Vegas Magazine - Niche Media - There is a place beyond the crowds, beyond the ropes, where dreams are realized and success is celebrated. You are invited.
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F ront Runners Jane Russell practices her swing at the Desert Inn Golf Course in 1958. the swing of things ACTRESS JANE RUSSELL PROVES SHE���S NOT JUST A PRETTY FACE AT A 1958 LAS VEGAS GOLF TOURNAMENT. BY DIANE DESANTIS 10 PHOTOGRAPHY BY BETTMANN/CORBIS/AP IMAGES L ong before Justin Timberlake and friends started tearing up TPC Summerlin during the annual Shriners Hospitals for Children Open, actress Jane Russell amused PGA champion Jerry Barber at the sixth annual Tournament of Champions, held April 24 ���27, 1958, at the Desert Inn Golf Course, the first links on the Strip. Playfully honing her golf swing in a nearby bunker, the Gentlemen Prefer Blondes bombshell served as the official hostess for the event. Desert Inn founder Wilbur Clark began sponsoring the tournament���which partly benefitted the Damon Runyon Memorial Fund for Cancer Research���in order to draw celebrities and high rollers to his property. (It worked.) This philanthropic foray certainly wasn���t Russell���s first trip to Sin City, nor would it be her last: She eloped to Las Vegas on April 24, 1943, with her high school sweetheart, pro football player Bob Waterfield. At the time, she was three years into her now-storied Hollywood career, after her voluptuous curves and full-figured body caught the attention of movie mogul (and later, notorious Vegas icon) Howard Hughes in 1940. Shortly after, Russell signed a contract with Hughes to debut her acting career in the unforgettable role of Rio McDonald in the 1943 American Western The Outlaw. Russell went on to star in more than two dozen feature films, including the 1952 suspense film-noir The Las Vegas Story, which premiered at the Fremont Theatre downtown. In October 1957, Russell hit the stage of the Sands Hotel to headline a solo nightclub act that she later toured around the world. As for the golf course, fans worried about its fate after Steve Wynn purchased the land, but the mogul kept the fairways intact���and renamed the storied greens after himself. V VEGASMAGAZINE.COM 010_V_FOB_FR_Spring13.indd 10 2/11/13 12:09 PM