Geri rosenthal biography definition
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'Casino' movie inspiration Rosenthal dead at 79
Frank "Lefty" Rosenthal — sports handicapper extraordinaire, Las Vegas gaming executive and the inspiration for the blockbuster movie "Casino" — died Monday. He was
He died from a heart attack in his Miami Beach condo, a fire-rescue spokeswoman said.
Rosenthal, who once survived a car bomb, ran the Chicago mob-owned Stardust, Fremont, Hacienda and Marina casinos through the s and into the mids. Although Sports Illustrated once crowned him as the greatest living expert on sports handicapping, Rosenthal eventually wound up being listed in Nevada's "black book" of unsavory types banned from the state's casinos because of his ties with the Mafia.
"He's one of the originals," said Nick Pileggi, the author and screenwriter of "Casino." "When Lefty went down, the new Las Vegas emerged. The corporate Las Vegas."
Born in Chicago in , Rosenthal learned the gambling trade through illegal bookmaking operations and made friends with
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Frank “Lefty” Rosenthal’s gambler’s luck may be changing-again. Having been banished from Las Vegas casinos, cuckolded by his wife and a mobster who was his pal, and blown up by a car bomb, Rosenthal today lives and works in affluent obscurity in Boca Raton.
But now Hollywood is making a film based on Rosenthal’s turbulent life as a brilliant gambler and casino boss who worked and played with the mob. And Rosenthal’s not sure what it will mean.
Called “Casino,” the film stars Robert De Niro as Sam “Ace” Rothstein-Rosenthal’s character. Sharon Stone portrays his unfaithful wife and Joe Pesci the mobster pal who shattered his career and marriage.
While the intense De Niro has the look of a gambler with mob ties, the dour Rosenthal, as he sits chain-smoking and sipping from a bottle of Evian in Croc’s Bar & Grill in Boca Raton, seems more like a tax auditor. The only hint of yesterday’s Vegas flamboyan