VEGAS MYTHS BUSTED: Sahara Canceled Christine Jorgensen Because They Didn’t Realize She Was Trans

Cristine Jorgensen, the first transgender celebrity in the US, was booked to entertain for two weeks at the Sahara starting July 14, 1953. She was to be paid $25K. But two weeks before opening night, she received a letter from the casino resort cancelling her appearance. The reason stated in the letter was that she misrepresented herself as a woman.

So far, this is all true. What’s not true is the real reason she got let go.

Jorgensen was the first transgender celebrity in the US. The former G.I. from the Bronx became famous after undergoing gender reassignment surgery in Denmark, which was illegal in the US when she began the process in 1951. The New York Daily News received a tip about her story and ran it front page on Dec. 1, 1952.

Offers for employment poured in. Unfortunately, all were from bottom-dwelling Hollywood agents who wanted to exploit her worldwide fame with personal appearances they could grab a piece of before her heat cooled.

Of course, the 27-year-old couldn’t sing, dance, or tell a joke. But that didn’t matter to the agents. Her name would fill seats and their pockets. And, as Jorgensen was broke with no other visible means of support, she went along.

At the time, the Sahara was less than a year old and competing fiercely for a limited pool of performers with the equally new Sands. When Sahara owner Milton Prell heard that the woman from the tabloids was available, he jumped at the opportunity.

Sneaky Preview

Two months before her Vegas opening, Jorgensen performed a warm-up theater gig at LA’s Orpheum Theatre. The seats were all filled … with people who couldn’t believe what they had paid to see.

According to Jeff Burbank’s excellent 2005 book, “Las Vegas Babylon,” it was one of the least entertaining spectacles ever staged outside an elementary school.

Prell had sent some Sahara employees to the gig, who reported back to him the sheer size of the egg she laid.

Of course, entering into a foolish contract didn’t provide legal grounds for breaching it. So Prell had the Sahara’s booker, Bill Miller, send Jorgensen a ridiculous, and ridiculously vile, letter.

Beginning “Dear Sir,” it stated: “I won’t give (my customers) a man dressed in women’s clothing. I bought a ‘she.’ If the party can prove she’s a woman, I’m willing to pay her $25,000 for two weeks.”

The real reason Jorgensen was canceled was because she misrepresented herself not as a woman, but as an entertainer. Yet, incredibly, Prell and Miller leaked their letter to the press. They would rather be known as bigots than as people who booked a bomb. (Back when America was supposedly great, there were no repercussions for the former.)

Miller’s letter was also preposterous. Of course, they booked Jorgensen because she wasn’t born a woman. That’s the only reason anyone had heard of her.

A story was also floated that her co-headliners, Marguerite Piazza and Gene Nelson, protested sharing the bill — and their dressing rooms — with her. That may or may not have been true, but it was not the reason for Jorgensen’s cancellation.

A discrimination lawsuit filed by Jorgensen’s attorney, which she won, enshrined the transphobic firing as fact in the history books. And when Jorgensen returned to the Sahara, to finally open her two-week engagement on Nov. 17, 1953, it was interpreted as the result of her legal victory.

Why She Really Returned

Jorgensen was asked back simply because her act had improved.

She hired singing and dancing coaches and got much better at both. A sold-out Pittsburgh performance in August 1953 drew rave reviews and was followed by another well-received performance at the Tropicana in Havana, Cuba.

“Look for Christine to be more than a once-around sensation,” Variety wrote. “This girl has an act.”

When she landed at Las Vegas’ McCarran Airport, Bill Miller himself showed up to warmly greet her.

Jorgensen also performed at the Silver Slipper in 1955. Her success in Las Vegas paved the way for other transgender entertainers, such as Jennifer Fox and Jahna Steele.

This is in no way meant to suggest that Las Vegas wasn’t unforgivably discriminatory toward the LGBTQ+ community in the 1950s, however. In a previous column, we busted the myth that Vegas was gay-friendly before the 1990s.

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