The very colorful Las Vegas personality, Bob Stupak is gravely ill in Desert Springs Hospital. He has been battling leukemia for some time and has been keeping a low profile. His last very public stunt was an unsuccessful bid for lieutenant governor. He is unconscious and unable to communicate. He does not recognize or respond to family members.

While best known for building the Stratosphere, he was also known as a scam artist, heavy gambler, and made headlines when he was nearly killed in a motorcycle accident in 1995.

The 67 year old known as The Polish Maverick was born in Pittsburgh PA.

Bob Stupak has passed away.

He sure was colorful. His offers were what actually brought me to Vegas for the first time almost 20 years ago. I remember what a dump the space themed casino and hotel were. But, every thing he promised to give you free for coming, he delivered.

After my stay I wrote a letter to him as the owner complaining about the poor accomendations and customer service. Our room was in the Vegas World annex. A scary dump next door to the hotel, down an alley for the homeless.

I actually receive a reply that appeared to be signed by him with an offer for a free stay in the "better" hotel at Vegas world. I never used the offer. But, I did lose a lot of money investing in Stratosphere stock before it went bankrupt the first time.

That's a cool story Ed. I'd bet most of the people who read this have a Bob Stupak story. I wish more would share them.

It was kinda odd me mentioning his name at dinner the other week with you, and now he's past on.

With all the celebrity drug addict deaths, who would have thought Bob Stupak would die of somewhat natural causes?

BTW. I never thought Ted Kennedy would die naturally either.

I had very few nice things to say about Bob Stupak in his casino days. In the last 10 years or so, he was very involved in charities. There is even a park behind the Stratosphere named after him.

I remember back in the Vegas World days when he was promoting the upcoming Stratosphere tower, I made a trip to Las Vegas, and the theme of my trip was to get some straight answers about all of the questionable material I was getting. I was younger and braver at the time. The address was an old office near Vegas World. It was dirty and nasty and dusty. There was no air conditioning. There were crates and boxes of promo material, there was a phone bank, a few people scurrying around, and nobody to really talk to. So I just wandered around trying to blend in with the confused workers.

Shortly after the Stratosphere tower opened, I went to investigate. The elevator stopped on the wrong floor. The doors opened and the elevator operator wasn't aware what floor we were on and told everyone to get off. We were on the fire escape level. It was all solid concrete with a little bit of spray on insualtion on some of the concrete. The outter edge was just covered in chicken wire. Once we got to the correct level, I went around taking VHS video. Then the fire alarm went off, as happens so often in the casinos in those days. Soon the fire alarm had a voice command to seek shelter, so everyone went to the stairwell which led into the refuge area I saw just an hour earlier. Another interesting part of the story was the stairwells. They were wide, open and lit with very bright light. The walls were painted bright white but there were dozens and dozens of caricature type paintings on the walls of people partying, dancing, drinking, and having a good time. I thought that was a heck of a subliminal message for someone escaping a burning building 1000 feet in the air.