This is how the most beautiful woman on the Strip married the ugliest man in Las Vegas.
Manny Maniscalco was the Undergarment King of the World. His factory outside of Las Vegas made heavily structured wired brassieres, girdles, corsets, and belts designed to make busts stand out and waists suck in. His was a unique kind of engineering genius, and his company expanded to make lingerie that could never be accused of being overly subtle.
His creations were a Las Vegas staple for all the big shows, his undergarments could be seen—at least discerned—in Hollywood films, his lingerie was particularly ubiquitous all over the third world.
Manny spent his life creating his own vulgar version of beauty, which made sense because he himself was ugly as they come and knew it. How could he not, with his club left foot that dragged behind him as if he wore a ball and chain, shoulders that stooped over his six-foot-four frame, and a heavy head that some likened to a Saint Bernard’s, only . . . ugly.
He had a big head and a big heart—when Manny loved, it was with the intensity of an angel, and he loved Madeleine McKay.
A denizen of the shows—ostensibly to check on his creations but in reality to bask in beauty—he was well known to every chorus girl as a regular at the front-row tables. “Manny’s out there” became a standard line in the wings. Some of the girls were amused, others dismissive; none would meet his gaze, even with his reputed fortune.
But one night he spotted Madeleine, and that was it.
He sent flowers backstage, baskets of fruit （no man in the know would ever send a showgirl candy）， bottles of perfume, samplings of his products in what he accurately surmised were her sizes. The accompanying notes were never pushy, always signed simply From your admirer, Manny Maniscalco.
The other girls filled her in on Manny and his millions, laughed about the gifts that were piling up, sympathized with her. The man came to the show every night and sat there staring only at Madeleine. It was creepy, they said, embarrassing for her.
Madeleine wasn’t embarrassed.
One night Manny arrived at his regular table to find a very nice bottle of red wine waiting, with the note From your admiree, Madeleine McKay.
He sent back a note: Could we share the wine over dinner?
If a note could have stammered, it would have.
They had dinner after the show the next Saturday night and married two months later.
Somewhat to her surprise, Madeleine found Manny to be intelligent, thoughtful, charming in his own hesitant way, and the possessor of a deep strength that can only come from perfect self-awareness.
“The only reason,” he said without a trace of rancor at that dinner, “that a young woman as beautiful as you would date a man twenty years her senior, as ugly as me, is my money. Am I wrong?”
“It certainly was the reason I came,” she said. “It would only be part of the reason I would stay.”
“But a major part.”
“Of course.”
They came to an equally frank understanding. If money was the main currency, as it were, of their relationship, she would only be a purchase, not a rental. If he wanted to take her off the stage, he had to set her at the altar. He would marry her, give her a luxurious life, settle an independent fortune on her. In return, she would give him her beauty, her wit, her companionship.
She couldn’t promise her heart.
He accepted that.
The gossip columns called the match, inevitably, “Beauty and the Beast,” reveled in printing photos of the statuesque bride and the hunched-over groom. The bridesmaids composed a virtual chorus line, giving the ceremony an erotic charge; his groomsmen were mostly his cousins. Shelly walked the bride down the aisle.
“You don’t get ten percent of this,” Madeleine joked.
“But I should,” Shelly said. “I’m losing a lot of income here. Are you sure you want to do this, kid? It’s not too late to run.”
“I’m sure.”
Out of respect for Manny—and there was immense respect for him among the smartest and most powerful Las Vegas operators—every important person in town attended the ceremony and came to the lavish reception.
Madeleine and Manny spent their wedding night in the bridal suite of the Flamingo.
Madeleine took a long time in the bathroom, making sure her hair was coiffed in a stylish updo, that her makeup was perfect. She slipped into one of Manny’s less cheesy negligees, filmy black silk, over one of his red corsets lined with black lace, black mesh stockings and garters.
Nothing she would have chosen for herself, but she knew it would please him.