[2] In the early ‘30s, Arden won a local Charleston contest, along with a St. Louis girl named Ginger Rogers.
Arden got his first break in Cleveland, where he staged floor shows in clubs operated by racketeer Moe Dalitz.
[2] In 1948, Le Lido in Paris brought Arden to France to work with producers Pierre-Louis Guerin and Rene Fraday.
[2] Donn Arden's Las Vegas showgirl image — a statuesque dancer in sequins, feathers and wearing a tall headpiece, derives from Margaret Kelly's Bluebell Girls of the Parisian Folies Bergère and Le Lido.
[3]On 24 April 1950, at the opening[3] of Wilbur Clark's Desert Inn, Arden's dance troupe performed with Edgar Bergen & Charlie McCarthy and Vivian Blaine, and headlined.
Evans, The First 100: Portraits of the Men and Women Who Shaped Las Vegas, Huntington Press, 1999, 368p., ISBN 0-929712-67-6