1589: "Nathan Detroit"

In the broadway world of guys and dolls, gamblers, they take risks, but somebody has to run the game.

That man, Nathan Detroit, he's not famous for winning big.

What he is known for is organizing what gamblers call a floating crap game.

Crap's is a dice game played with two six-sided dice, and in Nathan's world, the game never stays in one place.

Illegal gambling operations in New York during the 1920s, 30s, and 1940s had to move constantly to avoid police raids.

One night the dice might appear in the back room of a restaurant.

The next night, it might be an warehouse, a hotel room, or a garage somewhere across the city.

That's why gamblers call it floating.

And Nathan Detroit was the man who knew where the next game would land.

The character came from the stories of newspaper writer Damon Runyon, who spent years listening to gamblers and hustlers around Broadway.

When the musical guys and dolls opened in 1950, Nathan Detroit became one of the central figures in the story.

But Nathan has a problem.

He needs money to organize his next game, and every location that he finds is either too expensive or already watched by the police.

So Nathan turns to one gambler who might solve the problem.

Sky Masterson

Nathan makes a wager.

$1,000 says Sky cannot convince a straight-laced missionary Sarah Brown to join him for dinner in Havana, Cuba.

Nathan expects to win.

But like many gamblers, Nathan Detroit underestimates the one thing that he cannot control.

People

Nathan himself avoids risk in his personal life.

In the story, he's been engaged to a nightclub performer, Miss Adelaide, for 14 years, without ever setting a wedding date.

14 years.

More than 5,000 days.

A man who runs gambling tables for living still hesitates when the stakes involve commitment.

Nathan Detroit is not the bold gambler in the story.

He's the man trying to keep the game alive.

These are interesting things with JC.