Post #712339 by hang10tiki on Fri, Mar 28, 2014 12:08 AM

From an article in LV weekly

Ruth Maestas

I was the first hostess [at Don the Beachcomber]. I had lived in Hawaii and I had just moved here. Being very tan, I went to the culinary union; he looked at me—and all my clothes were Hawaiian—and he just said, “You go to work at Don the Beachcomber.”

It was wonderful just being part of all of that. Every day was electric; every day was exciting. Dean Martin came and Jane Russell and the stars were all out in their ermines and their minks. The Sahara was a very warm hotel. It was a wonderful, beautiful time back then. Everybody was beautiful; it was absolutely glamorous.

My husband owned the barbershop. We were married in 1965. Eldon Dotson was a good friend of ours, and he actually gave him the barbershop. In those days they gave the businesses to each other, and then they would pay a percentage to the hotel. But the owner of the barbershop wouldn’t say, “I’ll sell it to you for $200,000.”

His nickname was Louie the Blade. Anyone in this town who was alive at that time had heard of Louis the Blade. He was the one who cut the hair with a razor blade. He was doing the razor blade cuts before anyone else was doing it and the waterfall look where it flipped over. Elvis had the flipped-over look. Anytime you see that in a movie, that was his—that was his style; that was his cut.

I was one of the first licensed manicurists in the state of Nevada. I was the 318th ever licensed. I had to become a manicurist when we owned the barbershop in the Sahara because I had to work in it. Shecky Greene was my client. In those days when they came in, they’d be rehearsing their stage thing right there in the chair.