Goodfellas was one of the reasons I wanted to become a filmmaker as I was electrified by its reality. Pesci's character, Nicky Santoro, was based on a man named Tony Spilotro, who was from Chicago, and who I would learn later I had an indirect connection to.Īnyway, I decided to pick up Nicholas Pileggi's book Casino, as I had done with Wiseguy, to compare the source material with the movie.

Read: The Truth Behind Movie Classic Casinoįlash forward ten years and I heard these almost exact same lines coming out of Joe Pesci's mouth in the film Casino when I first saw the film in a suburban Chicago theater.

“The guy” knows if the quarterback is on coke, he knows about crooked zebras, doped up horses, the way the ball bounces on a certain court. He was never referred to by name, but was simply called “the guy.” “The guy” is coming out with his bowl picks.

I first heard of Frank “Lefty” Rosenthal (Robert DeNiro in the film) when I was working at a Chicago style pizzeria. I worked in the restaurant business in both towns and gravitated to Italian eateries because my maternal grandfather was from Povincio di Compobasso, in Molise. I spent a significant amount of time in both cities, Milwaukee because I attended Marquette University, and Chicago is where I lived after I graduated. As you'd guess from the title, my film is about the real people who formed the basis for the Scorsese mob epic, who were originally from Chicago, as well as Milwaukee. My connection to this mob material goes back to the mid to late 1980's. That “guy” was Frank “Lefty” Rosenthal, the Chicago Outfit associate and gambling wizard who would take Las Vegas by storm.īelow, Alexandre shares the story behind his documentary Back Home, Years Ago: The Real Casino, a long journey that took him to the streets of Chicago and Milwaukee and talked to those who were close to the fire.įor those of you itching to take a look at the documentary: The Real Casino Special Edition is available on Amazon Prime now.īack Home Years Ago: The Real Casino, aired on WTTW, Channel 11, Chicago's PBS affiliate, on January 7 of this year. It all began in the 1980s, while he was working at a Chicago style pizzeria and heard about “the guy,” a man who came around with his College Bowl picks.

Filmmaker Joseph Alexandre’s fascination with the true story behind Martin Scorsese’s mob epic Casino started long before the movie’s release.

Casino cast real life