LAS VEGAS (AP) — Gloria Dia, hailed as the first magician to become the Las Vegas Strip in the early 1940s, has died. she was 100 years old.
Dea died Saturday at her Las Vegas residence, said LaNae Jenkins, director of clinical services at Valley Hospice, who was one of Dea’s caretakers. We are planning to take a commemorative photo.
Dea also appeared in several films in the 1940s and 50s, including 1952’s “King of the Congo” starring Buster Crabbe.
Dea moved to Las Vegas from California in 1980. According to the Las Vegas Review-Journal, her famous magician David Copperfield befriended her in her later years.
“Gloria was amazing. She was charming, funny and charming,” Copperfield told the newspaper. “And in Vegas, as a young magician, she started it all. I was honored.”
Deere was 19 when she performed at El Rancho Vegas on May 14, 1941.
Her show in the Roundup Room was the first recorded appearance of a magician in Las Vegas, the Review-Journal reported Sunday.
“There was really no striptease back then,” Dea told the newspaper last August, when she turned 100.
Dea performed even more magic that night.
“I also danced. I did the rumba because it was hard to keep all the magic set up,” said Dea.
After moving to California, he appeared in several films, including 1945’s Mexicana and 1957’s Plan 9 From Outer Space.
“I was at the Saturday matinee for the kids,” she said. “Plan 9 From Outer Space was the worst movie ever made…but it was fun to make.”
But that marked the end of Dea’s entertainment career.
According to the Review-Journal, Dea was an only child and had no next of kin. In January 2022, her husband Sam Anzalone, a former California auto sales executive, passed away.
Dea was scheduled to be inducted into the UNLV College of Fine Arts Hall of Fame on Tuesday night.
These plans will proceed as planned. Dea is introduced by Copperfield in a presentation that precedes the entire program.
