Ruth Gillis (R) and Claire Fitzpatrick at the Riviera, May 28, 2017 (photo by John L. Smith)
About the time the ventriloquist with the Groucho bird puppet began chirping and chattering, I decided Ruth Gillis’ birthday party wasn’t going to be just another Sunday affair.
Gillis, the longtime Las Vegas singer and entertainer whose first appearance on a Strip stage came in 1954 at the Sands, is as outgoing and hilarious today as she was when she talked her way into an audition and charmed Dean Martin six decades ago. Her early success may also have had something to do with her ability to turn heads as a showgirl, but that’s another story.
Her house off Eastern Avenue was full of former entertainers and the cheery souls who gather regularly under the banner of the Chicago Club of Las Vegas. Now that the Cubs have finally won the World Series, you’d figure their membership would fill the left field bleachers at Wrigley. But there’s still room for more.
With Ruth’s sister Maxine doing most of the cooking, the kugel, brisket, and bagels and lox kept coming. Just about everyone in the room had known Las Vegas in a previous generation and remained filled with a sense of nostalgia. There were retired cops and comedians and characters galore.
“These people are from all walks of life,” Gillis says. “Some I went to kindergarten and high school with. Others I worked with in the clubs. What can I say? I collect friends. Everyone knows me as the person who keeps in touch with everybody. I don’t stand on ceremony. I call. I remember birthdays and anniversaries, stuff like that, if my mind is working.”
I never did catch the ventriloquist’s name, but you’ll know him when you see him. He’s the guy who impersonates George Burns while working a cigar-chomping parrot puppet that looks a lot like a Marx brother. He recalled having an inspiring conversation with the gracious Burns, who encouraged him to keep at his passion. Burns reminded him he’d failed for the first 20 years of what became a legendary show business career.
I didn’t ask how many years ago that conversation had taken place, but I did learn the guy with the bird is also a fine insurance agent.
The ventriloquist worked the room, raising laughter and the occasional eyebrow. But he was far from the only entertainer in the house.
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Like many who remember the vibrant smaller place of dreams, Ruth laments the passing of the old Las Vegas. She finds the mega-resorts overwhelming and built for the masses, not the classes. But when she reminisces about alternating sets in the Sands’ lounge with Ella Fitzgerald, the one night escorting her through the front door of the segregated Flamingo to see Pearl Bailey in the showroom. They caused a stir, but Gillis didn’t flinch.
“I didn’t know much about segregation and all that,” Gillis recalled in my 2014 book, Vegas Voices: Conversations with Great Las Vegas Characters. “I didn’t look at people that way.”
Bailey not only introduced Fitzgerald to the packed showroom, but she added a shoutout to the “wonderful girl singer Ruth Gillis.”
Fitzgerald afterward confided, “I’m your friend for life.” And she was.
Ruth’s singing career began as a teen-ager in mobbed-up clubs in Chicago. She played up and down the Strip, including a stint at Caesars, then tried her luck across the country. From the Catskills to the Bahamas, and on cruise ships, she sang and told jokes for two decades. Through the years she met, mingled with, and befriended a long list of stars. She won small parts in movies and television, including East of Eden and I Love Lucy.
Stardom may have eluded her, but it’s safe to say she’s won over every crowd she’s ever worked.
Many of her friends also enjoyed seeing their names in lights.
There was Carol (Bennett) Shaw, who was a popular singer and pianist who enjoyed a popular following and made appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show and The Gary Moore Show in an era when those programs dominated the airwaves. He late husband Ray Shaw performed in Guys and Dolls on Broadway and headlined at the Desert Inn about the time John F. Kennedy was elected President.
And there’s Ruth’s gal pal, Claire Fitzpatrick, who danced on Broadway as a teen-ager and enjoyed a long career on Strip showroom stages.
“We go out for lunch a few times a month,” Ruth says. “We sit around and gossip. I think we look pretty good for our ages. But I’m thinking of giving up dating. I’m older than everyone on the dating sites even after knocking off 10 years. Guys 50 and 60 have asked me out, but I tell them, ‘You’re too young. I don’t want to burp you!’
And that old Las Vegas?
“In our days it was great,” Gillis says. “The Syndicate probably owned everything, but it had class. Everyone had to be dressed up to be in the showroom. You had to look like a human being … a tie and jacket, a gown. Years ago, it had class. Now it’s corporate.”
It’s the common lament of the aging Las Vegas visitor (and not a few locals.)
Las Vegas has changed forever, but it will always be a swinging place as long as Ruth Gillis is in it.
“I am old Vegas,” she says, laughing. “And there aren’t many people who remember old Vegas.”
