Remembering Sammy... Part 2

So, there I was in charge of a $350,000 budget. My task was to plan an indoor-outdoor Grand Reopening gala for the Sands Las Vegas, a special event that would command huge publicity for the hotel. This was no easy task in Vegas, a town where nothing succeeds like excess!

My Grand Reopening had to be outrageously big, spectacular in fact, and it had to have a master of ceremonies who would help make the event spectacular.

As this was the Sands, the home of the Rat Pack, I wanted one of them to host my event. I went down the list, starting with Sinatra, but he was simply unavailable and had recently suffered very bad press after performing a 10-day gig at Sun City in racially segregated South Africa.

Next on my list was Sammy Davis, Jr.

I called Sammy's agent. "What will it cost to get Sammy for my one-day event?" I asked the agent.

"No can do," said the ten-percenter. He explained that money couldn't buy Sammy, because he had a non-compete clause in his then-current contract with Harrah's casino hotels - Sammy was forbidden from performing anywhere in Nevada, other than at a Harrah's hotel.

I paused for a moment to take that in. Then, a brainstorm hit me... "Would Sammy emcee my event for free? That way, he wouldn't be violating his Harrah's contract," I said to the agent.

"Nah, he wouldn't do that. Foggedaboutit!"

"How would you know that he wouldn't do it? After all," I said, "this is the Sands, and I should think that Sammy has some loyalty to the hotel in Vegas that hosted him when no one else in town would."

An hour later, I had Sammy on the phone, and I posed the question - would he emcee the Sands Grand Reopening for free?

Sammy, bless him, didn't pause a beat. "The Sands? Yeh, I'll do it. I'll do it for old times, for old times!"

That's what he said to me, really. "For old times, for old times."

So, Sammy was scheduled to emcee our Sands Grand Reopening. Now, I had to help create an event worthy of him and a spectacular event that would command world-wide attention. Fortunately for me, I had a secret weapon - "Mr. Spectacular," the one and only Tommy Walker.

From Wikipedia...
Thomas Luttgen Walker was an American producer of live entertainment events who was director of entertainment at Disneyland during its first twelve years of operation, and later produced spectacular events at celebrations including three Olympic Games and the centennial of the Statue of Liberty.

Tommy Walker was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. His father, Vesey Walker, was "a band director who, according to a Disneyland press release from 1967, organized more than 50 college, military, school and youth bands. His local American Legion from Wisconsin won an international competition in 1934, with 11-year-old Tommy as a member."

As "Tommy the Toe", the University of Southern California Trojan marching band's drum major, Walker would tear off his uniform jacket, throw his baton to the ground and rush from the stands onto the field to kick conversions for the cardinal and gold. The fans adored Walker, as did the media. To one sportswriter, Walker was "The Caliph of Conversion."

In 1947, a picture of Walker wearing a tall white shako as he booted a football appeared in LIFE magazine and was widely published elsewhere.

I'll tell you more about Sammy, Tommy, and the Sands Grand Reopening in the next posting to this blog. Stay tuned!

Pulmonary Fibrosis to be Studied with $11M Federal Grant

Friends and relatives:

I thought you'd be interested in reading the news story I've reprinted below from the Boston Business Journal. The Boston University School of Medicine researchers winning this grant are the same wonderful doctors that treated Laura for her pulmonary fibrosis, the focus of the research the grant will fund. These doctors include Boston Medical Center and BUSM pulmonologists Karin A. Sloan and Harrison W. (Hap) Farber. Let's hope this grant helps find a cause and cure for pulmonary fibrosis and for other COPD situations.

Please note this statistic from the news story - "The incidence of pulmonary fibrosis has doubled over the past decade and now kills about 40,000 Americans each year." To put that into perspective, it may interest you to know that about the same number of women die each year from breast cancer. According to the National Cancer Institute, the number of women who will have died from a diagnosis of breast cancer this year is an estimated 40,170.

The lung disease research grant is being made as part of President Obama's 2009 stimulus program. I, for one, am extremely grateful, and I know that Laura was and would continue to be proud of her wonderful medical team.

Best,

Burt Peretsky peretsky@verizon.net
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Thursday, October 15, 2009

Lung-disease researchers land $11M
Boston Business Journal - by Julie M. Donnelly

The National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute has awarded Boston University School of Medicine and four other institutions an $11 million, two-year grant. It’s part of the federal stimulus program for the National Institutes of Health.

This grant will allow scientists to study the biology of two fatal lung diseases, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and pulmonary fibrosis.

The grant recipients are all part of the Multi-Center Lung Genomics Research Consortium, which consists of BUSM, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute National Jewish Health, University of Colorado Denver School of Medicine and University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine.

They will use advanced genetic and molecular tools to characterize and better understand COPD and pulmonary fibrosis. They’ll share what they learn with researchers worldwide through a web-based data warehouse.

The goal is to identify who is at risk for the diseases, so they can be diagnosed sooner and treated with personalized therapies.

Researchers will use tissue samples from the NHLBI Lung Tissue Research Consortium biorepository for their studies. The biorepository now contains almost 1,300 tissue samples and collects about 250 additional samples per year from patients with chronic lung diseases.

COPD is the fourth leading cause of death in the United States. The incidence of pulmonary fibrosis has doubled over the past decade and now kills about 40,000 Americans each year. There are few effective treatments for either disease and both diseases are fatal.

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Remembering Sammy...

Fifty years ago in Las Vegas, the first of the Rat Pack films, the original Ocean's 11, was wrapping up production. While it was being shot, primarily in the wee hours of the morning, one of the movie's stars, Frank Sinatra, was also playing his nightly gig as the featured performer in the Sands Hotel Copa Room. And each night, before they reported to the movie set, Ocean's 11's other stars, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis, Jr., Peter Lawford and Joey Bishop, joined Sinatra at the Sands on stage. During the film's iconic closing shot, the Sands marquee can be seen in the background featuring all of the performers' names.

I worked at the Sands some 30 years later, in 1981 and 1982, as the hotel's Director of Marketing, and one of my fondest memories was the day I brought Sammy Davis, Jr. back to the Sands.

They're all gone now. Joey Bishop, the last member of the Rat Pack (if you don't count Rat Pack late-comer Liza Minnelli), died at age 89, two years ago this month. Sammy died at age 64 on May 16, 1990.

But, on that January day in 1982 when Sammy came back to the Sands to emcee the gala Sands Grand Reopening, he was as alive and as lively as ever.

Here's the story behind the story on Sammy's return to the Sands:

In 1980, the Pratt family of Dallas - owners of a slew of Holiday Inns in Texas and Mexico - had bought the Sands for $85 million. Almost immediately, they threw an additional $15 million into the Sands pot to refurbish the already aging Las Vegas landmark. And by late 1981, they were ready to unveil the new-look Sands.

So, they budgeted $350,000 and scheduled a day-night, indoor-outdoor gala celebration, a Sands Grand Reopening party that was destined to become the biggest party Las Vegas had ever seen. As Director of Marketing, I was in charge of the budget and, technically at least, in charge of the party plans.

I'll tell you the rest of the story in my next posting...