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Beldon Katleman

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Beldon Katleman
BornJuly 14, 1914
Iowa, U.S.
DiedSeptember 28, 1988(1988-09-28) (aged 74)
Resting placeHillside Memorial Park Cemetery
Alma materUniversity of California, Los Angeles
OccupationBusinessman
SpouseLeonore Cohn
Children1

Beldon Katleman (July 14, 1914 – September 28, 1988) was an American businessman. Katleman inherited partnership in El Rancho Vegas, a hotel casino in Las Vegas, Nevada, from his uncle Jake Katleman who died in 1950, and served as president of the hotel.[1] Katleman was an investor in two other Las Vegas casinos, the Frontier Hotel and the Silver Slipper.

Early life

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Beldon Katleman was born to an affluent Jewish family[2] on July 14, 1914, in Iowa. He graduated from the University of California, Los Angeles.[3] His parents owned the Circle K national chain of parking lots and owned real estate in Los Angeles.[4] During World War II, Katleman served as a lieutenant in the motion picture division of the Signal Corps in the U.S. Army.[4]

Career

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From the early 1950s until it was destroyed by a fire in 1960, he was stockholder and president of El Rancho Vegas in Las Vegas, Nevada.[1][5]

The Last Frontier Hotel and Casino.

With Guy McAfee and Jake Kozloff, Katleman acquired the Frontier Hotel from Bill Moore for US$5.5 million in 1951.[6] He succeeded Kozloff as its manager in 1955.[3]

Katleman was an investor in the Silver Slipper, another casino in Las Vegas, alongside Jack Barenfeld, Norma Friedman, Irving Leff and T.W. Richardson.[7] After leasing it to Howard Hughes since 1968, they sued Hughes over a year's unpaid rents in 1974.[7]

In April 1988, the Senate Revenue and Taxation Committee Senate reviewed the "murky" settlement of taxes Katleman may have owed to the state of California in the 1960s.[8]

Personal life

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In January 1941, Katleman married Leonore Cohn, whom he had met at the Hillcrest Country Club, the Jewish golf club in Los Angeles; Leonore was the niece of Columbia Pictures founder Harry Cohn.[4] In 1942,[4] They had a daughter named Diane Katleman Deshong.[9] They resided in Beverly Hills, California.[9] The couple separated in 1944 and divorced soon after;[4] she married Lewis Rosenstiel in 1946.[9]

Death

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Katleman died on September 28, 1988, in Los Angeles, California. He was buried at the Hillside Memorial Park Cemetery in Culver City, California.

References

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  1. ^ a b "Las Vegas Strip: hotels, motels, casinos, race books". Retrieved July 21, 2023. Beldon Katleman is president of the hotel (RJ 2/22/51) some time after inheriting El Ranco Inc. stock from J Katleman.
  2. ^ Burgess, Muriel (August 31, 2013). Shirley. Cornerstone Digital. ISBN 978-1448185429.
  3. ^ a b Considine, Bob (January 30, 1955). "Gambling Enjoyed While Behind-Scenes Action Ignored. If Las Vegas Walks With Devil, Nobody Seems To Care". Lubbock Avalanche-Journal. Lubbock, Texas. p. 3. Retrieved March 5, 2016 – via Newspapers.com.
  4. ^ a b c d e Ogden, Christopher (November 29, 2009). Legacy: A Biography of Moses and Walter Annenberg. Little, Brown and Company. p. 308. ISBN 9780316092449.
  5. ^ Ryon, Ruth (October 24, 1993). "Hunk Falls for $2M Hacienda". The Los Angeles Times. Retrieved March 4, 2016. GARY COOPER'S Holmby Hills home when he died in 1961 has come on the market at $3.45 million. [...] The owner is the widow of Beldon Katleman, a pioneer Nevada hotel man who died in 1988. Katleman owned the El Rancho Vegas, a popular getaway for Hollywood stars until the hotel-casino, built in 1940, was razed by fire in 1960. (A hotel on another Las Vegas site later assumed the El Rancho name.)
  6. ^ Wright, Frank (2005). Nevada Yesterdays: Short Looks at Las Vegas History. Las Vegas, Nevada: Stephens Press. p. 104. ISBN 9781932173277. OCLC 60708529.
  7. ^ a b "Suit Seeks Eviction of Hughes". The Times. San Mateo, California. May 17, 1974. p. 13. Retrieved March 5, 2016 – via Newspapers.com.
  8. ^ Walters, Dan (April 4, 1988). "Murky tax case coming to light". Santa Cruz Sentinel. Santa Cruz, California. p. 11. Retrieved March 5, 2016 – via Newspapers.com.
  9. ^ a b c "Howard Cooper Deshong Jr. Is Fiance of Diane Katleman". The New York Times. December 27, 1964. Retrieved March 6, 2016.
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