El Cortez Club in Downtown Las Vegas. Construction began on Sands Hotel in early 1952, built to a design by Wayne McAllister. Trousdale Construction Company of Los Angeles was the general contractor. Initially the Nevada Tax Commission rejected Freedman's request for a gambling license due to his connections with known criminals. Freedman had initially intended naming the hotel "Holiday Inn" after the film of the same name starring Bing Crosby, but after noticing that his socks became so full of sand decided to name it Sands. The tag line would be "A Place in the Sun", named after a recently released film starring Montgomery Clift and Elizabeth Taylor, and quite suitable to the hot desert location of Las Vegas. The hotel was opened on December 15, 1952 as a casino with 200 rooms, and was established less than three months after the opening of another prominent landmark, Sahara Hotel and Casino. The opening was widely publicized, and the hotel was visited by some 12,000 people within a few hours. At the inauguration were 146 journalists and special guests such as Arlene Dahl, Fernando Lamas, Esther Williams, and Terry Moore. Every guest was given a Chamois bag with silver dollars, and Sands ended up losing $200,000 within the first eight hours. Danny Thomas, Jimmy McHugh and the Copa Girls, labelled "the most beautiful girls in the world", performed in the Copa Room on opening night, and Ray Sinatra and his Orchestra were the initial house band. Thomas was hired to perform for the first two weeks, but strained his voice on the second night and developed laryngitis, and was replaced with performers such as Jimmy Durante, Frankie Laine, Jane Powell, the Ritz Brothers, and Ray Anthony. Jack Entratter, who was formerly in charge of the New York nightclub, the Copacabana, became the hotel's manager. Entratter made many show business friends during his time at the nightclub; he was able to use these connections to sign performers for the Sands Copa Room. Entratter was also able to offer entertainers an additional incentive to perform at the Sands. Headlining stars received "points", or a percentage of ownership in the hotel and casino. Entratter's personally selected "Copa Girls" wore $12,000 worth of costumes on the hotel's opening night; this surpassed the salary of the Copa Room's star, Danny Thomas. In the early years, Freedman and his wife Carolyn were one of its attractions, wearing