The El Rancho Vegas was a place for premier entertainment in Las Vegas for nearly twenty years.  In fact, it is one of the casino resorts that helped to define Las Vegas as the entertainment capital of the world, to the extent that entertainment is defined as an art practiced in lounges and stages by comics, singers, and dancers.

The El Rancho had two main entertainment venues: the dinner theater (first called the Round-Up Room but, after 1951, known as the Opera House), and Nugget Nell's cocktail lounge. The headliners played the Opera House, while the lounge acts predictably played the cocktail lounge.

The adveristements below show both the diversity of acts at the El Rancho Vegas and its late night schedule. The gallery of entertainers below them include some of the brightest luminaries to appear at the El Rancho Vegas.

Ad from Hendeson Home News, August 5, 1948.

The El Rancho Girls in another stage spectacular.

Some of the noted headliners to pass through the El Rancho Vegas included Chico Marx, Betty Grable, Sophie Tucker, Lili St. Cyr, Dorothy Dandridge, Yma Sumac, and the perennial attraction Joe E. Lewis.

To the left is an advertisement for what might have been-high culture Las Vegas, sixty years ago. But visitors didn't want to soak in art while vacationing--they would rather be visually stimulated by eye candy like Candy Barr or amused by the clownings of Joe E. Lewis.

Click here for a list of headliners in the Opera House

Las Vegas was always a late nite town.

Late Nite Calypso

See the list of headliners