LAS VEGAS — It outlasted Elvis, the Rat Pack, the mob, the Atomic Age and the Stardust, Dunes and Sands casinos. It helped cement the showgirl as Sin City ambassador -- the mayor often appears with one on each arm -- and as pop culture shorthand for glittery, sexy Las Vegas.
But months shy of its 50th year, "Les Folies Bergere" will soon close, a victim of slumping revenue and changing tastes.
When it opened on Christmas Eve 1959, the Tropicana's topless revue embodied all that was naughty and daring in Vegas. But, in time, Vegas became much racier than the "Folies." Cirque du Soleil performers disrobe in "Zumanity." In the show "Bite," vampires bare fangs and breasts. Even some female tourists sunbathe topless at hotel pools.
In a way, the history of "Folies" mirrors that of Vegas: a long stretch of success, then hard times. Its story is told through an aging chorine who remembers opening night, through a director who struggled to keep the cash-strapped production afloat, and through a showgirl who will strut in its final plumed and sequined performance, on March 28.
Their time in "Folies" ties them to a bygone Vegas that brought glamour to the masses. These days, the show's demise mostly merits a shrug in this recession-battered town -- there are too many businesses closing, too many foreclosures and too much grief.
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The 1950s dawned with Clark County as an outpost with fewer than 50,000 souls and a handful of Western-themed gambling halls, though the backwater's ambition was as immense as the Mojave Desert.
Its first topless production, "Minsky's Follies," opened in 1957 at the Dunes and was advertised in Los Angeles as "riotous" and "eye-popping." The true forerunner to modern showgirl productions, "Lido de Paris," arrived a year later at the Stardust.
Meanwhile, in El Paso, a beauty queen named Virginia James spotted a newspaper ad: The Sands was hiring dancers for its Copa Room. "The owner wanted to see a whole line of Texas girls because Texas is known for beautiful girls with beautiful teeth," she recalls.
James aced the audition and moved to Vegas, where she still lives. She is 77 and maintains a wavy white-blond coiffure, a dancer's posture and a trim figure clad in black leggings and calf-high boots.
"I met everybody famous in the world," she says. Nat King Cole. Dean Martin. Lena Horne. She attended parties, she says, on Frank Sinatra's arm. "I met Elvis later. I went out with him. I didn't sleep with him, but he kissed me and my heart stopped."
