Coming to Las Vegas

Carolyn V. Hamilton arrives in Las Vegas in 1973 to join a circus. When that job doesn't work out, she opens the new MGM Grand Hotel/Casino as a cocktail waitress. This turns out to be more involved than a nice Lutheran girl from Seattle would think: parties, stealing, sex, drinking and drugs are the main entertainment for a bored crew of casino employees. Some waitresses date culinary union bosses, who have their own high drama of payoffs, fights for control, fire bombings and an 18-day culinary union strike. Each story told in this memoir—of the Martin Scorsese "Casino" era of Las Vegas—is true, and many are humorous as well as outrageous.