A Las Vegas ‘Magical’ Legend Passes Away
This past weekend, a Las Vegas “magical” legend passed away on Saturday at the age of 100! Her name was Gloria Dea and she was the first magician to perform on the Las Vegas Strip back in 1941. She starred at the El Rancho Hotel performing for thousands over the years, before going on to star in movies.
According to a recent story featured on Fox 5, Gloria started entertaining and doing magic at the age of 18 years old. This put her in the books as the first “magician” to ever perform on the famous Las Vegas Strip.
Moving from California back to Las Vegas in 1980, Gloria had noticed that the town had quite a growth spurt since she first performed. In fact, Gloria claimed there wasn’t even a “strip” the first time she performed in Las Vegas. Just a couple of places in the middle of the desert.
Last summer, this legendary woman celebrated her 100th birthday. To give you an idea of her status in the “magic” community, David Copperfield showed up to sing her praises. Penn & Teller showed up as well to honor this amazing woman. Gloria always seemed humbled by the attention given to her by today’s notables. Never realizing that she had opened the door for so many in the magic field.
Dea also went on to star in quite a few movies back in the 1940s and 50s. One movie Gloria Dea did was “King of the Congo” that also starred one-time Tarzan star Buster Crabbe. Crabbe was a former Gold Medal winning Olympic swimmer. She also starred in “Mexicana” and “Plan 9 From Outer Space”…which she claimed was the worst movie ever made!
UNLV was all set to honor Gloria this week with an Honorary Fine Arts Degree for her contributions to Las Vegas. Of course with her passing, they will still hold the ceremony and honor her with the degree posthumously.
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