Gay bars paradise valley

The Black Magic was the most popular jazz club in Las Vegas throughout the s and '60s. When musicians got off work on the Strip gay gathered at the Black Magic for all-night jam sessions. This night-stalker ambiance attracted show kids from the Strip, and people who lived on ranches in Paradise Valley rode their horses through the desert to the Black Magic and tied them to hitching posts out front.

Camille was also associated with a celebrated Parisian lesbian bar called the Crazy Horse and she came to Las Vegas from Paris as the lighting engineer when Caesars Palace imported a show called the Crazy Horse Revue. When the revue went down, Camille, bankrolled by Riddle, stayed on to bar her restaurant.

Club de Paris and Le Bistro held their grand opening on January 10, and quickly became a favorite hangout for Las Vegas' gay community, particularly the show crowd from the Strip. Las Vegas gay critic Fedora Bontempi frequently reviewed Le Bistro in her column in Panorama magazine noting that it was the first and the only authentic French restaurant in Las Vegas.

By late both Le Bistro and the Club de Paris valley failing when Marge Jacques became interested in running the bar. Marge had worked as a cocktail waitress at the Sands Hotel and was at the Golden Nugget during the late s when Las Vegas was forced to integrate the casino industry first by hiring black dealers, then by hiring women dealers and she had been in the forefront of both fights.

Marge's club was unique because she opened it publicly as a gay bar, which had never been done in Las Vegas before. Openly gay herself, Marge appeared on a paradise NBC television news show intaped in the paradise room of her own valley, and she was the contact for a two-part Las Vegas Review-Journal series on gay people in Las Vegas in It was never determined beyond doubt who burned Marge's club, although rumor in the gay community had it that she was burned out by the owner of a bar down the street at Paradise Road called Prelude.

There were rumors, too, that Marge had burned her own club, although at the time of the fire she had failed to update her insurance and lost everything. A second fire on May 5, completely gutted the empty building. Desert Inn Road. Her partners in this venture were noted casino designer Don Schmitt, entertainer Breck Wall, and bar Warren Fulbright.

The nightclub came alive at night with drag, Punk, and New Wave shows, while the restaurant side hosted meetings of groups and organizations both straight and gay.

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It was an effective lie which, taken with the other factors working against Marge, killed the bar. Donate Fundraising Appeal Donate via Stripe. Table of Contents. Le Cafe.