Alice Key Collection. MS 95-47. Special Collections, UNLV Libraries, University of Nevada, Las Vegas.
Donated by Alice Key, 1995.
Joyce Marshall, January 1995.
This collection is open for research.
For permission to reproduce or publish from this collection, please contact the Director of Special Collections.
Alice Key was born in Kentucky around 1911. Her family moved to Southern California when she was still a small child. During her second year at UCLA, she was recruited as a chorus girl for the Cotton Club in Culver City, California, which began her long, successful dancing career.
In 1955, Key came to Las Vegas as Public Relations Director for the Moulin Rouge Hotel and, also, co-hosted the “Talk of the Town,” the first all-black television show in Las Vegas. From 1966 to 1969, she was editor of the Las Vegas Voice, the city’s first black newspaper. Always active in civil rights, Key was the director of the Nevada Commission for the Rights of Women from 1967 to 1969, coordinator for the Nevada Careers Program for the Equal Opportunity Board of Clark County from 1969 to 1972 and, from 1980 to 1983, she served as director of the Las Vegas branch of the NAACP. In 1983, Governor Bryan appointed her to the Labor Commission where she served for 10 years. In 1984, she helped organize the Barbara Jordan Democratic Women’s Caucus. She continued to be active in community affairs and at the time the collection was processed was working for the preservation and reopening of the Moulin Rouge Hotel in West Las Vegas.
For additional biographical information see:
The main topics in this brief collection are civil rights and the preservation of the Moulin Rouge Hotel. The collection includes certificates awards given to Alice Key, a little correspondence, invitations, programs, pamphlets and newspaper clippings. There is also some background information on Key's early life as a dancer. The donor noted that the photograph collection was assembled by someone else and is not in any rational order. Alice is writing some memoirs and will add them at a later date. Someone is also sending the newspaper columns she wrote which she will later add to the collection.
In 2003 an accretion was added consisting of 3 folders, which are described in the inventory below.
The collection is retained in a single series and divided into folders by topic and format.
Eight photographs featuring Alice Key and other entertainment celebrities were removed to the UNLV Special Collections Photo Collection 0297.
For related topics and further information see the following collections:
Donald Clark Collection, T-68.