Her famous photo has been seen by millions around the world and up until this year, no one knew who she was.
The 25-year search to find Miss Atomic Bomb has come to a close after the Atomic Museum announced that historian and founding member Robert Friedrichs has identified her as Anna Lee Mahoney.
Now, she and her fellow showgirls that were featured in atomic images in the 1950s are getting a well-deserved turn in the spotlight as part of a new exhibit at the Atomic Museum.
“Few images embody the fusion of atomic history and Las Vegas culture like ‘Miss Atomic Bomb,’” said Joseph Kent, chief community officer and curator, Atomic Museum. “This exhibit honors not only the woman behind the image, but also the unique cultural moment she represents. Visitors will walk away with a deeper understanding of the time, place, and power of a single photograph to shape public memory.”
On Thursday, Atomic Museum officials, including Friedrichs, cut the ribbon officially opening the new exhibition.
The atomic industry has a special place in Friedrichs’ heart.
“I was working in one of the chemical laboratories in Henderson and we had rotation shifts, which means in one month, you work all three shifts. I didn’t like that. And so, I applied for a job at the test site and got it, working in a radiatation laboratory,” Friedrichs said. “I stayed with my employer there until the DOE [Department of Energy] approached me and wanted me to apply for an opening they had. And then, my career took off.”
He says he loved working with a variety of people and they all worked well together.
“Everybody understood the contributions each craft and each scientist could contribute. That was refreshing,” Friedrichs said. “It wasn’t dog-eat-dog at all. Everyone was focused on the mission, and they were wonderful people.”
Friedrichs is a founding member of the Atomic Museum and oversaw the museum’s construction. He said he thought it would a great idea to find Miss Atomic Bomb and have her at the museum opening. Little did he know that it would lead to 25 years of research.
What he did know was that it was a showgirl from the Sands Casino.
“At that time, what they would do is literally go in, tell hotel management they wanted an attractive lady in a swimsuit, and they would take a whole series of pictures,” Friedrichs explained. “I interviewed some of her coworkers. They explained they were given stage names or already had stage names so that complicated the search tremendously.”
According to the showgirls that Friedrichs explained, Miss Atomic Bomb was a very quiet person, very reserved but…
“They pointed out she was an excellent ballet dancer. If they had a skit that required someone to go on toe, she was the only one that could do it. That clue became very important later on in the search.”
Over the course of two and a half decades, Friedrichs said he never gave up hope that he would solve this mystery.
“I never thought I would not solve it,” Friedrichs said. “I knew that I was running into dead ends and had to backtrack and look at information from a different perspective and then go down a new path.”
Last January, Friedrichs gave a presentation on his research and evolution of Miss Atomic Bomb. That led to a huge discovery, which broke the case wide open.
“Two days [after that talk], I received an obituary. It picked up on the woman being a dancer at the Sands in Las Vegas and there was no name other than her married name on it,” Friedrichs said. “That allowed us to go back to the investigation organization that had volunteered to help us from the beginning in finding out who this was.”
That name allowed researchers to discover two potential family members living in Maine. They didn’t respond to letters from Friedrichs but undeterred, he worked with several people who said they should look for other people in Maine who have similar names.
During that search, they found a possible lead.
“When I looked up what we now know is Anna Lee, we found the marriage license information and her name was listed as Anne Lee Merlin, her stage name. We knew we were on the right track,” Friedrichs said. “In talking to the family, I asked if they had a picture because I wasn’t 100% confident it was her. They sent me a photo of a cousin who is now 84. With that photo, I felt confident this was the person.”
Eventually, Social Security and birth records identified Miss Atomic Bomb as Ann Mahoney, who was born in the Bronx, New York.
After talking with her family, Friedrichs said he was able to learn more about her incredible life.
“She was a professionally-trained ballerina. The individual that trained her was from the Russian School Of Ballet. Her brother was a dancer. Her parents were involved in the choreography of the Russian ballet,” Friedrichs explained. “There was quite a stir in a California newspaper because there was a living billboard on the Sunset Strip and she was one of four ladies in swimsuits on the billboards.”
She came to Las Vegas and was the lead dancer at the Sands Hotel’s Copa showroom in the late 1950s. Eventually, hotel staff replaced all of the showgirls, including Mahoney.
“The Sands Hotel had a turnover of personnel. They went out and they brought in all showgirls from Texas and that was not uncommon,” Friedrichs explained. “They just wanted somebody new for their high rollers to look at and people visiting the casinos.”
Mahoney eventually moved to Hawaii, got married, and worked as a mental health counselor for 30 years. She died in 2001. Friedrichs said the most bittersweet thing about the exhibit opening is that she won’t be able to see the impact she made on the City of Las Vegas.
“I didn’t know she had already passed away. I didn’t know that until very recently. That’s the sad part,” he told me. “The most rewarding part is that her family finally knows. They had no clue. They’ve been very, very pleased with what we did and so I’m happy that they’re happy.”
He added that the family was given a CD of all of the relevant documents and photographs pertaining to his research and he’s asked that they share that information for other family members.
The new exhibit, “Miss Atomic Bomb: Icon of the Atomic Age”, will open to the public on Friday and run through summer.
