I recently viewed PBS’ “Las Vegas Showgirl” presentation. Sad that the showgirl is now an endangered species. However … what can you tell us about the Showgirl Museum shown in the program?
[Editor's Note: This answer was penned by the inimitable David McKee.]
Caesars Entertainment laid the Las Vegas showgirl in her coffin when it closed Jubilee in 2016 and COVID-19 has been hammering the casket shut. Now that former Mayor Oscar Goodman has been let go by the Las Vegas Convention & Visitors Authority, the showgirls who used to grace his public appearances are out of jobs, too.
But we digress.
You’re asking about Grant Philipo’s Las Vegas Showgirl Museum. It resides in a converted Sin City mansion on Paradise Palms — erstwhile home of drag queen Kenny Kerr — and shows some of owner Grant Philipo’s 40,000-item collection that includes rhinestone-encrusted codpieces. A costumer, former showboy, and clothes-fitting model for Liberace, Philipo has been gathering memorabilia for 42 years, amassing a treasure trove assayed at $15 million seven years ago. (Think how much it has appreciated since then.) Philipo, 60, six-foot-two, is a larger-than-life character inevitably predestined for Vegas. “The showgirl is the national bird of our state,” he told the Washington Post.
Writes Philipo, “Since the Museum is in a 7,000-square-foot haunted mansion, we are by appointment only. Absolutely no walk-ins! There's a minimum donation of $26 per person and for their donation, they get to see over 250 fully costumed mannequins and receive a free Showgirl Teese T-shirt.” (Philipo is currently marketing an extensive line of sequin-studded coronavirus face masks. We admire his creativity.) “All appointments must be confirmed and are normally available from noon to 3 p.m. and from 6 to 9 p.m. It takes approximately two hours to see the collection.”
To give you an idea of how long he’s been around the Strip, Philipo mounted his own extravaganza 90 Degrees and Rising at the Dunes, which was imploded in 1993. He’s still an impresario, booking showgirls at events … an area that’s seen a lull of activity, but could pick up now that 250-attendee meetings have cleared for resumption. And with the largest private collection of Bob Mackie-designed original costumes in captivity, Philipo is uniquely well-positioned to garb his posse. He even has Hollywood souvenirs, such as the diamond necklace Carol Channing wore to memorable effect in Thoroughly Modern Millie.
He’s spent thousands of dollars per costume to assemble his showgirl Valhalla. While his current display may not be for the claustrophobic, where else can you walk up to costumes worn by Ann-Margret and Raquel Welch in their Vegas years? Often Philipo’s finds are not in pristine condition, but his costume-designing talents enable him to restore them to their sequin-bedizened glory. Nor does his collection stop at costumes and codpieces: He eats his meals in a recreation of Elvis and Priscilla Presley’s honeymoon suite, complete with authentic décor.
The first item of the Philipo collection is a bathing costume that his great-grandmother bought back in 1915. It scandalized the family with its exposed legs, but it entranced young Philipo and an obsession was born. While working in San Diego in the mid-'70s, he saw Vegas-showgirl treasures popping up in antique stores and (believe it or not) yard sales, so he started amassing them. “I would see these things and think, ‘Oh my God — that was in Frederic Apcar’s show!’" Philipo said to the Las Vegas Sun. "I don’t know why I was buying them, but I knew they were important.”
When he relocated to Las Vegas in 1990, Philipo met business partner Mary Dee Mantle, with whom he’s been collaborating for 30 years. Reports the Sun, she “wasn’t a dancer. She was a flight attendant who started selling exotic garments gathered on her journeys abroad. That enterprise led to a chance encounter with Philipo, and the two became close.”
Not everybody was a fan of the Paradise Palms manse. “Do you have any kind of sex parties there,” queried then-Clark County Commissioner Chris Giunchigliani.
But the community rallied to Philipo and Mantle’s support, with Folies Bergere veteran Pamela Schumacher tearfully testifying, “I want my children to be able to see part of what I did and what I wore and how important it was, and that it’s not the stigma of what a lot of people think that being a showgirl is.” Recalled Mantle of the Giunchigliani inquisition, “Honest to God, it wouldn’t have been any worse if we had killed somebody and we were on trial.”
Speaking of killing, the late Robin Leach erroneously credited the inception of the Sin City showgirl to “visionary Bugsy Siegel.” But Bugsy was five years in his grave when showgirls came to the Las Vegas Strip in 1952.
Philipo’s is not the only showgirl display in the Silver State. The University of Nevada-Las Vegas has a document collection and the Nevada State Museum a small showgirl-costume array, augmented with Folies Bergere costumes.
Many pieces are lost forever. Imported costumes were destroyed when their bonds came due. Karan Feder, a curator at the Nevada State Museum, told the Sun, “Shows would take all the costumes out behind the casinos in the desert and light a bonfire. Except for those few pieces that were squirreled away before they were lit on fire … it’s gone. It’s just absolutely gone.”
Most of the Philipo collection is encased in a variety of warehouses. His aspiration is to open a museum sufficiently vast to display the whole kit ’n kaboodle. He was in talks to take over the Reed Whipple Cultural Center, but lost out to the Neon Museum, which was also looking for overflow display space.
We say, in a city with museums devoted to the Mob and neon, why not an appropriately grand showcase for Jubilee, Folies Bergere, and their ilk? As of last year, Philipo had his eye on another space, but wants to keep it secret for fear of jinxing the deal. If his aspiration is achieved, Philipo would augment the museum with a mini-showroom, modeled on the Stardust’s, for regular shows and with classrooms for myriad aspects of showbiz.
Say what you like, Grant Philipo dares to dream big.
