The casino even had a cameo in the film “Ocean’s Eleven.” When George Clooney and Brad Pitt recruited actor Bernie Mac’s character to help with a Las Vegas casino heist, they plucked him from Trump Plaza, where he was a dealer.īob McDevitt, president of the main casino workers’ union, said the place oozed glamor and buzz when opened. “They were very down-to-earth people,” Gatewood said.

Ron Gatewood, a food and beverage worker at Trump Plaza from 1986 until its closing in 2014, brought food and drinks to stars including Aretha Franklin, Luther Vandross and Barry White in their hotel rooms. It was the place to be when mega-events such as a Tyson boxing match or a Rolling Stones concert was held next door in Boardwalk Hall. Opened in 1984, when Trump was a real estate developer in his pre-politics days, Trump Plaza was for a time the most successful casino in Atlantic City. Bernie Dillon, events manager for the casino from 1984 to 1991 I’m sorry to see it go.”ĭemolition crews positioned explosives at strategic points along the building’s support structures designed to knock its legs out from under it, bringing the building down on itself, with the debris falling in a slightly north-northeast direction, Fire Chief Scott Evans said. “It was like that a lot: You had Madonna and Sean Penn walking in, Barbra Streisand and Don Johnson, Muhammad Ali would be there, Oprah sitting with Donald ringside,” he recalled. One night before a (Mike) Tyson fight, I stopped dead in my tracks and looked about four rows in as the place was filling up, and there were two guys leaning in close and having a private conversation: Jack Nicholson and Warren Beatty.”

“Everyone from Hulk Hogan to Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, it was the whole gamut of personalities. “The way we put Trump Plaza and the city of Atlantic City on the map for the whole world was really incredible,” said Bernie Dillon, the events manager for the casino from 1984 to 1991.

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