"Of all the places we played, this was our first big deal," said Tom Smothers at Harrah's Tahoe recently, referring to the Smothers Brothers' debut in the South Shore Room in 1968. "We got fired elsewhere plenty of times, but Bill Harrah always hired us."

They had begun in lounges. At Harolds Club, Tom Smothers said, they did five shows a day, "but we had no material. Harold Smith said 'Never again, you stupid people.' "

They played Harveys, where they told everybody to stop gambling and sing "Happy Birthday" to a girl, and "heard about that for days." They paid their dues, and Bill Harrah brought them to one of the most desirable entertainment venues in the country.

The South Shore Room was a bold business experiment at its beginning. It was the late 1950s. Nevada casino gaming was becoming famous around the world, mostly due to such legendary Vegas clubs as the Sands and the Flamingo. But northern Nevada was being left behind and there were few places as sleepy, or as seasonal, as Stateline on the south Tahoe border of Nevada and California.

It was a risky place to build a major nightclub, but 1959 seemed the right time to do it. Harrah figured a major facility featuring major stars would draw the onslaught of visitors expected for the 1960 Winter Olympics in nearby Squaw Valley. He wanted a club that would feature only the best – and most famous – of performers, with state-of-the-art facilities and stage, serving dinners and cocktails for two shows a night "every night of the year."

The result was the South Shore Room, 850 seats, large for its day, opening in December 1959 with a show headlined by Red Skelton. Nobody was bigger than the star of a television series that ran for a total of 20 years without ever dropping out of the top 20.

The stars that followed in the next few months were no slouches, either – Patti Page, Fred Waring and the Pennsylvanians, Liberace, Victor Borge, Marlene Dietrich, Nat "King" Cole and Ray Bolger.

But the numbers were disappointing. It seems Olympic visitors were too tired after a day's events to travel to the South Shore for a show, regardless of who was scheduled.

But Harrah continued advertising and continued booking. The winter snows melted, May arrived, and his Tahoe operation became a destination. And even though a good deal of bloom is off the flower, the South Shore Room continues to operate, this year celebrating its 50 years with headline entertainment every weekend, a mix of the past and the present.

"Coming back here was like comfort food for entertainers," says Dick Smothers. "It was a treat not only to be performing in the main room, but also because Bill Harrah was legendarily generous to his entertainers. You could drive his classic cars, you could stay in a house on the lake, and you could have anything and as much as you wanted to eat. Mansions, cars, a Rolls, feasts."

"It was the place to play. And it made other entertainers jealous," says Tom Smothers. "I remember Jerry Van Dyke being in the lounge and saying, 'I'd be in the main room, too, if I worked with my brother.' "

That was typical Van Dyke humor, coming from a man who famously said, "I never wanted to be a really big star and so far it's working out pretty well."

Brother Dick Van Dyke never did play the South Shore Room, but just about everybody else did.

It was the location of the famous and surprising pairing of Frank Sinatra and John Denver in August 1975, Sinatra singing at the cocktail shows, Denver at the dinner shows. In September 1976, they performed together in both shows, Sinatra amazingly taking the opening spot.

There were many special events. The touring company of "Flower Drum Song" played the room in 1962 and Donald O'Connor starred in "Little Me" in 1968. Peggy Fleming, Scott Hamilton, Tai Babilonia, Randy Gardner and Dorothy Hamill skated there.

Major stars of television's "golden age" were often booked, many of them now with luster faded – Art Linkletter, Anna Maria Alberghetti, Ed Ames, Dennis Day, Ernie Kovacs, George Gobel, Giselle Mackenzie. The giants of that time whose luster never faded were there, too – Jack Benny, George Burns, Andy Williams, Dinah Shore, Carol Burnett and Perry Como.

Ella Fitzgerald sang in the room, with opening act Rowan and Martin. Judy Garland had one appearance in 1963; daughter Liza Minnelli appeared many times. Eleanor Powell danced. Guy Lombardo, Woody Herman, Herb Alpert, Count Basie, Xavier Cugat – all had their orchestras onstage. Kathryn Grayson dueted with Howard Keel, and Tony Martin performed with wife Cyd Charisse.

Jazz giants like Louis Jordan, Louis Armstrong and Louis Prima performed. The big sister acts, McGuire and Andrews, sang.

Polly Bergen, Nelson Eddy, Raquel Welch, Phil Harris, Robin Williams, Sarah Vaughn, Eddy Arnold, Sonny & Cher, Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gorme, Steve Martin, Spike Jones, Tony Bennett, Willie Nelson, Wayne Newton, Zsa Zsa Gabor – the list is nothing less than amazing.

Who played the room more than anybody else? Sammy Davis Jr., who racked up over 60 engagements, seconded closely by Bill Cosby, with more than 50.

"It was, quite simply, the place in the country to play," says Tom Smothers.