An Icon in the Making: The Strip Circa 1972

By the mid-1950s, competition drove Las Vegas entertainment toward the overtly sexual. Harold Minsky, from a family that worked vaudeville and burlesque, became the catalyst. Minsky’s Follies first played Las Vegas in the late 1940s and drew raves for mimicking the extravaganza revues of Paris. Sexuality sold, but it was still veiled. Finally, on January 10, 1957, Minsky crossed the line. The girls in Minsky’s Follies at the Dunes appeared topless. It wasn’t long before topless revues en masse swept the Strip.

The new owners of the Stardust sought a headliner in 1957. Entertainment director Frank Sennes persuaded Donn Arden, then producing the Lido’s revue in Paris, to open a Las Vegas version of the show. Arden mounted the first, full-scale French show in the desert, complete with the original costumes and dancers. The dancers, it turned out, were actually English, but they were the real thing. Arden’s Lido de Paris became the epitome of the topless revue and the Las Vegas show. Within a few years, his shows and the showgirls they spawned became a symbol that defined the Las Vegas experience.