Greene would go on to co-headline a show at the MGM Grand Hotel alongside Dean Martin in 1975. He parlayed that early success in Sin City into a five-year headlining act at Vegas’ famous Tropicana Hotel starting in 1957. Once, during a Florida gig early in his career, he did a body flip that landed him flush on his knee, which blew up to the size of a cantaloupe. He would also do most anything for their delectation. Greene was known as an all-purpose entertainer of the old school who told jokes and stories, sang and seemed to have an endless store of the kinds of observations that made the dreariness and confusion of life not only bearable but also funny. (He stayed for six years, until it burned down.) After showcasing his stand-up across the Midwest, New Orleans and Miami, Greene landed his first Las Vegas show in 1954, opening for comedic singer and actor Dorothy Shay at the now-closed Last Frontier hotel and casino on the Vegas Strip.

Born Fred Sheldon Greenfield in Chicago in 1926, he served in the Navy during World War II, and enrolled in junior college but left when he was offered a two-week gig at the Prevue Lounge in New Orleans. The free-form performer, some of whose routines have aged better than others, rose to fame as a comedian in the 1950s.

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