Inspiration for "Casino" is dead

"Casino" is one of my least favorite Martin Scorsese films. For one thing, too much of it reminded me of "GoodFellas" revisited and why Scorsese would want to revisit what many claim was the finest film of the 1990s was beyond me. It also proved, after witnessing film critic John Bloom's (also known in some circles as Joe Bob Briggs) performance as an inept Las Vegas casino employee, that he is a good film critic and a fine satirist.

The inspiration for the lead character in "Casino," Sam "Ace" Rothstein (played by Robert DeNiro, who also starred in "GoodFellas"), was onetime Chicago bookmaker Frank "Lefty" Rosenthal who ran four Las Vegas casinos in the 1970s and who, I have just learned, died earlier this week of a heart attack at his home in Miami Beach, Fla. He was 79.

Let's see how the two characters compared. Both Rosenthal and the fictional Rothstein survived car bombs. The film opens with Rothstein leaving a restaurant, going to his car, turning on the ignition and boom! On Oct. 4, 1982, Rosenthal finished eating at a Tony Roma's in Las Vegas when he got into his Cadillac, turned on the ignition and a bomb exploded.

Both demanded the best in customer service. Rothstein dictated the number of chocolate chips that should be in each cookie served in his casino and, according to Rosenthal's former attorney and now Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman, when Rosenthal was walking through the Stardust casino and saw a cigarette butt on the casino floor, he picked it up himself -- then fired the person who was responsible for cleaning the area.

There is a scene in the film where Rothstein deals harshly with someone he caught trying to cheat. In an interview with the Miami Herald, Rosenthal said he ordered his security men to crush the right hand of a man he caught cheating at cards. "He was part of a crew of professional card cheats, and calling the cops would do nothing to stop them, so we used a rubber mallet -- metal hammers leave marks, you know -- and he became a lefty," Rosenthal was quoted as saying in the 2005 interview.

Rosenthal hosted his own local TV talk show. So did Rothstein in Scorsese's film. In the movie, Rothstein marries Ginger McKenna (wonderfully portrayed by Sharon Stone), a statuesque blonde and former stripper whom he divorced after learning of her affair with Nicky Santoro (Joe Pesci, another "GoodFellas" alumnus), a former friend from Chicago who had relocated to Las Vegas. In 1969, Rosenthal married Geri McGee, a statuesque blonde and former stripper whom he divorced after learning of her affair with Anthony "Tony the Ant" Spilotro, a former friend from Chicago who had relocated to Las Vegas.

There are many other similarities but I won't go into them now. The similarities are not coincidental. Nicholas Pileggi, who wrote the book that became "GoodFellas," wrote a nonfiction book on Rosenthal's life called "Casino," which became the inspiration for Scorsese's film (and probably explains its similarities to "GoodFellas").