Don Rickles Called Out The 5 Most Disgusting Racist Stars In Old Hollywood Golden Age History

Don Rickles called out the five most disgusting racist figures in Old Hollywood and Las Vegas Golden Age history across his sixty-year career and his 2007 memoir Rickles' Book, naming the studio founders, casino executives, managers, and performers whose racism shaped American entertainment for decades. This documentary traces the five names Don Rickles named publicly through his memoir, his interviews, and his late-career conversations, drawing on his unique position as the Jewish insult comedian from Queens who built personal friendships with Sammy Davis Jr. and Sidney Poitier while witnessing the racial cruelty other white performers ignored. Rickles performed in Las Vegas during the height of casino segregation, watched his closest friend Davis exit through kitchens after headlining showrooms, and refused across his entire life to let nostalgia rewrite what he had personally seen. The video documents each name with specific incidents, dates, and institutional evidence spanning from the founding of the Motion Picture Alliance through the Vegas Strip racial policies of the 1960s. What's covered in this video: Don Rickles' background as the Jewish insult comedian from Queens whose nickname Mr. Warmth was coined by Johnny Carson, his appearances at the Sahara and the Sands and on The Tonight Show, his roles in Casino and Toy Story, and his close personal friendships with Sammy Davis Jr. and Sidney Poitier. Cecil B. DeMille's institutional power as the director of The Ten Commandments, Samson and Delilah, and King of Kings, his co-founding of the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals in 1944 alongside John Wayne, Hedda Hopper, Adolphe Menjou, and Ward Bond, his testimony supplied to the House Un-American Activities Committee, and the Anti-Defamation League's public criticism of his blacklist activities. Howard Hughes' control of RKO Pictures from 1948 to 1955, his 1967 acquisition of the Desert Inn, his veto of projects featuring Black performers in lead roles, his obsessive control over Jane Russell's career, and the racial policies he enforced across his Las Vegas casino holdings. Jack Entratter's management of the Sands Hotel and Casino from 1952 until his 1971 death, his enforcement of the kitchen exit policy that forced Sammy Davis Jr. to leave through service corridors after headlining the Copa Room, his Copacabana background, and the segregated boarding houses on the Westside of Las Vegas where Black performers were required to lodge. Colonel Tom Parker's management of Elvis Presley from 1956 until 1977, his fifty percent commission structure, his refusal to book international tours, and the racial economics of Elvis's recordings of Black-originated songs including Arthur Crudup's That's Alright Mama and Big Mama Thornton's Hound Dog. Al Jolson's career as the highest paid entertainer in early twentieth century America, his 1927 blackface performance in The Jazz Singer as the first feature-length film with synchronized sound, his influence on later blackface performers including Eddie Cantor, Mickey Rooney, and Judy Garland, and the cultural laundering through the 1946 biographical film The Jolson Story and its 1949 sequel Jolson Sings Again. How Rickles published Rickles' Book in 2007 and gave interviews until age ninety in which he refused to soften his judgments about the men who had treated his Black friends like property. The pattern across all five figures of building wealth and institutional power through racial cruelty while receiving public reverence that continued long after their deaths. Mentioned in this video: Don Rickles, Rickles' Book, The Sahara, The Sands, The Tonight Show, Johnny Carson, Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr., Sidney Poitier, Dean Martin, Casino, Toy Story, the Catskills, Las Vegas Strip, Cecil B. DeMille, The Ten Commandments, Samson and Delilah, King of Kings, Golden Globes, Cecil B. DeMille Award, Hollywood Walk of Fame, Director's Guild, Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals, John Wayne, Hedda Hopper, Adolphe Menjou, Ward Bond, House Un-American Activities Committee, Anti-Defamation League, Hollywood blacklist, Howard Hughes, RKO Pictures, Cabin in the Sky, Jane Russell, Desert Inn, Jack Entratter, Sands Hotel, Copa Room, Rat Pack, Copacabana, Westside of Las Vegas, Colonel Tom Parker, Elvis Presley, International Hotel, Tupelo, Memphis, Arthur Crudup, That's Alright Mama, Big Mama Thornton, Hound Dog, Graceland, Al Jolson, Lithuania, vaudeville, The Jazz Singer, Eddie Cantor, Mickey Rooney, Judy Garland, The Jolson Story, Jolson Sings Again, Hollywood Golden Age, segregation in Las Vegas, racial integration in entertainment