It wasn’t going to be straightforward to trace down the girl who got here to be generally known as “Miss Atomic Bomb.” All Robert Friedrichs needed to go on was a stage title he discovered printed beneath an archival newspaper picture that confirmed her posing with different Las Vegas showgirls.
It will take him greater than twenty years to unravel the thriller of Lee A. Merlin’s true id.
Friedrichs, 81, isn’t a detective. He’s a historian and a retired scientist who acquired his begin throughout the atomic age, an advanced second in American historical past when the road was blurred between worry and fascination with nuclear energy.
Between 1951 and 1992, a whole bunch of nuclear assessments have been carried out, largely underground, within the desert outdoors Las Vegas. But it surely was the huge mushroom clouds from the above-ground nuclear blasts that captured the general public’s creativeness all through the Fifties and early Nineteen Sixties.
Las Vegas sought to capitalize on that craze, and in 1957 despatched a photographer out on project to shoot a promotional advert for nuclear tourism. He acquired an concept to seize the lead dancer on the Sands Lodge in a swimsuit within the form of a fluffy mushroom cloud. Within the picture, the high-heeled showgirl is smiling with arms outstretched because the desert unfolds behind her like a stage.
The picture performed a key position in shaping Las Vegas’s id as a metropolis of fantasy and spectacle. But little was identified concerning the star of the picture — till now.
Chasing clues
Friedrich first got down to discover Miss Atomic Bomb round 2000.
The Atomic Museum was set to open in Las Vegas in a number of years, and as a founding member, he was “hoping towards hope” that she was nonetheless alive and will attend the grand opening.
What began as a easy query — Who was she? — grew to become an obsession for Friedrichs that outlasted careers and outlived associates.
Friedrichs crammed stacks of binders with clues and potential leads, like one which led him “to a man in South Dakota.” Days off have been spent both combing by way of on-line newspaper archives or sifting by way of particular collections on the library.
He tracked down the photographer from that well-known photoshoot and interviewed former showgirls who confirmed Miss Atomic Bomb’s stage title. However the lady’s actual title nonetheless eluded him.
Leads dried up, and months become years.
The thriller didn’t preserve him up at night time, however he mentioned when he was awake, it consumed his ideas. He would typically stare on the picture, questioning if she’d ever hand over the reply.
Then, final winter, one thing sudden occurred. He gave a chat on the Atomic Museum about his search, and the following day, an viewers member despatched him a replica of an obituary. A element stood out: The lady had as soon as been the lead dancer on the Sands Lodge.
Her title was Anna Lee Mahoney.
Past the stage title
She was born on Aug. 14, 1927, within the Bronx. Mahoney educated in ballet in New York earlier than performing in exhibits and musicals beneath her stage title, Lee A. Merlin.
By 1957, she was the lead dancer on the Sands Lodge’s Copa showroom, a frequent hang-out of the Rat Pack and mobsters. She carried out for elite audiences, together with Frank Sinatra and Louis Armstrong, in response to her obituary.
After hanging up her dancing sneakers, Mahoney labored for 30 years as a psychological well being counselor, moved to Hawaii, and acquired married.
She died in 2001 in Santa Cruz, California, after a battle with most cancers.
Her {photograph} is likely one of the most requested of the 7.5 million pictures stored within the Las Vegas Conference Heart and Guests Authority’s archive. It has impressed Halloween costumes, and former Playboy Bunny Holly Madison recreated it in 2012. One of many outtakes from the well-known shoot seems within the background of an episode of “Crime Story,” a police TV drama set within the Nineteen Sixties.
“It’s simply actually wonderful that one click on of the shutter may have such an impression,” Friedrichs mentioned.
A short lived exhibit showcasing the decades-long search opens June 13 on the Atomic Museum.
“It’s about Miss Atomic Bomb, about Anna Lee Mahoney,” mentioned Joseph Kent, the museum’s deputy director and curator, “nevertheless it’s additionally about Robert’s quest to search out out her actual id.”
New associates and outdated tales
Over time, the undertaking had grow to be deeply private for Friedrichs.
He and the photographer, Don English, grew to become quick associates after their first assembly. Earlier than the Atomic Museum opened to the general public, Friedrichs took English inside to tour the house. English introduced the unique digicam he used to take the notorious picture.
English posed within the foyer for a photograph with a life-sized cardboard cutout of “Miss Atomic Bomb.” Friedrichs jokes it’s his favourite of all of the pictures he’s collected of her in 25 years.
English died in 2006, lengthy earlier than Friedrichs solved the thriller. As an alternative, he known as English’s daughter to share the information.
“She was actually excited that we had gotten this put to mattress,” Friedrichs mentioned.
After which there have been the showgirls who spent hours speaking with Friedrichs. They shared their stage names and tales about classic Vegas — fancy dinners, photoshoots, and lavish items like a stupendous citrine ring that certainly one of them acquired from a person who needed to marry her.
The ladies offered a glimpse into the atomic period, life as Copa showgirls, and the way they grew to become icons of Las Vegas, but have been typically misidentified in picture captions or their names altogether omitted.
And at last, with the assistance of personal investigators who donated their time, Friedrichs uncovered conclusive proof linking all of Miss Atomic Bomb’s names to a single Social Safety quantity.
“It’s one thing I at all times hoped could be accomplished in my lifetime,” mentioned Friedrichs, teary-eyed.
His motivation to resolve the thriller didn’t come from curiosity alone. The lacking title was a spot within the historic report, he mentioned, and he needed to repair it.
“It’s form of like understanding somebody was the primary president of the USA, however what was his title once more?”
