The movie is based on the career of casino boss Frank 'Lefty' Rosenthal as portrayed by Robert De Niro's character Sam 'Ace' Rothstein. Joe Pesci's character, Nicky Santoro, was based on Lefty's real-life gangster pal Tony Spilotro, In this scene, where Nicky visits Ace's house to talk to a banker, there's a photo on the counter (pictured). He's based off real life Chicago Outfit enforcer Anthony John 'The Ant' Spilotro. He was portrayed by Joe Pesci, who also played Frankie Monaldi in Once Upon a Time in America, Tommy DeVito in Goodfellas, and Harry in Home Alone and Home Alone 2. Martin Scorsese dealt the story of Casino straight and only bluffed on the names. All Scorsese had to do to stay true to the real-life story was change the names. Sharon Stone's Ginger. Every main character in Casino is based on a real-life individual. Sam 'Ace' Rothstein is based on Frank Rosenthal, Ginger McKenna is based on Geri McGee, Nicky Santoro is based on Anthony Spilotro. The plot was inspired by the real-life events of Frank Rosenthal who managed three casinos in Las Vegas for the Chicago mob in the 1970s and 1980s. Casino was directed by none other than Martin Scorsese, the mastermind behind plenty of other mafia-related movie productions, and stars actors such as Sharon Stone, Joe Pesci, and James Woods.
Mobster Frank Rosenthal helped build a casino empire — then watched it all slip away in a storm of violence and betrayal.
Bettmann/Contributor/Getty ImagesFrank Rosenthal adjusts his tie while refusing to answer questions before a Senate subcommittee on gambling and racketeering. Washington, D.C. Sept. 7, 1961.
In the 1995 film Casino, director Martin Scorsese and star Robert De Niro gave us the fictional story of Sam 'Ace' Rothstein, a mob-affiliated casino operator who always knows just how to manipulate odds and maximize profits on behalf of the murderous gangsters he works with.
But if Rothstein and his violent Las Vegas adventures seem too outrageous to be true, take note that this character was based on Frank 'Lefty' Rosenthal, a real-life gambler and gangster every bit the smooth criminal the movie made him out to be.
The Road To Las Vegas
Born in Chicago on June 12, 1929, Frank Rosenthal spent many of his early days at the horse track with his father, who owned several horses, learning everything he could about racing. Moreover, of course, he learned about a crucial part of the sport: gambling.
As he grew older, Rosenthal's interest in and knowledge of gambling extended beyond horse racing and into other sports like football and baseball. The young gambler learned, as he later said, that 'Every pitch. Every swing. Everything had a price.'
By the time he was a young adult, he was heavily involved in the mob-controlled illegal gambling scene in Chicago.
Working for the Chicago Outfit in the mid-1950s, Rosenthal had a talent for setting the perfect odds for sports betting. He manipulated the odds just enough to entice gamblers to bet while also keeping the odds just where they needed to be so that the bookies could be sure that they'd come out ahead no matter what happened.
A whiz with numbers possessed of a Rain Man-like ability to calculate odds, Rosenthal was also a meticulous researcher who would get up early in the morning to study some 40 out-of-town newspapers in order to gather all the information he needed to make the odds just right.
Of course, Rosenthal also wasn't above taking steps to make sure that he got the results he wanted, and by the early 1960s, he found himself in trouble for fixing games. In 1962, he was convicted of bribing a college basketball player to shave points during a game in North Carolina.
The year before, he'd been dragged in front of a Senate subcommittee on gambling and organized crime due to his now-nationwide underworld reputation as an oddsmaker and match fixer. During the proceedings, he invoked the Fifth Amendment a whopping 38 times, even when asked if he was left-handed — hence his nickname, 'Lefty' (some sources claim that the nickname simply comes from his being left-handed).
Around this same time, Frank Rosenthal moved to Miami, where he and other Chicago Outfit members continued to participate in illegal gambling operations and even engage in violent assaults on their rivals. As part of these so-called 'bookie wars,' Rosenthal came under suspicion in several bombings of rivals' buildings and cars.
Feeling the heat — and surely understanding that Sin City was the place to be if you were a big-time gambler — Frank Rosenthal set out for Las Vegas in 1968.
Frank Rosenthal, Casino King
Upon arriving in Las Vegas, Lefty Rosenthal initially ran a betting parlor alongside a boyhood friend from Chicago who acted as his enforcer: Anthony 'Tony the Ant' Spilotro (called 'Nicky Santoro' and played by Joe Pesci in Casino).
Bettmann/Contributor/Getty ImagesAnthony Spilotro sits in a Las Vegas courtroom in connection with two old homicide cases. 1983.
Spilotro had a long rap sheet filled with violent crimes. In Chicago, he'd long been a killer for his organized crime bosses and authorities believed he may have killed at least 25 people. As the movie depicts, he even once boasted of squeezing a man's head in a vice until his eyes popped out and then slashing his throat. Unverified and perhaps apocryphal reports still claim that Las Vegas' murder rate went up by 70 percent after Spilotro arrived in town.
And now this violent killer was in Las Vegas to help the Chicago Outfit keep an eye on their gambling interests, which meant he'd be right by Rosenthal's side.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0KJ7l4gy4oo[/ebed]
Also by Rosenthal's side was his new bride, Geri McGee (played by Sharon Stone as 'Ginger McKenna' in the film, above), a former topless showgirl he'd met not long after moving to town and married in 1969. It was McGee who encouraged Rosenthal — whose betting parlor had come under fire on federal bookmaking charges (ones that he beat on a technicality) — to take a casino job.
So in 1974, Frank Rosenthal began working for the Stardust. Given his talent for gambling and his organized crime connections, he quickly rose through the ranks and was soon running the Stardust and three other casinos, all of them believed to be under the control of the Chicago Outfit.
This meant that each casino needed a squeaky clean frontman that would appear to be running things while Rosenthal was actually the boss behind the scenes. And Rosenthal was often quick to make it clear to such frontmen just who was really in charge.
As Rosenthal told one of his nominal 'bosses' in 1974:
'It is about time you become informed of what is going on here and where I am coming from and where you should be… I have been instructed not to tolerate any nonsense from you, nor do I have to listen to what you say, because you are not my boss… When I say you don't have a choice, I am just not talking of an administrative basis, but I am talking about one involving health. If you interfere with any of the casino operations or try to undermine anything I want to do here, I represent to you that you will never leave this corporation alive.'
And there was indeed plenty of ruthlessness in Rosenthal. As the film depicted (below), his security caught a man cheating and so he ordered them to break his hand with a hammer. 'He was part of a crew of professional card cheats, and calling the cops would do nothing to stop them,' Rosenthal said in an interview later. 'So we used a rubber mallet… and he became a lefty.'
But as ruthless as he could be, Rosenthal was also as meticulous and sophisticated in his approach as he ever was — and not just in terms of the gambling itself. He hosted a local television show featuring celebrity guests and even counted the blueberries in the kitchen's muffins to make sure that there were always 10 in each.
Of course, he truly did make his mark in revolutionizing the casino's gambling operation by moving heavily into sports betting and hiring female dealers. All in all, Frank Rosenthal's moves helped send the Stardust's profits soaring.
However, all good things must come to an end — especially when the mob and millions upon millions of dollars are involved.
Frank Rosenthal's Fall From Grace
Spilotro had a long rap sheet filled with violent crimes. In Chicago, he'd long been a killer for his organized crime bosses and authorities believed he may have killed at least 25 people. As the movie depicts, he even once boasted of squeezing a man's head in a vice until his eyes popped out and then slashing his throat. Unverified and perhaps apocryphal reports still claim that Las Vegas' murder rate went up by 70 percent after Spilotro arrived in town.
And now this violent killer was in Las Vegas to help the Chicago Outfit keep an eye on their gambling interests, which meant he'd be right by Rosenthal's side.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0KJ7l4gy4oo[/ebed]
Also by Rosenthal's side was his new bride, Geri McGee (played by Sharon Stone as 'Ginger McKenna' in the film, above), a former topless showgirl he'd met not long after moving to town and married in 1969. It was McGee who encouraged Rosenthal — whose betting parlor had come under fire on federal bookmaking charges (ones that he beat on a technicality) — to take a casino job.
So in 1974, Frank Rosenthal began working for the Stardust. Given his talent for gambling and his organized crime connections, he quickly rose through the ranks and was soon running the Stardust and three other casinos, all of them believed to be under the control of the Chicago Outfit.
This meant that each casino needed a squeaky clean frontman that would appear to be running things while Rosenthal was actually the boss behind the scenes. And Rosenthal was often quick to make it clear to such frontmen just who was really in charge.
As Rosenthal told one of his nominal 'bosses' in 1974:
'It is about time you become informed of what is going on here and where I am coming from and where you should be… I have been instructed not to tolerate any nonsense from you, nor do I have to listen to what you say, because you are not my boss… When I say you don't have a choice, I am just not talking of an administrative basis, but I am talking about one involving health. If you interfere with any of the casino operations or try to undermine anything I want to do here, I represent to you that you will never leave this corporation alive.'
And there was indeed plenty of ruthlessness in Rosenthal. As the film depicted (below), his security caught a man cheating and so he ordered them to break his hand with a hammer. 'He was part of a crew of professional card cheats, and calling the cops would do nothing to stop them,' Rosenthal said in an interview later. 'So we used a rubber mallet… and he became a lefty.'
But as ruthless as he could be, Rosenthal was also as meticulous and sophisticated in his approach as he ever was — and not just in terms of the gambling itself. He hosted a local television show featuring celebrity guests and even counted the blueberries in the kitchen's muffins to make sure that there were always 10 in each.
Of course, he truly did make his mark in revolutionizing the casino's gambling operation by moving heavily into sports betting and hiring female dealers. All in all, Frank Rosenthal's moves helped send the Stardust's profits soaring.
However, all good things must come to an end — especially when the mob and millions upon millions of dollars are involved.
Frank Rosenthal's Fall From Grace
Ginger Casino Real Life Hacks
While the Stardust was thriving, Frank Rosenthal was having trouble with the authorities.
Though he was secretly running several casinos, he had no official gaming license (his past meant that he surely wouldn't have been able to get one). And because of this as well as his known contacts in organized crime, the Nevada Gaming Commission was able to bar him from having anything to do with gambling in Las Vegas in 1976.
Meanwhile, authorities indicted Spilotro and a dozen other mobsters who'd been making serious money off of these casinos. What's more, Rosenthal also found out that Spilotro had been skimming money that even his mob bosses weren't aware of, causing a falling out between the two old friends (see the film's dramatization below).
Furthermore, Rosenthal learned that Spilotro had been having an affair with McGee. Though she and Rosenthal had two children together, this infidelity and her drug abuse contributed to their marriage failing in 1980.
Meanwhile, Frank Rosenthal's whole world was falling apart as authorities continued to interrogate him about his connections with Spilotro and his involvement in all manner of illegal activities that had taken place inside his casinos. He tried repeatedly to get the gaming license that would enable him to freely and legally return to work inside a casino, but was never approved.
Things only got worse in October 1982. Rosenthal left a local restaurant and got into his car. Moments later, it exploded. Rosenthal was thrown from the car, but his life was saved by a metal plate underneath his seat that just happened to be a feature of that particular model and was able to shield him just enough from the bomb's blast from below. He suffered only minor burns and a few broken ribs.
Authorities never figured out who set the bomb, and Rosenthal always insisted that he never knew either, but most suspect that the mob had done so as a way to get revenge and clean house after the news broke that Rosenthal's friend, Spilotro, had been skimming mob profits.
Lefty Rosenthal survived, but McGee and Spilotro did not. McGee was found dead in Los Angeles a few weeks after the bombing due to a mysterious collapse that was officially ruled a drug overdose (details remain fuzzy). Spilotro was found beaten to death and buried in an Indiana cornfield in 1986.
But Rosenthal emerged unscathed and took his two children to California and then to Florida, where he worked as a nightclub manager and ran an online betting site before dying in 2008 at the age of 79.
To the end, Rosenthal had mixed opinions about the movie based on his Las Vegas career but felt that it was largely accurate (but insisted that he never funneled casino profits illegally to the mob). And in a sense, that says a lot about the wild life of Frank Rosenthal. After all, how many people could have their life story turned into a hit movie with few, if any, embellishments needed?
After this look at Frank Rosenthal, discover the true story of Henry Hill as well as other real-life Goodfellas like Tommy DeSimone and Jimmy 'The Gent' Burke.
| Born | Frank Lawrence Rosenthal June 12, 1929 |
|---|---|
| Died | October 13, 2008 (aged 79) |
| Spouse(s) | (m. 1969; div. 1981) |
Frank Lawrence Rosenthal (June 12, 1929 – October 13, 2008), also known as 'Lefty' Rosenthal, was an American professional sports bettor, former Las Vegascasino executive, and organized crime associate. Martin Scorsese's film Casino (1995), and its main character Sam 'Ace' Rothstein (Robert De Niro) is based on Rosenthal's career in Las Vegas.
Early years[edit]
Illinois[edit]
Frank Rosenthal was born in Chicago, Illinois, in a Jewish family and grew up in the city's West Side. As a youth, he learned sports betting in the bleachers of Wrigley Field and would often skip classes to attend Chicago sporting events.[1] Rosenthal's father also owned racehorses, whereby he became familiar with betting odds and percentages at a young age.
By the mid-1950s, Rosenthal was working with the Chicago Outfit. Chosen for his expert odds-making ability, he ran the biggest illegal bookmaking office in the United States on behalf of the Mafia—specifically, the Outfit. Based in Cicero, Illinois, under the guise of a home improvement company, Rosenthal and the Outfit bought 'contracts' to fix sporting events.[2] After being indicted as a conspirator on multiple sports bribery charges, Rosenthal moved the operation to North Bay Village in Miami, Florida, to avoid attention.[3]
Miami[edit]
By 1961, Rosenthal had acquired a national reputation as a sports bettor, oddsmaker, and handicapper, and in Miami he was frequently seen in the company of prominent Outfit members Jackie Cerone and Fiore Buccieri.[4][incomplete short citation] At this time Rosenthal was issued with a subpoena to appear before U.S. SenatorJohn McClellan's subcommittee on Gambling and Organized Crime, accused of match-fixing. He invoked the Fifth Amendment 37 times and was never charged. Due to this, Rosenthal was barred from racing establishments in Florida.
Despite his frequent arrests for illegal gambling and bookmaking, Rosenthal was convicted only once, after pleading no contest in 1963 to allegedly bribing a New York University player to shave points for a college basketball game in North Carolina. He was also a suspect in multiple business and car bombings in the greater Miami area during the 1960s. It was at this time the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) opened an ongoing case file on Rosenthal which amassed 300 pages.[5] In order to once again escape police attention, Rosenthal moved to Las Vegas, Nevada, in 1968.[6][incomplete short citation]
Las Vegas career[edit]
A big promoter of sports gambling, Rosenthal secretly ran the Stardust, Fremont, Marina, and Haciendacasinos when they were controlled by the Chicago Outfit.[7] He also created the first sports book that operated from within a casino,[7] making the Stardust one of the world's leading centers for sports gambling. Another Rosenthal innovation was hiring more female blackjack dealers, which in one year helped double the Stardust's income.[8][incomplete short citation]
Ginger Casino Real Life Games
In 1976, the FBI and Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department (LVMPD) discovered that Rosenthal was secretly running four large casinos without obtaining a state gaming license, holding a hearing to determine his legal ability to obtain a license. The hearing was headed by Nevada Gaming Control Board Chairman (and future U.S. Senator) Harry Reid. Rosenthal was denied a license because of his arrest record, and his documented reputation as an organized crime associate,[9][incomplete short citation] particularly because of his boyhood friendship with Chicago mob enforcer Anthony Spilotro.[10][incomplete short citation]
Rosenthal married Geri McGee on May 4, 1969. McGee already had a daughter, Robin L. Marmor, from a previous marriage with ex-husband Lenny Marmor. Rosenthal and McGee later had two children together, Steven and Stephanie. There were infidelities on both sides, with McGee secretly having an affair with Spilotro.[11] The marriage ended in divorce in 1981, with Rosenthal attributing the failure primarily to McGee's inability to escape her dependence on alcohol and drugs. After leaving Rosenthal and stealing a portion of their savings, McGee died at a motel in Los Angeles on November 9, 1982, at age 46, of an apparent drug overdose. Her death was ruled accidental, from a combination of Valium, cocaine, and alcohol.[1][page needed]
Later years and death[edit]
On October 4, 1982, Rosenthal survived an assassination attempt in Las Vegas, in which a bomb attached to the gasoline tank was detonated when he started his car.[7] While Rosenthal had dined at the Tony Roma's restaurant at 602 E. Sahara Avenue, a person or persons unknown placed the bomb in his car. Rosenthal likely survived because of a manufacturing device unique to his particular model car (a 1981 Cadillac Eldorado): a stout metal plate under the driver's seat, installed by General Motors on all El Dorado models to correct a balancing problem. This plate shielded Rosenthal's body from most of the explosion's force. Although no one was ever charged for this murder attempt, Milwaukee mob boss Frank Balistrieri was possibly responsible. Balistrieri, who was known as the 'Mad Bomber' to law enforcement, was heard (via wiretap) blaming Rosenthal for the legal problems the mob-controlled casinos were suffering. Similarly, just weeks before the bombing, Balistrieri told his sons he intended to get 'full satisfaction' for Rosenthal's perceived wrongdoing.[12] Other likely suspects include Kansas City mob bosses, who were recorded on an FBI wiretap tape calling Rosenthal 'crazy'; Spilotro, either acting with others or on behalf of the Outfit; and outlaw bikers who were friends of Rosenthal's ex-wife, Geri McGee.
Rosenthal left Las Vegas about six months later, and moved to Laguna Niguel, California. He focused on raising his children, who were both accomplished youth swimmers. Rosenthal was later formally banned from Las Vegas casinos in 1987, when he was placed in 'the Black Book', making him persona non grata—unable to work in, or even enter, any Nevada casino because of his alleged ties to organized crime.[13][page needed] However, in June 1990, Rosenthal won an unprecedented court ruling to have his name removed. Rosenthal was represented in the hearing by future Las Vegas MayorOscar Goodman. Goodman and Rosenthal lost, however, in the Nevada Supreme Court in 1991, and Rosenthal's ban was reinstated.
Rosenthal later moved from Laguna Niguel to Boca Raton, Florida, where he ran a sports bar called 'Croc's', and finally to Miami Beach, where he ran a sports betting website and worked as a consultant for several offshore sports betting companies.[14]
Rosenthal died on October 13, 2008, at the age of 79, of an apparent heart attack.[15] After his death, it was disclosed by Las Vegas Review-Journal reporter Jane Ann Morrison that Rosenthal had been a top echelon informant for the FBI, and his wife Geri was also an FBI informant.[16][17]
In popular culture[edit]
The film Casino (1995), directed by Martin Scorsese with a screenplay co-written by Nicholas Pileggi from his biography Casino: Love and Honor in Las Vegas, is largely based on Rosenthal's time in Las Vegas. The film takes some creative license with the facts and timeline, but is broadly accurate to Rosenthal's story and his relationship with Anthony Spilotro, on which the character Nicky Santoro (played by Joe Pesci) is based. Rosenthal is represented by the character Sam 'Ace' Rothstein (played by Robert De Niro). The character of Ginger McKenna Rothstein, his wife in the film (played by Sharon Stone), is based on Geri McGee, Rosenthal's wife in real life.
In an interview about the movie, Rosenthal stated that his character portrayed by Robert De Niro was quite but not fully similar to him, namely '7 on a scale of 1 to 10', and when asked about Stone's portrayal of his wife, he stated, 'I really wouldn't want to get into that area. It's an area that is distasteful and brings back bad memories. I wouldn't be willing to dispute what you just said, but I certainly wouldn't confirm it.'[18]
References[edit]
- ^ abPileggi, Nicholas (1995). Casino: Love and Honor in Las Vegas. pp. 24–25, 65, 69–70, 97–100, 175, 195–197, 348. ISBN0-684-80832-3.
- ^Rosen, Charley (2001). The Wizard Of Odds: How Jack Molinas almost destroyed the game of basketball. pp. 162–233.
- ^Rosen 2001, pp. 162–233.
- ^Pileggi 2001, p. 65. sfn error: no target: CITEREFPileggi2001 (help)
- ^'Frank Rosenthal FBI File'. FBI Vault. FBI. 2011. Retrieved December 21, 2011.
- ^Pileggi 2001, pp. 69–70. sfn error: no target: CITEREFPileggi2001 (help)
- ^ abcMorrison, Jane Ann (October 18, 2008). 'Jane Anne Morrison: Spilotro was merely a killer; Lefty mastered the more frightening Glare'. Las Vegas Review-Journal. Retrieved October 18, 2008.
- ^Pileggi 2001, p. 175. sfn error: no target: CITEREFPileggi2001 (help)
- ^Pileggi 2001, pp. 97–100. sfn error: no target: CITEREFPileggi2001 (help)
- ^Pileggi 2001, pp. 195–197. sfn error: no target: CITEREFPileggi2001 (help)
- ^'Lefty Rosenthal, Kingpin in Las Vegas, Dies at 79'. nytimes.com. October 18, 2008.
- ^Smith, John L. (2003). Of Rats and Men: Oscar Goodman's Life from Mob Mouthpiece to Mayor of Las Vegas. p. 147.
- ^Pileggi 2001, p. 6348. sfn error: no target: CITEREFPileggi2001 (help)
- ^Santiago, Roberto (February 11, 2008). 'Roberto Santiago: Player Interview: Frank 'Lefty' Rosenthal'. FrankRosenthal.com. Retrieved January 26, 2011.
- ^'Las Vegas Review-Journal'. Las Vegas Review-Journal. Retrieved March 8, 2018.
- ^''Lefty' Rosenthal was an FBI snitch'. Las Vegas Review-Journal. Retrieved April 24, 2019.
- ^'Las Vegas' first female FBI agent was master of disguise'. Las Vegas Review-Journal. Retrieved April 24, 2019.
- ^'Interview with Frank Rosenthal, a Casino Legend in Vegas'. CasinoDiscussion.com. Retrieved March 8, 2018.
External links[edit]
- Frank Rosenthal on IMDb
- 'Nevada Gaming Commission's List of Excluded Persons now-defunct listing'. Archived from the original on April 23, 2007. Retrieved May 10, 2009.
- 'Frank Rosenthal'. Find a Grave. Retrieved June 14, 2013.
