big break in Atlantic City on the road to stardom were W. C. Fields, Abbott and Costello, Jimmy Durante, Red Skelton, Milton Berle, Martha Ray, Guy Lombardo, Bing Crosby, Bob Hope, Ed Sullivan, Jackie Gleason, Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey, and on and on.
By 1925, Atlantic City had:
More than 1,200 hotels and boardinghouses capable of accommodating nearly 400,000 visitors at a time.
Ninety-nine trains in and out daily in the summer, and 65 daily in the winter. Of the 16 fastest trains in the world at the time, 11 were in service to Atlantic City.
A Boardwalk lined with hundreds of businesses, extending seven miles.
Five ocean piers with amusements.
Twenty-one theatres.
Four newspapers: two daily, one Sunday, and one weekly.
Three country clubs.
Three airports—two for seaplanes and one for land planes.
The Easter Parade and the Miss America Pageant.
The Miss America Pageant got its start in 1921 as the “Intercity Beauty Contest.” Conceived as a gimmick for extending the summer season, it was scheduled for the week after Labor Day. In all, eight young girls hailing from the likes of Newark, Pittsburgh, Ocean City, and Harrisburg made up the field. Surprisingly, it was a success and the following year 58 beauties showed. The
The first host of the City by the Sea throughout this period was Nucky. He wasn’t just Atlantic City’s boss, he was the town’s leading party person. Nucky enjoyed beautiful women and was often in the company of the starlets and showgirls who performed in the many stage productions. When a well-known entertainer was in town he usually threw a party in his or her honor at the Ritz. Throughout his career, there were few parties of any significance held in the resort where Nucky wasn’t in attendance.
Damon Runyon would have had a hard time creating a more flamboyant character. His typical day began at 3:00 in the afternoon; awakened at the usual time by his bodyguard and valet, Louis Kessel. Resembling the trunk of a tree, Kessel stood five-foot-five, weighed 260 pounds, and sported a moustache with waxed tips. He had been a wrestler, a bartender, and a cab driver, in that order, before meeting up with Nucky. In his days as a cab driver he often waited outside nightclubs for Nucky and, when he emerged, took him home, undressed him, and put him to bed. Louie was an uncomplicated person looking for a master to serve. Nucky made him his personal servant and their relationship lasted nearly 20 years.
Routinely, Louie started off his boss’s day with a rubdown; pounding muscles, snapping loose flesh, and rubbing Nucky with sweet ointments and oil of wintergreen. After Louie had rubbed Nucky’s skin pink, he draped his body with a silk robe and escorted him to the breakfast table overlooking the ocean from his view on the ninth floor of the Ritz Carlton. Nucky had leased the entire floor from where he reigned as the “Czar.” During Nucky’s residence, the Ritz Carlton out dazzled every other hotel on the Boardwalk. Nucky’s presence set a standard of unbridled hedonism; it was a “lavish temple of pleasure.”
Once the Czar was fully awake, a Negro maid brought in the breakfast tray, which consisted of a quart of freshly squeezed orange juice, half a dozen eggs, and a ham steak. During breakfast Nucky would read the newspaper and receive reports from local politicos and racketeers. After the boss finished breakfast, Louie picked out one of more than 100 hand-tailored suits and pinned a fresh red carnation to the lapel. In the summer months, Nucky had a weakness for lavender and chocolate-colored suits. If the weather was cold, Louie fetched the boss’s full-length raccoon coat. Once dressed and ready to go, it was a dusk-to-dawn performance. Nucky and Louie would leave the Ritz Carlton and walk to the Boardwalk, where the Czar leaned against the railing and held court. Panhandlers begged for, and got, dollar bills and sometimes more; political underlings sought advice and favors; part business, part social, this daily routine lasted an hour or two. Nucky would then go for a long ride in a rollingchair on the Boardwalk or for a stroll on Atlantic Avenue, stopping all along the way to hand out dollar bills to any poor person that looked his way.
Johnson had a passion for Atlantic City’s poor people, especially the children. There wasn’t a shoeshine boy, flower girl, or paperboy whom Nucky didn’t pat on the head and give a dollar or two. If there was a sporting event or another affair at Convention Hall that Nucky thought might excite the children, he saw to it they were permitted in without charge. One lesson Nucky learned well from the Commodore was that the poor have votes just as well as the rich, and if you took care of the poor, you could count on their votes.
Upon completing his daily rounds, Louie then drove the boss in his Rolls Royce to a nightclub, dinner party, an indoor hotel pool—Nucky stayed fit by swimming—a political meeting, and a gambling room or whorehouse, depending on his agenda for the evening. It was common for Nucky to have one of the local call girls accompany him as he made his rounds in the evening, permitting lustful interludes in the back seat of his Rolls.
The Czar of the Ritz was every bit the celebrity on New York’s Broadway as he was on the Boardwalk. Despite the fact that there was “never any snow on the Boardwalk,” Atlantic City’s winter months were longer than Nucky could handle. To cope with the winter doldrums, Nucky rented a large apartment in an exclusive section of Manhattan overlooking Central Park. The rent for his apartment alone nearly equaled his annual salary as treasurer. Evidence of his reputation as a “man about town” is an article by a New York gossip columnist who wrote admiringly that Nucky and oil millionaire Guy Loomis were “among the most liberal and careless spenders of the present day.” The reporter noted that when in New York, Nucky was always accompanied by a group of hangers-on, mostly female, whom he took from one nightclub to another, picking up the tabs. On numerous occasions, he’d give a waiter a $20 bill for handing him an extra napkin; tips of $100 were common. Nucky was so popular with restaurant and nightclub help everywhere he went that the waiters’ union made him an honorary member—Union card #508— Atlantic City Local.
In addition to fancy nightspots, Nucky loved to be part of major events. He could always be found ringside during a championship boxing match accompanied by a group of friends, and bought whole blocks of tickets for the World Series, inviting dozens of guests. On several occasions, he enjoyed a Broadway play so much that he brought the entire cast to Atlantic City for a weekend at his expense. As an old-time local lawyer recalled, “I went to my first World Series with Nucky. The game was just the beginning of the evening. He sure knew how to have a good time.”
Nucky’s audacious generosity had no limits. He deliberately made himself a mark for charity solicitors, and when approached by one with a book of tickets to sell, he’d take his silk hat and fill it with tickets; however many it
