Dean Martin croons to Hollywood Royalty: Lucille Ball, Desi Arnaz and Jack Benny.

Dancers and the intimation of sexuality were integral in that Las Vegas. By the early 1950s, every hotel had its own line of dancers. The El Rancho offered the June Taylor dancers, the Desert Inn, the Arden-Fletcher Dancers, and the Thunderbird, the Katherine Duffy Dansations. “I was running a girl factory,” recalled impresario Donn Arden, who invented the Las Vegas extravaganza. Showgirls, Las Vegas icons, emerged with the dancing lines. The hotels competed furiously for innovative acts, seeking an edge in the competition with their neighbors. Bing Crosby, Perry Como, Ella Fitzgerald, the Mills Brothers, Nat King Cole, Harry Belafonte, Andy Williams, and even Ronald Reagan headlined 1950s Las Vegas…Reagan bombing as a stage show host at the Last Frontier in 1954. As casino owners exceeded one another with wilder costumes and more suggestive dance routines, they tested the limits of accepted taste in an effort to remain cutting-edge as they walked the precarious line of entertainment respectability.