Embedded Files
Program from Graduation night and engraved Beverly Hills silverware
Beverly Hills Country Club Program
Beverly Hills Country Club Program
Donors: Nancy Vale McEntire, Class of 1958,
Julie Mynatt Myers, Class of 1976
Author: Bert Thomas, Class of 1958
Web Page Designer: Brayden Moeves, Class of 2024
This program from graduation night in 1958 represents perhaps the pinnacle celebratory event for a Highlands senior back in the 1950s -- dinner and fabulous entertainment with your date and classmates at the premier nightclub in the greater Cincinnati area
As such, it was also a coming-of-age occasion, a transition from being a kid hanging out at the Frisch’s drive-in harassing the carhops and stuffing yourself with Big Boys and French fries slathered with tartar sauce, to a night of corsages and boutonnières, fancy clothes, good food, a dance or two and, of course, lots of awkward moments.
Frisch's was typical fare for teens dining out
Elegant dining room - Beverly Hills, 1958
The Beverly Hills Country Club in Southgate, Ky, just across Route 27 from Fort Thomas, was legendary not only around here but nationwide as a gathering place for the rich and famous, for your parents and their friends out on a big occasion, as well as for shady characters we only whispered about without really knowing the real story. It was the venue hereabouts for the real deal in big-time entertainment by stars you could only see in movies and on TV like Milton Berle, Dean Martin, and Jerry Lewis just to name a few. Founded by Pete Schmitt in the 1930s, the club was so successful it drew attention from “the mob” in the form of the notorious Cleveland Syndicate, a key member of which bought out Schmitt in the early 1940’s and ran the Beverly Hills Country Club as a hugely successful entertainment business that included a (secretively hidden) casino for the next twenty years.
We didn’t know much about the gambling casino part of the Beverly Hills Country Club and were not exposed to it on our graduation night. But we heard and probably believed that the casino part was separated from the legitimate side of the club by an inch of dead air to protect the legal from the illegal side in case of a raid, just as we talked about notorious local mafia figures with names like “Sleepout” Louie Levinson and “Screw” Andrews without much factual background. The mob sold its interest in the club when reformers and politicians started cracking down on local crime in the early 1960’s. It later reopened without gambling and became an even more lavish and exciting nightclub. Sadly, a horrible and tragic fire burned the place to the ground with many deaths, on May 28, 1977, almost 19 years to the day after we innocent Highlands graduates opened our programs and celebrated that big day in our lives.
Graduation, Class of 1958, Beverly Hills Country Club
Page updated
Report abuse