Steve McQueen raced there. Muhammad Ali trained there. And for decades, the mob did business there.

The Stardust Resort & Casino, a pivotal piece of Las Vegas history, is to be imploded by a demolition crew this week. The exact day and time are being kept secret.

“The Stardust, when it opened, it knocked everyone’s socks off,” said Len Rader, 70, a spotlight operator at the resort for 18 years. “There was such a relaxed atmosphere, but there was class. Doggone it, they sure were great times.”

The casino, which closed in November, was the first that marketed to middle-class America. It also was linked to the convictions of five crime bosses who skimmed millions from the property and was the model for Martin Scorsese’s 1995 movie “Casino.”

When it opened in 1958, the Stardust was the world’s largest gambling resort. It used conventions to fill its 1,317 rooms midweek and proved that casinos with cheap rooms — $8 a night in 1963 — were economically feasible. Its success paved the way for the dozens of neon-lit behemoths on the Las Vegas Strip, including the $4 billion, 5,000-room Echelon Place that will take the Stardust’s place.

With real estate on the Strip valued at more than $30 million an acre, the Stardust is worth more demolished, said Paul Chakmak, chief financial officer of Las Vegas-based Boyd Gaming Corp., which plans to open Echelon Place on the property in 2010.

In 1983, Nevada regulators revoked Stardust management’s gaming licenses because of mob ties and asked Boyd to manage the property.

Meantime, the Stardust lost customers as it was overtaken by larger, more extravagant venues such as the Mirage, owned by MGM Mirage. The Stardust’s 2006 profit of $24.7 million was a fraction of the earnings at casinos such as MGM Mirage’s Bellagio, which made $406 million.

The loss of the Stardust will mean one fewer casino from the era of Frank Sinatra and the Rat Pack in the 1960s. It was a time when female diners could be turned away for wearing pants, said 73-year-old Jill Rader, Len Rader’s wife.

” We wore long dresses and gloves for dinner, Jackie Onassis-type things,” said Jill Rader, who danced on the Stardust stage. “Now, people slop on through, and they look a mess.”

The Stardust was the dream of Tony Cornero, a former tequila bootlegger and convict who operated floating casinos off California in the 1930s and 1940s. Cornero didn’t live to see his 40-acre casino resort open.

He had a heart attack and died while playing craps in 1955. The Stardust opened three years later under the control of Cleveland mobster Moe Dalitz, and it featured a 16,500-square-foot casino and 105-foot-long swimming pool.

In its heyday, the Stardust attracted crowds at events such as Ed Sullivan televising his CBS variety show in 1962. Three years later, Mr. Ali, still known as Cassius Clay, trained at the Stardust for a heavyweight fight with Floyd Patterson.

“When I first came here, on Friday and Saturday night, if you fainted, you couldn’t fall down,” said Jim Seagrave, who first visited the Stardust in 1961 and worked on its marketing from 1988 until the resort closed.

In 1968, film star McQueen drove a dune buggy in the Stardust 7–11, a 320-mile off-road race that started at the Stardust International Speedway. In 1978, the resort gave magicians Siegfried & Roy their first star billing.