Beldon Katleman
{{Short description|American businessman}}
{{Infobox person
| name = Beldon Katleman
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| birth_date = July 14, 1914
| birth_place = Iowa, U.S.
| death_date = {{death date and age|1988|9|28|1914|7|14}}
| death_place = Los Angeles, California, U.S.
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| resting_place = Hillside Memorial Park Cemetery
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| alma mater = University of California, Los Angeles
| occupation = Businessman
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| spouse = Leonore Cohn
| children = 1
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}}
Beldon Katleman (July 14, 1914 – September 28, 1988) was an American businessman. Katleman inherited partnership in El Rancho Vegas, a hotel casino in Las Vegas, Nevada, from his uncle Jake Katleman who died in 1950, and served as president of the hotel.{{cite web |url=https://vintagelasvegas.com/strip |title=Las Vegas Strip: hotels, motels, casinos, race books |author= |access-date=July 21, 2023 |quote="Beldon Katleman is president of the hotel (RJ 2/22/51) some time after inheriting El Ranco Inc. stock from J Katleman."}} Katleman was an investor in two other Las Vegas casinos, the Frontier Hotel and the Silver Slipper.
Early life
Beldon Katleman was born to an affluent Jewish family{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=EtBe7a_WtlgC&q=beldon+katleman+jewish&pg=PT113|first=Muriel|last=Burgess|title=Shirley|publisher=Cornerstone Digital|date=August 31, 2013|isbn=978-1448185429}} on July 14, 1914, in Iowa. He graduated from the University of California, Los Angeles.{{cite news|last1=Considine|first1=Bob|title=Gambling Enjoyed While Behind-Scenes Action Ignored. If Las Vegas Walks With Devil, Nobody Seems To Care|url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/48354869/?terms=%22Jake%2BKozloff%22|access-date=March 5, 2016|work=Lubbock Avalanche-Journal|via=Newspapers.com|url-access=registration |page=3|date=January 30, 1955|location=Lubbock, Texas}} His parents owned the Circle K national chain of parking lots and owned real estate in Los Angeles.{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=n0SujCRdh4gC&q=Beldon+Katleman&pg=PA308|first=Christopher|last=Ogden|title=Legacy: A Biography of Moses and Walter Annenberg|pages=308|publisher=Little, Brown and Company|date=November 29, 2009|isbn=9780316092449}} During World War II, Katleman served as a lieutenant in the motion picture division of the Signal Corps in the U.S. Army.
Career
From the early 1950s until it was destroyed by a fire in 1960, he was stockholder and president of El Rancho Vegas in Las Vegas, Nevada.{{cite news|last1=Ryon|first1=Ruth|title=Hunk Falls for $2M Hacienda|url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1993-10-24-re-49340-story.html|access-date=March 4, 2016|work=The Los Angeles Times|date=October 24, 1993|quote=GARY COOPER'S Holmby Hills home when he died in 1961 has come on the market at $3.45 million. [...] The owner is the widow of Beldon Katleman, a pioneer Nevada hotel man who died in 1988. Katleman owned the El Rancho Vegas, a popular getaway for Hollywood stars until the hotel-casino, built in 1940, was razed by fire in 1960. (A hotel on another Las Vegas site later assumed the El Rancho name.)}}
File:New Frontier Hotel & Casino at night 2004.jpg
With Guy McAfee and Jake Kozloff, Katleman acquired the Frontier Hotel from Bill Moore for US$5.5 million in 1951.{{cite book|last1=Wright|first1=Frank|title=Nevada Yesterdays: Short Looks at Las Vegas History|date=2005|publisher=Stephens Press|location=Las Vegas, Nevada|isbn=9781932173277|oclc=60708529|page=104|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=VD0e59nXb6MC&q=Jake+Kozloff&pg=PA104}} He succeeded Kozloff as its manager in 1955.
Katleman was an investor in the Silver Slipper, another casino in Las Vegas, alongside Jack Barenfeld, Norma Friedman, Irving Leff and T.W. Richardson.{{cite news|title=Suit Seeks Eviction of Hughes|url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/39053100/?terms=%22Beldon%2BKatleman%22|access-date=March 5, 2016|work=The Times|date=May 17, 1974|via=Newspapers.com|url-access=registration |page=13|location=San Mateo, California}} After leasing it to Howard Hughes since 1968, they sued Hughes over a year's unpaid rents in 1974.
In April 1988, the Senate Revenue and Taxation Committee Senate reviewed the "murky" settlement of taxes Katleman may have owed to the state of California in the 1960s.{{cite news|last1=Walters|first1=Dan|title=Murky tax case coming to light|url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/70144198/?terms=%22Beldon%2BKatleman%22|access-date=March 5, 2016|work=Santa Cruz Sentinel|date=April 4, 1988|via=Newspapers.com|url-access=registration |page=11|location=Santa Cruz, California}}
Personal life
In January 1941, Katleman married Leonore Cohn, whom he had met at the Hillcrest Country Club, the Jewish golf club in Los Angeles; Leonore was the niece of Columbia Pictures founder Harry Cohn. In 1942, They had a daughter named Diane Katleman Deshong.{{cite news|title=Howard Cooper Deshong Jr. Is Fiance of Diane Katleman|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1964/12/27/howard-cooper-deshong-jr-is-fiance-of-diane-katleman.html?_r=0|access-date=March 6, 2016|work=The New York Times|date=December 27, 1964}} They resided in Beverly Hills, California. The couple separated in 1944 and divorced soon after; she married Lewis Rosenstiel in 1946.
Death
Katleman died on September 28, 1988, in Los Angeles, California. He was buried at the Hillside Memorial Park Cemetery in Culver City, California.
References
{{Reflist}}
External links
- {{Find a Grave|120222338}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Katleman, Beldon}}
Category:Businesspeople from Beverly Hills, California
Category:Businesspeople from Las Vegas
Category:University of California, Los Angeles alumni
Category:American casino industry businesspeople
Category:20th-century American Jews