By Bruce Klauber
No, they didn’t cause the pandemonium that The Beatles did when they appeared at Atlantic City’s Convention Hall, now Boardwalk Hall, on Aug. 30, 1964, but the Atlantic City performances of the legendary divas of show business through the years filled a lot of big rooms, including Boardwalk Hall, and caused a load of excitement.
Judy Garland’s career had more ups and downs than a yo-yo, but in 1961, she was riding high once again after a successful European tour and a famed concert at Carnegie Hall on April 23, 1961. The recording of that evening won five Grammy Awards. The night was described by many at that time as “the greatest night in show business history,” and the soundtrack album continues to sell.
Garland came to Atlantic City’s Convention Hall on Aug. 4 and 8, direct from sold-out shows at the Newport Jazz Festival and Forest Hills Stadium in Forest Hills, New York. There was such a demand for tickets – most of Atlantic City’s grander hotels, including The Chelsea, were offering tickets for sale in addition to the Convention Hall box office – that she booked a return date on Sept. 3.
In the early days of Barbra Streisand’s career, many in the business deemed her the natural successor to Garland as a singer and performing artist. In 1964, after she won two Grammy Awards and sold a load of albums, she returned to Broadway to portray legendary actress Fanny Brice in the show, “Funny Girl” at the Winter Garden Theatre. She also appeared at Convention Hall on Aug. 27. It was, of course, sold out.
Streisand did not perform in Atlantic City again until Nov. 4, 2006, when she returned to Boardwalk Hall for a sold-out show that was a part of her North American concert tour. Vincent Jackson, writing for The Press of Atlantic City, was there.
“Streisand, 64, spent almost as much time talking as singing,” Jackson wrote. “Besides stopping to eat at Caesars, the concert’s sponsor, she mentioned Fralinger’s Salt Water Taffy and popping into a dollar store. The glamorous Streisand in a dollar store is something that needs photographic proof. ‘I never made it down to the beach, but I got a taste of Atlantic City,’ Streisand said.”
Singer Lena Horne was frequently booked at Atlantic City’s Club Harlem in the 1940s, and even had a bit part in the 1944 film, “Atlantic City,” but she didn’t play in a big casino showroom until March of 1982.
Horne had announced her retirement in 1980, at the age of 63, but her retirement lasted only a year. In the fall of 1981, Horne and the Broadway production company, The Nederlander Organization, mounted a brand new show called “Lena Horne: The Lady and Her Music.” Its 333-performance Broadway run closed on Horne’s 65th birthday, June 30, 1982. Later that same week, she performed the entire show again to record it for television broadcast and home video release.
Next she began a 41-city tour of the United States and Canada, which lasted until 1984. The tour began over the July 4, 1982 weekend in Massachusetts at Tanglewood, the prestigious summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra.
In all probability, Horne’s show at The Superstar Theatre at Resorts International took place shortly after. Though it’s been said she loved Atlantic City – supposedly, she often traveled incognito by bus, joining the other daytrippers for an afternoon of playing the slots and eating lunch – but she never performed in the city again.
Songstress Peggy Lee was a mainstay in Las Vegas since she first played the Sands in January of 1956. Though she first performed at the Steel Pier in the summer of 1949 with her husband, guitarist Dave Barbour and his trio, Peggy Lee did not return to Atlantic City until some 35 years later.
As Lee grew more popular, she worked larger, and more sophisticated rooms like the Royal Box at New York City’s Americana Hotel. Atlantic City didn’t have the type of venue she was used to, so she stayed away until Aug. 9, 1984.
The occasion was a live concert, with her rhythm section, that took place in the Rendezvous Lounge at Resorts International. She sang most of her hits, including “Fever,” “Big Spender” and “Is That All There Is?” and later taped additional segments with the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra. The combined shows were later broadcast on PBS, and even later on VHS video, and in 2003 on DVD. It remains one of the rarest items in the Peggy Lee catalog.
If we go by the literal definition of the word “diva” – it originates from the Latin word for a female deity or goddess – there was nobody that fit the description more, as it applied to show business, than Pearl Bailey.
In her earlier years, Pearlie Mae headlined frequently at Club Harlem and Million Dollar Pier, but she only made it to the Atlantic City hotel/casino stage once that we know of and that was in tandem with Jerry Lewis at the Showboat in May of 1988.
The tragic diva, Whitney Houston, performed in Atlantic City on five occasions that have been reported.
Her first casino appearance took place before 750 high rollers at the Sands in 1985. A gigantic star by way of her record sales and her first film appearance in 1992’s “The Bodyguard,” she returned to the Sands in 1992 and again a year later. In 1998, on the heels of “My Love Is Your Love,” her first studio album in eight years, she was booked into the Hard Rock’s Etess Arena, which seated around 8,000 at the time. Houston sold out. In 1999 she made her final appearances in Atlantic City, performing three, sold-out shows at Caesars on June 30, July 1, and July 3.
According to The Whitney Houston timeline, the singer did not work at Caesars or anywhere else on the July 4 holiday. She wanted to celebrate the holiday at home.
A diva could do that.
Bruce Klauber is the author of four books, an award-winning music journalist, concert and record producer and publicist, producer of the Warner Brothers and Hudson Music “Jazz Legends” film series, and performs both as a drummer and vocalist.
