retailer in America had to have an outpost
in Las Vegas. The changes you know, not to be
a sick event, but the changes that all stemmed from
your creative jo.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
It was like being a football team.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
He was the big dreamer that came in and change.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
I was I called a play I was like a quarterback. Yeah,
but we had we had all pro wide receivers and
running backs and the defensive and offensive line. The team
that got together. You know, once we started having good
taste and imagination, A lot of people with good tastes
and imagination want to join up, and you end up
(07:22):
with a gang, a really wonderful group. And it only
takes eight or nine people like that, maybe six or
eight people, and you got You got Gangbusters. It's great.
You can really go to town.
Speaker 3 (07:35):
But I would see you sitting in that design center
hour after hour, agonizing over the font for the men's
room sign, sitting originally with Joel Bergman and then later
the writer Butler.
Speaker 2 (07:48):
That's right.
Speaker 3 (07:48):
I never really thought of you. This is going to
sound funny. I never really thought of you as a
developer in the true sense of the word, because a
developer is a guy that has to go out and
get the entitlements, the right to build all that. You
were a designer. You had this vision where you had
your imagination that big. Yeah, no one could compare, and
you changed the town. You totally changed the town. And
(08:11):
then everybody else when you up to your game, you
forced the other operators in town to up their game.
That's the reason they did it because they had to
otherwise they would just get taken under by this tsunami
that you had created. So everybody then had to do
something great, and.
Speaker 1 (08:27):
They sat by thinking he was never going to make it.
Speaker 2 (08:30):
No, it wasn't that easy, no question. If you guys
look and people listening to this conversation, you think of
modern Las Vegas with all of the massive developments up
and down the strip. Some of them are part of
Blage and Mirage and win resorts. I think we did
five of them. But I can tell you the moment
(08:52):
there actually was a moment where modern Las Vegas was born,
like a like a big bang theory of the universe.
I can track it to the to a two day period.
You know, it was what it was up until you know,
we did a great job downtown and we made money
in the Atlantic cities, sold it and came home and
(09:14):
we got our hands on the property that is now
Treasure Outland and Blajio and Mirage, and we had money
from that we had made by selling the Atlantic City Place,
and I bought the property from Howard Hughes's nephew that
was Hughes's and now we were on our way. With
(09:35):
the help of Mike Milkin and Trexel Burnham, we could
design a new hotel. And there were hotels that had
fifteen hundred rooms, the Hilton and MGM. It was big hotels,
fifteen hundred rooms and they had and Caesar's Palace had
twelve hundred rooms. And the Hilton was convention business. MGM
(09:57):
was touring travel and slot machines. Caesar's Palace was big fights,
glamorous entertainment, you know, the next generation after the Sands.
And although they had twelve hundred rooms, they made more
money than the other two. But each of these three
programs was different. I came up with the idea with
my colleagues that we were going to build a three
(10:18):
thousand room hotel. We were going to have the glamour
and the fanciness and the imagination of Caesar's Roman theme.
We're going to do tropical, but we were going to
have convention space like Hilton. We're gonna have the amount
of rooms in the shops of an MGM. We're going
to combine all three ideas in a modern hotel. And
(10:38):
that was a town where no one had ever spent
more than one hundred million or sixty million to build anything,
and we were going to spend north of a half
a billion, six hundred and fifty million dollars. And we
had some money from New Jersey. We had a couple
hundred million that we had made, and we're going to
borrow money from Drexel Burnham. And we just sat down
(10:59):
and decided how to I remember, I remember I had
a two seater Mercedes two EIGHTYSL that was powder blue,
and we had just finished by in the land and
it was time to start dreaming up the Golden Nugget
Strip Hotel. We didn't ever mirage name yet and I
took it was a beautiful day, and I drove out
(11:21):
to the Sands, which was across the street, the original Sands,
and I knew the Valet Parkers for several years. This
I stave as I can, I park my car right
here by the sidewalk. The Porkershire came out and the
column that held up the end of the porkersheare was
right next to the sidewalk, and I pulled in and
I parked next to the column that was next close
(11:45):
to the sidewalk, and I got out of the car
and I sat The top was down, and I sat
on the left front hood above the headlight, my feet
on the ground, my butt against the car, looking across
the street at the property that I had just closed on,
which included a Castaways motel that was closed there wasn't
(12:07):
have to be torn down, some empty property, and then
two service stations, a souvenir joint, a budget renner car,
and a home owned by a woman named Bracy Hayes
that was in an old folks home. But she had
owned that house and for some reason preserved it and
the Hughes people could never get their hands on it.
(12:29):
But they did own the empty land and they owned
the Castaways, and I had bought that from Howard Hughes's nephew.
And I'm sitting on the car, my arms crossed on
my chest on the hood, saying what are we going
to do? Okay, here you are. You got a big
fat strip location. Turns out to be big enough for
(12:50):
two hotels. But what are you going to do? Perfect
pristine moment? Now, what you're gonna do? The night before
I had been watching Johnny Carson before I went to bed,
lay in bed and watch Johnny Carson, and he had
Neil Simon on as a guest that wrote all those
great comedies. And he said to Neil Simon, how do
(13:13):
you how do you make how do you why do
you write that humor? How do you write that comedy? Neil?
And Neil Simon was like mister Rogers, he was very
prefatorial kind of izers. Well, Johnny, I look for conflict
because the tension created by conflict gives you a rise
for humor and of course tragedy as well. And going
(13:37):
to bed saying yeah, tension, conflict creates tension. What you're seeing,
what you what's your mind tells you're looking at? I
went to sleep. And I's always been a nut about
Broadway musicals, and I love South Pacific, and I had
seen the movie South Pacific. And in the movie South Pacific,
(14:01):
Lieutenant Cable lands on the island on his mission and
he's walking up the beach. He bumps into Bloody Mary
played by Juanita Hall, and she sees this handsome lieutenant.
She calls him lieutenant and thinks he's handsome, and he says, hello, Lieutenant,
you're very handsome. And he says hello, and she says,
(14:25):
I'm a bloody Mary. And she's a Tunkanese, heavy set,
you know, pear shaped woman, not very attractive. And she's
decided that she wants to fix up Lieutenant Lieutenant Cable
with her daughter, who's over on a neighboring island called
bally High. And she said, Lieutenant, you'll see this bally High,
(14:47):
very beautiful. You could go there, I take you. He's
there in a mission to fight the Japanese. This a
World War two movie. And then in order to wh
she says to him, look look at bally High, a
little talent look island of dreams. And she sings, come
(15:11):
to me, bally High, bally High, your island dreams or whatever.
He just starts singing the beautiful song from South Pacific
called your own special island, bally High. And as as
she's singing this beautiful song with full orchestration, you see
this gorgeous island a mile or two away, And the
(15:34):
director Josh logan used too many orange filters, so it
almost this sultry red heat of the afternoon makes it
look like it's almost on fire. It's beautiful with this
beautiful song. Come to me, Bally Eye. And for some reason,
I'm sitting on that damn Mercedes hood and I'm looking
(15:57):
at the castaways and and the thing from from Doc
you know, from the Night Before from Johnny Carson Show.
I say, Bali Eye a dream, Isle of dreams. Suppose
(16:20):
what you see with your eyes is in complete contradiction
of what your brain. This is the harsh Southern about
a desert. Hardly anything grows here. It's cold in the winter,
it's one hundred and seventeen in the heat in the summer.
Suppose you saw BALIHI suppose you saw a tropical paradise
(16:42):
South Pacific. And I swear I heard one ay to
Hall's voice in my ear. It'said a tropical hotel with
an adream. You could see through the glass the conflict.
If you stood on a strip and you saw waterfalls
like in the and like in the South Pacific movie,
(17:03):
with coconut palms and elephant ears and banana trees, you'd say,
wait a minute, this is not supposed to be here.
This is wrong. The conflict between which your brain saw
and which you thought should be there would create the tension.
(17:23):
And I said to myself, people would say, we got
to go inside and see what this place is all about.
And at that moment is when I dreamt up the
Mirage and went and told my colleagues, and everybody got
into it, and all but everybody started coming up with
great ideas, and the Mirage got designed, and we're spending
six hundred and fifty million, and the Wall Street Journal
(17:46):
and the Forbes magazine and our competitors up and down
the strip said, ah, the six hundred and fifty million.
His overhead's going to be a million dollars a day.
He'll never make it because nobody had an overhead like that.
There used to be two three hundred thous in expenses
a day. We actually were going to be a million
one a day. And they wrote articles that the Mirage
(18:09):
was going to be the great bankruptcy. But it also
is a question, is the demand for Las Vegas so
elastic that that could happen? Are we all living in
an era where small was good, But the world has
moved past us is Las Vegas the kind of place
(18:32):
you can invest a half a billion or a billion dollars.
When we first showed the model of Mirage at the
Golden Nugget downtown, it was called the Golden Nugget Strip property.
I said, when this place gets built. We had a
press conference and it's on tape. When this place is
built in three years, its most famous contribution will not
(18:56):
be that it's a great place it makes money. It will,
but it's going to show the world that Las Vegas
can take that kind of money and the demand for
Las Vegas is elastic that it won't scavenge the other
hotels that'll bring more people to Las Vegas. And I
did go on record at the opening reveal of the
model downtown at the Golden Nugget that that's what I
(19:19):
thought would happen. Well, as I say, they watched it
go up, massive place on sixty acres eighty acres, and
the whole world was it'll never make it. The overhead,
the word got out that it was going to be
a million over a million dollars a day to break even,
seven days a week, three hundred and sixty five days
(19:40):
a year. Well, the time came The opening was November
twenty second Wednesday, the anniversary of Kennedy's assassination. Actually nineteen
eighty nine. November twenty second noon on a Wednesday was
going to be the opening. We were going to reveal
nobody was allowed in accept workmen in this and the
people hired, but there was an idea that something extraordinary
(20:05):
was in this building that was done at a scale
it was different. A whole bunch of us had done
our best work there. Really talented people contributed to making
that place what it was. Plus we had Sigfried and
Roy and white tigers and elephants. Well, we had the
street roped off, and the press was that we're going
(20:27):
to have a secret We're going to open the hotel
by checking in our first secret guest to the hotel.
And they had ropes down on the sidewalk so you
couldn't come up the driveway, and we had the cameras
there and the governor and other VIPs. Mike Milkan was there.
We were going to welcome the first check in mystery guest,
(20:51):
and then we were going to open up the drop
the barricades and let them come. And here's what happened.
A rolls Royce pulled up convertible with Siegfried and roy
in the front seat and two white tigers in the
back seat, and they got out of the car with
(21:12):
Acbarkabul and Neva, two giant white tigers with leashes, and
walked into the hotel, shook hands with us and took
the animals into there that no one knew if we
had them on display, and we welcomed our new guests.
We're two white tigers. And then I had a handheld
(21:36):
mic and I said, security opened the gates, dropped the ropes. Well,
the governor, Mike Milkan, and I and David Hersey, who
had been the landscape architect that did all the trees
in front and all the waterfall. They ran from both driveways,
you know, it was a circular driveway. In the lead
(21:57):
were young kids that could run, asked, but there were
tens of thousands of people all the way up the strip,
and they came running and we were right in the middle,
and I said, oh my god, they're not going to stop.
But they had also roped off. We were standing, and
they got to the rope and they all just stopped
so we could make remarks. But for a second we
(22:19):
thought we were going to get trampled. Well, seventy thousand
people went through the hotel the first day. It was awful.
You couldn't move. Women came with strollers. It was I stopped.
I stopped the strollers after the first day. But seventy
thousand people the first twenty four hours. Now Wall Street
and the financial community wouldn't know if if we're the
(22:42):
last week in November, we're going to have a short
report for the end of the year, and then we'll
publish those earnings at the end of January, no one's
going to know anything about numbers or financial success or not.
But in Las Vegas the night that the opened on
Wednesday night, by midday on Thursday, every executive at every
(23:07):
one of the other properties on the strip knew everything
about the Mirage. Number one food and beverage guys talked
to other food and beverage guys. Casino executives talk to
other casino executives. You know, the hotel guy talks to
the other hotel guy. So they're all talking to each other,
these pals that work at these different hotels. They're saying
(23:29):
every room is booked, that we every room has been
booked for almost thirty days already the prices are one
hundred and fifty dollars a day more than we thought.
You can't get a space of a slot machine. The
crap tables are overrun. And everybody in the business in
Las Vegas knew within twenty four hours that Las Vegas
(23:53):
had turned the corner and that if you build it,
they would come. The Mirage did that, and within a
week the price of real estate, the adjacent lands on
every hotel had doubled because every one of those CEOs
up and down the street knew that they had to
expand that the Mirage was going to take it away
(24:17):
from him, or the Mirage was going to show that
there was so much money left on the table. If
you built it in Las Vegas, the world would show up.
And the Mirage actually had the market grow by twenty percent.
One hotel did that. We were supposed to make a
hundred you know, we lose money or go broke, but
our own numbers showed that we'd make one hundred and
(24:39):
forty to one hundred and sixty million dollars on the
six hundred and fifty million dollar investment. Pretty fancy. We
went right to two hundred and twenty five million. The
world loved it, and it was the late eighties early
nineties when the Japanese were in the country. So Mirage
opened up just at the right time, just the right
(25:00):
moment in the history of Las Vegas, for Las Vegas
to take its next step. If it hadn't been me
and my crowd, my game, it would have been someone else.
But we were at the right place at the right time,
and that was the moment. The modern Las Vegas was
born in the last week in November of nineteen eighty nine,
(25:21):
and during the nineteen nineties, four billion was spent and
the town lent from eighteen thousand rooms to one hundred
and fifty forty thousand rooms in ten years. And between
nineteen seventy two and nineteen eighty nine, nothing but the
Mirage had been built. And then in the next eight
years it culminated with we did Treasure Island three thousand rooms,
(25:47):
we did Blagio three thousand rooms, but so did the
other guys, and that's how what you see in Las
Vegas today came about. But there were seventeen years where nothing.
Speaker 3 (26:11):
In the past year, probably the most dynamic thing to
happen in Las Vegas was the F one race this
past fall, and of super and in the nineteen nineties,
the mid nineteen nineties, you, Paul Ank and I went
to Monte Carlo because you had an idea.
Speaker 2 (26:30):
Terrible thing you did, Paul.
Speaker 3 (26:31):
You had you had an idea to bring the F
one to Las Vegas and you wanted to have if
you recall, the finish line was going to be the
port Coashier.
Speaker 2 (26:41):
You're going to come up and make of the Bolagio
like when you go through the town in money.
Speaker 3 (26:45):
And we got we got on on the plane and
we went there and you at that time were very
interested in having an audience with Prince Renier to talk
to him about their casinis, their gaming.
Speaker 2 (26:59):
And Paul he asked to see us because yeah, yeah,
he had come and stayed at them.
Speaker 3 (27:04):
At Paul will let you pick up Bobby.
Speaker 2 (27:08):
There was three of us that when.
Speaker 1 (27:11):
I think Bobby went, we stayed at the Hotel de Peri.
Speaker 2 (27:15):
For the audience to say Bobby Baldwin was one of
the key executives that ran our business.
Speaker 1 (27:20):
You know, and we go over and we're being treated royally. Obviously,
everybody's happy. Steve is there we're looking forward to meeting
with Bernie Ecklestone.
Speaker 2 (27:33):
I think the guy who owned them had given us
his suite at the hotel.
Speaker 1 (27:38):
The hotel and I was sitting around one day and
I'm saying, okay, this is a little too quiet for me.
We're waiting to go to the events. We'd already gone
around the track with schu Macher. Remember he put us
in the car. So we did our thing. So I
picked up the phone and I called up.
Speaker 2 (27:59):
Treacherous sent them.
Speaker 1 (28:00):
I called up Skip, this is mister Bronson, This is
Henry L. Lewis over at the palace. We are honored
that you are here with us, you and mister Vinn,
and we wanted to just let you know that the
Prince is very interested in meeting mister Vinn over here
(28:22):
at a private, private, little meeting before the cocktail, before
the cocktail party. And I said, it's very important that
he'd be here at five point thirty, but in a tuxedo.
He must be in a tux.
Speaker 2 (28:34):
Sedo explained that when they had the Grand Prix, Prince
Reinier would have a big cocktail party up at the
palace on the night before the race, and it was
a big thing to get invited, right, But that was
that from six thirty to eight or nine.
Speaker 1 (28:49):
And the meeting was to be before and this for
the cocktail party.
Speaker 2 (28:53):
The manager, the chief of staff of Prince Reinier calls up,
going to be but skip catch the call, says the Prince.
He called skip on purpose. The Prince wants to have
a private meeting very important with mister Wynn at five
point thirty before the big cocktail party, and he'd like
(29:13):
him to come in a tuxedo. Correct, please be at
the palace at five thirty, Prince Rainier, I would like
to talk to him, mister Winn and skip.
Speaker 1 (29:20):
You turned him down. He turned me down.
Speaker 2 (29:23):
That's not possible, And I said, he puts on this accent.
Speaker 1 (29:27):
I put my French action.
Speaker 2 (29:28):
Jacques Jacques said, do I'll even tell you the name
you use. This is Jacques said, with the French accent,
the chief of staff of the palace for Prince Rainier.
Speaker 3 (29:38):
And I said, you know, mister Wynn has some vision issues,
so I'm going to have to be with him. And
they said no, no, no, no, that's not possible. He's going
to have to be here. It's it's going to be
one on one. It's going to be Regner and mister
Wynn and no one else, No one else can be
with him. I'm thinking, well, why is that. Well, we
have very special protocol and already, so I called Paul
(30:04):
and I said, Paul, you're ready for this. There's going
to be a meeting. Steve's going to have a meeting
of one on one with Prince Renier. And Paul says,
you're kidding. It's fantastic. And I walked down the room
the hall to Steve's sweet and Steve's in there. He's
putting his tuxedo on. He's getting all ready, the whole thing.
No tuxedo, I said, I better check and make sure
(30:25):
you know. I was on the bed in my underwear. No,
but you were getting ready to get dressed up. So
I called over to the palace just to make sure
everything was going to be coordinated properly. And they said,
there's no one here by that name. And I said, well,
that's not possible.
Speaker 2 (30:40):
He called.
Speaker 3 (30:41):
I spoke to him myself, Well no, that's not possible,
and we don't know anything about any meeting. There isn't
I said, what, No, No, you're not listening you're obviously
not in the loop. This has been arranged, it's all
been coordinated. Everything he's been taken care of. You don't
know who the chief of staff is. Connect it is
someone who does exactly.
Speaker 1 (31:03):
Meanwhile, I run the Steve's room because I figured this
has gone too far and you walk in.
Speaker 2 (31:09):
Before they gets off. He gets in an argument with
the oppers. If you don't know who it is, I
want to speak to the cheapest staff, Jacques the do
I've spoken to him. Now put someone on who does
know what's going on there. The operator is obviously intimidated.
It works at the palace. Click click, ring ring, hello, Hello, my,
I'm just get Brian word from mister with mister Wynn
(31:31):
and we're supposed to have this meeting. We're meeting the
chief of staff for the Prince Rainier speak a five
point thirty and I need to get some I need
to communicate on behalf of mister Wynn. H to the
chiefest staff, Jacques sad silence of one counter. I am
the chief of staff of Prince Regnier and there is
(31:54):
no such person as Jacques said, do in the palace.
Speaker 4 (31:59):
Now.
Speaker 2 (31:59):
This guy is a British naval officer with a straight back,
no sense of humor, and he must deal with screwballs
all the time protecting his boss. And he doesn't like
this phone call. And he tells Skip hisses at him.
Speaker 3 (32:17):
Did he hang up on your did you? He's furious that,
so I called Paul to tell him what had happened.
Speaker 1 (32:23):
Well, you could know. First I went over to Steve's room.
Speaker 2 (32:26):
He's with me.
Speaker 1 (32:26):
I had decide to mend this again. Right you walked in,
I'm there with him about to tell me you were
on the phone with Elaine. As you walk in, Steve,
I just want to let you know I spoke to
the palace. I got this guy blah blah blah blah.
He didn't get it, and I told him you're not
in the loop, so don't worry. I straightened it out.
(32:48):
Right now, I'm saying, Skiff, there ain't no meeting. I'm
sudou forget about it.
Speaker 2 (32:56):
His host, Skip runs and takes a look at Anka.
I think maybe Paul's life is in danger because he
had just made such a horse's ass of himself. Well,
and you're telling me, yeah, I'm on the phone with
my wife, Paul. Paul says, it's got a guilty look
(33:16):
in his face that maybe this one spun out of control.
This ain't like the Chipriani, this was well, there was
indeed a cocktail party at the palace and we were
indeed invited, and Renier was looking for us. And we
end up by the buffet, myself and Paul with Prince
(33:38):
Renner on this beautiful Saturday night or whatever night it
was Friday night and having drinks in the open courtyard
that was beautiful, and Skip walks up and in a
few minutes I start to tell the story, and a
(34:01):
guy walks up about six to one, sort of sway back,
you know, real straight, you know, his back, very British
looking with the dark suit and the full windsor tie.
Humorless looking guy like a security garden. Mister Win his
chief of staff. Ah, And I say, you know, we're
(34:27):
we're having a giggle for a but a very embarrassing thing.
We are an apology. But the superstar or whatever it
decided to have some fun poor mister and played that
practical joke that caused him to make the call. And
Reinier and I we lay out what exactly what Paul
(34:47):
had done, and Rainier is lapping it up and starts laughing.
This guy has a face like ice, like rock ice season,
not even not even a curl of a lip. Dead quiet.
He glares that the three of us like what kind
of jerks are you guys? And walks away. He did
(35:11):
not get the joke, did Yeah?
Speaker 1 (35:19):
Till the end of that story, though, Steve, you meet
with Bernie. You're bringing it to Vegas. This guy's all
teed up and he flies in to meet you in Vegas,
and everybody's in.
Speaker 2 (35:29):
The US into the office with six people.
Speaker 1 (35:30):
And meanwhile you got the new shepherd. I ax, I
think it was.
Speaker 2 (35:34):
Rumbus, and I know it was. It was Ramas.
Speaker 1 (35:37):
Okay, So now here's the scene. Everyone's in the office.
You're getting ready to start this meeting with Bernie, who's
flown all the way in. He leans over.
Speaker 2 (35:46):
On his way to the Melbourne Grand.
Speaker 1 (35:48):
Prix, and he leans over to pet your duck.
Speaker 2 (35:51):
Grab somebody ears right, and what happened the dog? There's
all these people come in and he reaches down and
grabs Rambus by his two ears. Ramas doesn't get it
and snaps and takes off the nose of his nose,
the top from his bridge of his nose down to
the tip about a half inch wide. A strip, but
(36:12):
I mean a strip. He stripped it off.
Speaker 3 (36:14):
The blood shot all over and there was something I
could look like there was a mass murder in there.
Speaker 2 (36:19):
They had a rush into a plastic surgeon. Guy had
never been in a hospital out of his life. Bernie Ecklestone.
He had a big nose. But we should have done
a whole nose job. But they took him behind his
right ear and made a skin graft. But in order
for it to work, the skin hasked. The part that
you patch that you put on top has to be
(36:39):
held down so to be a blood supply. So what
they do is they take a gauze and double it
up and make a pressure bandage, and then they stitch
threw the skin of his nose over the top of
the gauze two loops and tie it down. Now, this
piece of gauze one inch long and about a half
inch or tree cores an inch wide is sewn to
(37:01):
the top of his nose, and of course it's bloodstoked,
so pretty soon it turns brown. But it's stitched to
his face and has to stay there for ten days,
so that the skin graft will take instantly. It worked perfectly,
but he had to go to the Melbourne Ground Prix
with a great big piece of gauze sewn on the
top of his nose. Poor guy.
Speaker 1 (37:21):
A year later we go and visit him in London.
I said, God, you look good. That nose is the
best looking nose for a dollar. And then we're over
there seeing fay Ed because now you are into Belago
and we were touring Europe. Right, we're meeting everybody. We're
going around everywhere trying to.
Speaker 2 (37:40):
Spend three radio programs about your dirty tricks, practical joke.
Speaker 1 (37:45):
What was cool? The bolage was called Bauabash, right yep.
And we're floating around you all to Italy. We're staying
in Italy at the Villadesta, at the Villadest and in
the middle of like Como, which is shaped like the
letter Y.
Speaker 2 (38:04):
So when it splits, and it's like why upside down,
So this part that goes north then it splits like
a letter y almost ninety degrees and there's two sides,
but in the middle it to split is land and
that's the town of Blagio and it's a beautiful old town.
(38:25):
And a friend had a boat gil Nichols. Gil Nichols
had rented a house and brought his antique chriscraft to
Lake Como for the summer. And he came to the
villa to st and picked up an Anka and Elaine
and I and we went for lunch at Plagio. And
(38:47):
we're coming back at about five miles an hour in
the criscraft on this gorgeous July day. And I said,
what a pretty word Belagio is. There's also a street
in Beverly Hill called Bolagio, where the bel Air Country
Club is. I said, what a mellifluous word, Belagio. I
wonder what it means in Italian. Well, Paul's wife Annie
(39:13):
had in her purse one of those Italian English dictionaries
that you can put in your purse when you're traveling
and the boat's going along, put put putt, and ann
Ankus says, listen to this Belagio. Whether it was the
town or the words, she says, she got the book
a place of elegant relaxation. And Paul and everybody in
(39:36):
the boat goes, ooh, what a good name for hotel.
Speaker 5 (39:40):
Ooh.
Speaker 2 (39:42):
And we were halfway back to the Villa de Esk
and we were going to call the hotel in Las
Vegas beau Ravage, which is pretty riverside or watershore beau Ravage,
and we said, whoa, And we agreed on the boat
that the noon name for the Strip hotel was not
going to be beau Ravage. It was it was halfway finished,
(40:05):
was going to be Blagio, and we'd use beau Ravage
as the name of the other hotel. We're a building
at the same time with two thousand rooms in Biloxi, Mississippi,
and on the spot, because of his wife, we changed
from beau Ravage to Belagio and used beau Ravage in Mississippi. Well,
(40:27):
it got famous with the fountains and all that stuff.
And we got a letter from the mayor and the
city council of Belagio, Italy. Dear mister Wynn, we are
so proud that you named your hotel after our town.
And so this is a proclamation designating Blagio, Las Vegas
as a sister city of Blagio, Italy.
Speaker 3 (40:49):
Always going to talk about what happened when you first created,
Sir the sole at the tent behind the mirage, and
people couldn't relate to the fact that this was a
circuit us without animals, and you know, people weren't really coming.
And we were sitting at a board meeting, our small
Mirage Resorts board and you clapped your hands and said
(41:11):
taxi cabs. And we all looked at you, like, what
what are you talking about? Taxi cabs? We're talking about why,
you know, we don't have enough enough people excited about
coming to see this circus. And you said, what's the
first thing that happens when people flying to Las Vegas,
they get in a taxi cab and they say to
the cab driver, Hey, what's a you know, what's good
to see here in town? And I want to invite
(41:33):
all the taxi drivers in Las Vegas to bring their
families to come, no charge for anything and see the show.
Speaker 2 (41:42):
And get a dinner, get dinner, and get a dinner.
Speaker 3 (41:46):
Right, And they came, and they got so excited, and
when people started coming to town, they started talking up.
Speaker 1 (41:53):
People went all the way back to the sixties cab drivers.
Speaker 2 (41:56):
You know, we we went to an extreme with that
when we built Wind deliberately decided to take it to
another level. When you came off the strip. You know,
cabs line up in order to be called by the
doorman to pick up the next fair Well, guys are
(42:21):
driving all the time. They need to take a leak,
they needed, they want to get a drink, don't carry
some in the front water or something. They have a cooler.
So when we designed the wind and Encore, we put
special ramps that went underground before you came up on
(42:43):
the portkachhere and when you went underground there were two
lanes and on the left there was a little alcove
and there were vending machines and a men's and ladies room,
and all of the cart tunes and the decorations were
about hacks and cab drivers. And then at Encore we
(43:06):
went even further. We had the Ferrari thing going and
we were doing business with Roger Penske, and Roger invited
Mark and I to the you know the race on
Memorial Day and we got to walk out while they
were on the ready to start, you know, out on
(43:26):
the lined up. I thought it was so exciting when
you're in the pits to hear all the engines rivving
as they're on the lines, you know and rows. And
I said to Roger, can we get someone to photograph
as if you're sitting in the driver's seat of your
car and you take a picture of the people on
your right and the people on your left. He said, sure,
(43:51):
or just the people on your right. And someone went
and did that at one of the races of the
Indye cars, and we had them blown up and we
made these things that would stick to the wall. We
made tile walls in the tunnel and when you went
in your car and you pulled in, because then you
(44:12):
went up or ramped right into the porkishere and there
was room for like five six cars in this tunnel.
The walls had the drivers as if you were looking
to the right at other cars on the line, and
we recorded the music the sound of the cars, and
we played it on an overhead speaker, so the guys
(44:35):
would come down. They'd be sitting the car and they
looked to the right and hear the sounding to see
the cars all in color at life size on this
mile our tape that we made these things that go
on the wall, and you know, we decorated the wall
at life size like you were looking at a rows
of cars on your right, and we had nice vending
(44:55):
machines and really clean bathrooms. We kissed up to the
and then we invite all the cab drivers in Las
Vegas when the wind opened to have a free room,
one night, free room. The hotel was just for the
cab drivers. Just before we opened two days, all the
(45:18):
cab drivers and their wives a show and dinner and
a room and they could get massages. How could they
know to explain the hotel if they hadn't experienced it.
And you know, they got all dressed up, and the
wives would come and say, almost win. And the husbands
they were so grateful, you'd think them as sort of salty.
(45:40):
They weren't. No one's ever done as we love it.
We own the cab drivers. And it's true even today.
Do you miss it? You miss the data. I wouldn't
take it if I could have the whole thing for
a buck. As God is my judge on my wife's life,
I wouldn't go to Las Vegas if he gave me
the whole town for a because to art work, boring crowds,
(46:07):
twenty four to seven, payroll problems, the design, the competition,
the credit, the government, the whole idea of keeping the
place a sharp stay on top of it. Been there,
done that, Oh yeah, fifty one years. I didn't realize
what a tunnel I was in. I got up, did
(46:29):
it twelve fourteen hours, went to bed, and got up
and did it again. I even lived in a hotel.
Speaker 1 (46:46):
When did you fall in love with the whole art thing?
Because I took the first trip with you to Japan
when we went to I think Tokyo, that was our
first trip with Bill Ackuaveella.
Speaker 2 (46:55):
Well, the question was, how does Blagio trump Mirage Baldwin.
Baldwin didn't want to build another hotel. It'll scavenge the Mirage.
We already had the top hotel. Why do you want
to build another one? I said, well, someone's going to
build a better hotel than Mirage, because you know, it
had a one hundred and sixty foot bathroom, you know,
(47:17):
a shower tub, one shower in the tub together, an
open toilet and a single sink about one hundred and
sixty feet. But in a four or five star hotel
you have to have two sinks. You have a separate toilet,
I mean a separate shower, a separate tub, and the
toilet should be enclosed or at least be roomy enough,
(47:41):
and we had We had a fabulous public area and
casino and showroom and all that, and volcanoes and dolphins
and tigers, but we had really a three star bedroom.
The sweets were gorgeous, but the twenty seven hundred regular
(48:02):
rooms were three star. The three hundred sweets were another story.
And I said to my pals, I said, look, someone's
going to build a better hotel than us, and we'll
be second. If we build it, then we could be
(48:23):
first and second. Bobby wasn't real impress but he was conservative,
but I wanted to do it. And we bought the
dunes for four hundred thousand an acre seventy million dollars,
but then they had to close at which cost him
five We really only paid sixty five million for one
(48:46):
hundred and sixty six acres plus water rights pre nineteen
fifty y five water rights so we could build a lake.
It was against the law to do that because you
couldn't use city water for lakes, but if you had
private water rights. The predated nineteen fifty five, there were
only two places on a strip that had private water rights,
(49:09):
the dunes seven hundred acre feet and the desert in
one thousand acre feet. Both companies that built golf courses
in the early fifties, and they had built when the
desert didn't built the water rights. When the desert inn't
built the homes that were around the desert In, there
(49:31):
was no water service there in the county. So in
order to build the golf course and the homes on
the golf course, the desert In guys Mo dalits and
those guys had to find there had to dig wells
and create a utility, the desert In Water Company, and
it went under this authority of the Public Service Commission
(49:56):
like the regular water company. When I we bought the
dunes the desert In in nineteen two thousand, I got
the water company with it, and then we bought the houses.
We got the the state Engineer and the State of
Nevada to say that we no longer were required to
(50:19):
comply with the Public Service Commission the State of Nevada
because there were no more homes that we were servicing.
The dunes had water rights. So I wanted to buy
the dunes, and they wanted to sell that it was
in bankruptcy, and and my argument to my colleagues was
(50:39):
that if we've got money. Now we built all these hotels.
We're now a bigger company. We could we could build
the greatest hotel in the world where the dunes was
to kill you an idea. How desperate we were to
make sure that was true. We built an eight and
(51:00):
a half acre lake with twenty three million gallons of water,
the fountains of Belagio on the corner of the Strip
and Flamingo Road. The entire Dunes Hotel was in the lake.
Casino ballrooms, everything was in the lake. Belagio was on
(51:23):
the old Dunes golf course. That was a radical thing
to do, to not have that up on the street.
What about to walk in, said everybody, people promenading up
and down a strip. It's it's the old story. It's
like Treasure Island. It's like Belagio, like a mirage. Make
(51:47):
him die of curiosity to want to get in, make
the place aspiration. If what they see in the outside
is so terrific, they'll say, let's go see what it's
like on the inside. It's the oldest story in the world.
It's window dressing. What is every retail street in America?
How you dress your window makes people want to go
(52:09):
in the fountains, the pirate shows, volcanoes interrupt they're window dressing.
They are the things that provoke you and entertain you
and say, come to me your favorite island, bally Bally,
(52:30):
same old story.
Speaker 1 (52:31):
Well leave it on a singing note, listen for me
and skip. We've so looked forward to this. I got
to tell you, we could probably go on for another
twelve hours with this, and it's.
Speaker 2 (52:42):
Been three of us with our own personal stories of
our adventures.
Speaker 1 (52:46):
Yeah, but we want to thank you very much for
taking the time. We hang all the time, but to
be a part of this. You know, we're getting our
feet wet. We're lal your buddy, we know that we're
all skippy. Yeah, we're all brothers.
Speaker 2 (52:59):
What it's been a blast.
Speaker 1 (53:01):
That's made a big difference.
Speaker 2 (53:02):
We talked this way when when there is no microphone,
that's what's the difference. That's totally true.
Speaker 1 (53:07):
What's the difference. You're just making me reminiscent a lot
of people. It's going to make a big difference because
a lot of people have not heard or even understood
about Steve Wynn. They've seen it, they've experienced it, but
to hear you articulated believe me, You're going to touch
a lot of people in a new.
Speaker 3 (53:26):
Way in the level of details. You know, I did
they take it for granted.
Speaker 2 (53:30):
They don't know. I love doing it with you guys
because we've been together all our lives. But you know,
the people, the television producers, you know, they wanted to
make a series, you know, like they're doing Netflix series,
and I just wasn't motivated. You know, I'm not crazy
about worrying about posterity. But when you're sitting shooting the
(53:52):
breeze with a couple of buddies, I could go on
like that forever, because you guys remind me of those stories.
I don't want ground thinking of the modesty paul I note,
but I like what we just did. I don't want
people going to hear this. Who cares? But it was
fun just talking about it. We loved it. It's a blast.
You're ready for dinner.
Speaker 1 (54:11):
We're ready for dinner.
Speaker 2 (54:12):
Let's go.
Speaker 1 (54:18):
Our Away with Paul Anka and Skip. Ronson is a
production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 3 (54:23):
The show's executive producer is Jordan Runtog, with supervising producer
and editor Marcy Depina.
Speaker 1 (54:30):
It was engineered by Todd Carlum and Graham Gibson and
mixed and mastered by Doug Bone.
Speaker 2 (54:37):
If you like what you heard, please subscribe and leave
us a review.
Speaker 1 (54:40):
For more podcasts on iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite children did the
(55:01):
fat
Speaker 2 (55:11):
Pa
Our Way with yours truly Paul Anka and my buddy
Skip Bronson, is a production of iHeartRadio. Hi, folks, this
is Paul Anka.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
And my name is Skip Bronson.
Speaker 3 (00:16):
We've been friends for decades and we've decided to let
you in on our late night phone calls by starting
a new podcast.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
And welcome to Our Way. We'd like you to meet
some real good friends of ours.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
Your leaders in entertainment and.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
Sports, innovators in business and technology, and even a sitting
president or two.
Speaker 3 (00:35):
Join us as we ask the questions they've not been
asked before, tell it like it is, and even sing
a song or two.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
This is our podcast and we'll be doing it our way.
Speaker 4 (01:26):
Hey, what do you have to did you hear? Beyonce's
new album, Cowboy Tarter System came out this week.
Speaker 5 (01:31):
Yeah, everybody should be in the country music because I
think it's the tourist form of American music is country music.
I mean, I grew up on it back in Canada.
You know. It was just it's the greatest form that
we have that in jazz. But it's a great album.
The single's very very cool, and the Joelene they changed
the lyrics. I think she sings it with Dolly Partons.
Speaker 4 (01:51):
You know, it's just amazing. Isn't country music the number
one format now?
Speaker 3 (01:55):
I think so.
Speaker 5 (01:57):
I don't know the answer to that. I know that
it's a very important part of the whole mosaic of
music because it's not just country anymore. It's country pop.
It's got a little country R and B to it.
You've got, you know, a lot of the performers, the stars,
they've got the it. They're all glammed up. You never
saw that years ago. Beyond that story, the force today
(02:20):
in music for me, and she tops it off now
are women. There's a song out now by a girl
called Dasha and it's called Austin, and it's so real
and authentic. The way this girl sings it and the
way they've produced it. It's an amazing, amazing record. Dasha Austin.
(02:42):
You've got all these women who've come out now and
they've got stronger presents than the men.
Speaker 4 (02:46):
And talking about country. When you first started, wasn't rockabilly
that was sort of the precursor to rock and roll.
Speaker 5 (02:53):
Well, rockabilly started. There was a guy in England called
Lonnie Ganigan and I used to sing it as a kid.
It was that kind of music, the first of its kind,
and who tried to make it, Pops little rear. It
was Bobby Darren. Bobby Darren's first record on Decca was
Rock Island Line David Diggen When You Getting In and
(03:16):
it was exactly that. That was Darren's first record on Decca.
Of course after that he went rock and roll, But
you're right, that was probably one of the first. Ronnie
Donogan I think his name was a British artist.
Speaker 4 (03:27):
Huh, yeah, can you remember what you had for breakfast?
Speaker 5 (03:31):
Me? What's that? God? I don't know where I get
this from. Yeah, you know what? You know what I'm
excited about. Man. The response to our brother Steve, Steve
Winn for the rest of them. I can't believe the
response I got. How was it for you?
Speaker 2 (03:48):
Unbelievable?
Speaker 4 (03:49):
Got so many calls, texts? Yeah, people were you know.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
The stories.
Speaker 4 (03:53):
Look the guy, he's got great stories and is a
great storyteller.
Speaker 5 (03:58):
He's a wordsmith, you know the way he puts it
all together. And but you and I know that for years,
I think what would be cool? Do you want to
call him or do you want me to call him?
I think we should get him for one more episode.
Speaker 4 (04:12):
Yeah, no, it should because I want to get into
the design process. You've probably heard this. He does a
whole thing about how conflict and tension are so critical.
You know, when he first did the Mirage, a tropical
themed resort in the middle of a desert, like the
last thing you'd ever expect, And that's always been sort
of his thing. And I also know he always told
(04:32):
me that the movie South Pacific, you know, that really
inspired him. So it'd be fun to ask.
Speaker 2 (04:37):
Him about that.
Speaker 4 (04:38):
I think it'd be cool.
Speaker 5 (04:39):
Yeah, I think we should take a shot at him
and get him on again.
Speaker 2 (04:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (04:44):
And then also, we didn't have time to talk about
what you did to he and I and Monte Carlo,
which was cruel but funny.
Speaker 5 (04:54):
He didn't think it was so you didn't think it
was so funny.
Speaker 4 (04:57):
No, I didn't like it, all of it.
Speaker 5 (04:59):
Everybody, You'll never you you know what you want to
tell everybody? How do you guys? You've ever had an argument?
You and Skip? I said, you know what, We've never
ever had an argument because Skip is very, very very
smart and I'm always right.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
The perfect combination.
Speaker 5 (05:22):
There you go. Okay, let's let's take a shot at
let's get them.
Speaker 4 (05:27):
Yeah, let's do it. Okay, you remember what you had
for breakfast as well as you remember the rockabilities think thinking,
I'm thinking. So you always can remember everything, but you
can no longer guarantee same day delivery, right.
Speaker 5 (05:40):
No, I can't. It's very very eclectic day delivery are out.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
Here is not very well. I'll you.
Speaker 3 (05:57):
And look at the way you've changed everything. I mean
with the Mirage that was the first absolute game changer.
Was what seven hundred million dollars and changed everything with
the Mirage became a place where everybody had to see it.
It was a musty attraction. Didn't matter where they were staying,
if they were in Las Vegas, they had to come.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
It was the first three thousand room hotel on earth
in the.
Speaker 3 (06:20):
World, and a level of quality that had never been
seen in the town. And then with the Belagio getting
to the next level after that, in a town that
was known for no good places to eat and no
really no good shopping, turned it around to a place
that where Las Vegas became a culinary capital and where
(06:41):
every major retailer in America had to have an outpost
in Las Vegas. The changes you know, not to be
a sick event, but the changes that all stemmed from
your creative jo.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
It was like being a football team.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
He was the big dreamer that came in and change.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
I was I called a play I was like a quarterback. Yeah,
but we had we had all pro wide receivers and
running backs and the defensive and offensive line. The team
that got together. You know, once we started having good
taste and imagination, A lot of people with good tastes
and imagination want to join up, and you end up
(07:22):
with a gang, a really wonderful group. And it only
takes eight or nine people like that, maybe six or
eight people, and you got You got Gangbusters. It's great.
You can really go to town.
Speaker 3 (07:35):
But I would see you sitting in that design center
hour after hour, agonizing over the font for the men's
room sign, sitting originally with Joel Bergman and then later
the writer Butler.
Speaker 2 (07:48):
That's right.
Speaker 3 (07:48):
I never really thought of you. This is going to
sound funny. I never really thought of you as a
developer in the true sense of the word, because a
developer is a guy that has to go out and
get the entitlements, the right to build all that. You
were a designer. You had this vision where you had
your imagination that big. Yeah, no one could compare, and
you changed the town. You totally changed the town. And
(08:11):
then everybody else when you up to your game, you
forced the other operators in town to up their game.
That's the reason they did it because they had to
otherwise they would just get taken under by this tsunami
that you had created. So everybody then had to do
something great, and.
Speaker 1 (08:27):
They sat by thinking he was never going to make it.
Speaker 2 (08:30):
No, it wasn't that easy, no question. If you guys
look and people listening to this conversation, you think of
modern Las Vegas with all of the massive developments up
and down the strip. Some of them are part of
Blage and Mirage and win resorts. I think we did
five of them. But I can tell you the moment
(08:52):
there actually was a moment where modern Las Vegas was born,
like a like a big bang theory of the universe.
I can track it to the to a two day period.
You know, it was what it was up until you know,
we did a great job downtown and we made money
in the Atlantic cities, sold it and came home and
(09:14):
we got our hands on the property that is now
Treasure Outland and Blajio and Mirage, and we had money
from that we had made by selling the Atlantic City Place,
and I bought the property from Howard Hughes's nephew that
was Hughes's and now we were on our way. With
(09:35):
the help of Mike Milkin and Trexel Burnham, we could
design a new hotel. And there were hotels that had
fifteen hundred rooms, the Hilton and MGM. It was big hotels,
fifteen hundred rooms and they had and Caesar's Palace had
twelve hundred rooms. And the Hilton was convention business. MGM
(09:57):
was touring travel and slot machines. Caesar's Palace was big fights,
glamorous entertainment, you know, the next generation after the Sands.
And although they had twelve hundred rooms, they made more
money than the other two. But each of these three
programs was different. I came up with the idea with
my colleagues that we were going to build a three
(10:18):
thousand room hotel. We were going to have the glamour
and the fanciness and the imagination of Caesar's Roman theme.
We're going to do tropical, but we were going to
have convention space like Hilton. We're gonna have the amount
of rooms in the shops of an MGM. We're going
to combine all three ideas in a modern hotel. And
(10:38):
that was a town where no one had ever spent
more than one hundred million or sixty million to build anything,
and we were going to spend north of a half
a billion, six hundred and fifty million dollars. And we
had some money from New Jersey. We had a couple
hundred million that we had made, and we're going to
borrow money from Drexel Burnham. And we just sat down
(10:59):
and decided how to I remember, I remember I had
a two seater Mercedes two EIGHTYSL that was powder blue,
and we had just finished by in the land and
it was time to start dreaming up the Golden Nugget
Strip Hotel. We didn't ever mirage name yet and I
took it was a beautiful day, and I drove out
(11:21):
to the Sands, which was across the street, the original Sands,
and I knew the Valet Parkers for several years. This
I stave as I can, I park my car right
here by the sidewalk. The Porkershire came out and the
column that held up the end of the porkersheare was
right next to the sidewalk, and I pulled in and
I parked next to the column that was next close
(11:45):
to the sidewalk, and I got out of the car
and I sat The top was down, and I sat
on the left front hood above the headlight, my feet
on the ground, my butt against the car, looking across
the street at the property that I had just closed on,
which included a Castaways motel that was closed there wasn't
(12:07):
have to be torn down, some empty property, and then
two service stations, a souvenir joint, a budget renner car,
and a home owned by a woman named Bracy Hayes
that was in an old folks home. But she had
owned that house and for some reason preserved it and
the Hughes people could never get their hands on it.
(12:29):
But they did own the empty land and they owned
the Castaways, and I had bought that from Howard Hughes's nephew.
And I'm sitting on the car, my arms crossed on
my chest on the hood, saying what are we going
to do? Okay, here you are. You got a big
fat strip location. Turns out to be big enough for
(12:50):
two hotels. But what are you going to do? Perfect
pristine moment? Now, what you're gonna do? The night before
I had been watching Johnny Carson before I went to bed,
lay in bed and watch Johnny Carson, and he had
Neil Simon on as a guest that wrote all those
great comedies. And he said to Neil Simon, how do
(13:13):
you how do you make how do you why do
you write that humor? How do you write that comedy? Neil?
And Neil Simon was like mister Rogers, he was very
prefatorial kind of izers. Well, Johnny, I look for conflict
because the tension created by conflict gives you a rise
for humor and of course tragedy as well. And going
(13:37):
to bed saying yeah, tension, conflict creates tension. What you're seeing,
what you what's your mind tells you're looking at? I
went to sleep. And I's always been a nut about
Broadway musicals, and I love South Pacific, and I had
seen the movie South Pacific. And in the movie South Pacific,
(14:01):
Lieutenant Cable lands on the island on his mission and
he's walking up the beach. He bumps into Bloody Mary
played by Juanita Hall, and she sees this handsome lieutenant.
She calls him lieutenant and thinks he's handsome, and he says, hello, Lieutenant,
you're very handsome. And he says hello, and she says,
(14:25):
I'm a bloody Mary. And she's a Tunkanese, heavy set,
you know, pear shaped woman, not very attractive. And she's
decided that she wants to fix up Lieutenant Lieutenant Cable
with her daughter, who's over on a neighboring island called
bally High. And she said, Lieutenant, you'll see this bally High,
(14:47):
very beautiful. You could go there, I take you. He's
there in a mission to fight the Japanese. This a
World War two movie. And then in order to wh
she says to him, look look at bally High, a
little talent look island of dreams. And she sings, come
(15:11):
to me, bally High, bally High, your island dreams or whatever.
He just starts singing the beautiful song from South Pacific
called your own special island, bally High. And as as
she's singing this beautiful song with full orchestration, you see
this gorgeous island a mile or two away, And the
(15:34):
director Josh logan used too many orange filters, so it
almost this sultry red heat of the afternoon makes it
look like it's almost on fire. It's beautiful with this
beautiful song. Come to me, Bally Eye. And for some reason,
I'm sitting on that damn Mercedes hood and I'm looking
(15:57):
at the castaways and and the thing from from Doc
you know, from the Night Before from Johnny Carson Show.
I say, Bali Eye a dream, Isle of dreams. Suppose
(16:20):
what you see with your eyes is in complete contradiction
of what your brain. This is the harsh Southern about
a desert. Hardly anything grows here. It's cold in the winter,
it's one hundred and seventeen in the heat in the summer.
Suppose you saw BALIHI suppose you saw a tropical paradise
(16:42):
South Pacific. And I swear I heard one ay to
Hall's voice in my ear. It'said a tropical hotel with
an adream. You could see through the glass the conflict.
If you stood on a strip and you saw waterfalls
like in the and like in the South Pacific movie,
(17:03):
with coconut palms and elephant ears and banana trees, you'd say,
wait a minute, this is not supposed to be here.
This is wrong. The conflict between which your brain saw
and which you thought should be there would create the tension.
(17:23):
And I said to myself, people would say, we got
to go inside and see what this place is all about.
And at that moment is when I dreamt up the
Mirage and went and told my colleagues, and everybody got
into it, and all but everybody started coming up with
great ideas, and the Mirage got designed, and we're spending
six hundred and fifty million, and the Wall Street Journal
(17:46):
and the Forbes magazine and our competitors up and down
the strip said, ah, the six hundred and fifty million.
His overhead's going to be a million dollars a day.
He'll never make it because nobody had an overhead like that.
There used to be two three hundred thous in expenses
a day. We actually were going to be a million
one a day. And they wrote articles that the Mirage
(18:09):
was going to be the great bankruptcy. But it also
is a question, is the demand for Las Vegas so
elastic that that could happen? Are we all living in
an era where small was good, But the world has
moved past us is Las Vegas the kind of place
(18:32):
you can invest a half a billion or a billion dollars.
When we first showed the model of Mirage at the
Golden Nugget downtown, it was called the Golden Nugget Strip property.
I said, when this place gets built. We had a
press conference and it's on tape. When this place is
built in three years, its most famous contribution will not
(18:56):
be that it's a great place it makes money. It will,
but it's going to show the world that Las Vegas
can take that kind of money and the demand for
Las Vegas is elastic that it won't scavenge the other
hotels that'll bring more people to Las Vegas. And I
did go on record at the opening reveal of the
model downtown at the Golden Nugget that that's what I
(19:19):
thought would happen. Well, as I say, they watched it
go up, massive place on sixty acres eighty acres, and
the whole world was it'll never make it. The overhead,
the word got out that it was going to be
a million over a million dollars a day to break even,
seven days a week, three hundred and sixty five days
(19:40):
a year. Well, the time came The opening was November
twenty second Wednesday, the anniversary of Kennedy's assassination. Actually nineteen
eighty nine. November twenty second noon on a Wednesday was
going to be the opening. We were going to reveal
nobody was allowed in accept workmen in this and the
people hired, but there was an idea that something extraordinary
(20:05):
was in this building that was done at a scale
it was different. A whole bunch of us had done
our best work there. Really talented people contributed to making
that place what it was. Plus we had Sigfried and
Roy and white tigers and elephants. Well, we had the
street roped off, and the press was that we're going
(20:27):
to have a secret We're going to open the hotel
by checking in our first secret guest to the hotel.
And they had ropes down on the sidewalk so you
couldn't come up the driveway, and we had the cameras
there and the governor and other VIPs. Mike Milkan was there.
We were going to welcome the first check in mystery guest,
(20:51):
and then we were going to open up the drop
the barricades and let them come. And here's what happened.
A rolls Royce pulled up convertible with Siegfried and roy
in the front seat and two white tigers in the
back seat, and they got out of the car with
(21:12):
Acbarkabul and Neva, two giant white tigers with leashes, and
walked into the hotel, shook hands with us and took
the animals into there that no one knew if we
had them on display, and we welcomed our new guests.
We're two white tigers. And then I had a handheld
(21:36):
mic and I said, security opened the gates, dropped the ropes. Well,
the governor, Mike Milkan, and I and David Hersey, who
had been the landscape architect that did all the trees
in front and all the waterfall. They ran from both driveways,
you know, it was a circular driveway. In the lead
(21:57):
were young kids that could run, asked, but there were
tens of thousands of people all the way up the strip,
and they came running and we were right in the middle,
and I said, oh my god, they're not going to stop.
But they had also roped off. We were standing, and
they got to the rope and they all just stopped
so we could make remarks. But for a second we
(22:19):
thought we were going to get trampled. Well, seventy thousand
people went through the hotel the first day. It was awful.
You couldn't move. Women came with strollers. It was I stopped.
I stopped the strollers after the first day. But seventy
thousand people the first twenty four hours. Now Wall Street
and the financial community wouldn't know if if we're the
(22:42):
last week in November, we're going to have a short
report for the end of the year, and then we'll
publish those earnings at the end of January, no one's
going to know anything about numbers or financial success or not.
But in Las Vegas the night that the opened on
Wednesday night, by midday on Thursday, every executive at every
(23:07):
one of the other properties on the strip knew everything
about the Mirage. Number one food and beverage guys talked
to other food and beverage guys. Casino executives talk to
other casino executives. You know, the hotel guy talks to
the other hotel guy. So they're all talking to each other,
these pals that work at these different hotels. They're saying
(23:29):
every room is booked, that we every room has been
booked for almost thirty days already the prices are one
hundred and fifty dollars a day more than we thought.
You can't get a space of a slot machine. The
crap tables are overrun. And everybody in the business in
Las Vegas knew within twenty four hours that Las Vegas
(23:53):
had turned the corner and that if you build it,
they would come. The Mirage did that, and within a
week the price of real estate, the adjacent lands on
every hotel had doubled because every one of those CEOs
up and down the street knew that they had to
expand that the Mirage was going to take it away
(24:17):
from him, or the Mirage was going to show that
there was so much money left on the table. If
you built it in Las Vegas, the world would show up.
And the Mirage actually had the market grow by twenty percent.
One hotel did that. We were supposed to make a
hundred you know, we lose money or go broke, but
our own numbers showed that we'd make one hundred and
(24:39):
forty to one hundred and sixty million dollars on the
six hundred and fifty million dollar investment. Pretty fancy. We
went right to two hundred and twenty five million. The
world loved it, and it was the late eighties early
nineties when the Japanese were in the country. So Mirage
opened up just at the right time, just the right
(25:00):
moment in the history of Las Vegas, for Las Vegas
to take its next step. If it hadn't been me
and my crowd, my game, it would have been someone else.
But we were at the right place at the right time,
and that was the moment. The modern Las Vegas was
born in the last week in November of nineteen eighty nine,
(25:21):
and during the nineteen nineties, four billion was spent and
the town lent from eighteen thousand rooms to one hundred
and fifty forty thousand rooms in ten years. And between
nineteen seventy two and nineteen eighty nine, nothing but the
Mirage had been built. And then in the next eight
years it culminated with we did Treasure Island three thousand rooms,
(25:47):
we did Blagio three thousand rooms, but so did the
other guys, and that's how what you see in Las
Vegas today came about. But there were seventeen years where nothing.
Speaker 3 (26:11):
In the past year, probably the most dynamic thing to
happen in Las Vegas was the F one race this
past fall, and of super and in the nineteen nineties,
the mid nineteen nineties, you, Paul Ank and I went
to Monte Carlo because you had an idea.
Speaker 2 (26:30):
Terrible thing you did, Paul.
Speaker 3 (26:31):
You had you had an idea to bring the F
one to Las Vegas and you wanted to have if
you recall, the finish line was going to be the
port Coashier.
Speaker 2 (26:41):
You're going to come up and make of the Bolagio
like when you go through the town in money.
Speaker 3 (26:45):
And we got we got on on the plane and
we went there and you at that time were very
interested in having an audience with Prince Renier to talk
to him about their casinis, their gaming.
Speaker 2 (26:59):
And Paul he asked to see us because yeah, yeah,
he had come and stayed at them.
Speaker 3 (27:04):
At Paul will let you pick up Bobby.
Speaker 2 (27:08):
There was three of us that when.
Speaker 1 (27:11):
I think Bobby went, we stayed at the Hotel de Peri.
Speaker 2 (27:15):
For the audience to say Bobby Baldwin was one of
the key executives that ran our business.
Speaker 1 (27:20):
You know, and we go over and we're being treated royally. Obviously,
everybody's happy. Steve is there we're looking forward to meeting
with Bernie Ecklestone.
Speaker 2 (27:33):
I think the guy who owned them had given us
his suite at the hotel.
Speaker 1 (27:38):
The hotel and I was sitting around one day and
I'm saying, okay, this is a little too quiet for me.
We're waiting to go to the events. We'd already gone
around the track with schu Macher. Remember he put us
in the car. So we did our thing. So I
picked up the phone and I called up.
Speaker 2 (27:59):
Treacherous sent them.
Speaker 1 (28:00):
I called up Skip, this is mister Bronson, This is
Henry L. Lewis over at the palace. We are honored
that you are here with us, you and mister Vinn,
and we wanted to just let you know that the
Prince is very interested in meeting mister Vinn over here
(28:22):
at a private, private, little meeting before the cocktail, before
the cocktail party. And I said, it's very important that
he'd be here at five point thirty, but in a tuxedo.
He must be in a tux.
Speaker 2 (28:34):
Sedo explained that when they had the Grand Prix, Prince
Reinier would have a big cocktail party up at the
palace on the night before the race, and it was
a big thing to get invited, right, But that was
that from six thirty to eight or nine.
Speaker 1 (28:49):
And the meeting was to be before and this for
the cocktail party.
Speaker 2 (28:53):
The manager, the chief of staff of Prince Reinier calls up,
going to be but skip catch the call, says the Prince.
He called skip on purpose. The Prince wants to have
a private meeting very important with mister Wynn at five
point thirty before the big cocktail party, and he'd like
(29:13):
him to come in a tuxedo. Correct, please be at
the palace at five thirty, Prince Rainier, I would like
to talk to him, mister Winn and skip.
Speaker 1 (29:20):
You turned him down. He turned me down.
Speaker 2 (29:23):
That's not possible, And I said, he puts on this accent.
Speaker 1 (29:27):
I put my French action.
Speaker 2 (29:28):
Jacques Jacques said, do I'll even tell you the name
you use. This is Jacques said, with the French accent,
the chief of staff of the palace for Prince Rainier.
Speaker 3 (29:38):
And I said, you know, mister Wynn has some vision issues,
so I'm going to have to be with him. And
they said no, no, no, no, that's not possible. He's going
to have to be here. It's it's going to be
one on one. It's going to be Regner and mister
Wynn and no one else, No one else can be
with him. I'm thinking, well, why is that. Well, we
have very special protocol and already, so I called Paul
(30:04):
and I said, Paul, you're ready for this. There's going
to be a meeting. Steve's going to have a meeting
of one on one with Prince Renier. And Paul says,
you're kidding. It's fantastic. And I walked down the room
the hall to Steve's sweet and Steve's in there. He's
putting his tuxedo on. He's getting all ready, the whole thing.
No tuxedo, I said, I better check and make sure
(30:25):
you know. I was on the bed in my underwear. No,
but you were getting ready to get dressed up. So
I called over to the palace just to make sure
everything was going to be coordinated properly. And they said,
there's no one here by that name. And I said, well,
that's not possible.
Speaker 2 (30:40):
He called.
Speaker 3 (30:41):
I spoke to him myself, Well no, that's not possible,
and we don't know anything about any meeting. There isn't
I said, what, No, No, you're not listening you're obviously
not in the loop. This has been arranged, it's all
been coordinated. Everything he's been taken care of. You don't
know who the chief of staff is. Connect it is
someone who does exactly.
Speaker 1 (31:03):
Meanwhile, I run the Steve's room because I figured this
has gone too far and you walk in.
Speaker 2 (31:09):
Before they gets off. He gets in an argument with
the oppers. If you don't know who it is, I
want to speak to the cheapest staff, Jacques the do
I've spoken to him. Now put someone on who does
know what's going on there. The operator is obviously intimidated.
It works at the palace. Click click, ring ring, hello, Hello, my,
I'm just get Brian word from mister with mister Wynn
(31:31):
and we're supposed to have this meeting. We're meeting the
chief of staff for the Prince Rainier speak a five
point thirty and I need to get some I need
to communicate on behalf of mister Wynn. H to the
chiefest staff, Jacques sad silence of one counter. I am
the chief of staff of Prince Regnier and there is
(31:54):
no such person as Jacques said, do in the palace.
Speaker 4 (31:59):
Now.
Speaker 2 (31:59):
This guy is a British naval officer with a straight back,
no sense of humor, and he must deal with screwballs
all the time protecting his boss. And he doesn't like
this phone call. And he tells Skip hisses at him.
Speaker 3 (32:17):
Did he hang up on your did you? He's furious that,
so I called Paul to tell him what had happened.
Speaker 1 (32:23):
Well, you could know. First I went over to Steve's room.
Speaker 2 (32:26):
He's with me.
Speaker 1 (32:26):
I had decide to mend this again. Right you walked in,
I'm there with him about to tell me you were
on the phone with Elaine. As you walk in, Steve,
I just want to let you know I spoke to
the palace. I got this guy blah blah blah blah.
He didn't get it, and I told him you're not
in the loop, so don't worry. I straightened it out.
(32:48):
Right now, I'm saying, Skiff, there ain't no meeting. I'm
sudou forget about it.
Speaker 2 (32:56):
His host, Skip runs and takes a look at Anka.
I think maybe Paul's life is in danger because he
had just made such a horse's ass of himself. Well,
and you're telling me, yeah, I'm on the phone with
my wife, Paul. Paul says, it's got a guilty look
(33:16):
in his face that maybe this one spun out of control.
This ain't like the Chipriani, this was well, there was
indeed a cocktail party at the palace and we were
indeed invited, and Renier was looking for us. And we
end up by the buffet, myself and Paul with Prince
(33:38):
Renner on this beautiful Saturday night or whatever night it
was Friday night and having drinks in the open courtyard
that was beautiful, and Skip walks up and in a
few minutes I start to tell the story, and a
(34:01):
guy walks up about six to one, sort of sway back,
you know, real straight, you know, his back, very British
looking with the dark suit and the full windsor tie.
Humorless looking guy like a security garden. Mister Win his
chief of staff. Ah, And I say, you know, we're
(34:27):
we're having a giggle for a but a very embarrassing thing.
We are an apology. But the superstar or whatever it
decided to have some fun poor mister and played that
practical joke that caused him to make the call. And
Reinier and I we lay out what exactly what Paul
(34:47):
had done, and Rainier is lapping it up and starts laughing.
This guy has a face like ice, like rock ice season,
not even not even a curl of a lip. Dead quiet.
He glares that the three of us like what kind
of jerks are you guys? And walks away. He did
(35:11):
not get the joke, did Yeah?
Speaker 1 (35:19):
Till the end of that story, though, Steve, you meet
with Bernie. You're bringing it to Vegas. This guy's all
teed up and he flies in to meet you in Vegas,
and everybody's in.
Speaker 2 (35:29):
The US into the office with six people.
Speaker 1 (35:30):
And meanwhile you got the new shepherd. I ax, I
think it was.
Speaker 2 (35:34):
Rumbus, and I know it was. It was Ramas.
Speaker 1 (35:37):
Okay, So now here's the scene. Everyone's in the office.
You're getting ready to start this meeting with Bernie, who's
flown all the way in. He leans over.
Speaker 2 (35:46):
On his way to the Melbourne Grand.
Speaker 1 (35:48):
Prix, and he leans over to pet your duck.
Speaker 2 (35:51):
Grab somebody ears right, and what happened the dog? There's
all these people come in and he reaches down and
grabs Rambus by his two ears. Ramas doesn't get it
and snaps and takes off the nose of his nose,
the top from his bridge of his nose down to
the tip about a half inch wide. A strip, but
(36:12):
I mean a strip. He stripped it off.
Speaker 3 (36:14):
The blood shot all over and there was something I
could look like there was a mass murder in there.
Speaker 2 (36:19):
They had a rush into a plastic surgeon. Guy had
never been in a hospital out of his life. Bernie Ecklestone.
He had a big nose. But we should have done
a whole nose job. But they took him behind his
right ear and made a skin graft. But in order
for it to work, the skin hasked. The part that
you patch that you put on top has to be
(36:39):
held down so to be a blood supply. So what
they do is they take a gauze and double it
up and make a pressure bandage, and then they stitch
threw the skin of his nose over the top of
the gauze two loops and tie it down. Now, this
piece of gauze one inch long and about a half
inch or tree cores an inch wide is sewn to
(37:01):
the top of his nose, and of course it's bloodstoked,
so pretty soon it turns brown. But it's stitched to
his face and has to stay there for ten days,
so that the skin graft will take instantly. It worked perfectly,
but he had to go to the Melbourne Ground Prix
with a great big piece of gauze sewn on the
top of his nose. Poor guy.
Speaker 1 (37:21):
A year later we go and visit him in London.
I said, God, you look good. That nose is the
best looking nose for a dollar. And then we're over
there seeing fay Ed because now you are into Belago
and we were touring Europe. Right, we're meeting everybody. We're
going around everywhere trying to.
Speaker 2 (37:40):
Spend three radio programs about your dirty tricks, practical joke.
Speaker 1 (37:45):
What was cool? The bolage was called Bauabash, right yep.
And we're floating around you all to Italy. We're staying
in Italy at the Villadesta, at the Villadest and in
the middle of like Como, which is shaped like the
letter Y.
Speaker 2 (38:04):
So when it splits, and it's like why upside down,
So this part that goes north then it splits like
a letter y almost ninety degrees and there's two sides,
but in the middle it to split is land and
that's the town of Blagio and it's a beautiful old town.
(38:25):
And a friend had a boat gil Nichols. Gil Nichols
had rented a house and brought his antique chriscraft to
Lake Como for the summer. And he came to the
villa to st and picked up an Anka and Elaine
and I and we went for lunch at Plagio. And
(38:47):
we're coming back at about five miles an hour in
the criscraft on this gorgeous July day. And I said,
what a pretty word Belagio is. There's also a street
in Beverly Hill called Bolagio, where the bel Air Country
Club is. I said, what a mellifluous word, Belagio. I
wonder what it means in Italian. Well, Paul's wife Annie
(39:13):
had in her purse one of those Italian English dictionaries
that you can put in your purse when you're traveling
and the boat's going along, put put putt, and ann
Ankus says, listen to this Belagio. Whether it was the
town or the words, she says, she got the book
a place of elegant relaxation. And Paul and everybody in
(39:36):
the boat goes, ooh, what a good name for hotel.
Speaker 5 (39:40):
Ooh.
Speaker 2 (39:42):
And we were halfway back to the Villa de Esk
and we were going to call the hotel in Las
Vegas beau Ravage, which is pretty riverside or watershore beau Ravage,
and we said, whoa, And we agreed on the boat
that the noon name for the Strip hotel was not
going to be beau Ravage. It was it was halfway finished,
(40:05):
was going to be Blagio, and we'd use beau Ravage
as the name of the other hotel. We're a building
at the same time with two thousand rooms in Biloxi, Mississippi,
and on the spot, because of his wife, we changed
from beau Ravage to Belagio and used beau Ravage in Mississippi. Well,
(40:27):
it got famous with the fountains and all that stuff.
And we got a letter from the mayor and the
city council of Belagio, Italy. Dear mister Wynn, we are
so proud that you named your hotel after our town.
And so this is a proclamation designating Blagio, Las Vegas
as a sister city of Blagio, Italy.
Speaker 3 (40:49):
Always going to talk about what happened when you first created,
Sir the sole at the tent behind the mirage, and
people couldn't relate to the fact that this was a
circuit us without animals, and you know, people weren't really coming.
And we were sitting at a board meeting, our small
Mirage Resorts board and you clapped your hands and said
(41:11):
taxi cabs. And we all looked at you, like, what
what are you talking about? Taxi cabs? We're talking about why,
you know, we don't have enough enough people excited about
coming to see this circus. And you said, what's the
first thing that happens when people flying to Las Vegas,
they get in a taxi cab and they say to
the cab driver, Hey, what's a you know, what's good
to see here in town? And I want to invite
(41:33):
all the taxi drivers in Las Vegas to bring their
families to come, no charge for anything and see the show.
Speaker 2 (41:42):
And get a dinner, get dinner, and get a dinner.
Speaker 3 (41:46):
Right, And they came, and they got so excited, and
when people started coming to town, they started talking up.
Speaker 1 (41:53):
People went all the way back to the sixties cab drivers.
Speaker 2 (41:56):
You know, we we went to an extreme with that
when we built Wind deliberately decided to take it to
another level. When you came off the strip. You know,
cabs line up in order to be called by the
doorman to pick up the next fair Well, guys are
(42:21):
driving all the time. They need to take a leak,
they needed, they want to get a drink, don't carry
some in the front water or something. They have a cooler.
So when we designed the wind and Encore, we put
special ramps that went underground before you came up on
(42:43):
the portkachhere and when you went underground there were two
lanes and on the left there was a little alcove
and there were vending machines and a men's and ladies room,
and all of the cart tunes and the decorations were
about hacks and cab drivers. And then at Encore we
(43:06):
went even further. We had the Ferrari thing going and
we were doing business with Roger Penske, and Roger invited
Mark and I to the you know the race on
Memorial Day and we got to walk out while they
were on the ready to start, you know, out on
(43:26):
the lined up. I thought it was so exciting when
you're in the pits to hear all the engines rivving
as they're on the lines, you know and rows. And
I said to Roger, can we get someone to photograph
as if you're sitting in the driver's seat of your
car and you take a picture of the people on
your right and the people on your left. He said, sure,
(43:51):
or just the people on your right. And someone went
and did that at one of the races of the
Indye cars, and we had them blown up and we
made these things that would stick to the wall. We
made tile walls in the tunnel and when you went
in your car and you pulled in, because then you
(44:12):
went up or ramped right into the porkishere and there
was room for like five six cars in this tunnel.
The walls had the drivers as if you were looking
to the right at other cars on the line, and
we recorded the music the sound of the cars, and
we played it on an overhead speaker, so the guys
(44:35):
would come down. They'd be sitting the car and they
looked to the right and hear the sounding to see
the cars all in color at life size on this
mile our tape that we made these things that go
on the wall, and you know, we decorated the wall
at life size like you were looking at a rows
of cars on your right, and we had nice vending
(44:55):
machines and really clean bathrooms. We kissed up to the
and then we invite all the cab drivers in Las
Vegas when the wind opened to have a free room,
one night, free room. The hotel was just for the
cab drivers. Just before we opened two days, all the
(45:18):
cab drivers and their wives a show and dinner and
a room and they could get massages. How could they
know to explain the hotel if they hadn't experienced it.
And you know, they got all dressed up, and the
wives would come and say, almost win. And the husbands
they were so grateful, you'd think them as sort of salty.
(45:40):
They weren't. No one's ever done as we love it.
We own the cab drivers. And it's true even today.
Do you miss it? You miss the data. I wouldn't
take it if I could have the whole thing for
a buck. As God is my judge on my wife's life,
I wouldn't go to Las Vegas if he gave me
the whole town for a because to art work, boring crowds,
(46:07):
twenty four to seven, payroll problems, the design, the competition,
the credit, the government, the whole idea of keeping the
place a sharp stay on top of it. Been there,
done that, Oh yeah, fifty one years. I didn't realize
what a tunnel I was in. I got up, did
(46:29):
it twelve fourteen hours, went to bed, and got up
and did it again. I even lived in a hotel.
Speaker 1 (46:46):
When did you fall in love with the whole art thing?
Because I took the first trip with you to Japan
when we went to I think Tokyo, that was our
first trip with Bill Ackuaveella.
Speaker 2 (46:55):
Well, the question was, how does Blagio trump Mirage Baldwin.
Baldwin didn't want to build another hotel. It'll scavenge the Mirage.
We already had the top hotel. Why do you want
to build another one? I said, well, someone's going to
build a better hotel than Mirage, because you know, it
had a one hundred and sixty foot bathroom, you know,
(47:17):
a shower tub, one shower in the tub together, an
open toilet and a single sink about one hundred and
sixty feet. But in a four or five star hotel
you have to have two sinks. You have a separate toilet,
I mean a separate shower, a separate tub, and the
toilet should be enclosed or at least be roomy enough,
(47:41):
and we had We had a fabulous public area and
casino and showroom and all that, and volcanoes and dolphins
and tigers, but we had really a three star bedroom.
The sweets were gorgeous, but the twenty seven hundred regular
(48:02):
rooms were three star. The three hundred sweets were another story.
And I said to my pals, I said, look, someone's
going to build a better hotel than us, and we'll
be second. If we build it, then we could be
(48:23):
first and second. Bobby wasn't real impress but he was conservative,
but I wanted to do it. And we bought the
dunes for four hundred thousand an acre seventy million dollars,
but then they had to close at which cost him
five We really only paid sixty five million for one
(48:46):
hundred and sixty six acres plus water rights pre nineteen
fifty y five water rights so we could build a lake.
It was against the law to do that because you
couldn't use city water for lakes, but if you had
private water rights. The predated nineteen fifty five, there were
only two places on a strip that had private water rights,
(49:09):
the dunes seven hundred acre feet and the desert in
one thousand acre feet. Both companies that built golf courses
in the early fifties, and they had built when the
desert didn't built the water rights. When the desert inn't
built the homes that were around the desert In, there
(49:31):
was no water service there in the county. So in
order to build the golf course and the homes on
the golf course, the desert In guys Mo dalits and
those guys had to find there had to dig wells
and create a utility, the desert In Water Company, and
it went under this authority of the Public Service Commission
(49:56):
like the regular water company. When I we bought the
dunes the desert In in nineteen two thousand, I got
the water company with it, and then we bought the houses.
We got the the state Engineer and the State of
Nevada to say that we no longer were required to
(50:19):
comply with the Public Service Commission the State of Nevada
because there were no more homes that we were servicing.
The dunes had water rights. So I wanted to buy
the dunes, and they wanted to sell that it was
in bankruptcy, and and my argument to my colleagues was
(50:39):
that if we've got money. Now we built all these hotels.
We're now a bigger company. We could we could build
the greatest hotel in the world where the dunes was
to kill you an idea. How desperate we were to
make sure that was true. We built an eight and
(51:00):
a half acre lake with twenty three million gallons of water,
the fountains of Belagio on the corner of the Strip
and Flamingo Road. The entire Dunes Hotel was in the lake.
Casino ballrooms, everything was in the lake. Belagio was on
(51:23):
the old Dunes golf course. That was a radical thing
to do, to not have that up on the street.
What about to walk in, said everybody, people promenading up
and down a strip. It's it's the old story. It's
like Treasure Island. It's like Belagio, like a mirage. Make
(51:47):
him die of curiosity to want to get in, make
the place aspiration. If what they see in the outside
is so terrific, they'll say, let's go see what it's
like on the inside. It's the oldest story in the world.
It's window dressing. What is every retail street in America?
How you dress your window makes people want to go
(52:09):
in the fountains, the pirate shows, volcanoes interrupt they're window dressing.
They are the things that provoke you and entertain you
and say, come to me your favorite island, bally Bally,
(52:30):
same old story.
Speaker 1 (52:31):
Well leave it on a singing note, listen for me
and skip. We've so looked forward to this. I got
to tell you, we could probably go on for another
twelve hours with this, and it's.
Speaker 2 (52:42):
Been three of us with our own personal stories of
our adventures.
Speaker 1 (52:46):
Yeah, but we want to thank you very much for
taking the time. We hang all the time, but to
be a part of this. You know, we're getting our
feet wet. We're lal your buddy, we know that we're
all skippy. Yeah, we're all brothers.
Speaker 2 (52:59):
What it's been a blast.
Speaker 1 (53:01):
That's made a big difference.
Speaker 2 (53:02):
We talked this way when when there is no microphone,
that's what's the difference. That's totally true.
Speaker 1 (53:07):
What's the difference. You're just making me reminiscent a lot
of people. It's going to make a big difference because
a lot of people have not heard or even understood
about Steve Wynn. They've seen it, they've experienced it, but
to hear you articulated believe me, You're going to touch
a lot of people in a new.
Speaker 3 (53:26):
Way in the level of details. You know, I did
they take it for granted.
Speaker 2 (53:30):
They don't know. I love doing it with you guys
because we've been together all our lives. But you know,
the people, the television producers, you know, they wanted to
make a series, you know, like they're doing Netflix series,
and I just wasn't motivated. You know, I'm not crazy
about worrying about posterity. But when you're sitting shooting the
(53:52):
breeze with a couple of buddies, I could go on
like that forever, because you guys remind me of those stories.
I don't want ground thinking of the modesty paul I note,
but I like what we just did. I don't want
people going to hear this. Who cares? But it was
fun just talking about it. We loved it. It's a blast.
You're ready for dinner.
Speaker 1 (54:11):
We're ready for dinner.
Speaker 2 (54:12):
Let's go.
Speaker 1 (54:18):
Our Away with Paul Anka and Skip. Ronson is a
production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 3 (54:23):
The show's executive producer is Jordan Runtog, with supervising producer
and editor Marcy Depina.
Speaker 1 (54:30):
It was engineered by Todd Carlum and Graham Gibson and
mixed and mastered by Doug Bone.
Speaker 2 (54:37):
If you like what you heard, please subscribe and leave
us a review.
Speaker 1 (54:40):
For more podcasts on iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite children did the
(55:01):
fat
Speaker 2 (55:11):
Pa
Host
Paul Anka
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