Donn Arden, 78; Created the Vegas Showgirl Extravaganza

Donn Arden, a major-domo of nightclub musicals whose name has appeared on marquees around the world and whose “Jubilee!” continues to play 13 years after it opened in Las Vegas, has died.

Arden, a onetime vaudeville hoofer who as a youth shared a Charleston contest crown with Ginger Rogers, was 78 and died Wednesday at his home in Palm Springs.

Arden, whose specialty was statuesque, skimpily-clad girls posing among the ruins of a mock Titanic or the re-created wreck of a quake-devastated San Francisco, had been one of Las Vegas’ top entrepreneurs since 1950, when he staged the first showgirl extravaganza at the Desert Inn.

His ambitions were such that at one time he had wanted to stage the burning of Atlanta from “Gone With the Wind” but could not get permission from author Margaret Mitchell’s estate.

“I’m famous,” he told The Times in 1988, “for beautiful girls and major disasters.”

Arden’s other Las Vegas credits included Lido de Paris--the first topless show in a Las Vegas clubroom--at the Stardust, said Tom Bruny, an MGM Grand spokesman.

“He produced three shows for the MGM Grand,” Bruny said. “ ‘Hallelujah Hollywood’ opened in 1973 at the original Grand, ‘Hello Hollywood Hello’ opened at the MGM in Reno in 1978, and in 1981 he opened ‘Jubilee’ at the original MGM (in Las Vegas, now Bally’s).”

Arden was Don Arden when he began tap-dancing at speak-easies around St. Louis, where he was born (he added the second “n” to his first name for theatrical purposes). After studying with Robert Alton--later to become a well-known film choreographer--he teamed with two sets of chorus-girl twins and became “Donn Arden and the Artists Models,” which evolved into a favorite at vaudeville houses nationwide.

But he tired of travel and conceived of a permanent revue featuring a larger chorus line that would stay in one theater.

By the mid-1930s the single revue had grown to several, which performed in nightclubs from New York to Los Angeles for several months at a stretch.

Arden produced shows for GIs during World War II and afterward provided dancers and choreography for shows featuring Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sophie Tucker and others.

His first large-scale, independent production came in 1948 when the new owners of the Lido in Paris brought him to France. That success led him to the Nevada desert.

In addition to working with his usual coterie of dancing beauties, Arden brought to Las Vegas specialty acts he had seen in European circuses, among them Siegfried and Roy.

He refused to have dinner shows at his revues (“My dancers deserve more respect than that”) and won the admiration of hotel owners by replacing expensive headliners with his comparatively inexpensive ensemble dancers.

“Donn’s qualifications were very rigid,” said Jeanie Malone, a former Desert Inn showgirl who, with many other dancers, stayed with the choreographer for years.

“He wanted the girls to be good-looking. You didn’t necessarily have to be a great dancer, because he could make you look great, but you had to be a lady and you had to dress well,” she said.