Merv Adelson
From the growing city to television
A supermarket and property developer whose Las Vegas partnerships helped create Sunrise Hospital before his career expanded into television production.
Starting with groceries
The Sun’s obituary traces Adelson from his father’s grocery business to an early-1950s Las Vegas supermarket investment. He then joined Irwin Molasky in residential development. His beginnings sit in the daily needs of a growing city. [1]
The Sunrise partnership
Sunrise brought Adelson and Molasky together with Moe Dalitz and Allard Roen. Ann Lynch’s oral-history catalog records the development scheme and its effort to attract doctors. It also points researchers toward hospital staffing and nursing, subjects easily lost in a story focused only on investors. [2]
A father’s name, a lasting institution
Merv recruited his father Nathan to administer Sunrise. After Nathan’s death in 1978, family, friends, Adelson and Molasky established the hospice named for him. Nathan’s own biography provides a route into the patient-care side of the family’s Las Vegas history. [4]
The move into entertainment
Adelson’s later career at Lorimar included The Waltons and Dallas. The company was sold to Warner Communications in 1989. The Sun’s obituary follows both the successes and subsequent financial reversals, tying the Hollywood story back to the fortune and partnerships developed in Las Vegas. [1]
Key dates
People in the same story
Irwin Molasky
Longtime development partner. [1]
Read the profileMoe Dalitz
Partner in the Sunrise Hospital development group. [2]
Read the profileIn the archive
8 entries about associated places, not necessarily this person in the saved collection.
Paradise Palms and the residential side of casino-era Vegas
Classic Las Vegas examines the early-1960s neighborhood, its modern architecture and its relationship to the Stardust golf course. The history extends the casino story into the homes and development patterns of the people who built the city.
'Truly iconic': New street signs celebrate history of Paradise Palms neighborhood
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Photograph of Sunrise Hospital, Las Vegas (Nev.), 1958-1965
Photograph · Dorothy Dorothy Photograph Collection. Catalog date: 1958–1965.
#926 Stardust Golf Course and Paradise Palms: aerial photographs
Photograph · Frank Mitrani Photographs. Catalog date: December 1, 1962.
Sunrise Hospital: black-and-white photographs
Photograph · Frank Mitrani Photographs. Catalog date: February 15, 1967.
Sunrise Hospital Addition (American Medicorp), Plans for Expansion Program: floor plans
Program · James B. McDaniel Architectural Records. Catalog date: 1976.
Go deeper into the record.
Sources for this profile and starting points for further research. Access notes mark links we could not open directly during the October 3–4, 2026 checks. Historical accounts describe their own period; they do not necessarily describe current operations.
- 1
Las Vegas developer turned Hollywood mogul had his share of highs, lows
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- 2
Ann Lynch oral history, October 17, 1985
The catalog describes a hospital worker’s account of Sunrise and nursing. Digital audio is available; no transcript is listed.
- 3
Las Vegas’ Sunrise Hospital still spreading its wings at 60
Includes a 1958 opening advertisement. The retrospective dates the ribbon-cutting and open house to December 14, 1958.
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- 4
Nathan Adelson
Background on Sunrise’s administrator and the hospice established in his memory.