Manager of hotel on reality show dies

A hotel manager whose daily exploits have been at the heart of the Discovery Channel’s new reality series about life inside a Nevada resort-casino has died, just as the series hit its midpoint this week.

Michael Tata, the 33-year-old director of hotel operations at Green Valley Ranch in Henderson, Nev., was found dead, apparently of natural causes, at his home Tuesday, according to a spokeswoman for the show, “American Casino.”

Tata was the producers’ most beloved figure because of the way he sniped at underlings, often obsessing about the smallest matters of neatness and propriety in an effort to improve the resort’s appeal to guests. One scene showed him angrily removing cigarette butts from an ashtray he felt should remain pristine because of its crucial location en route to the pool.

Executive producer Craig Piligian said his crew was taping life in the resort this week, and that the staff’s reaction to Tata’s death would become part of the show in several weeks. “We’re going to handle it as we would in a reality show. It’s reality television,” Piligian said Friday. “As tragic as this is, it happens.... We’re going to let it play out as it would in reality, and deal with it when it’s appropriate.... He [Tata] would have wanted it that way.”

A crew has been filming 18 to 20 hours a day at the 200-room resort since January. “American Casino,” which debuted June 4 and airs on Friday nights, is part of a mini-boom in Vegas-themed programming that includes a similar casino reality show on the Fox network, set at the Golden Nugget in Las Vegas. Weeks of shooting and editing are still to be performed on the remaining seven episodes of “American Casino.”

Tata “was the heart and soul of Green Valley Ranch’s hotel operations,” said Joe Hasson, vice president and general manager of the resort. “Michael was well respected by the entire Green Valley Ranch team and today we all feel like we have lost a member of our family.”

Tata was born in Buffalo, N.Y. He was an airline sales representative, then earned a degree in hotel administration from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and worked at the MGM Grand and the Four Seasons in Maui and Las Vegas before joining Green Valley Ranch when it opened in 2001.

A Henderson police spokesman said there was no sign of foul play. A Clark County coroner’s spokeswoman said the cause of death will be determined in several weeks after toxicology tests are performed.