Vintage STARDUST Casino Matches ~ Las Vegas, Nevada

If you've seen the movie "CASINO" starring Robert DeNiro & Joe Pesci. Then the Stardust casino in Las Vegas rings a bell. This is a vintage book of matches from back in the day, and featuring Bobby Berosini & one of his orangutans from the legendary Las Vegas Strip show "Lido de Paris".

Bohumil Berousek, known professionally as Bobby Berosini is a Czech-born American entertainer best known for his long-running show involving live orangutans. Berosini emigrated from Czechoslovakia in 1964, and eventually made his way to Las Vegas. He was a fixture at the Stardust Resort & Casino starting in the mid-1970s, and his act was featured in Going Ape!, a 1981 comedy film starring Tony Danza and Danny DeVito. Earlier, in 1978, one of his orangutans, Clyde, appeared in Every Which Way but Loose with Clint Eastwood. In 1989 a Stardust dancer secretly videotaped Berosini grabbing, slapping, punching and shaking his orangutans before going on stage with them. The dancer, Ottavio Gesmundo, sent the tapes to People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, and the resulting outcry forced the Stardust to cancel Berosini's act for a few days. He returned to star in the "Lido de Paris" at the Stardust until it closed in 1991 and then starred in the resort's "Enter the Night" for several years. Although he later moved his act to Branson, Missouri, he has only made sporadic appearances in Las Vegas since then. The United States Fish and Wildlife Service later canceled Berosini's wildlife permit. Berosini sued Gesmundo, PETA and another animal rights group, the Performing Animal Welfare Society, for defamation and invasion of privacy. In 1990, a jury found in favor of Berosini and awarded him $3.1 million in damages. However, the Nevada Supreme Court threw out the judgment in 1994, saying that the tape was an accurate portrayal of Berosini's behavior and fell within the realm of "protected opinion." It also ruled that Berosini had no expectation of privacy in the crowded backstage area. This judgment was affirmed on a rehearing of the case a year later, and in 1996, a Nevada District Court judge ordered Berosini to pay a total of $417,000 in attorneys' fees to PETA and PaWS. PETA subsequently alleged that Berosini had moved more than $2 million out of the country to avoid paying court costs. Berosini and his wife, Jean, claimed that the money was for a land investment in Central and South America. In February 2000, a federal magistrate ordered Berosini to return the money, finding that Berosini was deliberately hiding his assets. Berosini and PETA agreed to a settlement in which Berosini paid $340,000 in court costs and interest. However, two years later, Berosini was ordered to pay three law firms $250,000 for the time they spent trying to find the $2 million. Berosini contested this judgment four times on appeal and lost each time, and PETA claims that it is considering further legal action against Berosini for filing a frivolous appeal. Berosini told Harper's Magazine in 1993 that he and his wife received numerous death threats against themselves and their orangutans in the middle of the night. He also said he had to shop at a different supermarket every day for several months due to threats that the orangutans' food would be poisoned.