Las Vegas Entrepreneur Ron Coury On Writing His Memoir, Tenacity
Special Episode: Today's episode is about Ron Coury's recent memoir. We generally don't interview people about memoir-type books on the Published Author Podcast, but Ron's story is an interesting one and he has some great advice for anyone looking to publish a book.
After retiring from the U.S. Marine Corp, Ron Coury became an entrepreneur in Las Vegas, but not the Vegas you know today—he was there when it was a small town, the “old” Las Vegas from movies like Goodfellas and Casino. Ron started over twenty businesses during his career and along the way dealt with death threats from competitors, political and police corruption, and fought esophageal cancer.
In this episode, Ron talks about how he kept decades of notes for the day when he would write a book about his life and how he turned his life into a memoir that became a bestseller and received attention from multiple producers in Hollywood.
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EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Josh Steimle: Today, my guest is Ron Corey. Ron is a Marine, entrepreneur, and author of the book Tenacity. Now this is a memoir I hear today and when we generally don't interview people about memoir type books, but this is going to be an interesting one because Ron is a long time entrepreneur and he's had a fascinating life just, you're going to see, as we dive into this. He's lived in Las Vegas for a long time, and he's dealt with some things like political and police corruption, bribery, coercion, death threats, along the way, he had a couple of offers to settle matters, discreetly with a few well-placed bullets. So this is going to be an interesting conversation for y'all.
Ron, Welcome to the show.
Ron Coury: Thank you, Josh. I appreciate you having me today.
Josh Steimle: So give us a little bit of your story and how it all started. How did you end up in the Marines? And then how did that transition you into entrepreneurship?
Ron Coury: I was attending college in New York City. When, at the time the draft was still going on, I dropped the class that I wasn't enjoying. I didn't realize that in the era of government inefficiencies with them buying hammers for $500, me dropping one class would enact the greetings letter from the military. And when I found that I was going and Vietnam was still going on, I opted to join the Marine Corps to get the best training I felt was possible to enhance my likelihood of survival had I gone to war. So I enlisted in the Marine Corps. It turned out to be very fortuitous move in my life because I ended up being stationed in California, which had me two and a half hours out of Vegas at a Marine base I was assigned to.
So I'd visit Vegas on weekends. At the time, in 1972 and 1973, this was a very small town, about 200,000 people. Now we brag 2.7 million residents. And 40 to 60 million visitors a year. So it's a remarkably different town than it was. But what I found was a nice, small town atmosphere, not at all like Brooklyn, New York. And I thought I would give it a try. I didn't know what I was going to do with my life, but once I got out of the Marine Corps, I was good with numbers, which is why the class I was staying in was advanced calculus.
But, I became a blackjack dealer. And then I learned how to deal roulette, baccarat, and craps. I enjoyed the mechanics of the game, the science of it, constantly running numbers in my head, the social interaction. I was intrigued. My dealing job at the last hotel was the Tropicana at a time when it was pretty much one of the shining hotels on the strip with Sands and Caesar's Palace.
And I've dealt to Telly Savalas Farrah Fawcett, Lee Majors. Muhammad Ali watched my roulette wheel for two hours. He never played, he just stood there watching the ball go around in the wheel though. Then just had a chance to encounter so many people. I watched the Charlie's angels final episode being filmed, where they introduced Robert Yurik as Dan Tana. And he did the spinoff TV show Vegas from that. And that filming was occurring 10 feet from the table I was dealing on. Just a lot of interesting things happened that make me very happy that the Marine Corps introduced me to Vegas.
I was a dealer for about seven years and went into the Tavern restaurant and gaming business. Ended up growing that into four locations. And my entrepreneurial spirit kicked in. I enjoyed being my own boss, letting the benefits of good decisions and running a business solidly reward me with better pay. So there was a direct plus to doing a good job. And I liked that about business and I parlayed those four taverns into a multitude of different businesses, including a limousine service, car dealerships, a printing company, a wholesale glass and mirror company. And as my life wound down and I started selling businesses, an attorney friend of mine suggested that with the police corruption I overcame and the political corruption tha he was aware of, he said, “You know, your story would make a heck of a book one day.”
So, as far as my process, I had all my life, as I started growing in business, I kept a legal pad as an outline because I thought some things might happen in the day to day that in years to come, if I ever wanted to tell the story, I wouldn't remember some little intricacies. So I kept an outline. And for over three decades, I'd go back to this legal pad when something interesting happened.
So when I decided to sit down and write a book, that outline proved to be very helpful to refresh my memory and depending on how much detail, in the process of writing a book you'd like to get into. I don't want to rattle on in a narrative if you have specific questions, but I can get into how it became a book if you'd like.
Josh Steimle: This is great. It's great to know that you are keeping those details ahead of time. Because a lot of people, they do say, well, I'm going to write a book. But then they're trying to capture 20 years of information in a book. And if they don't have it written down, it gets really hard and a bit of a slog to go back and recreate all that.
And of course we forget things. I'm curious. Did any of that writing things down and when things happened, did that ever come in handy with some of the tough situations that you were faced with, like going to court or anything?
Ron Coury: Well, writing the outline was solely for if I ever told my story in a book and it came in very helpful because like when I received death threats, when I tried to open presidential limousine service, things that happened in that day in 1984, I'm not going to remember in 2015. And as I made certain notes as to how things developed, it helped me tell the story and know that I was being 100% accurate for the reader. So it did prove very helpful in that regard to where I've had reviewers, nearly a hundred that are in the business of reviewing books, my PR company found them, I had no idea that industry existed, but I've had reviewers comment to me off the record that reading my book was like hearing me tell the story.
It came across in a way exactly how I would hope. It would be interesting, inspirational motivational, and kind of like just listening to me tell a story about how I did this, that, or the other business as my business total became 20 in number. People have found that to be a very easy read and the outline definitely helped it become that.
Josh Steimle: So give us some of these stories. Uh, you said you received death threats when you were starting your limo company. Can you tell us more about that?
Ron Coury: Yeah. Back then in 1984, we didn't have the technology we do now. There was an old fashioned cassette tape recorder at my house that would take messages if someone called my home landline. There were no cell phones. I had a digital beeper on my belt and I came home one day after work, and my wife was in tears. While she was out grocery shopping, a message came in and there was no caller ID and it said, if you keep pursuing trying to open a limo company, your car will blow up or we will put a bullet in your head.
And my wife was a pacifist. She wasn't in the Marine Corps. She was a sweetheart of a lady. And, I had been in the bar business for a couple of years by 1984. I was accustomed to dealing with confrontation, throwing out a line customers at a bar, being physical, using the training the Marine Corps blessed me with, but that wasn't Joan.
So, I had to try to figure out who was the initiator of that call, disguising their voice. And I actually figured out who it was and when I confronted that person, the book goes into more detail, but I knew I had the right guy and by confronting him alone in an elevator using a little throat move that my drill instructor taught me. I persuaded him to stop initiating such calls and lo and behold, the calls stopped and I opened presidential and ran it successfully until one of my competitors offered to buy me out. And I used that money and that gain to develop a casino that I purchased land to build, and built, and developed, and operated.
Josh Steimle: That's great. You also mentioned police corruption. Do you have any good stories about police corruption you can tell us here?
Ron Coury: I do. There's much more detail in the book as any book will be, but there was an outlying city to Las Vegas, which in my book, I call Opportunity, Nevada, but anyone who's been to Vegas knows there's a city to our Southeast called Henderson. And at the time there was a corrupt city Councilman in that city who was in a competing graphics company to mine. It was even down the street from my suburban graphics. And through my private investigator, I learned that he had three Tavern operations of his own on the drawing boards within his city. Keeping me from growing or developing in his city, I believe in his view, would enhance his likelihood of greater success. It was a small town back then, Henderson, unlike Vegas, which was growing remarkably. And, the video poker business that developed in the Tavern business in the 80’s, turned us from a company that would sell drinks into a gaming operation.
You know, we were selling drinks, maybe $300 in drinks a day. That was the revenue we ran a Tavern on. And if you had food that was some surplus income. I actually made better money with the old space invaders or any video games that got developed back in the day or my pool tables. But when video poker came around, we started seeing 10, 20, $30,000 a week in quarters being dropped into these video poker machines. So if one asks, why would a guy be so vicious to try to use his power as a Councilman and his small town police department to jam you up? That's why, there was a lot of money at hand. And if he could either develop the site that I selected or develop his own sites and limit competition in his view, it put more money in his pocket.
Well, I wasn't the kind to lay down when I got slapped, I was in the habit of slapping back. So I hired a private investigator. We learned a lot about him and the police detective he was using and revealed some of the things we learned about him. Fought back fire with fire and did not shy away from making the application to develop my neighborhood casino. And opened it with rave reviews and actually caused him to lose an ethics complaint I filed and opt to not run for reelection when his term was up because of what we disclosed about him. That's the corruption and both in both police and city council that my book describes.
Josh Steimle: This is fascinating stuff. So you have all these stories. How did you decide what to include in your book and what not to include, or did you just include it all?
Ron Coury: I actually had a friend who has written a dozen books and I consulted with him as I was putting together my outline and asked for some advice, you know, you surround yourself with good people in business. That's how you succeed. Well, you have to be smart enough to know what you don't know and ask the people that do. So I went to him, told him I was working on an outline and I was struggling with how much to write. And I'm not a quick typist. He put me in touch with someone who does that for a living.
So ultimately, after writing one chapter and figuring out this is not for me sitting at this keyboard and typing is not how I want to spend the next two years. I met with the fellow that Wayne introduced me to, Brian Ruff, and ultimately met with Brian nine times for four hours per visit and told my story from growing up in Brooklyn to 2015 and he converted it to chapters that I could edit. And he would email me a couple of chapters after a brief visit. And I was okay with editing, I wasn't okay with writing from scratch. So I was able to tell my story, much like I'm doing with you today in chronological order with that legal pad outline I described to you and Brian and his associate, Bob Burrs, put it into a written form that I could edit. And when we got to a final product, hired outside editors to enhance it every time. And one would think you would only hire one editor. I ended up hiring three different editors and each editor who touched it, made it better with whatever he did. We ultimately got it, with Brian's advice and other people in the industry that he referred me to, got it into a book form and made it available on Amazon.
Josh Steimle: So what was the motivation, as you were working on this book, you're spending good money to produce this book, what was going through your head in terms of this is the reason I'm putting this out there? This is the reason this book needs to exist.
Ron Coury: Well, during one of the incidents that city Councilman forced me into, I had to hire a team of criminal attorneys to defend myself and my bar managers. And this frame job that I was subjected to by this Councilman caused me to hire a high profile criminal attorney in town, who I became friends with, Steve Stein, still practicing law today. In fact, he was law partners with our former mayor, Oscar Goodman. When Oscar, who is portrayed in Goodfellas and Casino, playing himself, representing Robert de Niro and Joe Peshy. Well, Oscar and Steve Stein were law partners. I hired Steve to defend me and when he cleared my name, and did such a great job at it, as we had our planning sessions, he said, “This will be a great book someday, if you want to sit down and write it.”
So it was his comment that got me thinking about it, but I was too busy running multiple businesses to ever do that. As I started selling these businesses off and figuring out at the age of 53, what am I going to do with the rest of my life? Being financially secure isn't always enough when you're an entrepreneur, you're always looking for the next challenge. Well, writing a book became that next challenge. And over the course of a couple of years, that's what I did. And then releasing the book and learning how to market the book and making it a success and a best seller on Amazon became a task. So here we are now in that process of me learning how to market the book with different forums, like yours,
Josh Steimle: Who do you see as the ideal audience for the book?
Ron Coury: The best audience are people who want to be entrepreneurs and want to read about how someone did it, who had a short bank role, but had a vision and a drive to make something happen. But because the book has so many different turns and twists it isn't only for entrepreneurs. It is for people who might be on vacation. I had a Hollywood producer contact me who found my book, read it, and then reached out to me and said, he read it during a week on a beach in Miami. And he found it to be so inspirational, he wants to pursue making it a movie with me. So it really goes to anyone who's looking to be entertained, motivated or inspired.
Josh Steimle: So did you have that as a goal when you were writing it that, “Hey, I want this to be a bestseller. I want to get a movie deal.” Like, was that a goal you had, or was it, “This is a fun project. It's a fun process. And I want there to be a record of what I've done.”
Ron Coury: No, it was actually a legacy builder. I knew that my story was quite diverse and interesting, but something I never sat down and told my three children about. And mainly I thought if this never becomes a big thing, my kids can read the story from my own lips.
And just making a legacy or a record of, of the life that I was so thrilled to enjoy and have the opportunity to meet such great friends and business partners. That was my goal. I had no idea the book would take off like it has and become what it has become and actually have three different people reaching out to me to talk about possibly making it a movie.
It wasn't in my thoughts in the early days, I just wanted to tell the story
Josh Steimle: And it's gotta be really satisfying to know that other people appreciate it that way.
Ron Coury: Yeah it really is.
Josh Steimle: So if we can go back to stories, you told us about Muhammad Ali and some of the people that came to your table. What are some of the other celebrity stories that you have?
Is there a favorite one?
Ron Coury: Well, I found Telly Savalas from an old TV show called Kojak, which your younger viewers are probably not even going to know who he is, but he was a big star. He's made a lot of movies with Clint Eastwood, Charles Bronson, and he had a TV show playing a cop in New York and Telly loves to play roulette. But an interesting thing about him is even though in roulette, you have the non-denominational chips that are in different colors, each color chip is assigned to a player. And as the dealer, you just have to keep track of whose chips are whose. Well, you could make those chips $1, $5, or a hundred dollars in value each, whatever you want it to buy in. Telly wanted them to be the lowest denomination possible, which at the time was 25 cents per chip. And he would buy every chip in the 15 stacks of chips that I had. And he would stack them up so tall that his brother, George, who was on some of his Kojak shows who was a shadow for him, would have to put his hand on top of the stack of chips, so they wouldn't fall over. Even though he could put 80 chips that value on a table using two chips of a higher denomination. He just wanted to fill the table with chips this high on every number he could play.
And I found that that was intriguing to me, that that interested him. I mean, he drive the dealers crazy because each time the ball drops, you've got a muck all the chips that did not hit and then count up the chips. And have to calculate in your head. He had 87 chips straight up on the number. So 87 times 35:1 pay him off. And then he had stacks of chips on the 17:1 lines, the 8:1 lines, and you'd have to do that math, which I loved. I loved math, but to calculate the chips, the payoffs, and then convert it into higher denominations, so you could make the payoff. That's a memory I have of Telly Savalas coming in three or four times a year. He liked me as a dealer. I did a good job and he'd always find my table and play on my game.
Josh Steimle: He’s making you work for it though.
Ron Coury: Absolutely. And he was a good tipper. I always appreciated that.
Josh Steimle: You got any Frank Sinatra stories?
Ron Coury: No, Frank Sinatra did not go beyond Caesar's or the sands back in the day. I saw him live many times, but he never came into the Tropicana when I worked there nor Dean Martin, Dean Martin also played the sands back in the day.
Josh Steimle: So when you see movies about Las Vegas, whether it's Oceans 11 or, I mean, well, the new one or the old one, but when you see these movies about Vegas or there's the part in The Godfather II or something that shows a bit of Vegas and such, when you see these movies where you see Vegas portrayed in popular culture, what are some of the things that go through your mind? Do you say, “ Oh that's not realistic. That's not the way it was. It was rougher than that. Or it wasn't that rough.” Or how does the Hollywood version of Vegas differ from the reality that you experienced?
Ron Coury: Well, candidly, Goodfellas and Casino are very true to fact. Cause I lived here then. When Lefty Rosenthal's Cadillac got blown up in front of Tony Roma's and Robert DeNiro portraying him re-enacts that scene. I remember reading the paper and watching the news that night, when that happened. And when De Niro's character goes to the gaming commission played by one of the Smothers brothers. The chairman of the gaming commission is actually playing Harry Reed, our former Senator, who was the chairman of the gaming commission then. That actually happened. And those movies made an effort to be so true to form. I don't roll my eyes. I'm intrigued by it. Cause I lived through it and I enjoy telling people who want to watch the movie with me or talk about it when I meet them socially on a poker table or something. How I'm old enough to say I lived through that. That's actually how it happened.
Josh Steimle: How is Vegas different today for entrepreneurs and as a business climate?
Ron Coury: It's much, it's much more difficult. When you go from a small town to a big city, finding a niche, which I was kind of good at and develop a business in a neighborhood that I think the demographics would help me make it successful. It's harder to do that now. The town is bigger. Everyone's done everything at least once, if not 20 times. But I could find a part of town like my first tavern. And back in the day, when west of me, they were still riding horses, the homes were just being built around that section of town. But to have the vision and say, I know many people think this is never going to enjoy the kind of traffic it should to make the business successful.
I looked at an overview and I thought, this is where the town's going to grow. And I would develop businesses in these areas that may not do grea in year one or two, but I would be right that they would be a home at some point and either generate great revenue operationally, in liquor, gaming, and food, or build it up to a point which I ultimately did, to where I could sell it and enjoy the blue sky of selling it to someone who wanted to walk into a successful business rather than take the risk of starting one from scratch. It's harder to do that in this town. Now the town has grown to that degree.
Josh Steimle: Going back to the book, you said that you've enjoyed the process of figuring out marketing and how to promote the book. What are some of the things that you've invested in, in terms of book promotion and what's worked and what hasn't worked?
Ron Coury: Well, the company that put me in touch with you, Oscar Hamilton, has done very well in introducing me to the world of podcasts and zoom interviews. And many of folks in what you do have thousands of viewers or listeners, some of the things I've done are not repeated in video, it's just audio. But I have the opportunity to talk to 20 or 30 people that do what you do and promote the book that way and get it in people's heads to look up Tenacity by Ron Coury on Amazon or else, quite honestly, no one's going to Amazon. So pull the name, Coury or Tenacity out of the sky. So if I'm not out there promoting the book, it's not selling. So doing these types of podcasts, I've done a TV commercial that I've run on the local TV stations that people who live in town are intrigued by the commercial, because it talks to Old Vegas and a true life story. And I think that between my different businesses I've owned, there's a good chance that a very high percentage of the local populace has been touched by me in some way. They might've purchased a vehicle from one of my three car dealerships. They might've been a customer in one of my four taverns. They may have worked for a company that purchased slot machine glass, or signs from one of my printing companies. And the way we produced the commercial, which your viewers, by the way, if they go to my book's website, roncouryauthor.com, there's actually a link to watch the commercial. And that commercial has helped me market the book.
When I learned from my book consultant, that 25% of all books today are purchased in audio form, I never knew that statistic. I thought, “Well, then I want to make my book stand out. How do I do that?” I look for a familiar voice, a Hollywood actor. So the first name I thought of was Gene Hackman, probably because I heard his voice on a Wells Fargo Bank commercial.
So I had my PR company reach out to Gene Hackman and his agent politely declined, that he was very retired, but appreciated me thinking of him. But that agent also represented an actor named Michael Madsen, who I knew instantly from Donnie Brasco, Kill Bill, and Reservoir Dogs. And he was available. He was between movies.
So we structured a financial deal that I could live with and he was willing to accept. Arranged for him to fly to town from Malibu, put him in a suite at the Bellagio for a week, hired a studio for a week, and I would pick him up every morning at the Bellagio, bring them to the soundstage, and he would read my book, giving the editor of the sound studio time to edit the vocals. And create an audio file that we could upload to Amazon for people who want it to have the book read to them by an iconic voice, like Michael Madsen.
Josh Steimle: That's a great story in and of itself right there.
Ron Coury: Yeah. You know, you kind of have to take charge when you run a business. No, one's going to do it for you. You have to decide that failure is not an option. For example, if you're going to do an audio book, make it a kick ass book. Hire a voice like Michael Madsen, hire a good visual artist, like in my book, I'm very proud of the book cover. And I knew a graphic artist who I put through college, my youngest son, Tommy. And he did some designs for me when the book got written and I actually loved the book design he did for me. So hiring the right people and making something you could be proud of is something that I've tried to do in every business I've engaged in.
Josh Steimle: And so the book has been quite successful on Amazon. I checked it just this morning. There were 80 reviews on it, which is phenomenal, actually. Most books get three, four reviews, if that. To get anything over 20 is already successful. And you're at 80 reviews there. What are some of the other measurements or statistics of success that your book has enjoyed?
Ron Coury: Well, it has opened the door to me to meet people that I would not have ordinarily met. For example, socially, recreationally, I enjoy Texas no-limit hold ‘em. I go to the Bellagio once or twice a week to play, but it's not just to gamble. It's a social environment. And I'm known there as the guy that wrote that book about Vegas. So someone, a floor person or a dealer will tell a player on one of the 30 games that I'm there and they'll bring them in to meet me. They want to meet an author or they'll buy my book, come in the next visit and ask if I'm there and ask me to sign the book for them or personalize it for their child or wife.
Ameriprise Financial Services, a big national company. They've got a large presence in Las Vegas. They contacted me after their HR director read my book and asked me to be their guest speaker at a dinner. Nothing like that's ever happened to me in my life. And I accepted the invitation. I waived an appearance fee because I thought I don't even know what I would charge. I'm excited to just plain do it. And she agreed to buy a book for every attendee. So they had nearly a hundred people come and I spoke for an hour at Ameriprise, as they serve dinner and at the Red Rock Country Club that Ameriprise arranged for and things like that. And then meeting people like I do in the poker room. That writing a book has made all these opportunities possible. And I've continued a relationship with some of these people that reached out to me as a result of just wanting a book sign. One Hollywood producer, Julie Yarn, she now has a show on a Starz called Heels about the wrestling world. She learned about my book and asked me about possible working together to make it a movie. And then she came out with the TV show Heels that I've been watching each week when a new episode drops and I've seen the quality of the work she has exhibited. And I look forward to working with her if we decide to do something on a screen with Tenacity.
Josh Steimle: If you could choose any actor to play you in this movie, who would it be?
Ron Coury: You know, it almost sounds conceited. I've avoided answering that question for many people because I want to say Tom Cruise because he's got dark hair and my features, but I don't want to sound conceited and say that out loud because I mean, this guy's a big star, but I think he could nail the part.
I think back here that was given to me with a Marine Corps uniform from the movie, A Few Good Men. And that was my rank in the Marine Corps. So my girlfriend, Stephanie, purchased that for me as a gear. And it's got pictures of Tom Cruise and Kiefer Sutherland who acted in the movie and they all signed the uniform. So that brings Tom Cruise to mind.
Josh Steimle: I think Matthew McConaughey could be a good fit for you too.
Ron Coury: Ah, Interesting.
Josh Steimle: Doesn't have the same hair, but.
Ron Coury: That's what makeup is for.
Josh Steimle: Yeah.
Well, this has been a great conversation, Ron. Once again, if people want to reach out to you, whether they want to just meet you or talk to you, or they want to hire you to speak at their event, tell stories about old Vegas, where's the best place for them to reach out?
Ron Coury: It’s important for them to know the correct spelling of my name, because the website is RonCouryauthor.com. And through the website, they could learn more about the book, they could look at the photo gallery. And there's a link in that website for them to contact me.
Josh Steimle: Perfect. Before we let you go, one more story I want to ask from you is what was the most frightening or scariest moment you had in Vegas with all these experiences you've had?
Ron Coury: Well, it might be an incident at one of my taverns, when the bartender called me from the office to say that a guy at the bar had come in drunk, she refused to serve him. He was irate and pulled out a bowie knife, today they call it a Rambo knife. And she called 911, but the guy was harassing customers and I went out and needed to protect my customers, protect my bar.
And as I walked around the bar to get to where he was, I passed the pool table, picked up a pool stick. And in the Marine Corps, you people have seen these giant Q-tips called bugle sticks. And that's actually how they train you to fight with a rifle and a bayonet. Well, I grabbed the pool stick as I went around the bar and confronted him with the knife.
And as he lunged at me with the knife, I used that pool stick to win the fight. Disarm him, throw him out. And that might be the single most frightening thing that has happened. Death threats on the phone, looking underneath my car for a car bomb when the limousine guys were playing games, using a mirror on a broomstick. I actually didn't feel as scared as when there was a Rambo knife coming at me and I had to swat it away with the right timing with a pool stick.
Josh Steimle: Yeah. I mean, that's a little bit less predictable. You have less control over that situation, especially when somebody's drunk cause you don't know what they're going to do.
Ron Coury: Exactly right. Kicking his butt was fun.
Josh Steimle: Well, great stories, Ron. Thank you so much for being with us here today on the show. Appreciate your time.
Ron Coury: Thank you, Josh. I enjoyed talking with you as well.
