Casino Movie True
Next month marks the 25th anniversary of the release of the movie 'Casino,' a lightly fictionalized version of real events involving Midwestern mob activity in Las Vegas in the 1970s and early '80s.
This week, we take a look back with a man who covered some of the key events depicted in the movie: former News 3 photographer Greg Rundell.
Casino The Movie True Story Movie 1x wagering and Max bonus bet of £5 applies Casino The Movie True Story Movie to winnings, 7 days to accept Casino The Movie True Story Movie & 7 days to complete wagering, maximum withdrawal from winnings is £200. Play restrictions apply. It’s now been 20 years since the release of Martin Scorsese’s Casino. It’s a story of sex, drugs, violence, stealing, and gambling or basically everything that makes Las Vegas great. About Press Copyright Contact us Creators Advertise Developers Terms Privacy Policy & Safety How YouTube works Test new features Press Copyright Contact us Creators.
On October 4, 1982, Rundell was heading over to Sunrise Hospital where his wife worked to join her for dinner when a radio transmission caught his attention.
'On the scanner, there was a car fire that came out at Marie Calendar's,' Rundell said. 'And that's all the initial dispatch was. So I kind of hemmed and hawed about going over. Because a car fire was something we normally didn't cover. But I was so close I decided to go over.'
Rundell had been covering the crime and courts beat for Channel 3, and as soon as he arrived on the scene, he knew it was something much bigger.
'And I went over and I immediately recognized Frank,' said Rundell.
That's Frank 'Lefty' Rosenthal, reinterpreted in 'Casino' as the character Sam 'Ace' Rothstein, played by Robert De Niro in a similar scene that both opens and closes the movie.
Rosenthal had gotten into his car after dinner at Tony Roma's next door, and when he turned the key, an explosion came from under the floorboards.
'So I got out and shot it. You know he was still literally -- there was steam coming off of him from the fire. His clothes were burnt off,' Rundell said.
© Provided by KSNV – Las VegasRundell was later given a commendation from his news director to Channel 3's general manager, and columnist Don DiGilio used his column in 'The Valley Times' to mock the other stations for trailing so far behind.
'I think we broke in live with it, and once we broke in the other stations started showing up,' Rundell said.
Rundell's other close mob encounter came in a routine part of his job.
'My beat was the federal courthouse,' said Rundell. 'So I was constantly there with Tony Spilotro and Oscar [Goodman] and the whole gang that would come in and out of there.'
Tony Spilotro served as inspiration for the 'Casino' character Nicky Santoro, played by actor Joe Pesci.
There was a fairly standard routine when high-profile court proceedings were underway.
'We used to sit at the bottom of the federal courthouse at the elevators waiting for the court to break,' said Rundell. 'And that was our opportunity to get the B-roll of them coming in or out of court.'
Although Rundell and the rest of the media were always surrounding the characters coming in and out of the courthouse, it was all business. Nothing personal.
'I think more or less we were a nuisance, but they knew we were doing our job and we were not on there radar as far as retaliating at us for taking pictures.'
In fact, on one occasion, something different happened after Rundell finished shooting video and put down his camera.
Spilotro noticed Rundell had stopped shooting and paused.
Casino Movie True Story
'He turned around and said, 'You want to have a sandwich?' And across the street from the courthouse was a little sub place.'
Basso's Italian Grinder House was very popular with the courthouse crowd.
'So he took me over and bought me a subway,' Rundell said. 'And we didn't have much of a conversation. But he actually offered to take me to lunch. So that was something unique in the Spilotro days.'
Greg Rundell so enjoyed the crime and courthouse beat that in 1985 he joined the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, working both as a regular beat cop and a specialist in the Audio/Visual Department until retiring in 2014.
Channel 3 still has plenty of Rundell's tapes stored in the Video Vault.
These are the stories behind the real men and women whose lives were depicted in the movie Goodfellas.
One of the aspects of Martin Scorsese’s Goodfellas that has elevated the film to the classic status it holds today is the intense realism of its depictions of the life in the Mafia. This realism largely stems from the fact that, unlike films such as The Godfather and Once Upon A Time In America, Goodfellas is based on a true story of one gangster, his associates, and one of the most daring heists in American history.
The story comes courtesy of the 1986 nonfiction bestseller Wiseguy that detailed the life of Lucchese crime family associate Henry Hill, as well as his comrades like James “Jimmy The Gent” Burke and Thomas DeSimone, and their involvement in the infamous Lufthansa heist.
This was, at the time, the largest robbery ever committed on U.S. soil. Eleven mobsters, mainly associates of the Lucchese crime family, stole $5.875 million (more than $20 million today) in cash and jewels from a vault at New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport.
Here are the true stories of the people who carried out this heist as well as countless other crimes that helped make Goodfellas the crime classic it is today.
Henry Hill
Wikimedia Commons
Henry Hill, the central character in Goodfellas (played by Ray Liotta), was born in 1943 to an Irish-American father and a Sicilian-American mother in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn, New York.
It was a neighborhood filled with Mafiosos and Hill admired them all from a young age. At just 14, Hill dropped out of school to start working for Paul Vario, a capo in the Lucchese crime family, and thus became a member of the infamous Vario crew. Hill started out just picking up money from local rackets and bringing them to the boss, but his responsibilities quickly escalated.
He began to get involved in arson, assault, and credit card fraud. After returning from a short military stint in the early 1960s, Hill returned to a life of crime. Though his Irish blood meant that he could never be a made man, he nevertheless became a highly active associate of the Lucchese family.
Among Hill’s closest compatriots at this time was fellow Lucchese family associate and friend of Paul Vario, James Burke. After years of truck hijacking, arson, and other crimes (including extortion, for which he served time in the 1970s), Hill and Burke played major roles in orchestrating the Lufthansa heist in 1978.
At the same time, Hill was involved in a point-shaving racket with the 1978-79 Boston College basketball team and ran a major narcotics operation in which he sold marijuana, cocaine, heroin, and quaaludes wholesale.
Casino Movie Real Cast
Sam Rothstein
It was the drugs that brought Hill’s downfall when he was arrested on trafficking charges in April 1980. Initially, he wouldn’t fold to police interrogators, but amid growing suspicions that some of his own associates were planning to kill him in fear that he might put them in legal trouble, Hill began to talk.
In fact, it was Hill’s testimony about the Lufthansa heist that brought the arrests of many of the other men involved — and became the basis for Wiseguy, and thus Goodfellas.
The Movie Casino On Youtube
After testifying, Hill was placed in the Witness Protection Program but was kicked out of after repeatedly revealing his true identity to others. He was, nonetheless, never tracked down and killed by his former associates, but instead died of complications related to heart disease on June 12, 2012, the day after his 69th birthday.