April 24, 2024 • 33 mins
Let's dive deep into the close bond between Evel Knievel and Jay Sarno, shedding light on their unique relationship. Historian and author David G. Schwartz shares insights into the pair’s shared experiences in gambling, building a brand, and navigating minefields of naysayers. We explore the challenges and triumphs faced by these larger-than-life personalities, offering a glimpse into their complex lives and decisions. Join us on a journey through Sin City history as we unravel the captivating tales of Evel Knievel, the King of the daredevils, and Jay Sarno, developer of modern Las Vegas.
You can sample and purchase Dr. Schwartz’s book, “Grandissimo: the First Emperor of Las Vegas” at https://www.audible.com/pd/Grandissimo-The-First-Emperor-of-Las-Vegas-Audiobook/B00MBV1UBO
Grab merch at www.EvelKnievelMuseum.com
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Can I talk a little bit moreabout Evel and Jay?
I've got some proof for howclose this bond was.
I was talking with the family,the kids, yeah, I'd really like
to interview Evel.
He agreed to the interview, itwas over the phone.
They're like, yeah, he's notdoing so great, he's in an
oxygen tent.
I've got to tell you, just likethe first First thing, like,
yeah, this is Evel, but I'mlike, I've never heard someone
(00:22):
with that much presence.
And I'm also going to tell you,I'm not ashamed to admit it.
I've never been this intimidatedby a man in an oxygen tent, 2000
miles away from me.
Evel Knievel inspired millionsof us with his courage and
perseverance.
We're building a museum so youcan relive those memories and be
reinvigorated with that spiritof bravery.
(00:45):
My name is Evel Knievel.
I'm a professional daredevil.
Along the way, we meet peopleinvolved in the life, the times,
and the legacy of the King ofDaredevils.
Here with their stories is yourhost, Joe Friday.
(01:45):
Welcome to the Thrill Show fromthe Evel Knievel Museum.
This is Dr.
David G.
Schwartz, author of Grandissimo,the First Emperor of Vegas.
And I think all of our listenersand Evel Knievel fans are going
to be super excited to read thisbook.
I know I picked a copy up on myway to Las Vegas last time and
(02:06):
read it all in one setting.
It's a shame to pay 400 a nightfor a hotel room where you don't
even enjoy the spa or the pool,but you just sit in your room
reading a book, which is what Idid.
Dr.
Schwartz.
Yeah.
Dr.
Schwartz is the, you correct meif I'm wrong, because this may
be updated, but the director ofgaming at UNLV.
(02:28):
Oh yeah, that's long overdue.
I'm the ombudsman of UNLV.
The reason that I was sointerested in Grandismo was
because I spend every weektelling a story about Evel
Knievel and Caesar's Palace.
It's got its own display that'sabout, I don't know, 10 feet by
10 feet, and it's got theoriginal motorcycle there and
some authentic leathers andhelmets.
(02:49):
It's really cool.
And I tell the story about Thisman named Jay Sarnos who had a,
or Sarno, who had a vision of aluxury hotel casino in Vegas.
Evel Knievel happened to bethere because he was there to
see an amateur boxing pro thatwas from his hometown.
(03:11):
Rick Rouse, I think.
And that's why he was there.
I don't think he could afford aroom there at the time, but he
could afford a beer down thereat the hotel bar.
And one of his buddies said, youknow, they don't have a, they
don't have a Dean Martin like,like the Sands has.
They don't have a Sammy DavisJr.
(03:32):
like the Dunes has.
They don't really have anentertainment draw here.
This place is so new.
You could do those wheelies likeyou did back home and do stunts.
Jump over stuff like you didthose lions back there in
Washington.
And he says, the more beer Idrank, the smaller those
fountains got until I decided, Ithink I can make those
fountains.
(03:53):
I'm going to call the owner ofthis joint and convince him.
So can you tell us about howEvel Knievel went about
convincing Sarnos to do that?
Yeah.
So first he tried calling them.
And didn't really get anywhere.
Sarno was like, yeah, not, notinterested, not interested.
Then he started putting ondifferent accents and pretending
(04:15):
to be reporters, pretending tobe different people, like, Hey,
is it true?
This is going to happen.
So Sarno now thinks, wow,there's really interested in
this.
You know, this guy is somebody,so he says, fine, we'll do it.
So it's kind of, it's veryinteresting.
You know, Sarno himself is avery, very colorful character.
And I think he really met, um, akindred spirit in Evel.
(04:37):
For sure, for sure.
That's the perfect term for it.
They were, I can't imagine thesetwo together.
I can't imagine Las Vegas, thetown, surviving with these two
together, but they did.
And that launched Evel Knievel'scareer after Evel Knievel
wrecked, broke both of hiswrists, both ankles, his femur,
(04:59):
and his pelvis.
He was hospitalized.
J.
Sarno had been watching from hispenthouse office upstairs along
with his two young sons.
Yeah, they were on top of thePortico share right up there.
They were up there watchingthat.
Yeah.
And so the kids are convincedthat man just died.
I can't believe we just saw aman die and we knew him and we
(05:20):
liked Evel Knievel.
Yeah.
Sarno says, no, he's okay.
He was moving as they loaded himon the ambulance.
But to reassure you, I will takeyou to the hospital and, and
show you.
It takes a long time for him tomake his way from the Portico to
the, His car and the whole timehe's thinking, wow, I signed
(05:40):
this kid for two dates, NewYear's Eve and New Year's Day.
And he hatches a marketing planto bring everybody back to Vegas
to watch him make it.
Gets to the hospital.
Knievel says, Oh, thank Godyou're here, Jay.
You got to get me out of here.
I don't have insurance.
And Sarno says, listen, kid,I've got this covered.
(06:03):
I've got a plan.
I'll cover the hospital bills.
You just play possum and I'llpay off the medical staff you.
And they won't tell anybodyother than what I pay the doctor
to say out in front of thehospital in a white lab coat,
which is, yes, America'sfavorite daredevil, Evel
(06:23):
Knievel, is in a coma in thehospital.
And we are assured that as soonas he wakes up from the coma,
He's going to try this again.
Huge, huge.
What a humongous help Sarno didin hatching that whole plan for
Evel Knievel.
Yeah.
And maybe, and maybe not payingthe hospital bills.
(06:44):
You never know with Jay.
Yeah.
So can you tell us, I'm just sofascinated by this book.
I'm flummoxed to whether he's ahero or a villain.
I can't figure it out, but Couldyou just tell us how he started
and how he got the idea?
Yeah, Jay was an interestingguy, born in St.
(07:06):
Joseph, Missouri in 1921, socame of age during the
Depression.
His family was pretty poorimmigrants and had served in
World War II, kind of, you know,not on the front lines.
But did his part for the countryand also made himself a little
bit of money there.
Got out of school, finishedcollege, and then went into
business with his friend fromcollege, Stan Mallon, setting
(07:29):
tile, you know, tile business.
And that in first in Miami, thenin Atlanta, and that later
graduated to building buildings.
So apartment buildings, whichthen became.
motels, which then becamehotels.
And that's how he came out toVegas.
And he decided, I'm going tobuild a great hotel in Vegas,
(07:50):
which is where Caesar's palacecame from.
He's a compulsive gambler or aDJ.
He called himself a degenerategambler.
He's a degenerate gambler,degenerate compulsive gambler.
So I assume he's doing that inthe army.
Yeah, somewhere around St.
Joe or at least in college inMissouri somewhere.
Yeah.
And Vegas is the gambling meccaand he shows up and it's, in his
(08:16):
words, Awful, dull, plain, whichis amazing to me.
Dacus had everything that heliked and he hated it.
And a lot of people, and this isthe thing about Jay, he never
really took no for an answer.
A lot of people, if they gosomewhere and they don't like
it, they're not going to comeback a second time.
Not only did he come back asecond time, he basically
(08:37):
revolutionized the whole citywith Caesar's Palace.
So it's kind of like the best, Ithink it's like the most famous
negative guest review in LasVegas history, where like, yeah,
hated it, gonna come back andbuild Caesars.
And one of the ways he was ableto do that is he had a good
friend, Uncle Jimmy, JimmyHoffa.
So that's when you have friendslike that, your horizons get a
(09:01):
little bit wider.
Was Hoffa the gambler too?
Is that how they were friends?
Hoffa was absolutely not agambler.
So Jay was a party guy, liked togo out with a lot of women, even
though he was married.
Hoffa, almost like a Puritan,very devoted to his wife, really
focusing on one thing, the unionover everything.
(09:22):
I think he was a model.
If anybody's a fan of the show,The Wire or Frank Sabatka, that
character, like just veryfocused on his union.
They were actually introducedthrough Stan Mallon's brother
who was an attorney in DC whoknew Hoffa's attorney and Hoffa
wanted to invest in someprojects and said, Hey, my
brother's involved in thisthing.
(09:42):
Why don't you do this?
So that was how they gotinterested and they really hit
it off.
And it's interesting because onone level, they had so little in
common.
So Jay loved to play golf.
Somebody once asked Jimmy Hoffa,like, why don't you play golf?
His response, I love this, 30seconds in the morning to do 20
push ups is all the exercise aman needs.
(10:06):
They don't need golf.
That's nothing.
So he was that kind of guy, likevery plain guy.
Again, like maybe an inspirationfor Ron Swanson from the show
Parks and Rec.
I'm doing like a pop culturetour here.
Um, yeah, that's just how I seehim.
And basically though, they bothcared deeply about what they
cared about.
For Hoffa, that was the union.
For Jay, that was the casino andhaving this lifestyle, owning
(10:29):
the hotel, owning the casino.
And this is very creative.
He comes up with an idea of ahotel, a casino that will treat
gamblers the way gamblers oughtto be treated.
But, it's not a knock againstSarno to say that banks are not
loaning money to casinos.
Right?
Yeah.
(10:50):
Yeah.
Basically, casinos werelucrative, but very risky, just
like they are now.
If you're a bank officer,there's really not a lot of good
things that could happen if youlend money to a casino.
Maybe they pay it off.
It's very likely that theydon't.
So you couldn't really get moneyfrom banks.
So we had about 10 million, a 10million loan from Jimmy Hoffa
and the Central States TeamsterCentral States Pension Fund.
(11:13):
And for those who don't know somuch about him, Jimmy Hoffa was,
of course, the, the Leader ofthe Teamsters at this time,
early 1960s.
Went to jail for that, later gotout and then disappeared.
That only got him about halfwaythere.
He had to get the rest of themoney pretty much from every
gambler up and down the EastCoast.
Bookies, guys who liked togamble, pretty much anybody who
(11:34):
they could find, they would getto invest.
That is a chunk.
Yeah.
And then he starts to make hisdream reality.
Did he take a trip to Rome?
Yeah, he actually did go to Romefor inspiration.
And my favorite thing is hesays, what do you want your
(11:55):
casino to look like?
He goes around the corner intoSt.
Peter's Square and said, my God,this is it.
The Vatican.
So that kind of tells youeverything about his morality or
whatever.
Like, yeah, it's the Vatican,the center of Latin
Christianity, home of the Pope.
Yeah, I want my casino to looklike this.
So that's, that's pretty muchhim.
(12:15):
And then I assume he hired allthe union contractors that he
could since that's how it'sfunded.
Yeah.
But he was a compulsive gamblerat the same time.
Yes.
Did these guys get paid or didhe waste all that money away?
No, they got paid.
They got paid.
He was a compulsive gambler, butwhen he was the casino owner, he
was making money.
(12:35):
That's, I guess that's how youhave enough money to blow 50,
000 in a night.
You know, he was making money,which was even more money back
then than it is now.
But yeah, he was making a lot ofmoney.
He, and he made money for a lotof people.
He also spent money.
Yeah.
And besides being a golfer andan amazing.
He was also an astute businessname in the sense that he took
(13:00):
every detail of the constructionunder his realm of
responsibility.
Yeah, he knew what he liked, andI guess he was egotistical
enough to figure this is whateveryone else likes.
And he was actually right.
So he really said, well, I likeit here.
This is what I want.
(13:20):
I want to have a lot of food.
I want it to be reallycomfortable.
I want the cocktail waitressesto have these skimpy outfits and
a lot of people like that.
Yes.
And on those constructiondetails, though, one thing that
was in your book was about theminutia.
He designed his own sunscreen.
And I had a question about that.
(13:41):
They didn't make a sunscreenblock.
Good enough for Jay Sarno.
This is a common constructiontechnique to keep the heat out
of the windows, especially in adesert, but he didn't like any
of the blocks.
So I think the constructionmanager or the architect throws
(14:03):
up his hands and says, If youdon't like them, come up with
something better, which he did.
Yeah.
So he designed it.
It's called Sarno block.
And they were actually gettingroyalties from this because
other places were using it.
So yeah, it's called Sarnoblock.
And that's what the had beenactually little treat for you.
There's a piece of it rightthere.
Um, I got that for one of the,one of Jay's kids, because if
(14:26):
you've seen Caesar's in last 20years, they took all that down
off the original tower and reskinned it.
Yeah.
And yes, that's a genuine pieceof the Caesars Palace facade
right there.
Oh, Dr.
Schwartz, that makes my day! I,just as an aside, I've been
trying to draw that blockbecause I'm making a little mock
(14:46):
up, you know, this little windup toy of Evel Knievel, the
first action figure made after.
I'm trying to make a background,a backdrop for one of those
shows.
Yeah.
So he builds Caesars and heloses, right?
The problem was nobody could getalong.
He thought he owned the place.
Nate Jacobson, who got themoney, a big chunk of the money,
(15:06):
thought he owned the place.
Jerry Zarewicz, who was a casinomanager, although he wasn't
licensed, thought he owned theplace and ran the place.
So basically the three of themcouldn't get along.
Nate went and opened the King'sCastle up in Tahoe.
And again, Jay, instead ofsaying, you know, I learned my
lesson, Vegas isn't for me,well, I'll build another casino.
Which he does with CircusCircus.
(15:28):
Circus Circus is a great idea,but it's on the other end of the
spectrum.
One's luxury and one'saffordability.
As he originally saw it, CircusCircus was going to be a high
end casino.
And he saw it as being like thisadult circus, and there was a
lot of stuff in it that didn'tmake it.
It was only later that theyshifted it to be more budget,
(15:48):
although it's been 50 years, soit looks very budget.
But yeah, originally it was, andthe other problem he had, he
couldn't get enough money.
Jimmy was in jail.
He didn't have that faucetcoming from the Teamsters.
So he basically had to buildonly a casino and not a hotel,
which was pretty rough, which iswhy they struggled a lot in the
(16:09):
early years.
And then later got the loan fromthe Teamsters to add the hotel
tower.
Gotcha.
That was an outrageous idea.
Trained monkeys will fetchcigarettes.
They'll hold their face in theirhands as you lose coins down the
slot machine.
Yeah.
And then once it hits the Cnote.
Or the jackpot.
(16:30):
Yeah.
The squeal, right?
Surprise.
Yeah.
Yeah.
They'll be all happy.
Yeah.
And I describe that in the bookin his own words as he's
describing it.
It just shows you he had thisvery vivid image of what he
wanted there.
It's almost psychedelic in someways.
It's very surreal.
Yeah.
Very surreal vision.
And it's like, wow, this, thisis something else.
(16:50):
Yeah.
Well, one thing I think he wasreally right about is I bet
those circus acts that werethere performing.
Night after night really didlike having a home rather than
living on the road.
He was right about that.
And he was an incrediblyintelligent man who also had
incredibly bad judgment in a lotof, in a lot of ways.
(17:11):
One example of that would be hisidea for the topless shoeshine
girls at Circus Circus.
Yeah.
Gotta have the topless shoeshinegirls.
The gaming commission reallyfought on it.
They're like, no, this is goingto make us look bad.
Can't have the topless shoeshinegirls.
He never gave up the good fightfor that.
And he gets ousted from thatcasino, right?
(17:32):
Yeah.
So this is an interesting story.
As a friend of Jimmy Hoffa, hepretty much, he was a target of
the federal government.
Hoffa notoriously had a hugerivalry with Bobby Kennedy, who
then becomes attorney general.
They literally had a Get Hoffasquad, just throwing everything
they could at him and all of hisassociates.
(17:55):
But even after Kennelly wasn'tthe Attorney General, even after
he died, they kind of kept ongrinding on after him.
So basically, now he's beenaudited for about 10 years
straight.
They haven't found anything, butthey're like, yeah, we know
there's something here.
I mean, there is skimming goingon.
(18:15):
And it's kind of funny becauselater on his defense, there's
skimming going on.
The mob is skimming money.
His defense wasn't, I wouldnever skim.
That's dishonest.
That's a violation of myintegrity.
His defense was, We're notmaking enough money to skim.
Like, how can you skim ifthere's nothing to make?
We're not making enough money toskim.
So there's no skim, which is,which is just, I mean, that
tells you all you need to knowabout him, very practical guy.
(18:38):
So basically he's underinvestigation.
IRS agent says to him, you know,if you take care of me here, I
can end this and I've, I canalso get you this refund that
you applied for, and if youdon't, I'm gonna.
Put you out, take you out inhandcuffs.
We're going to close this place.
All these people are going to goout of work.
(18:58):
So Sarno, in his recollection ofit, agreed to pay the bribe,
which ended up being the biggestbribe in IRS history.
And he went on trial for it.
His attorney was a young OscarGoodman, who later, of course,
was famous as a mob lawyer andthe mayor of Vegas.
It was an incredible trial.
Is he the one that's nudging hislawyer Goodman and saying, Say
(19:22):
this, call this witness.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Give me a character witness.
Yeah, you wanted the characterwitnesses because his partner
Stan, who I knew, who was justa, like one of the nicest people
I've ever met, just a totalgentleman all the way through,
just wonderful guy, Jay wasabrasive.
He was not, I don't thinkanybody, and I talked to dozens
(19:43):
of people who worked with him,who knew him, college fraternity
brothers, nobody ever said.
He was a nice guy.
He was a gentleman.
He was a mild mannered guy.
A lot of people really admiredhim.
A lot of people had a lot of funwith him, but you never really
hear that.
So of course, people will say,Oh, Mr.
Mallon, such a gentleman, sonice.
When they call the people forJay, it's like, well, you know,
(20:06):
he's, he's got a decentreputation, I guess.
He's been nice to me.
So it wasn't really what hewanted out of that.
Ah, where's Knievel when youneed him, man?
Yeah, yeah.
Was Knievel around, or was he inand out between Caesar's Palace
and later, or did he just kindof reappear after retirement to
(20:27):
pal around with Sarno?
They were together, you know,off and on during the 70s.
So he would stay, Jay, in thisperiod, had this two story suite
at Circus Circus, and Evel wouldstay there with him.
Or he had a trailer that hestayed in.
He would stay there or stay atJay's for the night.
(20:47):
Yeah, we restored that trailer.
Oh, that's awesome.
There's, yeah, there's storiesin there.
Can I talk a little bit moreabout Evel and Jay?
Yeah, man.
I've got some proof for howclose this bond was.
So I've got a couple of things.
So first of all, don't know theyear off the top of my head, but
I was talking with the family,the kids, yeah, I'd really like
to interview Evel.
Well, we'll see what we can do.
(21:08):
He agreed to the interview.
It was over the phone.
I'm like, yeah, he's not doingso great.
He's in an oxygen tent.
He's over the phone.
I've got to tell you, just likethe first, first thing, like,
yeah, this is evil, but I'mlike, I've never heard someone
with that much presence.
And I'm also going to tell you,I'm not ashamed to admit it.
I've never been this intimidatedby a man in an oxygen tent, 2000
(21:32):
miles away from me.
He's just telling me, he's like,well, this guy.
This guy, um, can I use some notsafe for work language on the
podcast?
He's like, this guy, so and so,he's a cheap little asshole.
This guy, cheap little, thisguy, chicken shit cheater.
Chicken shit.
Just like totally unloading.
(21:52):
It was great.
And he really, but like thelast, the last thing he said to
me was, I don't have too muchlonger here, but I know when I
get to where I'm going next,Jay's going to be the first one
I see.
And I'm like, man, I'm like, ofcourse, I'm like, oh, Evel,
you're indestructible.
Don't talk like that.
You know, you're, but yeah, Imean, he was right.
It might have been one of thelast interviews he gave because
(22:13):
he did pass away a few weeks ormonths after that.
Yeah, he was very, and he wasvery open about how much he
loved Jay.
They really had this bond in thegambling.
And so when there's the storiesin the book about all the stuff
that they're happening, gettingcheated on the golf course, that
came straight from Evel.
He's describing all this to me,you know, where he pulls a gun
(22:36):
on somebody.
Yeah.
Yeah.
He's like, you know, you cheathim.
That's one thing.
You're like, cheat me.
And they brought out the sheriffcame out.
Ralph Lamb is another Vegaslegend.
And, you know, so.
So that's kind of a fun thing.
Like Ralph Lange, Evel Knievel,and like, yeah, we don't want
any trouble here.
Just, uh, you know, you know,these guys are, and it's the
famous thing.
Like, you know, these guys arecheats.
Why do you play with them?
(22:57):
Well, it's the only place I canget this kind of action.
I've got to play with them.
They're out golfing and they beton sports.
There's, there's a book abouthow they, they banter back and
forth about sports in the backof the big red, I call it big
red, but it's, it's the livingquarters that he hauls around on
a semi truck.
Yeah.
Uh, then.
They go gambling, gambling.
(23:18):
What do they play?
Craps together or cards?
Yeah, craps, craps.
It's sports betting.
I mean, Jay played cards too.
Mostly craps though.
I mean, that was the big, bigaction thing.
And yeah, sports betting washuge for them too.
But craps is a big, big thing inthe casino.
And they're loaning the valueenough to buy a house to each
other back and forth, right?
(23:40):
Yeah.
I mean, that's what I love aboutthem.
It's like, they just had this,they would just get wiped out,
but it's like, they did ittogether and it was, it was just
incredible.
And yeah, like money didn'treally mean much to them.
Yeah.
And this earring, he, what doyou call it?
Collateral.
One of the casino managersdemanded to have his earring as
collateral.
And he's like, well, if you wantto gamble, you got to give it to
(24:01):
me.
So he did.
Yeah.
That was from him again, thatwas from Evel personally.
Yeah.
He was still pretty salty aboutthat 30 years later.
Yeah.
He was still pretty not, nothappy with that guy and he ended
up not losing everything thatnight.
Yes.
Going to collect his collateral.
Yeah.
Asshole.
Yeah.
Yeah, he was, that's gotta beone of my, one of my favorite
(24:22):
experiences of interviewing himwas just, again, I don't even
know how to put it into words.
I'm not that eloquent, but justhis presence.
Yeah.
I don't know how to just, I've,there's very few human beings
I've met in my life where youfeel that like.
Damn, you know, that's EvelKnievel.
And again, it's not like I'mstarstruck, you know, I'm out in
Vegas, celebrities, I'veinterviewed billionaires, I've
(24:44):
interviewed all kinds of people,so it's not like I'm totally
starstruck.
But yeah, Evel is somethingelse.
That one I'll admit I wasstarstruck.
Yeah, that is so cool.
Evel passed from pulmonaryfibrosis.
Which is why he was on theoxygen.
Sarno passed away before that.
Yeah.
What, what year was that?
84.
(25:05):
Oh, that was long ago.
Yeah.
A while ago.
And he was still thinking aboutthem and he still kept up with
the family, you know, so thatreally, they really had a bond.
It's like a little, uh, Easteregg, uh, in the book, because
that's the reason that Drew readthe book was Knievel, and then
you get to read the name andit's like, Oh, wow, they went
golfing and gambling and sportsbetting.
(25:29):
Were they contemporaries?
What were they?
Evel was a little bit younger.
Evel was a little younger thanhim, about, I think, 15 or 16
years younger than him, I think.
Okay, so back to the casinoscheming.
Sarno was not done yet withbuilding the best casino ever.
(25:52):
Yeah.
So he dreams up the grandissimo.
When he's about to go on trial,the gaming board, gaming
commission in Nevada makes himlease Circa Circa.
So you know what?
If this guy gets convicted, theheadline's not going to be
casino owner.
goes to jail.
It's like former casino owner,which makes it all better.
Former casino owner goes tojail.
(26:13):
So they're, so he'll lease itout.
Um, he's getting steady moneyfrom it.
He doesn't really have to doanything.
He's gambling.
He's doing all this stuff, buthe has the idea that he is going
to build the biggest hotel, thebiggest casino ever built, 6,
000 rooms, Total luxury shoppingmall inside all this stuff and
(26:36):
he just can't get the money forit.
And it's kind of slips furtherand further away from him as the
years go on.
It's a shame because basicallythis was the mega resort about
10 years before they startedbuilding the mega resorts.
Was he able to go back tobecause the circus circus or
(26:58):
Caesar's palace to have fun andparty.
Oh yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, he would gamble thereall the time he lived at, you
know, one of the agreements ofthe lease was he was able to
live at Circus Circus in 1983.
Circus Circus Enterprises, thecompany that was leasing it
wanted to go public.
And they had to get rid of Sarnoas a landlord, because again, it
was not a Wall Street kind ofguy being in the same sentence
(27:20):
with Jimmy Hoffa.
You're not going to be.
So that was when they bought himout.
And that was, he was no longeran owner in any way.
He did lose that suite, butthat's, that's when that
happened.
And his health begins todeteriorate.
And I enjoyed part of the bookwhere he calls, uh, Somebody
that came up with South Beachdiet.
(27:41):
Is that right?
Yeah.
And he tried a lot of these faddiets and he's like always
trying something because he, Imean, he just loved to eat, you
know, he would eat and then oneI described in like one or two
pages, like this is his dailyregimen.
Wake up, eat, talk on the phone,eat, play some golf, eat, do
this, eat, go do Caesars for agourmet meal on the ride home,
(28:02):
come back and stop at Wendy'sand get a lot, one last
hamburger and go to bed.
This guy.
Did like to eat quite a bit.
Well, it's one of the manyfantastic quotes was him on the
phone with this celebrity authorthat came up with a fad diet.
And he says, I'm going to lose30 pounds in 30 days and you're
going to help me do it.
(28:23):
I'm going to pay you a thousanddollars per pound.
And she explains, I'm not adietitian.
I'm, I'm really a legitimateauthor.
And he says, I'm talking about30, 000.
You want to come get it.
Yeah, yeah, that's wild.
So, I would imagine betweenUnions, mobs, mafia, uh, and
(28:50):
then gambling the whole, thewhole seedy part of the United
States of America.
Are they, are they putting outhits on him?
Cause he's not repaying.
Cause he's living pretty largedriving a Rolls Royce.
I mean, he, they, and they paidoff the teamster loans.
I mean, that's the ironic thingis those loans were paid off.
(29:11):
He didn't really have anytrouble from that part of that
part of the United States.
It was more of the.
IRS and the justice departmentwho didn't like them.
Oh, okay.
So the mafia is really nottrying to, the, the Kansas city
mafia here, they were major partof that skimming operation in
Las Vegas, but they're notnecessarily after Sarno or his
(29:35):
job.
No, he can stay there as long asthey get there.
They need someone like that.
Yeah.
I mean, they want someone likethat.
So yeah, that, that is not aproblem for them.
Eventually he got divorced.
And he's kicked out of CircusCircus, he's kicked out of his
two floor suite, has declininghealth, and eventually dies a
(30:03):
sensational death, if not afantasy death.
Yeah.
And maybe we'll save that forthe readers to discover on their
own.
Yeah, okay, that's great.
I think it puts his life inperspective, and actually
reading, so writing the story,my idea was, this man dies,
these are the circumstances ofhis death, this is where it is.
(30:24):
How does he get there from wherehe started?
So that's the story I was tryingto tell with the book.
Well, You must've told it well,cause even I got the gist of it
and it was not, uh, okay, we'llleave it for the reader.
It's inspirational and amazing.
Amazing.
(30:44):
Just absolutely amazing.
I'm still flummoxed as to whatthis, what this guy is.
Is this a role model or is it abackwards role model or somebody
not to model your life after?
What lessons do you take awayfrom the life of Jay Sarno?
By writing the book and beinghis biographer, I've got to say,
I wanted, I trust the readers tocome to their own decisions
(31:08):
about him.
Can I look at you and say, yes,as a husband, this is what I
aspire to be?
Absolutely not.
On the other hand, can I saythis was somebody who had
courage in his own way andbelieved in his own convictions
and got out there and wanted tomake this little part of Vegas
better and did it?
actually got something done.
(31:28):
Not all of us can say that.
So there's, uh, there'sdefinitely not a lot of things
that you wouldn't want to admirethere, but there's things that I
think anyone can admire.
And again, it's up to the readerto make their own decision.
I'm not saying if he's a hero ora villain, the readers can
decide for themselves.
Well, very similar to hiscounterpart, Evel Knievel too.
(31:48):
Flawed, genius, creative, andthen can stun you with bad
decisions.
We've told everybody they oughtto get this book and they ought
to, where would they get that?
Um, you can get it pretty muchanywhere books are sold.
Amazon is probably the biggestplace.
(32:09):
Barnesandnoble.
com too.
Apple books, all kinds ofplatforms.
So yeah, wherever they want toget it, they can get it.
Yeah.
Highly recommend it.
I got mine on Audible again,because I was.
on a plane and then in a hotelroom.
Yeah.
And it's good that way too.
Thank you so much for sharingyour time today and especially
(32:29):
your talents.
Your writing style isincredible.
You did a fantastic job.
Thank you so much.
I appreciate that.
Yeah.
And happy landings.
All right.
See you around.
Bye.
If you enjoyed this episode,please subscribe.
It's our mission to preserve andpresent the legacy of Evel
(32:49):
Knievel.
So, if you have an idea for anepisode or a guest, or have a
suggestion to improve our show,just drop us a line at joe at
thrill dot show.
I just think, the Evel Knievelway.
We leave you with theencouraging words from the book
of Deuteronomy.
(33:10):
Be strong and courageous.
Do not be afraid or terrified.
For the Lord your God goes withyou.
He will never leave you orforsake you.
Until next time, happy landings.
(33:33):
Wanna fly by the seat of yourpants?
This is where you belong.
Can I talk a little bit moreabout Evel and Jay?
I've got some proof for howclose this bond was.
I was talking with the family,the kids, yeah, I'd really like
to interview Evel.
He agreed to the interview, itwas over the phone.
They're like, yeah, he's notdoing so great, he's in an
oxygen tent.
I've got to tell you, just likethe first First thing, like,
yeah, this is Evel, but I'mlike, I've never heard someone
(00:22):
with that much presence.
And I'm also going to tell you,I'm not ashamed to admit it.
I've never been this intimidatedby a man in an oxygen tent, 2000
miles away from me.
Evel Knievel inspired millionsof us with his courage and
perseverance.
We're building a museum so youcan relive those memories and be
reinvigorated with that spiritof bravery.
(00:45):
My name is Evel Knievel.
I'm a professional daredevil.
Along the way, we meet peopleinvolved in the life, the times,
and the legacy of the King ofDaredevils.
Here with their stories is yourhost, Joe Friday.
(01:45):
Welcome to the Thrill Show fromthe Evel Knievel Museum.
This is Dr.
David G.
Schwartz, author of Grandissimo,the First Emperor of Vegas.
And I think all of our listenersand Evel Knievel fans are going
to be super excited to read thisbook.
I know I picked a copy up on myway to Las Vegas last time and
(02:06):
read it all in one setting.
It's a shame to pay 400 a nightfor a hotel room where you don't
even enjoy the spa or the pool,but you just sit in your room
reading a book, which is what Idid.
Dr.
Schwartz.
Yeah.
Dr.
Schwartz is the, you correct meif I'm wrong, because this may
be updated, but the director ofgaming at UNLV.
(02:28):
Oh yeah, that's long overdue.
I'm the ombudsman of UNLV.
The reason that I was sointerested in Grandismo was
because I spend every weektelling a story about Evel
Knievel and Caesar's Palace.
It's got its own display that'sabout, I don't know, 10 feet by
10 feet, and it's got theoriginal motorcycle there and
some authentic leathers andhelmets.
(02:49):
It's really cool.
And I tell the story about Thisman named Jay Sarnos who had a,
or Sarno, who had a vision of aluxury hotel casino in Vegas.
Evel Knievel happened to bethere because he was there to
see an amateur boxing pro thatwas from his hometown.
(03:11):
Rick Rouse, I think.
And that's why he was there.
I don't think he could afford aroom there at the time, but he
could afford a beer down thereat the hotel bar.
And one of his buddies said, youknow, they don't have a, they
don't have a Dean Martin like,like the Sands has.
They don't have a Sammy DavisJr.
(03:32):
like the Dunes has.
They don't really have anentertainment draw here.
This place is so new.
You could do those wheelies likeyou did back home and do stunts.
Jump over stuff like you didthose lions back there in
Washington.
And he says, the more beer Idrank, the smaller those
fountains got until I decided, Ithink I can make those
fountains.
(03:53):
I'm going to call the owner ofthis joint and convince him.
So can you tell us about howEvel Knievel went about
convincing Sarnos to do that?
Yeah.
So first he tried calling them.
And didn't really get anywhere.
Sarno was like, yeah, not, notinterested, not interested.
Then he started putting ondifferent accents and pretending
(04:15):
to be reporters, pretending tobe different people, like, Hey,
is it true?
This is going to happen.
So Sarno now thinks, wow,there's really interested in
this.
You know, this guy is somebody,so he says, fine, we'll do it.
So it's kind of, it's veryinteresting.
You know, Sarno himself is avery, very colorful character.
And I think he really met, um, akindred spirit in Evel.
(04:37):
For sure, for sure.
That's the perfect term for it.
They were, I can't imagine thesetwo together.
I can't imagine Las Vegas, thetown, surviving with these two
together, but they did.
And that launched Evel Knievel'scareer after Evel Knievel
wrecked, broke both of hiswrists, both ankles, his femur,
(04:59):
and his pelvis.
He was hospitalized.
J.
Sarno had been watching from hispenthouse office upstairs along
with his two young sons.
Yeah, they were on top of thePortico share right up there.
They were up there watchingthat.
Yeah.
And so the kids are convincedthat man just died.
I can't believe we just saw aman die and we knew him and we
(05:20):
liked Evel Knievel.
Yeah.
Sarno says, no, he's okay.
He was moving as they loaded himon the ambulance.
But to reassure you, I will takeyou to the hospital and, and
show you.
It takes a long time for him tomake his way from the Portico to
the, His car and the whole timehe's thinking, wow, I signed
(05:40):
this kid for two dates, NewYear's Eve and New Year's Day.
And he hatches a marketing planto bring everybody back to Vegas
to watch him make it.
Gets to the hospital.
Knievel says, Oh, thank Godyou're here, Jay.
You got to get me out of here.
I don't have insurance.
And Sarno says, listen, kid,I've got this covered.
(06:03):
I've got a plan.
I'll cover the hospital bills.
You just play possum and I'llpay off the medical staff you.
And they won't tell anybodyother than what I pay the doctor
to say out in front of thehospital in a white lab coat,
which is, yes, America'sfavorite daredevil, Evel
(06:23):
Knievel, is in a coma in thehospital.
And we are assured that as soonas he wakes up from the coma,
He's going to try this again.
Huge, huge.
What a humongous help Sarno didin hatching that whole plan for
Evel Knievel.
Yeah.
And maybe, and maybe not payingthe hospital bills.
(06:44):
You never know with Jay.
Yeah.
So can you tell us, I'm just sofascinated by this book.
I'm flummoxed to whether he's ahero or a villain.
I can't figure it out, but Couldyou just tell us how he started
and how he got the idea?
Yeah, Jay was an interestingguy, born in St.
(07:06):
Joseph, Missouri in 1921, socame of age during the
Depression.
His family was pretty poorimmigrants and had served in
World War II, kind of, you know,not on the front lines.
But did his part for the countryand also made himself a little
bit of money there.
Got out of school, finishedcollege, and then went into
business with his friend fromcollege, Stan Mallon, setting
(07:29):
tile, you know, tile business.
And that in first in Miami, thenin Atlanta, and that later
graduated to building buildings.
So apartment buildings, whichthen became.
motels, which then becamehotels.
And that's how he came out toVegas.
And he decided, I'm going tobuild a great hotel in Vegas,
(07:50):
which is where Caesar's palacecame from.
He's a compulsive gambler or aDJ.
He called himself a degenerategambler.
He's a degenerate gambler,degenerate compulsive gambler.
So I assume he's doing that inthe army.
Yeah, somewhere around St.
Joe or at least in college inMissouri somewhere.
Yeah.
And Vegas is the gambling meccaand he shows up and it's, in his
(08:16):
words, Awful, dull, plain, whichis amazing to me.
Dacus had everything that heliked and he hated it.
And a lot of people, and this isthe thing about Jay, he never
really took no for an answer.
A lot of people, if they gosomewhere and they don't like
it, they're not going to comeback a second time.
Not only did he come back asecond time, he basically
(08:37):
revolutionized the whole citywith Caesar's Palace.
So it's kind of like the best, Ithink it's like the most famous
negative guest review in LasVegas history, where like, yeah,
hated it, gonna come back andbuild Caesars.
And one of the ways he was ableto do that is he had a good
friend, Uncle Jimmy, JimmyHoffa.
So that's when you have friendslike that, your horizons get a
(09:01):
little bit wider.
Was Hoffa the gambler too?
Is that how they were friends?
Hoffa was absolutely not agambler.
So Jay was a party guy, liked togo out with a lot of women, even
though he was married.
Hoffa, almost like a Puritan,very devoted to his wife, really
focusing on one thing, the unionover everything.
(09:22):
I think he was a model.
If anybody's a fan of the show,The Wire or Frank Sabatka, that
character, like just veryfocused on his union.
They were actually introducedthrough Stan Mallon's brother
who was an attorney in DC whoknew Hoffa's attorney and Hoffa
wanted to invest in someprojects and said, Hey, my
brother's involved in thisthing.
(09:42):
Why don't you do this?
So that was how they gotinterested and they really hit
it off.
And it's interesting because onone level, they had so little in
common.
So Jay loved to play golf.
Somebody once asked Jimmy Hoffa,like, why don't you play golf?
His response, I love this, 30seconds in the morning to do 20
push ups is all the exercise aman needs.
(10:06):
They don't need golf.
That's nothing.
So he was that kind of guy, likevery plain guy.
Again, like maybe an inspirationfor Ron Swanson from the show
Parks and Rec.
I'm doing like a pop culturetour here.
Um, yeah, that's just how I seehim.
And basically though, they bothcared deeply about what they
cared about.
For Hoffa, that was the union.
For Jay, that was the casino andhaving this lifestyle, owning
(10:29):
the hotel, owning the casino.
And this is very creative.
He comes up with an idea of ahotel, a casino that will treat
gamblers the way gamblers oughtto be treated.
But, it's not a knock againstSarno to say that banks are not
loaning money to casinos.
Right?
Yeah.
(10:50):
Yeah.
Basically, casinos werelucrative, but very risky, just
like they are now.
If you're a bank officer,there's really not a lot of good
things that could happen if youlend money to a casino.
Maybe they pay it off.
It's very likely that theydon't.
So you couldn't really get moneyfrom banks.
So we had about 10 million, a 10million loan from Jimmy Hoffa
and the Central States TeamsterCentral States Pension Fund.
(11:13):
And for those who don't know somuch about him, Jimmy Hoffa was,
of course, the, the Leader ofthe Teamsters at this time,
early 1960s.
Went to jail for that, later gotout and then disappeared.
That only got him about halfwaythere.
He had to get the rest of themoney pretty much from every
gambler up and down the EastCoast.
Bookies, guys who liked togamble, pretty much anybody who
(11:34):
they could find, they would getto invest.
That is a chunk.
Yeah.
And then he starts to make hisdream reality.
Did he take a trip to Rome?
Yeah, he actually did go to Romefor inspiration.
And my favorite thing is hesays, what do you want your
(11:55):
casino to look like?
He goes around the corner intoSt.
Peter's Square and said, my God,this is it.
The Vatican.
So that kind of tells youeverything about his morality or
whatever.
Like, yeah, it's the Vatican,the center of Latin
Christianity, home of the Pope.
Yeah, I want my casino to looklike this.
So that's, that's pretty muchhim.
(12:15):
And then I assume he hired allthe union contractors that he
could since that's how it'sfunded.
Yeah.
But he was a compulsive gamblerat the same time.
Yes.
Did these guys get paid or didhe waste all that money away?
No, they got paid.
They got paid.
He was a compulsive gambler, butwhen he was the casino owner, he
was making money.
(12:35):
That's, I guess that's how youhave enough money to blow 50,
000 in a night.
You know, he was making money,which was even more money back
then than it is now.
But yeah, he was making a lot ofmoney.
He, and he made money for a lotof people.
He also spent money.
Yeah.
And besides being a golfer andan amazing.
He was also an astute businessname in the sense that he took
(13:00):
every detail of the constructionunder his realm of
responsibility.
Yeah, he knew what he liked, andI guess he was egotistical
enough to figure this is whateveryone else likes.
And he was actually right.
So he really said, well, I likeit here.
This is what I want.
(13:20):
I want to have a lot of food.
I want it to be reallycomfortable.
I want the cocktail waitressesto have these skimpy outfits and
a lot of people like that.
Yes.
And on those constructiondetails, though, one thing that
was in your book was about theminutia.
He designed his own sunscreen.
And I had a question about that.
(13:41):
They didn't make a sunscreenblock.
Good enough for Jay Sarno.
This is a common constructiontechnique to keep the heat out
of the windows, especially in adesert, but he didn't like any
of the blocks.
So I think the constructionmanager or the architect throws
(14:03):
up his hands and says, If youdon't like them, come up with
something better, which he did.
Yeah.
So he designed it.
It's called Sarno block.
And they were actually gettingroyalties from this because
other places were using it.
So yeah, it's called Sarnoblock.
And that's what the had beenactually little treat for you.
There's a piece of it rightthere.
Um, I got that for one of the,one of Jay's kids, because if
(14:26):
you've seen Caesar's in last 20years, they took all that down
off the original tower and reskinned it.
Yeah.
And yes, that's a genuine pieceof the Caesars Palace facade
right there.
Oh, Dr.
Schwartz, that makes my day! I,just as an aside, I've been
trying to draw that blockbecause I'm making a little mock
(14:46):
up, you know, this little windup toy of Evel Knievel, the
first action figure made after.
I'm trying to make a background,a backdrop for one of those
shows.
Yeah.
So he builds Caesars and heloses, right?
The problem was nobody could getalong.
He thought he owned the place.
Nate Jacobson, who got themoney, a big chunk of the money,
(15:06):
thought he owned the place.
Jerry Zarewicz, who was a casinomanager, although he wasn't
licensed, thought he owned theplace and ran the place.
So basically the three of themcouldn't get along.
Nate went and opened the King'sCastle up in Tahoe.
And again, Jay, instead ofsaying, you know, I learned my
lesson, Vegas isn't for me,well, I'll build another casino.
Which he does with CircusCircus.
(15:28):
Circus Circus is a great idea,but it's on the other end of the
spectrum.
One's luxury and one'saffordability.
As he originally saw it, CircusCircus was going to be a high
end casino.
And he saw it as being like thisadult circus, and there was a
lot of stuff in it that didn'tmake it.
It was only later that theyshifted it to be more budget,
(15:48):
although it's been 50 years, soit looks very budget.
But yeah, originally it was, andthe other problem he had, he
couldn't get enough money.
Jimmy was in jail.
He didn't have that faucetcoming from the Teamsters.
So he basically had to buildonly a casino and not a hotel,
which was pretty rough, which iswhy they struggled a lot in the
(16:09):
early years.
And then later got the loan fromthe Teamsters to add the hotel
tower.
Gotcha.
That was an outrageous idea.
Trained monkeys will fetchcigarettes.
They'll hold their face in theirhands as you lose coins down the
slot machine.
Yeah.
And then once it hits the Cnote.
Or the jackpot.
(16:30):
Yeah.
The squeal, right?
Surprise.
Yeah.
Yeah.
They'll be all happy.
Yeah.
And I describe that in the bookin his own words as he's
describing it.
It just shows you he had thisvery vivid image of what he
wanted there.
It's almost psychedelic in someways.
It's very surreal.
Yeah.
Very surreal vision.
And it's like, wow, this, thisis something else.
(16:50):
Yeah.
Well, one thing I think he wasreally right about is I bet
those circus acts that werethere performing.
Night after night really didlike having a home rather than
living on the road.
He was right about that.
And he was an incrediblyintelligent man who also had
incredibly bad judgment in a lotof, in a lot of ways.
(17:11):
One example of that would be hisidea for the topless shoeshine
girls at Circus Circus.
Yeah.
Gotta have the topless shoeshinegirls.
The gaming commission reallyfought on it.
They're like, no, this is goingto make us look bad.
Can't have the topless shoeshinegirls.
He never gave up the good fightfor that.
And he gets ousted from thatcasino, right?
(17:32):
Yeah.
So this is an interesting story.
As a friend of Jimmy Hoffa, hepretty much, he was a target of
the federal government.
Hoffa notoriously had a hugerivalry with Bobby Kennedy, who
then becomes attorney general.
They literally had a Get Hoffasquad, just throwing everything
they could at him and all of hisassociates.
(17:55):
But even after Kennelly wasn'tthe Attorney General, even after
he died, they kind of kept ongrinding on after him.
So basically, now he's beenaudited for about 10 years
straight.
They haven't found anything, butthey're like, yeah, we know
there's something here.
I mean, there is skimming goingon.
(18:15):
And it's kind of funny becauselater on his defense, there's
skimming going on.
The mob is skimming money.
His defense wasn't, I wouldnever skim.
That's dishonest.
That's a violation of myintegrity.
His defense was, We're notmaking enough money to skim.
Like, how can you skim ifthere's nothing to make?
We're not making enough money toskim.
So there's no skim, which is,which is just, I mean, that
tells you all you need to knowabout him, very practical guy.
(18:38):
So basically he's underinvestigation.
IRS agent says to him, you know,if you take care of me here, I
can end this and I've, I canalso get you this refund that
you applied for, and if youdon't, I'm gonna.
Put you out, take you out inhandcuffs.
We're going to close this place.
All these people are going to goout of work.
(18:58):
So Sarno, in his recollection ofit, agreed to pay the bribe,
which ended up being the biggestbribe in IRS history.
And he went on trial for it.
His attorney was a young OscarGoodman, who later, of course,
was famous as a mob lawyer andthe mayor of Vegas.
It was an incredible trial.
Is he the one that's nudging hislawyer Goodman and saying, Say
(19:22):
this, call this witness.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Give me a character witness.
Yeah, you wanted the characterwitnesses because his partner
Stan, who I knew, who was justa, like one of the nicest people
I've ever met, just a totalgentleman all the way through,
just wonderful guy, Jay wasabrasive.
He was not, I don't thinkanybody, and I talked to dozens
(19:43):
of people who worked with him,who knew him, college fraternity
brothers, nobody ever said.
He was a nice guy.
He was a gentleman.
He was a mild mannered guy.
A lot of people really admiredhim.
A lot of people had a lot of funwith him, but you never really
hear that.
So of course, people will say,Oh, Mr.
Mallon, such a gentleman, sonice.
When they call the people forJay, it's like, well, you know,
(20:06):
he's, he's got a decentreputation, I guess.
He's been nice to me.
So it wasn't really what hewanted out of that.
Ah, where's Knievel when youneed him, man?
Yeah, yeah.
Was Knievel around, or was he inand out between Caesar's Palace
and later, or did he just kindof reappear after retirement to
(20:27):
pal around with Sarno?
They were together, you know,off and on during the 70s.
So he would stay, Jay, in thisperiod, had this two story suite
at Circus Circus, and Evel wouldstay there with him.
Or he had a trailer that hestayed in.
He would stay there or stay atJay's for the night.
(20:47):
Yeah, we restored that trailer.
Oh, that's awesome.
There's, yeah, there's storiesin there.
Can I talk a little bit moreabout Evel and Jay?
Yeah, man.
I've got some proof for howclose this bond was.
So I've got a couple of things.
So first of all, don't know theyear off the top of my head, but
I was talking with the family,the kids, yeah, I'd really like
to interview Evel.
Well, we'll see what we can do.
(21:08):
He agreed to the interview.
It was over the phone.
I'm like, yeah, he's not doingso great.
He's in an oxygen tent.
He's over the phone.
I've got to tell you, just likethe first, first thing, like,
yeah, this is evil, but I'mlike, I've never heard someone
with that much presence.
And I'm also going to tell you,I'm not ashamed to admit it.
I've never been this intimidatedby a man in an oxygen tent, 2000
(21:32):
miles away from me.
He's just telling me, he's like,well, this guy.
This guy, um, can I use some notsafe for work language on the
podcast?
He's like, this guy, so and so,he's a cheap little asshole.
This guy, cheap little, thisguy, chicken shit cheater.
Chicken shit.
Just like totally unloading.
(21:52):
It was great.
And he really, but like thelast, the last thing he said to
me was, I don't have too muchlonger here, but I know when I
get to where I'm going next,Jay's going to be the first one
I see.
And I'm like, man, I'm like, ofcourse, I'm like, oh, Evel,
you're indestructible.
Don't talk like that.
You know, you're, but yeah, Imean, he was right.
It might have been one of thelast interviews he gave because
(22:13):
he did pass away a few weeks ormonths after that.
Yeah, he was very, and he wasvery open about how much he
loved Jay.
They really had this bond in thegambling.
And so when there's the storiesin the book about all the stuff
that they're happening, gettingcheated on the golf course, that
came straight from Evel.
He's describing all this to me,you know, where he pulls a gun
(22:36):
on somebody.
Yeah.
Yeah.
He's like, you know, you cheathim.
That's one thing.
You're like, cheat me.
And they brought out the sheriffcame out.
Ralph Lamb is another Vegaslegend.
And, you know, so.
So that's kind of a fun thing.
Like Ralph Lange, Evel Knievel,and like, yeah, we don't want
any trouble here.
Just, uh, you know, you know,these guys are, and it's the
famous thing.
Like, you know, these guys arecheats.
Why do you play with them?
(22:57):
Well, it's the only place I canget this kind of action.
I've got to play with them.
They're out golfing and they beton sports.
There's, there's a book abouthow they, they banter back and
forth about sports in the backof the big red, I call it big
red, but it's, it's the livingquarters that he hauls around on
a semi truck.
Yeah.
Uh, then.
They go gambling, gambling.
(23:18):
What do they play?
Craps together or cards?
Yeah, craps, craps.
It's sports betting.
I mean, Jay played cards too.
Mostly craps though.
I mean, that was the big, bigaction thing.
And yeah, sports betting washuge for them too.
But craps is a big, big thing inthe casino.
And they're loaning the valueenough to buy a house to each
other back and forth, right?
(23:40):
Yeah.
I mean, that's what I love aboutthem.
It's like, they just had this,they would just get wiped out,
but it's like, they did ittogether and it was, it was just
incredible.
And yeah, like money didn'treally mean much to them.
Yeah.
And this earring, he, what doyou call it?
Collateral.
One of the casino managersdemanded to have his earring as
collateral.
And he's like, well, if you wantto gamble, you got to give it to
(24:01):
me.
So he did.
Yeah.
That was from him again, thatwas from Evel personally.
Yeah.
He was still pretty salty aboutthat 30 years later.
Yeah.
He was still pretty not, nothappy with that guy and he ended
up not losing everything thatnight.
Yes.
Going to collect his collateral.
Yeah.
Asshole.
Yeah.
Yeah, he was, that's gotta beone of my, one of my favorite
(24:22):
experiences of interviewing himwas just, again, I don't even
know how to put it into words.
I'm not that eloquent, but justhis presence.
Yeah.
I don't know how to just, I've,there's very few human beings
I've met in my life where youfeel that like.
Damn, you know, that's EvelKnievel.
And again, it's not like I'mstarstruck, you know, I'm out in
Vegas, celebrities, I'veinterviewed billionaires, I've
(24:44):
interviewed all kinds of people,so it's not like I'm totally
starstruck.
But yeah, Evel is somethingelse.
That one I'll admit I wasstarstruck.
Yeah, that is so cool.
Evel passed from pulmonaryfibrosis.
Which is why he was on theoxygen.
Sarno passed away before that.
Yeah.
What, what year was that?
84.
(25:05):
Oh, that was long ago.
Yeah.
A while ago.
And he was still thinking aboutthem and he still kept up with
the family, you know, so thatreally, they really had a bond.
It's like a little, uh, Easteregg, uh, in the book, because
that's the reason that Drew readthe book was Knievel, and then
you get to read the name andit's like, Oh, wow, they went
golfing and gambling and sportsbetting.
(25:29):
Were they contemporaries?
What were they?
Evel was a little bit younger.
Evel was a little younger thanhim, about, I think, 15 or 16
years younger than him, I think.
Okay, so back to the casinoscheming.
Sarno was not done yet withbuilding the best casino ever.
(25:52):
Yeah.
So he dreams up the grandissimo.
When he's about to go on trial,the gaming board, gaming
commission in Nevada makes himlease Circa Circa.
So you know what?
If this guy gets convicted, theheadline's not going to be
casino owner.
goes to jail.
It's like former casino owner,which makes it all better.
Former casino owner goes tojail.
(26:13):
So they're, so he'll lease itout.
Um, he's getting steady moneyfrom it.
He doesn't really have to doanything.
He's gambling.
He's doing all this stuff, buthe has the idea that he is going
to build the biggest hotel, thebiggest casino ever built, 6,
000 rooms, Total luxury shoppingmall inside all this stuff and
(26:36):
he just can't get the money forit.
And it's kind of slips furtherand further away from him as the
years go on.
It's a shame because basicallythis was the mega resort about
10 years before they startedbuilding the mega resorts.
Was he able to go back tobecause the circus circus or
(26:58):
Caesar's palace to have fun andparty.
Oh yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, he would gamble thereall the time he lived at, you
know, one of the agreements ofthe lease was he was able to
live at Circus Circus in 1983.
Circus Circus Enterprises, thecompany that was leasing it
wanted to go public.
And they had to get rid of Sarnoas a landlord, because again, it
was not a Wall Street kind ofguy being in the same sentence
(27:20):
with Jimmy Hoffa.
You're not going to be.
So that was when they bought himout.
And that was, he was no longeran owner in any way.
He did lose that suite, butthat's, that's when that
happened.
And his health begins todeteriorate.
And I enjoyed part of the bookwhere he calls, uh, Somebody
that came up with South Beachdiet.
(27:41):
Is that right?
Yeah.
And he tried a lot of these faddiets and he's like always
trying something because he, Imean, he just loved to eat, you
know, he would eat and then oneI described in like one or two
pages, like this is his dailyregimen.
Wake up, eat, talk on the phone,eat, play some golf, eat, do
this, eat, go do Caesars for agourmet meal on the ride home,
(28:02):
come back and stop at Wendy'sand get a lot, one last
hamburger and go to bed.
This guy.
Did like to eat quite a bit.
Well, it's one of the manyfantastic quotes was him on the
phone with this celebrity authorthat came up with a fad diet.
And he says, I'm going to lose30 pounds in 30 days and you're
going to help me do it.
(28:23):
I'm going to pay you a thousanddollars per pound.
And she explains, I'm not adietitian.
I'm, I'm really a legitimateauthor.
And he says, I'm talking about30, 000.
You want to come get it.
Yeah, yeah, that's wild.
So, I would imagine betweenUnions, mobs, mafia, uh, and
(28:50):
then gambling the whole, thewhole seedy part of the United
States of America.
Are they, are they putting outhits on him?
Cause he's not repaying.
Cause he's living pretty largedriving a Rolls Royce.
I mean, he, they, and they paidoff the teamster loans.
I mean, that's the ironic thingis those loans were paid off.
(29:11):
He didn't really have anytrouble from that part of that
part of the United States.
It was more of the.
IRS and the justice departmentwho didn't like them.
Oh, okay.
So the mafia is really nottrying to, the, the Kansas city
mafia here, they were major partof that skimming operation in
Las Vegas, but they're notnecessarily after Sarno or his
(29:35):
job.
No, he can stay there as long asthey get there.
They need someone like that.
Yeah.
I mean, they want someone likethat.
So yeah, that, that is not aproblem for them.
Eventually he got divorced.
And he's kicked out of CircusCircus, he's kicked out of his
two floor suite, has declininghealth, and eventually dies a
(30:03):
sensational death, if not afantasy death.
Yeah.
And maybe we'll save that forthe readers to discover on their
own.
Yeah, okay, that's great.
I think it puts his life inperspective, and actually
reading, so writing the story,my idea was, this man dies,
these are the circumstances ofhis death, this is where it is.
(30:24):
How does he get there from wherehe started?
So that's the story I was tryingto tell with the book.
Well, You must've told it well,cause even I got the gist of it
and it was not, uh, okay, we'llleave it for the reader.
It's inspirational and amazing.
Amazing.
(30:44):
Just absolutely amazing.
I'm still flummoxed as to whatthis, what this guy is.
Is this a role model or is it abackwards role model or somebody
not to model your life after?
What lessons do you take awayfrom the life of Jay Sarno?
By writing the book and beinghis biographer, I've got to say,
I wanted, I trust the readers tocome to their own decisions
(31:08):
about him.
Can I look at you and say, yes,as a husband, this is what I
aspire to be?
Absolutely not.
On the other hand, can I saythis was somebody who had
courage in his own way andbelieved in his own convictions
and got out there and wanted tomake this little part of Vegas
better and did it?
actually got something done.
(31:28):
Not all of us can say that.
So there's, uh, there'sdefinitely not a lot of things
that you wouldn't want to admirethere, but there's things that I
think anyone can admire.
And again, it's up to the readerto make their own decision.
I'm not saying if he's a hero ora villain, the readers can
decide for themselves.
Well, very similar to hiscounterpart, Evel Knievel too.
(31:48):
Flawed, genius, creative, andthen can stun you with bad
decisions.
We've told everybody they oughtto get this book and they ought
to, where would they get that?
Um, you can get it pretty muchanywhere books are sold.
Amazon is probably the biggestplace.
(32:09):
Barnesandnoble.
com too.
Apple books, all kinds ofplatforms.
So yeah, wherever they want toget it, they can get it.
Yeah.
Highly recommend it.
I got mine on Audible again,because I was.
on a plane and then in a hotelroom.
Yeah.
And it's good that way too.
Thank you so much for sharingyour time today and especially
(32:29):
your talents.
Your writing style isincredible.
You did a fantastic job.
Thank you so much.
I appreciate that.
Yeah.
And happy landings.
All right.
See you around.
Bye.
If you enjoyed this episode,please subscribe.
It's our mission to preserve andpresent the legacy of Evel
(32:49):
Knievel.
So, if you have an idea for anepisode or a guest, or have a
suggestion to improve our show,just drop us a line at joe at
thrill dot show.
I just think, the Evel Knievelway.
We leave you with theencouraging words from the book
of Deuteronomy.
(33:10):
Be strong and courageous.
Do not be afraid or terrified.
For the Lord your God goes withyou.
He will never leave you orforsake you.
Until next time, happy landings.
(33:33):
Wanna fly by the seat of yourpants?
This is where you belong.
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