page_title: Desert Inn
section_title: Film and television
hierarchical_section_title: Desert Inn / Film and television
caption_attribution_description: Photo of the front of the Desert Inn from the pool from a 1955 postcard.
context_page_description: The Desert Inn, also known as the D.I., was a hotel and casino on the Las Vegas Strip in Paradise, Nevada, which operated from April 24, 1950, to August 28, 2000. Designed by architect Hugh Taylor and interior design by Jac Lessman, it was the fifth resort to open on the Strip, the first four being El Rancho Vegas, The New Frontier, the still-operating Flamingo, and the now-defunct El Rancho. It was situated between Desert Inn Road and Sands Avenue.
  The Desert Inn opened with 300 rooms and the Sky Room restaurant, headed by a chef formerly of the Ritz Paris, which once had the highest vantage point on the Las Vegas Strip. The casino, at 2,400 square feet, was one of the largest in Nevada at the time. The nine-story St. Andrews Tower was completed during the first renovation in 1963, and the 14-story Augusta Tower became the Desert Inn's main tower when it was completed in 1978 along with the seven-story Wimbledon Tower. The Palms Tower was completed in 1997 with the second and final renovation. The Desert Inn was the first hotel in Las Vegas to feature a fountain at the entrance.
context_section_description: Portions of Ocean's 11 were shot at the Desert Inn. It is one of the five Las Vegas hotels robbed on New Year's Eve by the characters played by Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and others in the film. Orson Welles' film F for Fake covers, among other topics, the scandal of a fake biography of Howard Hughes, and the billionaire's Desert Inn residence is illustrated by Welles. In the 1985 film Lost in America, Julie Hagerty's character Linda Howard loses the couple's "nest egg" at the Desert Inn, leading to a memorable scene in which Albert Brooks' character David Howard tries to convince the Casino manager (Garry Marshall) to give them their money back. David, an ad man, proposes a campaign centered around the generosity of the casino in his case, replete with a jingle: "The Desert Inn has heart... The Desert Inn has heart."
  The opening scene to the 1993 film Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit took place in the Grand Ballroom of the Hotel. The Desert Inn saw its last commercial use in the 2001 film Rush Hour 2, shortly before it was imploded. It was converted into the "Red Dragon", an Asian-themed casino set.
  The hotel served as the primary backdrop for the TV show Vega$ which aired on ABC from 1978 to 1981. The 1980s Aaron Spelling soap opera Dynasty included footage of the hotel, and use of the Presidential Suite. The hit 1980s NBC TV series Remington Steele filmed its 60th Las Vegas-set episode at the inn, where both the exterior and interior are shown regularly throughout the episode.
caption: Classic image of Wilbur Clark's Desert Inn, 1955
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