William Wilkerson
Encyclopedia
William Richard Wilkerson (September 29, 1890 – September 2, 1962) was the founder of the Hollywood Reporter, Flamingo Hotel and owner of such nightclubs as Ciro's
. He was also responsible for discovering actress Lana Turner
across the street from Hollywood High School
.
on September 29, 1890. Wilkerson originally began to study medicine in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
until his father, a renowned gambler, died unexpectedly leaving behind a mountain of debts. This forced Wilkerson to cease his medical training in order to find employment to support himself and his mother. Two weeks later, on a World Series
bet, a friend from medical school won a movie theater located in Fort Lee, New Jersey
. Wilkerson agreed to manage the tiny Nickelodeon in exchange for half the profits. He found the fledgling film industry very much to his liking. Between 1918 and 1929 he held an assortment of movie jobs ranging from film sales to producing one-reelers for a small picture company. For a spell he was also district manager at Universal Pictures
under Carl Laemmle
. By 1929 he had acquired a partnership in a Manhattan trade paper devoted to the film business. Realizing the limitations of a New York base, Wilkerson began dreaming of starting the first daily trade paper for the motion picture industry in the place where the movies were being made - out west, in Hollywood.
chum who advised him to play the market at rock bottom. Wilkerson sold his half-interest in the Manhattan trade paper for $20,000 and borrowed an additional $25,000. On Black Tuesday, October 29, Wilkerson walked into the New York Stock Exchange
at ten in the morning with the intention of doubling his money and hightailing it to California
. Forty-Five minutes later the market crashed and a dazed Wilkerson wandered out of the building without a dime to his name. Undaunted, he packed his wife, his mother and their few belongings and motored cross-country to Hollywood. There, on July 26, 1930, he formed the Wilkerson Daily Corporation.
Wilkerson published the first issue of the Hollywood Reporter on September 3, 1930. This daily magazine reported on movies, studios and personalities in an outrageously candid style. Through its outspoken pages Wilkerson became one of the town's most colorful and controversial figures. He began each issue with a self-penned editorial entitled "Tradeviews," which exposed corrupt studio practices. "Tradeviews" went on to become one of the most widely read daily columns in the industry. The upstart publisher also employed hard-ball tactics to solicit advertising. Studios were literally blackmailed into giving their support. If they refused, he ordered a complete editorial blackout on all their material - from press releases to film reviews. The corporate moguls eventually banded together to deal with The Reporter. They refused Wilkerson all advertising support and deprived him of news from their studios. They even hired extra employees to burn The Hollywood Reporter when it was delivered every morning at their front gates. At the height of the battle, his reporters were barred from every lot in town. Wilkerson told them to climb over the studio walls and sift through executives' garbage. These tactics produced a flood of incriminating news, which Wilkerson cheerfully printed. The Reporter, by now fondly referred to as "the industry bible," gained national prominence. Even President Franklin D. Roosevelt
had the paper airmailed daily to his desk at the White House
. By 1936, The Hollywood Reporter had become something even the most prescient studio heads never anticipated - a power that rivaled their own.
. Judged by his standards, existing venues were "pedestrian". They lacked ambiance, glamor and sophistication. The second and most compelling reason was that people in the entertainment industry had money to spend - lots of it.
The inspiration for these Hollywood ventures came from his New York speakeasy triumphs during the Prohibition 1920s, and his many trips to Europe. Wilkerson's beloved Parisian nightspots became the model for a string of highly profitable nightclubs, cafes and restaurants.
While the movie industry dominated the town, Hollywood's social center was the fabled Sunset Strip, where the stars went to see and be seen. Wilkerson's nightspots - Vendome, Cafe Trocadero
, Sunset House, Ciro's
, LaRue, and L'Aiglon - contributed much to the Golden Era's dazzling glamor. During this time, Wilkerson became the nations most successful restaurant and nightclub impresario.
Here is a list of restaurants, nightclubs and hotels that Wilkerson started:
From the moment Wilkerson awoke in the morning he thought of nothing else but gambling. He planned his entire day around the gaming tables and race courses. Usually, he would work in the morning and head out for the track in the afternoon. He paid regular visits to Santa Anita
or Hollywood Park
. He kept a pair of dice in this coat pocket, and a deck of playing cards was never far from reach. At restaurants he would roll the dice on tabletops to determine who picked up the check. Even in his own restaurants, guests paid if they lost.
Until the late 1930s, Hollywood was wide open to gambling and prostitution, but when California outlawed these activities, compulsive gamblers like Wilkerson were forced to travel out of state in search of legal gambling. Las Vegas
was a favorite gambling spot of Wilkerson's. He would charter a plane in the morning from Los Angeles Municipal Airport, and after a short cab ride he would be inside a casino. He would then spend a few hours at the tables, making or losing between ten to twenty thousand dollars before returning to Hollywood.
Most chronic gamblers are superstitious. Wilkerson was no exception. An ardent Catholic
, he relied heavily on prayer and a lucky rabbit's foot on his key chain that had gone bald from rubbing. He would stand by the table with his eyes closed, clutching the rabbit's foot and whispering Hail Marys as he rolled the dice.
Wilkerson had three main loves in the world of gambling: craps, poker and the track. He rarely missed the legendary private poker games that were held weekly at Samuel Goldwyn's
or Joe Schenck's
house. These games were played with $20,000 chips, and Wilkerson regularly lost thousands a visit.
Wilkerson at long last began viewing gambling as an affliction rather than a hobby. He poured his heart out to Joe Schenck on a November evening over a quiet dinner alone at the movie tycoon's home. Schenck listened sympathetically as Wilkerson admitted his problem. The mogul was quick to offer the beleaguered publisher a valuable piece of advice: "Be on the other side of the table if you are going to suffer those kinds of losses". When Wilkerson asked what he meant, Schenck added, "Build a casino. Own the house."
In 1944, Wilkerson's crisis forced him to take a more serious look at Las Vegas. He concluded that Las Vegas suited only die-hard gamblers like himself. However, Wilkerson, who loved gambling, hated the desert. Las Vegas lacked the distinctive elements of glamor and sophistication that Wilkerson had enjoyed in other places around the globe. Yet, in the end, the town's very remoteness and isolation helped convince the publisher that Las Vegas could become an ideal gambling location. He realized that there was a huge potential market for Las Vegas in Hollywood.
In December 1944, Wilkerson attempted to stem his gambling loses by leasing the El Rancho Vegas
from then owner Joe Drown for six months. Wilkerson paid Drown $50,000 for the six-month lease. But the publisher had even greater ambitions. He knew that if he were to build in Nevada, he would need something much grander and larger in scale than he originally envisioned or had previously created in Hollywood – something that would accommodate far more than just a casino. He shrewdly sensed that no matter how magnificent the casino, Las Vegas would remain a hard sell to the snobbish movie crowd back home. Something fantastic would be needed to tempt Beverly Hills gamblers into crossing the desert.
In late January 1945, Wilkerson spotted a "For Sale" sign on a large parcel of land situated several miles out of town. He learned that the 33 acres (13.4 ha) lot belonged to Margaret M. Folsom and contacted his attorney Greg Bautzer
to negotiate on his behalf. After an entire day and night of tough negotiation, Folsom sold Bautzer the property for $84,000. Under Wilkerson's specific instructions, Bautzer purchased the land in his own name. Wilkerson was known as a high-roller in Las Vegas and his open interest would have inflated the selling price. To increase security, the deed itself was not even recorded until November 21, 1945, some 11 months after the sale.
Wilkerson was determined that the resort would house all his passions under one roof. In addition, it had to be something extraordinary and unique, a gambling Mecca that would strike a stunning contrast to the competition in town. It also had to provide a quiet oasis for visitors who did not wish to gamble. For those who just wanted to relax, the complex would be a luxurious home-away-from-home, an insulated world of fine dining, high-quality floor shows and outdoor activities. Wilkerson first committed these ideas to paper in early 1945.
In late February 1945, Wilkerson summoned architect George Vernon Russell and decorator Tom Douglas to his Hollywood office. Both men had worked extensively on his Hollywood projects. During this initial meeting with Russell and Douglas, Wilkerson outlined his vision for several hours. To fill the 33 acres (133,546.4 m²) he envisioned a mammoth complex housing a casino, showroom, nightclub, bar-lounge, restaurant, café, hotel, indoor shops, and a health club with steam rooms and gym. Outdoors there would also be private bungalows, a swimming pool, tennis, badminton, handball and squash courts. A nine-hole golf course would also grace the property. For the more adventurous there would be a shooting range and stables housing forty-five horses. The publisher also ordered up a luxury hotel for his gamblers.
Then he turned the discussion to the casino. Wilkerson explained to the two men that he wanted to make it as easy as possible for patrons to lose their money. Here his goal was to design an ultra-gambling experience, a complete escape that allowed gamblers to indulge their passion in palatial luxury. The layout he had in mind was radical. It called for the casino to be placed at the center, "the hub" of the hotel. No guest would be able to move around the hotel without passing through the casino. There would be no windows. Based on his own experience, Wilkerson believed that daylight interfered with the gambler's concentration. No sunsets or sunrises would be visible from the crap or black-jack tables. No wall clocks would be installed, and the lights would be permanently dimmed. These elements, Wilkerson argued, would mask and conceal the true time of day, ensuring that time passed largely unnoticed. Wilkerson also wished to make the gambling experience as comfortable as possible. Before 1945, most gaming tables had hard edges. Wilkerson ordered custom gaming tables with curved edges and leather cushioned padding around the sides for extra comfort. He also felt standing diminished the pleasure of the game. Chairs and stools would be mandatory at every table. Wilkerson's project would be the first hotel in the U.S. to utilize the latest innovation in indoor cooling – air conditioning. With it, the desert would at long last become genuinely habitable.
There was also the question of a suitable name and logo for his new enterprise. Wilkerson usually named his projects long before they were completed. The inspiration for these exotic names came from his many travels. He also had a particular liking for exotic birds. After considering several ideas, all variations on exotic birds, he finally settled on the name of a magnificent pink bird he had seen during a trip to Florida. Wilkerson commissioned Hollywood graphic artist Bert Worth to design the logo for his new Las Vegas operation.
Although he had never built a casino before, Wilkerson knew enough to realize that no gambling operation could succeed without expert assistance. In his quest to create a first-class casino, he turned to skilled and experienced professionals who knew how to hire high-quality employees, from the croupiers to cashiers, lookouts and undercover security guards. Farming out the gambling operation of a casino to independent contractors was common practice. Casino owners regularly divided up the various tables and games to skilled operators who provided their own unique talents. Gus Greenbaum
and Moe Sedway
knew their business well. In 1945, they were running the El Cortez
Hotel and had made a particular success of its gaming tables. For a percentage of the gambling profits and a silent partnership, they would manage and operate the casino and assume total responsibility for every facet of the gaming. They also agreed to help procure all necessary gambling permits. It was an effective match. Even though he was a gambler, Wilkerson knew little about the operation and management of a gaming establishment. By the same token, Sedway and Greenbaum lacked the publisher's flair for creating glamorous successes.
But as the plans grew, so did the project's budget. The building and completion estimates now totaled just under $1,200,000. Although Wilkerson accepted this figure, he did not have the ready cash to invest in the Flamingo. As much as he loathed borrowing, he approached the Bank of America
for a loan. They declined to lend him the full amount and politely reminded him that they had extended him a line of credit for $200,000 the previous year, which he had used to cover gambling losses. Bank of America eventually agreed to finance $600,000 of the publisher's dream if he used his successful business as collateral. Surprisingly, additional funding came from longtime friend Howard Hughes
, who owned a number of film-related businesses in Hollywood and had an annual advertising account with the Reporter. But Wilkerson was still $400,000 short of his dream. With characteristic confidence, he decided to make up the difference at the gaming tables. He risked $200,000 in April, only to lose it all.
Within six weeks, foundations had been laid for the kitchen, bar and dining room; a basement excavated and the piping completed. Soon, all the main girders for the building's shell had been erected. Nearly a third of the construction was complete before Wilkerson ran into unexpected difficulties. In the immediate post-war period, labor was plentiful but wartime regulations and restrictions still made building materials extremely scarce. When materials could be obtained, they were invariably astronomically expensive. These inflated costs soon exceeded Wilkerson's budget. He had already sunk $300,000 into the operation. His current gambling losses and debts to Moe Sedway brought the grand total to just under $400,000. In a last-ditch attempt to raise an additional $400,000 capital for completion costs, Wilkerson once again turned to the gaming tables. He staked $150,000 of his remaining $200,000 and lost it all.
With the majority of his construction capital now gone, Wilkerson looked desperately to Hollywood. Wilkerson offered bargain-basement advertising rates in exchange for surplus lumber and metal. He cajoled several studio heads into donating materials from their back lots. The publisher even went so far as to threaten some movies executives that key movies would not be reviewed unless they agreed to provide him with supplies. But these scavenged supplies added little of real value to the construction effort, and by early January 1946, Wilkerson's project had ground to a complete standstill. Dismayed, he paid everyone off in cash and left the Flamingo's shell lying like the skeleton of some strange giant, beached in the hot, empty desert.
As the publisher reached the end of his financial tether, Moe Sedway was bringing Billy Wilkerson's project to the attention of Meyer Lansky. Sedway saw it as a unique opportunity for their group to expand operations in Las Vegas. At first, visionary Lansky did not share Sedway's rosy opinions about the future of gaming in the Nevada desert. Lansky initially had pictured Wilkerson's operation as a modest casino and nightclub and doubted whether they alone would be enough to draw the crowds Sedway spoke of to an unspeakably hot desert. But once Sedway reported on the grandness and scale of Wilkerson's schemes, Lansky began to see the visions of money being made in the air-conditioned desert. A decision was taken to invest in Wilkerson's project.
The first step was the approach to Wilkerson. Someone unknown to the publisher had to make him an offer he could not refuse. The site stood empty for well over a month as Wilkerson teetered on the brink of abandoning his dream project. In late February 1946, he and his builder Bud Raulston were touring the construction site when an expensively dressed man drove up and approached them. He introduced himself as G. Harry Rothberg, a businessman from the east coast. Rothberg said he represented a firm in New York that wished to invest in the Flamingo Club. He and his associates knew that Wilkerson was broke and were willing to help him complete his Las Vegas venture.
Rothberg outlined his proposal. In exchange for funding, Wilkerson would retain a one-third share in the project. Included was the contractual promise that he would call all creative shots. When the club became operational (no later than March 1, 1947), Wilkerson would be its sole operator and manager; all others would be silent partners. Rothberg asked Wilkerson how much capital he needed to complete the project. Without hesitation Wilkerson replied, "One million dollars." Rothberg said that if the deal went through, Wilkerson would be advanced completion funds totaling that amount, with a guarantee that he would not have to put another dime of his own money into the project. Wilkerson thanked the mysterious gentleman and said he would take the offer under consideration.
While Wilkerson disliked partners, he had no qualms about investors - people who put up cash in exchange for a slice of the profit pie and then got out of the way. Overall, Wilkerson found the Rothberg proposal attractive. He agreed to all of Rothberg's terms except for one. He demanded that he retain complete ownership of the land. Rothberg consented.
On February 26, 1946 a contract was signed between Rothberg and Wilkerson. In early March, W.R. Wilkerson Enterprises received $1,000,000 to complete the Flamingo Club, which Wilkerson renamed, the Flamingo Hotel. With a year to meet his deadline, Wilkerson happily resumed construction. But the ink on the contract had not been dry for more than a month when Moe Sedway and Gus Greenbaum, both of whom the publisher had already done business with on this same project, visited the construction site. They brought with them a loudly-dressed character who enthusiastically presented himself to the publisher as his new partner. This man was Ben Siegel
.
Meyer Lansky
pressured Siegel to represent them in Wilkerson's desert project. Someone had to watchdog their interests. Siegel, who knew Wilkerson and lived near him in Beverly Hills, was the obvious choice as a liaison. But Siegel was infuriated. He wanted no part in any operation that took him back to Nevada on a permanent basis. It meant forsaking his comfortable Beverly Hills nest and Hollywood playboy lifestyle and enduring the sweltering heat of the Nevada Desert. At Lansky's insistence, however, Siegel reluctantly consented.
Throughout the spring of 1946, Wilkerson and Siegel met almost daily at the publisher's office. He worked closely with Wilkerson, assisting him in every way possible. Wilkerson gave Siegel tasks to perform and welcomed suggestions. Siegel proved remarkably useful. He obtained black-market building materials through his connections. The post-war shortages that had dogged construction were no longer a problem. At first Siegel seemed content to do things Wilkerson's way. His desire to learn everything about the project from the ground up took precedence over his "sportsman" lifestyle. It also seems to have temporarily subdued his aggressive impulses. Under Wilkerson's tutelage, Siegel played the willing pupil, earnestly learning the mechanics of building an enterprise.
The role of the pupil did not come easily to Benny Siegel. Perhaps outdistanced and afraid of being upstaged by his mentor, Siegel began to feel intimidated and paranoid. He grew increasingly resentful of Wilkerson's talents and vision. As time went on, the gangster's respectful admiration disintegrated into an insane, all-consuming jealousy. It all started quietly enough. Siegel reverted to his familiar role; the big-shot. He began making decisions on his own without Wilkerson's consultation or authorization. Informing work crews that Wilkerson had put him in charge, Siegel ordered changes which conflicted with the blue-printed plans. Wilkerson was understandably furious. When Siegel was confronted, he sheepishly apologized, only to resume his autocratic behavior once Wilkerson's back was turned. Then, taking credit for Wilkerson's vision, Siegel began boasting that the Flamingo had been his idea.
The problem came to a head when Siegel openly protested his watchdog role. He demanded more hands-on involvement in the project. In an effort to appease the gangster and keep the project moving smoothly, Wilkerson agreed to a compromise. It was mutually agreed that Siegel would supervise the hotel portion while Wilkerson retained control of everything else.
Siegel asked Wilkerson to find him an architect and a contractor. Wilkerson readily obliged, hiring architect Richard Stadelman and Phoenix contractor Del E Webb. The construction project was split into two distinct halves, Siegel had his crew and Wilkerson had his. There was little or no communication between the two sections, and soon the operation fell into a welter of disarray and mayhem. Neither man would have anything to do with the other. Siegel's jealousy manifested itself even further when he went into furious competition with Wilkerson. Within a month he had spent the funding allocated for the hotel portion and stridently demanded more from Wilkerson's budget. Wilkerson refused.
Wilkerson had every reason to be worried. Siegel's unchecked extravagance was alarming. Wilkerson's only hope was that the powers behind Siegel would awake to the situation and fire him. He reasoned that he could still make the venture a success so long as Siegel was stopped in time.
As time passed, Siegel's grandiose ambitions mushroomed into uncontrolled greed. Unhappy with the business arrangements originally negotiated by Harry Rothberg, the gangster began to view Wilkerson, who held the reins of power, as a major obstacle. In May 1946, Siegel decided that the original agreement had been a mistake. It had to be altered to give him full control of the Flamingo. Siegel offered to buy out Wilkerson's creative participation, not with cash, but corporate stock - an additional 5 percent ownership in the operation. On June 20, 1946, Benny formed the Nevada Project Corporation of California, naming himself as president. He was also the largest principal stockholder in the operation, which defined everyone else merely as shareholders. From this point on the Flamingo became effectively a syndicate-run operation.
The brief friendship between the two men was also now at an end. After the incorporation, Siegel could not get rid of Wilkerson fast enough. With Wilkerson now a mere stockholder, the Flamingo was Siegel's, interference free. He never consulted Wilkerson again and wasted no time in implementing his own plans.
W.R. Wilkerson Enterprises underwent an astounding change. Siegel fired all of Wilkerson's on-site associates and staff. Decorator Tom Douglas and architect George Vernon Russell were replaced by Del Webb and Richard Stadelman. Responsibility for the interior decorations was delegated to Siegel's girlfriend, Virginia Hill.
Wilkerson had been stripped of all creative control. His duties as hotel manager could not begin until the hotel was finished. Seeing no point in remaining in Las Vegas, he returned to Hollywood.
Siegel's dream of owning the Flamingo outright was still unrealized. As yet, one crucial element remained - the land. Contractually, this acreage belonged to Wilkerson under the terms of the February 28 agreement. Siegel schemed to obtain full possession of it from the publisher. Siegel offered Wilkerson a percentage of corporate stock in exchange for his land. Wilkerson agreed to sell half his property for an additional 5 percent stake in the Nevada Project. Siegel signed an agreement to this effect.
But Siegel was still unhappy. He brooded over the remaining half, and in early August, approached the publisher to sell his final parcel of land. Again the gangster offered corporate stock. And again Wilkerson agreed, but insisted on another 5 percent as payment. Siegel accepted. On August 22, 1946, and agreement reflecting this exchange was executed between the two men. This brought Wilkerson's shareholding total in the corporation to 48%, making the publisher the largest single shareholder in the Flamingo
warning him about Siegel, but the call was all too late. Wilkerson was already deeply involved. Any attempt to extricate himself would have jeopardized his entire investment. Wilkerson decided to make the best of a bad situation. He would bolster his investment by making sure the outside world knew about the Flamingo. He hired press agent Paul Price in Los Angeles. Together the two men began formulating a massive public relations campaign for the hotel's gala opening.
Wilkerson was in the middle of this campaign when Siegel called a stockbrokers' meeting at the unfinished hotel. The meeting took place in mid-December, two weeks before the Flamingo's opening. Present were lawyers representing Siegel, Louis Wiener and Clifford A. Jones
. Jones at the time was Lieutenant Governor of the State of Nevada. Moe Sedway and Gus Greenbaum who had originally been Wilkerson's partners in the Flamingo's casino accompanied Siegel to the meeting. Wilkerson attended with his legal counsel, Greg Bautzer.
Wilkerson's interest in the Flamingo made him the largest individual stockholder owning 48 percent of $6 million. From the very onset of the meeting, Siegel demanded that Wilkerson part with his portion of the interest and not be compensated for it. After Bautzer told Siegel that Wilkerson was not going to cut his interest in the project due to Siegel's overselling of shares, Siegel became enraged and threatened to kill Wilkerson.
News of Siegel's overselling stunned both Wilkerson and Bautzer. It made the publisher question the value of his share. What was clear was that Siegel had no intention of honoring legal obligations, especially those he had signed with Wilkerson.
The second thing Wilkerson learned from the ill-fated meeting was that killing meant little to Siegel. Until that meeting he had usually managed to ignore both Siegel's unsavory occupation and his hair-trigger temper. Siegel's personality defect now came home to haunt him, adding a horrifying new dimension to the debacle. In voicing his loud threats, Siegel had made it abundantly clear that Wilkerson's fate was inextricably linked to his own and that the publisher's failure to comply might result in both their deaths.
Wilkerson took further steps to secure his safety by catching the first flight to New York, where he boarded an ocean liner, the Ile de France, bound for France. From the French port of Le Havre he made his way by car to Paris, where he booked into the plush Hotel George V under a pseudonym. His whereabouts were kept secret from all but a few.
Wilkerson's plan was simple: he would wait in Paris until things cooled down. He predicted, as he had for months, that once Siegel's partners learned about his lavish spending and excesses, it would only be a matter of time before they fired Siegel. There would then be a change of management under which Wilkerson would retain his interest and would once again be re-instated as creative director. He would then complete his hotel without interference.
In an attempt to accelerate the process, Wilkerson ran ads in The Hollywood Reporter publicizing the hotel's true cost. These lavish full-page ads boasted that the Flamingo had cost more than $5 million. If the syndicate had not already known how much the Flamingo had cost them, they certainly knew now.
In mid-February 1947, Wilkerson reluctantly came to the conclusion that the Flamingo was never going to be his. Until then he had assumed that nobody would take a psychotic gangster seriously. But as the weeks dragged on, he realized he was wrong. Wilkerson set his sell-out price at $2,000,000. He also insisted on a signed document legally exonerating him from all financial responsibilities in the venture and releasing him completely from any further obligations to the corporations.
Finally, on March 19, both Siegel and G. Harry Rothberg signed a formal Release of All Demands releasing Wilkerson from the Nevada Project Corporation. This document effectively absolved Wilkerson from any wrongdoing in the project. He was to receive partial payment of $300,000 for his interest in early May, with the remaining half three months later in August.
A week later Wilkerson returned to Hollywood. Tony Cornero's pale-blue bullet-proof Cadillac became his transportation of choice. The publisher had not been back more than a few days when his general manager put an urgent phone call through to him. The anonymous female caller hysterically begged Wilkerson to leave town immediately. Her husband, newly paroled, had been contracted to kill him. Wilkerson must have found the call convincing because within forty-eight hours he was heading back to Paris.
In late April, Wilkerson received confirmation from his attorney that his interest had been transferred to the Nevada Project Corporation. He took two weeks off and spent time doing the things he found pleasurable in Paris. Wilkerson saw the sights, went shopping and visited Moulin Rouge. At night he strolled the city's streets, enjoying the outdoor music. Wilkerson was even comfortable enough to reveal his whereabouts; he now made it no secret he was corresponding from France - his daily Tradeviews were by-lined from the capital.
By late May, Wilkerson was thinking of returning home for good when his general manager called him with a mysterious warning. George Kennedy relayed the contents of an anonymous phone call he had received advising him to tell his employer to remain in Paris until "it was over". Without identifying himself, the caller had hung up abruptly after delivering the message.
Nearly one month later, on the morning of Saturday, June 21, Wilkerson bought his newspaper, sat down at a sidewalk cafe and ordered a Coke. When he unfolded the paper, he saw the article of Siegel's death and immediately returned to his hotel. Waiting for him was a cable from his general manager in Hollywood.
Wilkerson packed his bags and returned to Los Angeles on June 23, 1947.
Above all, Wilkerson was a man riddled with paradoxes and contradictions. While he was the proprietor of some of Hollywood's finest restaurants, cafes and nightclubs, at home he usually dined on canned sardines on toast and deviled-egg sandwiches. And, despite five divorces, he remained a devout Roman Catholic his entire life.
Despite his high-profile profession, Wilkerson shunned the light of personal publicity. He was a private man, even a loner, and preferred the company of his beloved French poodles to any wife or friend.
His wives were:
Wilkerson had been in relatively poor health throughout the later half of the 1950s due to decades of excessive smoking. He continued to head The Hollywood Reporter and write his daily Tradeviews column up until his death.
Wilkerson died of a heart attack on September 2, 1962 at his Bel-Air home, one day before the Hollywood Reporter's 32nd anniversary. He is interred at Holy Cross Cemetery
in Culver City.
Ciro's
Ciro's was a nightclub in West Hollywood, California, at 8433 Sunset Boulevard, on the Sunset Strip, opened in January 1940, by entrepreneur William Wilkerson. Herman Hover took over management of Ciro's in 1942 until it closed its doors in 1957...
. He was also responsible for discovering actress Lana Turner
Lana Turner
Lana Turner was an American actress.Discovered and signed to a film contract by MGM at the age of sixteen, Turner first attracted attention in They Won't Forget . She played featured roles, often as the ingenue, in such films as Love Finds Andy Hardy...
across the street from Hollywood High School
Hollywood High School
Hollywood High School is a Los Angeles Unified School District high school located at the intersection of North Highland Avenue and West Sunset Boulevard in the Hollywood district of Los Angeles, California.-History:...
.
Early life
Born in Nashville, TennesseeNashville, Tennessee
Nashville is the capital of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the county seat of Davidson County. It is located on the Cumberland River in Davidson County, in the north-central part of the state. The city is a center for the health care, publishing, banking and transportation industries, and is home...
on September 29, 1890. Wilkerson originally began to study medicine in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Philadelphia is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the county seat of Philadelphia County, with which it is coterminous. The city is located in the Northeastern United States along the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers. It is the fifth-most-populous city in the United States,...
until his father, a renowned gambler, died unexpectedly leaving behind a mountain of debts. This forced Wilkerson to cease his medical training in order to find employment to support himself and his mother. Two weeks later, on a World Series
World Series
The World Series is the annual championship series of Major League Baseball, played between the American League and National League champions since 1903. The winner of the World Series championship is determined through a best-of-seven playoff and awarded the Commissioner's Trophy...
bet, a friend from medical school won a movie theater located in Fort Lee, New Jersey
Fort Lee, New Jersey
Fort Lee is a borough in Bergen County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2010 United States Census, the borough population was 35,345. Located atop the Hudson Palisades, the borough is the western terminus of the George Washington Bridge...
. Wilkerson agreed to manage the tiny Nickelodeon in exchange for half the profits. He found the fledgling film industry very much to his liking. Between 1918 and 1929 he held an assortment of movie jobs ranging from film sales to producing one-reelers for a small picture company. For a spell he was also district manager at Universal Pictures
Universal Pictures
-1920:* White Youth* The Flaming Disc* Am I Dreaming?* The Dragon's Net* The Adorable Savage* Putting It Over* The Line Runners-1921:* The Fire Eater* A Battle of Wits* Dream Girl* The Millionaire...
under Carl Laemmle
Carl Laemmle
Carl Laemmle , born in Laupheim, Württemberg, Germany, was a pioneer in American film making and a founder of one of the original major Hollywood movie studios - Universal...
. By 1929 he had acquired a partnership in a Manhattan trade paper devoted to the film business. Realizing the limitations of a New York base, Wilkerson began dreaming of starting the first daily trade paper for the motion picture industry in the place where the movies were being made - out west, in Hollywood.
The Hollywood Reporter
It began as a riches-to-rags story. In late October 1929, he bumped into a Wall StreetWall Street
Wall Street refers to the financial district of New York City, named after and centered on the eight-block-long street running from Broadway to South Street on the East River in Lower Manhattan. Over time, the term has become a metonym for the financial markets of the United States as a whole, or...
chum who advised him to play the market at rock bottom. Wilkerson sold his half-interest in the Manhattan trade paper for $20,000 and borrowed an additional $25,000. On Black Tuesday, October 29, Wilkerson walked into the New York Stock Exchange
New York Stock Exchange
The New York Stock Exchange is a stock exchange located at 11 Wall Street in Lower Manhattan, New York City, USA. It is by far the world's largest stock exchange by market capitalization of its listed companies at 13.39 trillion as of Dec 2010...
at ten in the morning with the intention of doubling his money and hightailing it to California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
. Forty-Five minutes later the market crashed and a dazed Wilkerson wandered out of the building without a dime to his name. Undaunted, he packed his wife, his mother and their few belongings and motored cross-country to Hollywood. There, on July 26, 1930, he formed the Wilkerson Daily Corporation.
Wilkerson published the first issue of the Hollywood Reporter on September 3, 1930. This daily magazine reported on movies, studios and personalities in an outrageously candid style. Through its outspoken pages Wilkerson became one of the town's most colorful and controversial figures. He began each issue with a self-penned editorial entitled "Tradeviews," which exposed corrupt studio practices. "Tradeviews" went on to become one of the most widely read daily columns in the industry. The upstart publisher also employed hard-ball tactics to solicit advertising. Studios were literally blackmailed into giving their support. If they refused, he ordered a complete editorial blackout on all their material - from press releases to film reviews. The corporate moguls eventually banded together to deal with The Reporter. They refused Wilkerson all advertising support and deprived him of news from their studios. They even hired extra employees to burn The Hollywood Reporter when it was delivered every morning at their front gates. At the height of the battle, his reporters were barred from every lot in town. Wilkerson told them to climb over the studio walls and sift through executives' garbage. These tactics produced a flood of incriminating news, which Wilkerson cheerfully printed. The Reporter, by now fondly referred to as "the industry bible," gained national prominence. Even President Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin Delano Roosevelt , also known by his initials, FDR, was the 32nd President of the United States and a central figure in world events during the mid-20th century, leading the United States during a time of worldwide economic crisis and world war...
had the paper airmailed daily to his desk at the White House
White House
The White House is the official residence and principal workplace of the president of the United States. Located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., the house was designed by Irish-born James Hoban, and built between 1792 and 1800 of white-painted Aquia sandstone in the Neoclassical...
. By 1936, The Hollywood Reporter had become something even the most prescient studio heads never anticipated - a power that rivaled their own.
Nightclubs and the Sunset Strip
Wilkerson wasn't content with establishing himself as a magazine publisher. He wanted to become a night club proprietor as well. There were, in his opinion, two very good reasons for launching new ventures in Hollywood at the onset of the Great DepressionGreat Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
. Judged by his standards, existing venues were "pedestrian". They lacked ambiance, glamor and sophistication. The second and most compelling reason was that people in the entertainment industry had money to spend - lots of it.
The inspiration for these Hollywood ventures came from his New York speakeasy triumphs during the Prohibition 1920s, and his many trips to Europe. Wilkerson's beloved Parisian nightspots became the model for a string of highly profitable nightclubs, cafes and restaurants.
While the movie industry dominated the town, Hollywood's social center was the fabled Sunset Strip, where the stars went to see and be seen. Wilkerson's nightspots - Vendome, Cafe Trocadero
Trocadero (Los Angeles)
In West Hollywood, California, the Cafe Trocadero was the center of jitterbug in the 1930s. Today, a " new" Trocadero stands as a nightclub at 8610 Sunset Boulevard on the Sunset Strip...
, Sunset House, Ciro's
Ciro's
Ciro's was a nightclub in West Hollywood, California, at 8433 Sunset Boulevard, on the Sunset Strip, opened in January 1940, by entrepreneur William Wilkerson. Herman Hover took over management of Ciro's in 1942 until it closed its doors in 1957...
, LaRue, and L'Aiglon - contributed much to the Golden Era's dazzling glamor. During this time, Wilkerson became the nations most successful restaurant and nightclub impresario.
Here is a list of restaurants, nightclubs and hotels that Wilkerson started:
- Vendome Wine & Spirits Co. (1933)
- Cafe TrocaderoTrocaderoThe stylish connotations of the name "Trocadero" derive from the Battle of Trocadero in southern Spain, a citadel held by liberal Spanish forces that was taken by the French troops sent by Charles X, in 1823...
(1934) - Sunset House (1936) (haberdashery & barbershop)
- The Arrowhead Springs Hotel (1939)
- Ciro'sCiro'sCiro's was a nightclub in West Hollywood, California, at 8433 Sunset Boulevard, on the Sunset Strip, opened in January 1940, by entrepreneur William Wilkerson. Herman Hover took over management of Ciro's in 1942 until it closed its doors in 1957...
(1940) - LaRue (of Hollywood) (1943?)
- The Flamingo Hotel (1945)
- L'Aiglon (1947)
- LaRue (of Las Vegas) (1950)
Gambling compulsion
In every facet and area of his life, Wilkerson was compulsive. Sitting at his desk, for example, he would consume an average of twenty Cokes and three packs of cigarettes daily. But just like his father before him, Wilkerson's greatest weakness by far was gambling. A lifelong "compulsive gambler" long before the term was coined, he regularly risked vast sums of money. In the first six months, for example, he gambled away close to $1 million, and came perilously close to bankruptcy.From the moment Wilkerson awoke in the morning he thought of nothing else but gambling. He planned his entire day around the gaming tables and race courses. Usually, he would work in the morning and head out for the track in the afternoon. He paid regular visits to Santa Anita
Santa Anita Park
Santa Anita Park is a thoroughbred racetrack in Arcadia, California, United States. It offers some of the prominent racing events in the United States during the winter and in spring. With its backdrop of the purple San Gabriel Mountains, it is considered by many as the world's most beautiful race...
or Hollywood Park
Hollywood Park
Hollywood Park is a thoroughbred race course and poker card room in Inglewood, California, about three miles from Los Angeles International Airport and adjacent to the Forum.-History:...
. He kept a pair of dice in this coat pocket, and a deck of playing cards was never far from reach. At restaurants he would roll the dice on tabletops to determine who picked up the check. Even in his own restaurants, guests paid if they lost.
Until the late 1930s, Hollywood was wide open to gambling and prostitution, but when California outlawed these activities, compulsive gamblers like Wilkerson were forced to travel out of state in search of legal gambling. Las Vegas
Las Vegas metropolitan area
The Las Vegas Valley is the heart of the Las Vegas-Paradise, NV MSA also known as the Las Vegas–Paradise–Henderson MSA which includes all of Clark County, Nevada, and is a metropolitan area in the southern part of the U.S. state of Nevada. The Valley is defined by the Las Vegas Valley landform, a ...
was a favorite gambling spot of Wilkerson's. He would charter a plane in the morning from Los Angeles Municipal Airport, and after a short cab ride he would be inside a casino. He would then spend a few hours at the tables, making or losing between ten to twenty thousand dollars before returning to Hollywood.
Most chronic gamblers are superstitious. Wilkerson was no exception. An ardent Catholic
Catholic
The word catholic comes from the Greek phrase , meaning "on the whole," "according to the whole" or "in general", and is a combination of the Greek words meaning "about" and meaning "whole"...
, he relied heavily on prayer and a lucky rabbit's foot on his key chain that had gone bald from rubbing. He would stand by the table with his eyes closed, clutching the rabbit's foot and whispering Hail Marys as he rolled the dice.
Wilkerson had three main loves in the world of gambling: craps, poker and the track. He rarely missed the legendary private poker games that were held weekly at Samuel Goldwyn's
Samuel Goldwyn
Samuel Goldwyn was an American film producer, and founding contributor executive of several motion picture studios.-Biography:...
or Joe Schenck's
Joseph Schenck
Joseph Michael Schenck was a pioneer executive who played a key role in the development of the United States film industry.Born in Rybinsk, Yaroslavl Oblast, Russia to a Jewish household, he and his family-including younger brother Nicholas- emigrated to New York City in 1893, he and Nicholas...
house. These games were played with $20,000 chips, and Wilkerson regularly lost thousands a visit.
Wilkerson at long last began viewing gambling as an affliction rather than a hobby. He poured his heart out to Joe Schenck on a November evening over a quiet dinner alone at the movie tycoon's home. Schenck listened sympathetically as Wilkerson admitted his problem. The mogul was quick to offer the beleaguered publisher a valuable piece of advice: "Be on the other side of the table if you are going to suffer those kinds of losses". When Wilkerson asked what he meant, Schenck added, "Build a casino. Own the house."
The Flamingo: initial stages
In December 1944, Wilkerson attempted to stem his gambling loses by leasing the El Rancho Vegas
El Rancho Vegas
El Rancho Vegas was a hotel and casino on the Las Vegas Strip . It was located at 2500 Las Vegas Boulevard, at the southwest corner of Las Vegas Boulevard and Sahara, and opened on April 3, 1941. Up until 1942, it was the largest hotel in Las Vegas with 110 rooms. The hotel was destroyed by fire in...
from then owner Joe Drown for six months. Wilkerson paid Drown $50,000 for the six-month lease. But the publisher had even greater ambitions. He knew that if he were to build in Nevada, he would need something much grander and larger in scale than he originally envisioned or had previously created in Hollywood – something that would accommodate far more than just a casino. He shrewdly sensed that no matter how magnificent the casino, Las Vegas would remain a hard sell to the snobbish movie crowd back home. Something fantastic would be needed to tempt Beverly Hills gamblers into crossing the desert.
In late January 1945, Wilkerson spotted a "For Sale" sign on a large parcel of land situated several miles out of town. He learned that the 33 acres (13.4 ha) lot belonged to Margaret M. Folsom and contacted his attorney Greg Bautzer
Greg Bautzer
Gregson Edward Bautzer was a celebrity attorney, representing such stars as Ginger Rogers, Ingrid Bergman and Joan Crawford, Kirk Kerkorian, Howard Hughes and William R. Wilkerson...
to negotiate on his behalf. After an entire day and night of tough negotiation, Folsom sold Bautzer the property for $84,000. Under Wilkerson's specific instructions, Bautzer purchased the land in his own name. Wilkerson was known as a high-roller in Las Vegas and his open interest would have inflated the selling price. To increase security, the deed itself was not even recorded until November 21, 1945, some 11 months after the sale.
Wilkerson was determined that the resort would house all his passions under one roof. In addition, it had to be something extraordinary and unique, a gambling Mecca that would strike a stunning contrast to the competition in town. It also had to provide a quiet oasis for visitors who did not wish to gamble. For those who just wanted to relax, the complex would be a luxurious home-away-from-home, an insulated world of fine dining, high-quality floor shows and outdoor activities. Wilkerson first committed these ideas to paper in early 1945.
In late February 1945, Wilkerson summoned architect George Vernon Russell and decorator Tom Douglas to his Hollywood office. Both men had worked extensively on his Hollywood projects. During this initial meeting with Russell and Douglas, Wilkerson outlined his vision for several hours. To fill the 33 acres (133,546.4 m²) he envisioned a mammoth complex housing a casino, showroom, nightclub, bar-lounge, restaurant, café, hotel, indoor shops, and a health club with steam rooms and gym. Outdoors there would also be private bungalows, a swimming pool, tennis, badminton, handball and squash courts. A nine-hole golf course would also grace the property. For the more adventurous there would be a shooting range and stables housing forty-five horses. The publisher also ordered up a luxury hotel for his gamblers.
Then he turned the discussion to the casino. Wilkerson explained to the two men that he wanted to make it as easy as possible for patrons to lose their money. Here his goal was to design an ultra-gambling experience, a complete escape that allowed gamblers to indulge their passion in palatial luxury. The layout he had in mind was radical. It called for the casino to be placed at the center, "the hub" of the hotel. No guest would be able to move around the hotel without passing through the casino. There would be no windows. Based on his own experience, Wilkerson believed that daylight interfered with the gambler's concentration. No sunsets or sunrises would be visible from the crap or black-jack tables. No wall clocks would be installed, and the lights would be permanently dimmed. These elements, Wilkerson argued, would mask and conceal the true time of day, ensuring that time passed largely unnoticed. Wilkerson also wished to make the gambling experience as comfortable as possible. Before 1945, most gaming tables had hard edges. Wilkerson ordered custom gaming tables with curved edges and leather cushioned padding around the sides for extra comfort. He also felt standing diminished the pleasure of the game. Chairs and stools would be mandatory at every table. Wilkerson's project would be the first hotel in the U.S. to utilize the latest innovation in indoor cooling – air conditioning. With it, the desert would at long last become genuinely habitable.
There was also the question of a suitable name and logo for his new enterprise. Wilkerson usually named his projects long before they were completed. The inspiration for these exotic names came from his many travels. He also had a particular liking for exotic birds. After considering several ideas, all variations on exotic birds, he finally settled on the name of a magnificent pink bird he had seen during a trip to Florida. Wilkerson commissioned Hollywood graphic artist Bert Worth to design the logo for his new Las Vegas operation.
Although he had never built a casino before, Wilkerson knew enough to realize that no gambling operation could succeed without expert assistance. In his quest to create a first-class casino, he turned to skilled and experienced professionals who knew how to hire high-quality employees, from the croupiers to cashiers, lookouts and undercover security guards. Farming out the gambling operation of a casino to independent contractors was common practice. Casino owners regularly divided up the various tables and games to skilled operators who provided their own unique talents. Gus Greenbaum
Gus Greenbaum
Gus Greenbaum was a member of the Chicago Outfit and syndicate accountant for Las Vegas casino operations.An associate of Meyer Lansky, Greenbaum joined his organization on New York's Lower East Side in the mid or late 1910s...
and Moe Sedway
Moe Sedway
Moe Sedway was the faithful lieutenant of organized crime czar Meyer Lansky. Sedway had his own police record dating as far back as the early 1920s in New York. He began making trips to Las Vegas on Lansky's behalf in the early 1930s to franchise the syndicate's Trans-America race wire service...
knew their business well. In 1945, they were running the El Cortez
El Cortez
The El Cortez, a hotel and casino is a relatively small downtown Las Vegas gaming venue a block from the Fremont Street Experience and Las Vegas Boulevard. The official marketing slogan has been "Where locals come to play" since the El Cortez has traditionally attracted Las Vegas residents weary of...
Hotel and had made a particular success of its gaming tables. For a percentage of the gambling profits and a silent partnership, they would manage and operate the casino and assume total responsibility for every facet of the gaming. They also agreed to help procure all necessary gambling permits. It was an effective match. Even though he was a gambler, Wilkerson knew little about the operation and management of a gaming establishment. By the same token, Sedway and Greenbaum lacked the publisher's flair for creating glamorous successes.
But as the plans grew, so did the project's budget. The building and completion estimates now totaled just under $1,200,000. Although Wilkerson accepted this figure, he did not have the ready cash to invest in the Flamingo. As much as he loathed borrowing, he approached the Bank of America
Bank of America
Bank of America Corporation, an American multinational banking and financial services corporation, is the second largest bank holding company in the United States by assets, and the fourth largest bank in the U.S. by market capitalization. The bank is headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina...
for a loan. They declined to lend him the full amount and politely reminded him that they had extended him a line of credit for $200,000 the previous year, which he had used to cover gambling losses. Bank of America eventually agreed to finance $600,000 of the publisher's dream if he used his successful business as collateral. Surprisingly, additional funding came from longtime friend Howard Hughes
Howard Hughes
Howard Robard Hughes, Jr. was an American business magnate, investor, aviator, engineer, film producer, director, and philanthropist. He was one of the wealthiest people in the world...
, who owned a number of film-related businesses in Hollywood and had an annual advertising account with the Reporter. But Wilkerson was still $400,000 short of his dream. With characteristic confidence, he decided to make up the difference at the gaming tables. He risked $200,000 in April, only to lose it all.
Construction and the eastern syndicate
From the moment Wilkerson bought Margaret Folsom's land to the day he broke ground was almost a year. Construction on the Flamingo Club began in late November 1945. The project, for building purposes, was known as W.R. Wilkerson Enterprises. The builder was Bud Raulston, another person Wilkerson had worked with extensively on his Hollywood projects. Raulston began bulldozing the two dilapidated "motel" shacks.Within six weeks, foundations had been laid for the kitchen, bar and dining room; a basement excavated and the piping completed. Soon, all the main girders for the building's shell had been erected. Nearly a third of the construction was complete before Wilkerson ran into unexpected difficulties. In the immediate post-war period, labor was plentiful but wartime regulations and restrictions still made building materials extremely scarce. When materials could be obtained, they were invariably astronomically expensive. These inflated costs soon exceeded Wilkerson's budget. He had already sunk $300,000 into the operation. His current gambling losses and debts to Moe Sedway brought the grand total to just under $400,000. In a last-ditch attempt to raise an additional $400,000 capital for completion costs, Wilkerson once again turned to the gaming tables. He staked $150,000 of his remaining $200,000 and lost it all.
With the majority of his construction capital now gone, Wilkerson looked desperately to Hollywood. Wilkerson offered bargain-basement advertising rates in exchange for surplus lumber and metal. He cajoled several studio heads into donating materials from their back lots. The publisher even went so far as to threaten some movies executives that key movies would not be reviewed unless they agreed to provide him with supplies. But these scavenged supplies added little of real value to the construction effort, and by early January 1946, Wilkerson's project had ground to a complete standstill. Dismayed, he paid everyone off in cash and left the Flamingo's shell lying like the skeleton of some strange giant, beached in the hot, empty desert.
As the publisher reached the end of his financial tether, Moe Sedway was bringing Billy Wilkerson's project to the attention of Meyer Lansky. Sedway saw it as a unique opportunity for their group to expand operations in Las Vegas. At first, visionary Lansky did not share Sedway's rosy opinions about the future of gaming in the Nevada desert. Lansky initially had pictured Wilkerson's operation as a modest casino and nightclub and doubted whether they alone would be enough to draw the crowds Sedway spoke of to an unspeakably hot desert. But once Sedway reported on the grandness and scale of Wilkerson's schemes, Lansky began to see the visions of money being made in the air-conditioned desert. A decision was taken to invest in Wilkerson's project.
The first step was the approach to Wilkerson. Someone unknown to the publisher had to make him an offer he could not refuse. The site stood empty for well over a month as Wilkerson teetered on the brink of abandoning his dream project. In late February 1946, he and his builder Bud Raulston were touring the construction site when an expensively dressed man drove up and approached them. He introduced himself as G. Harry Rothberg, a businessman from the east coast. Rothberg said he represented a firm in New York that wished to invest in the Flamingo Club. He and his associates knew that Wilkerson was broke and were willing to help him complete his Las Vegas venture.
Rothberg outlined his proposal. In exchange for funding, Wilkerson would retain a one-third share in the project. Included was the contractual promise that he would call all creative shots. When the club became operational (no later than March 1, 1947), Wilkerson would be its sole operator and manager; all others would be silent partners. Rothberg asked Wilkerson how much capital he needed to complete the project. Without hesitation Wilkerson replied, "One million dollars." Rothberg said that if the deal went through, Wilkerson would be advanced completion funds totaling that amount, with a guarantee that he would not have to put another dime of his own money into the project. Wilkerson thanked the mysterious gentleman and said he would take the offer under consideration.
While Wilkerson disliked partners, he had no qualms about investors - people who put up cash in exchange for a slice of the profit pie and then got out of the way. Overall, Wilkerson found the Rothberg proposal attractive. He agreed to all of Rothberg's terms except for one. He demanded that he retain complete ownership of the land. Rothberg consented.
On February 26, 1946 a contract was signed between Rothberg and Wilkerson. In early March, W.R. Wilkerson Enterprises received $1,000,000 to complete the Flamingo Club, which Wilkerson renamed, the Flamingo Hotel. With a year to meet his deadline, Wilkerson happily resumed construction. But the ink on the contract had not been dry for more than a month when Moe Sedway and Gus Greenbaum, both of whom the publisher had already done business with on this same project, visited the construction site. They brought with them a loudly-dressed character who enthusiastically presented himself to the publisher as his new partner. This man was Ben Siegel
Bugsy Siegel
Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel was an American gangster who was involved with the Genovese crime family...
.
Bugsy's influence
Like many of his gangster counterparts, Siegel yearned to be legitimate. The perfume of legitimacy and respectability he craved was still well beyond his reach. But by the spring of 1946, that perfume became stronger - wafting in on the heat waves of Wilkerson's Flamingo.Meyer Lansky
Meyer Lansky
Meyer Lansky , known as the "Mob's Accountant", was a Polish-born American organized crime figure who, along with his associate Charles "Lucky" Luciano, was instrumental in the development of the "National Crime Syndicate" in the United States...
pressured Siegel to represent them in Wilkerson's desert project. Someone had to watchdog their interests. Siegel, who knew Wilkerson and lived near him in Beverly Hills, was the obvious choice as a liaison. But Siegel was infuriated. He wanted no part in any operation that took him back to Nevada on a permanent basis. It meant forsaking his comfortable Beverly Hills nest and Hollywood playboy lifestyle and enduring the sweltering heat of the Nevada Desert. At Lansky's insistence, however, Siegel reluctantly consented.
Throughout the spring of 1946, Wilkerson and Siegel met almost daily at the publisher's office. He worked closely with Wilkerson, assisting him in every way possible. Wilkerson gave Siegel tasks to perform and welcomed suggestions. Siegel proved remarkably useful. He obtained black-market building materials through his connections. The post-war shortages that had dogged construction were no longer a problem. At first Siegel seemed content to do things Wilkerson's way. His desire to learn everything about the project from the ground up took precedence over his "sportsman" lifestyle. It also seems to have temporarily subdued his aggressive impulses. Under Wilkerson's tutelage, Siegel played the willing pupil, earnestly learning the mechanics of building an enterprise.
The role of the pupil did not come easily to Benny Siegel. Perhaps outdistanced and afraid of being upstaged by his mentor, Siegel began to feel intimidated and paranoid. He grew increasingly resentful of Wilkerson's talents and vision. As time went on, the gangster's respectful admiration disintegrated into an insane, all-consuming jealousy. It all started quietly enough. Siegel reverted to his familiar role; the big-shot. He began making decisions on his own without Wilkerson's consultation or authorization. Informing work crews that Wilkerson had put him in charge, Siegel ordered changes which conflicted with the blue-printed plans. Wilkerson was understandably furious. When Siegel was confronted, he sheepishly apologized, only to resume his autocratic behavior once Wilkerson's back was turned. Then, taking credit for Wilkerson's vision, Siegel began boasting that the Flamingo had been his idea.
The problem came to a head when Siegel openly protested his watchdog role. He demanded more hands-on involvement in the project. In an effort to appease the gangster and keep the project moving smoothly, Wilkerson agreed to a compromise. It was mutually agreed that Siegel would supervise the hotel portion while Wilkerson retained control of everything else.
Siegel asked Wilkerson to find him an architect and a contractor. Wilkerson readily obliged, hiring architect Richard Stadelman and Phoenix contractor Del E Webb. The construction project was split into two distinct halves, Siegel had his crew and Wilkerson had his. There was little or no communication between the two sections, and soon the operation fell into a welter of disarray and mayhem. Neither man would have anything to do with the other. Siegel's jealousy manifested itself even further when he went into furious competition with Wilkerson. Within a month he had spent the funding allocated for the hotel portion and stridently demanded more from Wilkerson's budget. Wilkerson refused.
Wilkerson had every reason to be worried. Siegel's unchecked extravagance was alarming. Wilkerson's only hope was that the powers behind Siegel would awake to the situation and fire him. He reasoned that he could still make the venture a success so long as Siegel was stopped in time.
As time passed, Siegel's grandiose ambitions mushroomed into uncontrolled greed. Unhappy with the business arrangements originally negotiated by Harry Rothberg, the gangster began to view Wilkerson, who held the reins of power, as a major obstacle. In May 1946, Siegel decided that the original agreement had been a mistake. It had to be altered to give him full control of the Flamingo. Siegel offered to buy out Wilkerson's creative participation, not with cash, but corporate stock - an additional 5 percent ownership in the operation. On June 20, 1946, Benny formed the Nevada Project Corporation of California, naming himself as president. He was also the largest principal stockholder in the operation, which defined everyone else merely as shareholders. From this point on the Flamingo became effectively a syndicate-run operation.
The brief friendship between the two men was also now at an end. After the incorporation, Siegel could not get rid of Wilkerson fast enough. With Wilkerson now a mere stockholder, the Flamingo was Siegel's, interference free. He never consulted Wilkerson again and wasted no time in implementing his own plans.
W.R. Wilkerson Enterprises underwent an astounding change. Siegel fired all of Wilkerson's on-site associates and staff. Decorator Tom Douglas and architect George Vernon Russell were replaced by Del Webb and Richard Stadelman. Responsibility for the interior decorations was delegated to Siegel's girlfriend, Virginia Hill.
Siegel's dream of owning the Flamingo outright was still unrealized. As yet, one crucial element remained - the land. Contractually, this acreage belonged to Wilkerson under the terms of the February 28 agreement. Siegel schemed to obtain full possession of it from the publisher. Siegel offered Wilkerson a percentage of corporate stock in exchange for his land. Wilkerson agreed to sell half his property for an additional 5 percent stake in the Nevada Project. Siegel signed an agreement to this effect.
But Siegel was still unhappy. He brooded over the remaining half, and in early August, approached the publisher to sell his final parcel of land. Again the gangster offered corporate stock. And again Wilkerson agreed, but insisted on another 5 percent as payment. Siegel accepted. On August 22, 1946, and agreement reflecting this exchange was executed between the two men. This brought Wilkerson's shareholding total in the corporation to 48%, making the publisher the largest single shareholder in the Flamingo
The final meeting
By December 1946, Wilkerson received a phone call from J. Edgar HooverJ. Edgar Hoover
John Edgar Hoover was the first Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation of the United States. Appointed director of the Bureau of Investigation—predecessor to the FBI—in 1924, he was instrumental in founding the FBI in 1935, where he remained director until his death in 1972...
warning him about Siegel, but the call was all too late. Wilkerson was already deeply involved. Any attempt to extricate himself would have jeopardized his entire investment. Wilkerson decided to make the best of a bad situation. He would bolster his investment by making sure the outside world knew about the Flamingo. He hired press agent Paul Price in Los Angeles. Together the two men began formulating a massive public relations campaign for the hotel's gala opening.
Wilkerson was in the middle of this campaign when Siegel called a stockbrokers' meeting at the unfinished hotel. The meeting took place in mid-December, two weeks before the Flamingo's opening. Present were lawyers representing Siegel, Louis Wiener and Clifford A. Jones
Clifford A. Jones
Clifford A. Jones, Sr. was an American politician. He was the Lieutenant Governor of Nevada from January 1947 to December 1954....
. Jones at the time was Lieutenant Governor of the State of Nevada. Moe Sedway and Gus Greenbaum who had originally been Wilkerson's partners in the Flamingo's casino accompanied Siegel to the meeting. Wilkerson attended with his legal counsel, Greg Bautzer.
Wilkerson's interest in the Flamingo made him the largest individual stockholder owning 48 percent of $6 million. From the very onset of the meeting, Siegel demanded that Wilkerson part with his portion of the interest and not be compensated for it. After Bautzer told Siegel that Wilkerson was not going to cut his interest in the project due to Siegel's overselling of shares, Siegel became enraged and threatened to kill Wilkerson.
News of Siegel's overselling stunned both Wilkerson and Bautzer. It made the publisher question the value of his share. What was clear was that Siegel had no intention of honoring legal obligations, especially those he had signed with Wilkerson.
The second thing Wilkerson learned from the ill-fated meeting was that killing meant little to Siegel. Until that meeting he had usually managed to ignore both Siegel's unsavory occupation and his hair-trigger temper. Siegel's personality defect now came home to haunt him, adding a horrifying new dimension to the debacle. In voicing his loud threats, Siegel had made it abundantly clear that Wilkerson's fate was inextricably linked to his own and that the publisher's failure to comply might result in both their deaths.
Hiding in Paris
The dream project had become Wilkerson's worst nightmare. Instead of waiting for Siegel to act on his gruesome threat, he decided instead to avoid the gangster. All future communications between himself and Siegel were conducted through their respective attorneys and emissaries.Wilkerson took further steps to secure his safety by catching the first flight to New York, where he boarded an ocean liner, the Ile de France, bound for France. From the French port of Le Havre he made his way by car to Paris, where he booked into the plush Hotel George V under a pseudonym. His whereabouts were kept secret from all but a few.
Wilkerson's plan was simple: he would wait in Paris until things cooled down. He predicted, as he had for months, that once Siegel's partners learned about his lavish spending and excesses, it would only be a matter of time before they fired Siegel. There would then be a change of management under which Wilkerson would retain his interest and would once again be re-instated as creative director. He would then complete his hotel without interference.
In an attempt to accelerate the process, Wilkerson ran ads in The Hollywood Reporter publicizing the hotel's true cost. These lavish full-page ads boasted that the Flamingo had cost more than $5 million. If the syndicate had not already known how much the Flamingo had cost them, they certainly knew now.
In mid-February 1947, Wilkerson reluctantly came to the conclusion that the Flamingo was never going to be his. Until then he had assumed that nobody would take a psychotic gangster seriously. But as the weeks dragged on, he realized he was wrong. Wilkerson set his sell-out price at $2,000,000. He also insisted on a signed document legally exonerating him from all financial responsibilities in the venture and releasing him completely from any further obligations to the corporations.
Finally, on March 19, both Siegel and G. Harry Rothberg signed a formal Release of All Demands releasing Wilkerson from the Nevada Project Corporation. This document effectively absolved Wilkerson from any wrongdoing in the project. He was to receive partial payment of $300,000 for his interest in early May, with the remaining half three months later in August.
A week later Wilkerson returned to Hollywood. Tony Cornero's pale-blue bullet-proof Cadillac became his transportation of choice. The publisher had not been back more than a few days when his general manager put an urgent phone call through to him. The anonymous female caller hysterically begged Wilkerson to leave town immediately. Her husband, newly paroled, had been contracted to kill him. Wilkerson must have found the call convincing because within forty-eight hours he was heading back to Paris.
In late April, Wilkerson received confirmation from his attorney that his interest had been transferred to the Nevada Project Corporation. He took two weeks off and spent time doing the things he found pleasurable in Paris. Wilkerson saw the sights, went shopping and visited Moulin Rouge. At night he strolled the city's streets, enjoying the outdoor music. Wilkerson was even comfortable enough to reveal his whereabouts; he now made it no secret he was corresponding from France - his daily Tradeviews were by-lined from the capital.
By late May, Wilkerson was thinking of returning home for good when his general manager called him with a mysterious warning. George Kennedy relayed the contents of an anonymous phone call he had received advising him to tell his employer to remain in Paris until "it was over". Without identifying himself, the caller had hung up abruptly after delivering the message.
Nearly one month later, on the morning of Saturday, June 21, Wilkerson bought his newspaper, sat down at a sidewalk cafe and ordered a Coke. When he unfolded the paper, he saw the article of Siegel's death and immediately returned to his hotel. Waiting for him was a cable from his general manager in Hollywood.
Wilkerson packed his bags and returned to Los Angeles on June 23, 1947.
Personal life
If Wilkerson's business life was turbulent, his domestic life was no better. A stubborn, driven man, he let nothing stand in the way when it came to profits. He was an insufferable workaholic, and he paid for it with five failed marriages and poor health. Being married to the overbearing publisher drove several of his wives to alcoholism.Above all, Wilkerson was a man riddled with paradoxes and contradictions. While he was the proprietor of some of Hollywood's finest restaurants, cafes and nightclubs, at home he usually dined on canned sardines on toast and deviled-egg sandwiches. And, despite five divorces, he remained a devout Roman Catholic his entire life.
Despite his high-profile profession, Wilkerson shunned the light of personal publicity. He was a private man, even a loner, and preferred the company of his beloved French poodles to any wife or friend.
His wives were:
- Helen Durkin - Date of Marriage: probably around 1913 or 1914 - Place of marriage: probably New York or Fort Lee, New JerseyFort Lee, New JerseyFort Lee is a borough in Bergen County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2010 United States Census, the borough population was 35,345. Located atop the Hudson Palisades, the borough is the western terminus of the George Washington Bridge...
. - Helen Durkin died in the Spanish Influenza Epidemic of 1918Spanish fluThe 1918 flu pandemic was an influenza pandemic, and the first of the two pandemics involving H1N1 influenza virus . It was an unusually severe and deadly pandemic that spread across the world. Historical and epidemiological data are inadequate to identify the geographic origin...
.
- Edith Gwynn Goldenhorn - Date of Marriage: June 22, 1927 - Place of marriage: Los Angeles, CALos Angeles, CaliforniaLos Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...
. - Date of Divorce: August 7, 1935 - Place of Divorce: Cd. Juárez, MexicoMexicoThe United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
- Rita Ann SewardBillie SewardBillie Seward was a 1930s motion picture actress from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.-Marriage:In 1934 Seward was linked romantically to actor Lyle Talbot. She married William Wilkerson, owner of the Trocadero and Ciro's, on September 30, 1935. Wilkerson was also the owner and publisher of the...
- Date of Marriage: September 30, 1935 - Place of marriage: Las Vegas - Date of Divorce: May 9, 1938 - Place of Divorce: Los Angeles, CALos Angeles, CaliforniaLos Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...
- Estelle Jackson Brown - Date of Marriage: December 12, 1939 - Place of marriage: Las Vegas, NV - Date of Divorce: August 13, 1942 - Place of Divorce: Reno, NV
- Vivian DuBois - Date of Marriage: May 9, 1946 - Place of marriage: Las Vegas, NV - Date of Divorce: March 14, 1950 - Place of Divorce: Los Angeles, CALos Angeles, CaliforniaLos Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...
- Beatrice Ruby NobleTichi Wilkerson KasselTichi Wilkerson Kassel was an American film personality and the publisher of The Hollywood Reporter. She established the "Women in Film" organization, the Key Art and Marketing Concepts awards, and several scholarships for film students.For her achievement in motion pictures, she has a star on the...
- Date of Marriage: February 23, 1951 - Place of marriage: Phoenix, AZPhoenix, ArizonaPhoenix is the capital, and largest city, of the U.S. state of Arizona, as well as the sixth most populated city in the United States. Phoenix is home to 1,445,632 people according to the official 2010 U.S. Census Bureau data...
Later life
It was fatherhood that gave Wilkerson the inspiration to kick the habit which had plagued him for so much of his life. He quit gambling cold turkey with the birth of his son in October, 1951. It was as if family life provided a sense of permanence and fulfillment that had been sadly lacking throughout six nomadic decades.Wilkerson had been in relatively poor health throughout the later half of the 1950s due to decades of excessive smoking. He continued to head The Hollywood Reporter and write his daily Tradeviews column up until his death.
Wilkerson died of a heart attack on September 2, 1962 at his Bel-Air home, one day before the Hollywood Reporter's 32nd anniversary. He is interred at Holy Cross Cemetery
Holy Cross Cemetery, Culver City
Holy Cross Cemetery is a Roman Catholic cemetery at 5835 West Slauson Avenue in Culver City, California, operated by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles....
in Culver City.
Further reading
- The Man Who Invented Las Vegas by W.R. Wilkerson III (Ciro's Books Publishing, 2000 ISBN 0-9676643-0-6)
External links
- William Wilkerson at Find A GraveFind A GraveFind a Grave is a commercial website providing free access and input to an online database of cemetery records. It was founded in 1998 as a DBA and incorporated in 2000.-History:...
- Early Vegas
- Vegas and the Mob