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Born in the 1960s near Seoul, South Korea, Cynthia Mun was the oldest of her parents' three children. The family immigrated in 1974, after which Mun's siblings were born. She speaks of her mother's work as a seamstress in a Los Angeles Garment District sweatshop and her father's work as a janitor before he was employed as an electrician. She credits teachers and mentors in Los Angeles, who encouraged her and gave her the tools succeed at Westridge School in Pasadena and at Yale University.
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Kaku Makino, the King of Japanese Buffet, was born in 1943 and raised in Tokyo, Japan, in a traditional, wealthy family. After surviving mumps at age four, he suffered a severe hearing loss. His father encouraged Kaku to play baseball, and he excelled. But his father died when Kaku was twenty years old, and, the oldest of four sons, he had to support the family, and he became a chef--an occupation he followed for twenty years in Tokyo before following his younger brothers to the U.S. in 1989.
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Lynn Rosencrantz was born September 15, 1949 in Portland, Oregon, and spent her childhood there as a member of a vibrant Jewish community. In 1973, Rosencrantz married Arne Rosencrantz and relocated to Las Vegas, Nevada to join her husband. He was working at Garrett’s Furniture, a company they would later own together. Her first job in the city was teaching hearing impaired students at Ruby Thomas Elementary School.
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Ronald Simone was born on June 6, 1935 in New Haven, Connecticut to Florence and George Simone. Simone played trumpet in high school and went on to play piano for his profession. He moved to Las Vegas, Nevada with his friend, violinist Joe Mack in 1960. He played in the Riviera showroom for five and a half years, in the exclusive Monte Carlo Room in the Desert Inn where he played for stars such as Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr. for five years, and for nineteen years for all the Casino de Paris shows, line numbers, and production numbers at the Dunes.
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Ruth Jane Kiley was born in Newark, New Jersey, and lived in California and New York before her
family moved to Las Vegas in 1957, when Ruth was thirteen. Ruth worked in the insurance business for almost thirty years, dealing with casinos during the most expansive period of the city's growth.
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