B009HOTHPE EBOK (36 page)

The standard bet today is
huge
. The last time I was there two guys won a million each. Every single day these guys are betting 150K to 250K a card in seven- to eight-hour sessions. Mr. Wong from Taiwan and Mr. Mawar from Malaysia in Salon 2. The highest roller that hit the city was from Japan: a Ken Mizuno, who has become something of a legend, having accumulated gambling debts in excess of $60 million. Steve pays a ton of money in taxes on the winnings. There are more tourists in Vegas now, visitors just checking out the games, what they call lookie-loos. Back in the old days at Caesars there weren’t that many lookie-loos simply because there weren’t that many rooms in Las Vegas. The guys who came were serious gamblers, they were all betting $500 and $1,000, which was serious money back then. By 1966 you’d see $20, $50, $100 chips everywhere; $500 chips were unusual to see.

*   *   *

When Steve Wynn and I became neighbors in Las Vegas, I realized what a true genius he was—and still is. An entrepreneur and a supreme perfectionist right down to every tiny detail. Plus he’s very charismatic. He took the gaming industry to a whole new level. Howard Hughes brought the first change to Vegas but could never have taken Vegas—and the worldwide impact of gaming—to the point where Steve Wynn has taken it.

I’ve seen how he treats his employees, always in a superb manner on every level. He knows how to motivate them, and how they, in turn, treat the hotel customers. Where the employees eat—the esthetics of the place, etc. To work for him is a challenge on the executive level. But you better know what you’re doing to stay ahead of the game. And if you do, financially to work for Steve Wynn is the best in the business. We know each other very well. And how to deal with each other. That is why we are such very good friends.

Steve Wynn has created some of the great casinos in Vegas—the Mirage, the Bellagio, and now the Wynn—and he realized from the very beginning his success would be based on style and atmosphere. The model for all the swanky resorts Steve built was the old Fontainebleau Hotel in Miami. Aside from all the facilities and luxury accommodations and restaurants, what makes a great hotel—or a great casino—is fantasy, magic. That was the secret of the Fontainebleau. Steve also knew that gambling brought in the money, but what attracted the high rollers—aside from the tables—was atmosphere and Sinatra personified that in spades. He had that hip, suave style down cold. He was his own planet and wherever Frank hung he brought his own gravity, which magnetized gamblers and tourists alike. No entertainer has embodied that solid-gold charisma like Frank Sinatra.

At the time Frank was getting paid 100K a show at Resorts International in Atlantic City and at Caesars in Vegas, but Steve had a plan: one way or another he would get him to move to his casino. The problem was at the Golden Nugget they had only minimal seating—a few hundred people—and a small ballroom, so how was he going to be able to afford Frank? Well, Steve had this fierce belief that somehow he’d figure a way to convince him. His logic was: “I can afford Frank because he will bring his aura when he’s here and when he’s not here I can get him to do TV commercials. Either way Sinatra’s charisma—which in Vegas is king—is going to attach itself to my place. Frank is the guy, the swinger—he represents the good life, the guy all the other guys want to be.”

Mickey Rudin was Frank’s lawyer and longtime business partner. He took care of his whole life as manager, agent, producer. If you wanted Sinatra to do anything you went through Mickey. He’d graduated from Harvard Law School, a wonderful guy and very traditional. Frank called him the Judge.

Steve proposes his idea to Mickey Rudin, that Frank would agree to work sixteen shows a year: four shows a weekend, four weekends a year. He’d do a show Friday night, two on Saturday, and one on Sunday. Occasionally he’d do an additional show on Thursday. He also proposed that Frank do customer parties three or four times a year with high rollers and prestigious customers—by invitation only in the show-room. And that’s how he made it worthwhile. The idea was that Steve would make money but Frank would be the boss—and get shares in the casino. Rudin says he would take it up with Frank.

Rudin calls Sinatra. Frank’s unhappy. He’s going on about the money. “It’s just not enough bread, man.” Rudin keeps going back to Sinatra, trying to convince him. “Look, Frank,” Rudin tells him, “if the stock goes to eleven it’ll be worth over two million,” but Frank’s still saying, “No, that’s not enough.” Finally on the fourth phone call, Rudin says, “But, Frank, if it goes to thirty-three it’ll be worth eight million.” And at that point, Frank said, “Take it.”

As it happened Sinatra did not like Resorts International, where he was currently working—it was not a classy place. Steve’s place was. Also, Steve has always been a very savvy operator and Sinatra respected him. What really appealed to Frank was that in this arrangement he wasn’t just relegated to being another entertainer, another act—he was the centerpiece, the overriding presence at the place. Plus he had an ownership role. Rudin called Steve back and told him, “Sinatra says he’ll work the first two weekends—no contract, no nothing; you don’t have to pay him a nickel. You can have him try it out a couple of times, and you be the judge at the end of that. If it works the way you think, you pay 50K a show back pay and you give Frank stock in the Golden Nugget.”

Mickey asks Steve when he’d like Frank to play. Steve suggests Sinatra’s birthday, December 12, which traditionally just happens to be the worst week of the year. Besides which, Frank has never worked on his birthday before. But he agrees! They hold a birthday party for him on Thursday night, he does two more shows Friday and Saturday. They turn the hotel over twice. One group of New Yorkers and shooters was invited on Friday, another group came on Saturday. It was a huge success and Frank loved it. They blew the roof off. Danny Schwartz, a friend of Sinatra’s, and high-end player for Steve, dropped $4.8 million at the tables that weekend.

The second time Frank played was on Steve’s birthday, January 27th. Another big hit. This time around Sinatra made his first commercial. They started playing it in New York, it was huge—and, better yet, Frank liked it. Everything was going great, the third trial was coming up in April, but at this point Steve called Mickey Rudin to tell him, “It works like a dream, just the way I’d hoped.” Sinatra got the stock options and he made another four maybe five million out of it, something like that.

*   *   *

The smartest guys in the entertainment business long ago figured out that you have to check out everything yourself. When you make a contract with someone you have to make sure it’s going to stick, that both parties are going to live up to their obligations. You’ve got to do it like Buddy Hackett’s mother. She went to the dentist, and just as he was about to put the needle in her jaw she reached over and grabbed the guy’s testicles, and said, “Now, I know we’re not going to hurt each other.”

I get a call from my buddy, saying, “Paul, I have a great club, a fantastic lineup, Sinatra’s going to make it his base, come join us!” But, it’s another thing altogether making a deal with a friend. I negotiated my own contract with Steve Wynn. Steve came to see me about performing at the Golden Nugget, his casino in downtown Las Vegas. Because I knew him, and he was my neighbor and a friend, it made things more complicated. Steve tells me, “Listen, I can’t pay the $50,000 a week you’re used to getting. But I will make it up to you with stock options.”

We’ve grown up together albeit in different parts of the business. Meanwhile as I’m negotiating with him I’m thinking to myself, “Here I am negotiating with my buddy Steve Wynn about my slot in the same club as Sinatra.” Back in Ottawa when I was still fantasizing about this stuff, the idea that I would be the anchor at the club that was Sinatra’s home base would have blown my mind. Steve wanted me to work twelve to fourteen weeks a year—which is a lot. The idea was that while Sinatra was going to perform there four to five times a year and be the centerpiece, I would be the anchor, which was flattering. Eventually my contract comes to an end and we’re renegotiating.

Two years go by, contract negotiations would get bogged down for any number of reasons. This happened to me in the mid-1980s when I negotiated a renewal on my contract to appear at the Golden Nugget. I said, “Steve, listen I love you, we spend our time together, we take trips with our families together, but this 20K, 30K, 18K a show, the money isn’t making it. You’ve got to understand that by the time I get done paying taxes and working fifteen weeks a year I’m having a hard time getting to five million a year and that’s what I need to maintain my lifestyle.” Steve is a friend and he’s sympathetic but he’s a hard-nosed business guy, too, so he says he’ll think about it. This goes on for a couple of weeks and finally I’m fed up.

I’m in Carmel on the telephone for about four hours, trying to hammer out a deal. It got to the point that Steve is going ballistic and we’re at a stalemate. But I know my friend Steve very well and what he’s about. As I’ve always said, humor is the final refuge of sanity and with that philosophy I had a plan.

Knowing the deal was in jeopardy and Steve wouldn’t budge, it was my turn to get the situation back on track. I arrived in Vegas around midafternoon. I called the Vegas ambulance service and asked them to send over an ambulance with a gurney and two male attendants. I tell them I want to pull a joke on Steve Wynn over at the Golden Nugget. When the ambulance arrives, I tell the attendants to bandage me up to look like I’m beat up and to tape an intravenous drip in my arm.

I get driven by ambulance downtown to the Golden Nugget Hotel. I give the guys $500 for going along with the stunt. So now it’s late afternoon and I’m laying on a gurney in an ambulance going along the freeway to the Golden Nugget. We arrive at the hotel and I instruct them to carry me through the front entrance of the hotel, through the casino, and into the elevator up to the second-floor executive offices from where Steve runs his casino empire.

I am on the gurney as we enter Steve’s office. We pass by Joyce Luman, Steve’s secretary at the time, one of the most perceptive women and a great asset to Steve. We proceed through two glass doors, which are bulletproof and electronically controlled. They put the gurney down on wheels. Steve is sitting at his desk, going over some paperwork. You have to keep in mind that he suffers from retinitis pigmentosa, which affects his peripheral vision.

I say, “Good afternoon, Steve.” He looks up and says, “Who’s that?” I say, “Don’t you recognize me? It’s Mr. Bellini!” (The nickname he gave me on our trip to Italy.) Steve says, “Okay, I give up, let’s sign the deal, you win!” He starts laughing out loud. He says to me, “Don’t get out of the gurney, I want to get a camera and take a picture of you.” He takes the picture and by the way, he still has that photo. Guess what, he agreed to all my terms. He said, “You know you’re absolutely right.” We hugged and kissed and it was done.

My first call when I got off the gurney was to my attorney and business manager, Al Rettig, to draw up the papers. Al was there in the middle of all the action and, to this day, is one of my dearest friends. Whoever is lucky enough to have him, has himself a great attorney and loyal associate, more important, a friend for life.

*   *   *

In 1971 Tony Spilotro came from Chicago to become the mob enforcer in Vegas, and very soon he had a tight grip on the town. He was working middle class, from a nice neighborhood, but he was a vicious little runt from the get-go. He grew up a tough, ruthless kid in high school, the kind of kid who’s in the alley with a brick. One of those guys. He just kept on going from there. He would go into assignments. He was a mob kid.

Everybody in the town was petrified of Tony Spilotro. He had big arms, too. The mob were thick as thieves with the Teamsters and the unions—the Teamsters had a lot of pull. If anyone from the casinos messed with the mob they wouldn’t get any deliveries. If you were at Caesars and you wanted to give someone a hard time, fine, but there won’t be any liquor in your bar. Your steaks aren’t going to get delivered. They would stop the Teamsters from bringing the goods. They had full control. They built Vegas, and still owned it until the corporations came along in the ’80s. The guys who wrote the book,
The Green Felt Jungle,
said it best: “The town was built for degenerates by criminals.” That’s about the best way to put it. And Tony was the archcriminal. Mob money came out of the Teamsters pension funds—that’s where they were getting all that dough.

The mob put up the fifty-million-dollar loan to buy the Stardust Casino. A big development deal. They were just stealing money out of the pension funds left and right. Fortunately for them, someone had enough brains to start building a few hotels with the money instead of simply stealing it and spending it. Tony had total control of all that all of the time. Tony and Lefty, Frank “Lefty” Rosenthal.

How tight did Tony Spilotro run the town? In the 1970s and early ’80s, he was the boss. I’ll give you an example: The bookmaker “Fat Herbie” Blitzstein’s wedding was at Jubilation—the guy whose kid had gotten married there earlier. Now, there were some twenty guys lined up to talk to Tony, and Tony is sitting at the head of the table. Each of these guys is kneeling down to talk to him. The music was so loud and he was talking so low you had no clue what they were talking about—and didn’t want to know. Twenty of them lined up—he was that powerful because, in an underworld sense, he ran that town.

Tony Spilotro was a blight on the town—he was a curse, a really bad guy from the bad old mob days, who was still around creating mayhem. Until the big corporations started coming in in the mid-eighties, he was a sinister presence. Those corporations would eventually take over—which they did. Tony would have been taken care of by his own crew, but he didn’t live long enough to get out of it in one piece. Caesars was controlled—I don’t know how but believe me, they fell in line just like everybody else did. I don’t know what that really meant. I just know that nobody wanted to mess with Tony. He was a horrible fucking scary guy. It went to his head eventually. If he’d stayed low he would have been okay, but he started doing the shit, and that’s what brought him down.