ATLANTIC CITY — Somewhere among Vicki Gold Levi's collection is a photograph of her father with Marilyn Monroe. There are Miss America contestants, famous entertainers, wartime Atlantic City and countless images of the people and places that made the resort what it was.
But when Levi began preparing to tell her family's story during an upcoming presentation in Margate, she encountered an unusual problem.
She had too much history.
“I have an hour to speak and I have a hundred and four photos,” Levi said during an appearance Monday on The AC Mike Lopez Show on News Talk 1400 and 92.3 WOND.
Even that required some serious editing.
“I cut out a third of all the photos because it was too overwhelming,” she said.
Levi will present “Through the Lens of History: Preserving the Stories Behind Atlantic City's Golden Age” at 7 p.m. Monday, Oct. 12, at the Katz JCC in Margate.
The presentation will explore both Levi's life and the extraordinary photographic legacy of her father, Al Gold, Atlantic City's first chief photographer.
Gold's camera captured decades of the resort's history — from beauty queens and movie stars to soldiers and ordinary residents — creating a visual record of an Atlantic City that has largely disappeared.
And his daughter has spent much of her life making sure it isn't forgotten.
Atlantic City's photographer
Al Gold began photographing Atlantic City long before he received an official city title.
Historical accounts say his photography career stretched back to the first Miss America competition in 1921. In 1939, he became Atlantic City's first chief photographer, a position he held until his death in 1964.
Known around town as “Goldie,” he photographed Miss America contestants and some of the biggest celebrities to pass through the resort.
Among them was Marilyn Monroe.
“We have a picture of my dad kissing Marilyn Monroe,” Levi told Lopez. “That was a great picture.”
She said the presentation will include that photograph along with images connected to Miss America and the many people and events her father photographed.
“He was a really great photographer,” Levi said. “His pictures are so animated.”
Monroe served as grand marshal of the Miss America Parade in 1952, and Levi has previously recalled that Monroe was one of her father's favorite subjects.
But Gold's archive extended far beyond celebrities.
His photographs documented a city changing through war, tourism, entertainment and generations of visitors.
One image discussed during the WOND interview shows servicemen exercising on the floor of Convention Hall — today's Jim Whelan Boardwalk Hall — during World War II.
“That is my dad's photo,” Levi said.
Atlantic City's hotels and major facilities were pressed into military service during the war, creating a remarkable period when the famous resort temporarily became part of America's wartime mobilization.
Gold was there with his camera.
Vicki was part of the story, too
The upcoming presentation isn't solely about Al Gold.
It's also about the little girl who grew up surrounded by the people her father photographed.
While researching old newspapers for the presentation, Levi said she discovered stories about herself that she had completely forgotten.
“I went through it looking for my name and I found out things about my life I had forgotten,” she told Lopez.
She discovered old accounts of childhood birthday parties and her time as a Brownie.
Then there was another discovery.
“I had my own radio show and I was five years old on WMID,” Levi said. “And that was all in the paper.”
Her childhood repeatedly intersected with Atlantic City's history.
PBS recently chronicled Levi's life and described how, as the only child of the city's official photographer, she found herself at many of Atlantic City's major cultural events. Her childhood included appearances connected with Miss America and even an encounter with Frank Sinatra.
That proximity gave Levi something few historians possess: she didn't merely study Atlantic City's golden age.
She lived through parts of it.
Miss America and wartime Atlantic City
During her conversation with Lopez, Levi recalled how Miss America's Atlantic City venues changed through the years.
The earliest competition preceded the construction of Convention Hall, which opened at the end of the 1920s.
During World War II, when Convention Hall was being used by the military, the pageant was staged at the Warner Theatre.
That included the historic 1945 pageant won by Bess Myerson, who became the first Jewish Miss America.
Levi has her own connection to that pageant. She has previously recalled serving as a 5-year-old page during the 1945 competition, while her father helped carry Myerson's velvet train onto the stage.
It is precisely that mixture of personal memory and documented history that Levi plans to bring to Monday's presentation.
Preserving her father's legacy — and Atlantic City's
Levi eventually became a historian in her own right.
She co-founded the Atlantic City Historical Museum, co-authored Atlantic City: 125 Years of Ocean Madness and served as a historical consultant for HBO's Boardwalk Empire.
She and photographer and Stockton University professor Wendel White also established the Al Gold Memorial Lecture series to keep her father's photographic legacy alive.
And she remains closely involved with many of the institutions preserving Atlantic City's history.
“I'm still very involved and happily so in Atlantic City life,” Levi told Lopez.
She serves as chair of the Atlantic City Free Public Library Foundation and told Lopez she is also involved with the Boardwalk Hall pipe organ, Lucy the Elephant, Steel Pier, the Atlantic City Rhythm & Blues Foundation and the Holocaust Memorial Foundation.
Her role with the library foundation is independently confirmed by the organization, which describes her as its board chair and notes her work as an author, museum co-founder and historical consultant.
104 photographs — and the stories behind them
For Monday's presentation, however, Levi is returning to where much of her relationship with Atlantic City history began: her father's photographs.
The presentation was assembled specifically for this event rather than pulled from an existing lecture.
“It was a lot of fun for me to put this together,” Levi said. “I put it together especially for this talk.”
The photographs will span her father's work and her own remarkable life around Atlantic City.
And after spending decades preserving the city's history, Levi still sounds amused by some of the things she has discovered — including a photograph of her famously bald father from an earlier era.
“I even have a picture of my father with hair, which I never saw him with hair,” she joked. “He was always Goldie Baldie.”
The program runs from 7 to 8:30 p.m. Monday, Oct. 12, at the Marjorie & Lewis Katz JCC, 501 N. Jerome Ave. in Margate. A dessert reception will follow.
Advance registration is required.
Levi told WOND listeners that the photographs are ready and the presentation is finally assembled.
“It's all done now,” she said.
For a woman whose own life has become intertwined with Atlantic City's history, those photographs represent considerably more than a slideshow.
They are a daughter's view of her father — and her father's view of Atlantic City.
Vicki Gold Levi discussed the presentation on The AC Mike Lopez Show on News Talk 1400 and 92.3 WOND. The show airs Monday through Friday from noon to 1 p.m.
About the Author
Paul Kelly
Paul Kelly is a contributor to LocalBeat, covering local news and community stories.
