“It was where all the celebrities wanted to be,” Marlene Pendleton recalled. “It was the ‘Tiffany of the Strip,’ they said.”
The former showgirl, who joined “Folies Bergère” as its lead dancer in 1964, was the belle of the ball Saturday night in the Trago Lounge at the Tropicana, a sequin’s throw away from the theater the legendary show called home during its 49-year run.
What began as a chance for a small group of “Folies” alums to meet at the bar one last time, 15 years almost to the day after the show’s closing on March 28, 2009, snowballed into a reunion of some 300 former Tropicana entertainers, said organizer Traci Kesisian.
