FLAMINGO IN FINE FEATHER AT 50 : BUGSY SIEGEL'S IMPACT ENDURES.

Byline: Robert Macy Associated Press 

The $6 million cost seems like chump change in the 1990s, when half-billion-dollar, eye-popping resorts sprout on the Las Vegas Strip.

But the opening of Benjamin ``Bugsy'' Siegel's Flamingo Hotel 50 years ago forever changed the face and fortunes of this desert gaming mecca. And it marked the beginning of the end for the famed mobster who spent a crime-filled life evading the law but could not escape his own kind.

There was no birthday bash when the Flamingo turned 50 on Dec. 26. And any mob ties were clipped by the time billionaire Kirk Kerkorian bought the famous resort in 1967, later selling it to hotel giant Hilton Corp.

``The Bugsy image was not something that was particularly endearing to the Flamingo or Hilton,'' Flamingo Hilton spokesman Terry Lindberg said recently. ``This was not George Washington or Abraham Lincoln. We're talking about a robber, rapist and murderer. Those are not endearing qualities.

``We want to remember the history of the Flamingo without glamorizing it. We've made a conscious decision to distance ourselves from the Bugsy heritage.''

Indeed.

A couple of years ago the Flamingo tore down the last vestige of the Siegel saga. Known as the Bugsy bungalow, it was a fortified cottage with concrete walls 3 to 4 inches thick, built to soothe the nerves of Siegel, who spent the final months of his life looking over his shoulder.

Siegel was one of the mob's most feared tacticians, with a rap sheet ranging from drug dealing to white slavery, bookmaking to murder. None of the charges ever stuck. In 1936, he was sent from New York to oversee the mob's West Coast operations in Los Angeles. He made numerous visits to Las Vegas, a remote, desert-locked gambling outpost.

The suave Siegel, known for his Hollywood good looks and hair-trigger temper, dreamed of a flashy gambling oasis. Legend has it that in early 1945, he picked a lonely spot seven miles out in the desert from downtown Las Vegas and kicked at some dirt in a symbolic ground breaking for his fabulous Flamingo.

Siegel had coaxed $1 million from his mob partners, Meyer Lansky and Lucky Luciano, to build the Flamingo. He found himself stretched thin overseeing West Coast rackets and Las Vegas bookmaking operations, keeping a step ahead of the law, balancing a private life that included a wife and two children in Los Angeles and lover Virginia Hill.

But Bugsy paid a premium for building materials that were scarce as World War II wound down, and some contractors for the Flamingo stole him blind. Old-timers tell of expensive palm trees that were shipped each day from Baker and Barstow, Calif., only to be shipped back at night, then back to Las Vegas the next day. He wound up buying the same trees several times.

Construction snarls were the norm. A heavy beam in his private fortified enclave was 5 feet, 8 inches above the floor, a physical and emotional irritant for the 5-foot-10 Siegel.

The $1 million projected cost ballooned to $6 million.

Siegel had promised Lansky and Luciano their Flamingo would open the day after Christmas 1946. It did - sort of. The showroom, restaurant and casino were ready. The hotel was not.

Entertainer Rose Marie shared the billing opening night, Dec. 26, 1946, with longtime pal Jimmy Durante and band leader Xavier Cugat.

Hollywood stars were flown in for the gala opening.

``There were 30 or 40 big stars, people like Clark Gable, Lana Turner, Joan Crawford, Anne Jeffreys, Cesar Romero,'' Rose Marie recalled in a recent telephone interview from her home in Van Nuys. ``The show was spectacular. Everything was great, but no locals came. Las Vegas was cowboy hotels. This was Monaco.''

Rose Marie laughed as she recalled being shorted $11 in her $2,750 weekly paycheck, raising a fuss with someone and learning she was hassling Siegel.

``I thought, Geez, they're going to pick me up in an envelope,'' she said.

``But Bugsy was very good to me. He treated me like a lady. He was a real gentleman.''

The Flamingo closed Feb. 1, 1947, while construction was completed on the 200 hotel rooms. It reopened March 1, 1947, and was beginning to emerge from the red. But the recovery wasn't fast enough for Lansky and Luciano, who wanted an accounting of the money they'd sunk into the Nevada desert.

For the first time, Bugsy was receiving - not delivering - heat from the mob.

On June 20, 1947, Bugsy went to spend the night in Hill's Beverly Hills mansion.

About 10:30 p.m., someone crept through the shrubbery at the estate and unleashed a flurry of shots. Two bullets pierced Siegel's skull, killing him instantly. The crime has never been solved.

Within minutes, word of the execution spread to Las Vegas. Siegel's partners immediately announced they were taking control of the Flamingo.

Under the direction of Hilton and Horst Dziura, hotel president the past 21 years, the hotel has grown to six high-rise towers with 3,642 rooms - the fourth-largest hotel in the world.

It helped create the glitzy Las Vegas image and was a forerunner of the huge resorts like Luxor and Treasure Island that attract family vacationers, not the type of visitors the Flamingo expected 50 years ago.`

CAPTION(S):

3 Photos

Photo: (1) SIEGEL

(2) Now the fourth-largest hotel in the world, the Flamingo forever changed Las Vegas when a mobster got it built 50 years ago.

(3) The Flamingo draws the type of crowds probably never envisioned by founder Benjamin ``Bugsy'' Siegel.

Associated Presso