LAS VEGAS — When the Tropicana Resort & Casino opened 50 years ago, its manicured lawns, balconied rooms and elegant showroom quickly earned it the nickname "Tiffany of the Strip." Years under mob control earned it a place in Nevada gambling lore.

The 60-foot tulip-shaped fountain in front and tropical landscaping set the Tropicana apart from its contemporaries, such as the cowboy-themed El Rancho and the space-age New Frontier, said longtime employee Rudy Spinosa, 82, who helped open the resort to 500 VIP guests on April 4, 1957.

"Definitely nothing came close to it," he said.

But years of mob skimming, run-ins with gambling regulators and multiple management changes left the aging casino lagging on one of the busiest corners of the Las Vegas Strip.

Fort Mitchell, Ky.-based Columbia Entertainment, an affiliate of Columbia Sussex Corp., acquired the casino in January through a $2.1 billion takeover of parent Aztar Corp.

Even as it celebrates Tropicana's golden anniversary this weekend, the company is planning an upgrade that will cost up to $2.5 billion and rip up most of the existing resort.

"It's a relic of the past we admire and respect, and we would like to see it work out going forward, but I don't think it will," said Rich FitzPatrick, Columbia's chief financial officer. "It needs to be updated, it needs to be freshened."

It's perhaps long overdue.

Less than a month after the casino opened in 1957, an assassination attempt on mob boss Frank Costello in New York exposed his Las Vegas counting room ties. While Costello was hospitalized, police found a note in his pocket detailing the Tropicana's gross win for its first 24 days: $651,284.

Many say Costello was partly the inspiration for Don Corleone in "The Godfather."

"It was a public embarrassment for everybody involved," said David Schwartz, director of the Center for Gaming Research at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas. Authorities quietly forced the people connected to sell it, he said. Other owners moved in, but hidden mob control through a different family, the Civellas, remained, according to John L. Smith, author of "Sharks in the Desert."

"For the two decades that followed, and while other mob-owned joints showed record-high profits even after the skim, the Tropicana underperformed like a poodle in a vaudeville dog act who forgot why he was on stage," Smith wrote.

Despite its struggles under mob ties, or maybe because of them, the casino still enjoyed some of its best years.

In 1959, the casino brought in the "Folies Bergere" showgirls show "directly from Paris." It's now the longest-running production show in the U.S.

The Tropicana opened a golf course next door in 1961, and a lounge room in 1965 that hosted the likes of Count Basie and Guy Lombardo. From 1973 to 1975, Sammy Davis Jr., Ann Margret, Jack Benny and others headlined.

Spinosa, now the hotel's beverage manager, recalls meeting Davis for golf at the club, where the entertainer had a locker for 30 years. "Sammy Davis Jr. was the greatest guy in the world," Spinosa said.

Donna Hart, who joined "Folies Bergere" in 1974, called it a glamorous time, when showgirls drank for free at the bar to attract customers.

"It was a fun time," said Hart, 50. "In the old times, they used to get all dressed up in evening gowns and mink stoles, and people really made it an event to go to the 'Folies.' Now people come in Levi's and shorts."

Bill Cosby and Rodney Dangerfield performed comedy. The Osmonds sang their pop hits. Jazz legends Louis Armstrong and Al Hirt performed regularly.

To clear the Tropicana of its mob connections, gambling regulators forced the sale of the casino to Ramada Corp. in 1979. Ten years later, Ramada spun off its casino operations as Aztar, a publicly traded company.

While the Tropicana upgraded with new hotel towers, a theater and a pool known for its swim-up blackjack table, by the 1990s the main attraction of the aging property was its proximity to the Excalibur, New York-New York and MGM Grand.

Aztar stopped booking rooms past mid-April of last year as it prepared to announce it was going to implode the Tropicana and start over, spokeswoman Lisa Keim said.

Las Vegas-based Pinnacle Entertainment Inc. swooped in and tried to buy the company but lost the bidding war to Columbia.

Now Columbia is planning to revamp the property, destroy the low-rise motel wings and build new towers. The stained-glass ceiling that extends the length of the casino, installed in 1979 and estimated to be worth more than $1 million, is not likely to survive the transformation.

But at least one thing will remain: the "Folies," and probably the Tiffany Theatre where the showgirls perform, FitzPatrick said. "It's a great link to the past.