The Stardust Hotel entered the 1970s still riding high from the lure of the Lido de Paris, the fine dining and the reasonable room rates. Her roadside neon sign had become another Las Vegas Strip icon and as the 1970s began, no one had a sense of the dark days that would engulf the hotel by the end of the decade. Sifting through a great deal of Rosenthal mythology (and likewise Spilotro and Mob mythology) is not as easy as it sounds. There is a great deal of misinformation about this important era not only in print but throughout the web.

For clarification's sake, the Sheriff during this era was Ralph Lamb, not Frank, not Floyd, not Darwin. Floyd and Darwin were Ralph's brothers, I have no idea who Frank Lamb was but a Rosenthal site claims that Frank Lamb was the Sheriff. That is wrong.

But before all that darkness began falling, the hotel had some high moments. In mid-1970, a Moon Rock was displayed in the Convention Center at the hotel. Congressman Gross of Iowa, it seems, was not amused that the Moon Rock was on display in a casino. The Stardust Convention Center was far removed from the Casino but that made no nevermind when publicity can be made. This, of course, was the era where anything associated with Las Vegas was tainted by default. Las Vegas was known as a sinner's paradise, an adult Disneyland, where people went to gamble and drink and do things "they would never at home". A Moon Rock on display in Sin City, what was the world coming to? The Moon Rock, it turned out, was there because NASA was holding a conference at the hotel.

While the Rock was on display, the public was invited to come and take a look at it. School children from around Clark County and Southern Nevada came by school bus to see the unique item brought back the Apollo astronauts.

In June, 1973 the Stardust Camperland opened with spaces for 4,000 RVs.

By now the Stardust was one of the biggest resorts in the world. It had its own power plant, its Convention Center was 32,000 square feet. its housekeeping department was responsible for changing 11,000 sheets and pillow-cases a day and so the hotel had its laundry facilities. The Palm Restaurant alone served over 40,000 meals a week. There was a print shop that kept the hotel supplied in menus, brochures, stationary and other printed material.

Into all of this stepped Frank "Lefty" Rosenthal. In 1972, the Argent Corporation bought the Stardust from Parvin-Dohrmann/Recrion. As part of the deal, Recrion also sold Argent the Fremont Hotel in downtown Las Vegas. The president of Argent was a young Los Angeles developer, Allen Glick. Glick had recently purchased the Hacienda Hotel as well.

According to authors Heidi Rinella and Mike Weatherford in their book "The Stardust of Yesterday", Glick was connected from the beginning with the Central States Pension Fund (the Teamsters) and the Chicago mob. According to author Jeff Burbank, Glick had obtained a $67.2 million loan from the Teamster's Pension fund to buy both the Fremont and the Stardust. James "Jimmy" Hoffa was the head of the Teamsters Union and oversaw the secretly approved loans to Las Vegas Hotels. Hoffa received kickbacks on the loans that he arranged the for organized crime members. These "owners" in turn, used "front" men like Rosenthal to shield themselves from the Nevada Gaming Commission and the Feds all the while skimming millions for themselves from the gaming operations.

Rosenthal had his own connections to the Chicago crime syndicate and had come to Las Vegas in 1971 to work as a floor man at the Stardust. He was a professional gambler with a reputation for race and sports betting. He had promised his wife, Geri, a former showgirl at the Tropicana, that she could have "the normal life" she wanted and his "bookmaking" lifestyle did not fit into her plans of what a normal life was.

Once Glick took over control of the hotel, the men in Chicago "suggested" that Rosenthal be promoted. Glick and Rosenthal repeatedly butted heads and were at odds with one another. Both men thought they were in charge of running the hotel. It no doubt came as a surprise to Glick when he was told that Rosenthal was actually in charge of the daily running of the hotel as far as Chicago was concerned.

Rosenthal had a brush with the Feds in 1971 when he was one of five men indicted on federal charges for illegally using telephones for interstate betting. (Source, "The Stardust of Yesterday".) So much for normal living. The case was dismissed in 1975 when the judge ruled that the wiretap evidence was illegally obtained.

At the Stardust, Rosenthal opened the first Race and Sports Book in a casino. Prior to that, there were Race Books in town such as Santa Anita's further up the Strip and Leroy's Sports Book downtown next to the Pioneer Club. But Rosenthal was the first to incorporate the idea into a casino.

The Race and Sports Book was 8,000 square feet and it was filled with oversized television sets, monitor walls, individual betting and cubicles all now standard in hotels up and down the Strip but in 1975 it was revolutionary.

Rosenthal pushed to be given a gaming license by the Nevada Gaming Commission but was in for a rude shock.  In January, 1976 the Commission informed Glick that Rosenthal, due to his background, could not be licensed to run casinos.   Glick thought perhaps this would help him to regain control of the hotel but Rosenthal proved to be not only egotistical but arrogant as well.  He fought with the Gaming Commission for the rest of the year over the issue of licensing.

In the meantime, to help with PR campaign, he began a local, late-night television show that was broadcast from the hotel.  Called "The Frank Rosenthal Show" it featured Rosenthal interviewing Strip celebrities and also featured singers and dancers  as well.  It also gave Rosenthal a pulpit to rail against the Gaming Commission and its members.  The show was embarrassingly bad and noted mainly for the entertainers interviewed on the show including Frank Sinatra and Wayne Newton.

Unable to get a gaming license, Rosenthal would also have to turn over his duties of running the hotel.  Instead, Rosenthal gave himself the title of Food and Beverage Services and then Entertainment Director.  It was as Entertainment Director that he claims to have stolen Siegfried and Roy away from the original MGM Grand. 

According to Rosenthal he was the one who noticed that the duo's contract with the rival MGM Grand Hotel's "Hallulejah Hollywood!" which was produced by Donn Arden was about to expire.  He claims to have offered Bernie Yuman, then just a young man with ambitions, $500 if Yuman could deliver the magic duo to Rosenthal's office.  According to Rosenthal, Yuman took the bait. (Source, Insider Viewpoint of Las Vegas and "The Stardust of Yesterday").  

According to Yuman, he was concerned about Siegfried and Roy returning to the Stardust as the "Hallelujah Hollywood!" show had put a major dent in the Lido de Paris' audience.  Yuman claims that Rosenthal came to him hoping to showcase the two young magicians and make them the stars of the new Lido. (Source, "Siegfried and Roy: Mastering the Impossible" and "The Stardust of Yesterday").

The two stories do match up describing Yuman as crashing Siegfried and Roy's dressing room.  He was not yet their manager but wanted to be.  He talked them in to joining him for a meeting with Rosenthal at the Stardust the next day.

By the time the meeting was over, "it was historic in every way" Yuman would later recall,  Siegfried and Roy were to be given 33 minutes on-stage, which was, according to Yuman, "the equivalent of a show within a show" as well as 100% star billing equal to the title of the show.  Yuman became Siegfried and Roy's manager that day and has remained in that position ever since.  Rosenthal says that the fancy dressing rooms and the accommodations for the animals was the "easy part".  The star billing was a much tougher sell to the Lido producers but in the end they agreed to it. (Source, "Siegfried and Roy: Mastering the Impossible" and "The Stardust of Yesterday").

Thus, the duo who had started as part of the Folies Bergere at the Tropicana and then joined the Lido de Paris under Donn Arden's watch and had followed Arden to the MGM Grand for "Hallulejah Hollywood!" bolted to begin shaping the show that would make them world famous.  From 1978 to 1981, they headlined the Lido de Paris before finally bolting the Stardust for a new home at the Frontier.

In the late 1970s, the Nevada Gaming Commission raided the Stardust Hotel's counting room and uncovered a skim worth $7 million from slot machines in just one year.

Rosenthal still fought with the Gaming Commission.  Watching news footage of that era, you can see Rosenthal trying to argue with Commissioner Harry Reid in front of news reporters.  Reid does not take the bait and Rosenthal, in a white suit and wide-brimmed matching hat, is reduced to sputtering. 

The outfits in Chicago and Kansas City were said to be incensed over not just the uncovering of the skim but the wild theatrics and press notoriety that not only Rosenthal was attracting but that Spilotro was getting as well.  The men behind the power favored as much anonymity as possible and did not like attention being drawn to them and their holdings.

It was an incredible time in Las Vegas history.  For a town that had so long looked the other way in terms of "front men", secret hotel ownership and skimming, that era was coming to close as the local officials worked with the FBI, the Justice Department and the US Attorney's Office to officially take control back from the shadows. (source, Personal interviews with news reporters Jane Anne Morrison and Gwen Castaldi as well as Personal Interviews with U.S. Attorney, Mahlon Brown, Jr).

In 1979, the Nevada Gaming Commission permanently denied Rosenthal's licensing requests.  Glick was claiming innocence regarding the skimming.  As Rosenthal had run the hotel for the "secret" interests, Glick maintained, he had no knowledge of the skimming that had occurred under his ownership.

By the time the investigation was finished it was estimated that approximately $15 million had been skimmed from the Stardust alone.  The  money was traced to Kansas City.  The Feds indicted conspirators in Kansas City, Chicago and elsewhere.  It is believed that Rosenthal ran the skimming operation for crime syndicates in Kansas City, Chicago and Milwaukee.  Rosenthal was ultimately banned for life from entering Nevada casinos. (Source, author Jeff Burbank). 

By the time the smoke cleared, other "hotels up and down the Strip were under investigation" according to then US Attorney Mahlon Brown, Jr.  But one thing was evident, Argent Corporation had to give up control of its casinos.

The Gaming Commission tapped Al Sachs and local businessman  Herb Tobman to run the hotel.  Both had long connections to the hotel during the Parvin-Dohrmann days and both were well-known within the community and well-respected.

But Rosenthal continued to garner bad press.  In 1982, he was leaving the Tony Roma's restaurant on East Sahara  when his car blew up.  The only thing that saved his life was the model of Cadillac he was driving.  The 11:00 news ran footage of Rosenthal, bleeding from his face and most of clothes blown off, being put a stretcher and whisked, fittingly enough, to nearby Sunrise Hospital.  Reporter Myram Borders, who saw the explosion and rushed to the scene, says that "Rosenthal kept saying "they're trying to kill me" and I kept asking who, who and that's when he shut up." (Source, personal interview). 

Later that year, his wife Geri died of a drug overdose in Los Angeles amid rumors of an affair with Tony Spilotro. 

Everyday it seemed, more stories of Rosenthal and Spilotro led the news along with crackdowns at the Tropicana and other hotels. 

In 1984, another skimming scandal erupted.  The Gaming Commission removed Sachs and Tobman from management of the hotel and fined them $3.5 million - a state record- though neither were charged with knowledge of the skim.

It was time for the Gaming Commission to find a respectable manager for the  Argent properties.  The Gaming Commission approached Sam and Bill Boyd.  Sam Boyd had come to Las Vegas in the 1940s.  He and his wife had raised their family here and Sam, who had started at the El Cortez, had built a gaming empire that included partial ownership of the Union Plaza, the California Hotel, Sam's Town as well as the El Dorado and the Joker's Wild in Henderson.

The Gaming Commission asked the Boyds to manage the Stardust and Fremont Hotels casinos.  For the time being, the Gaming Commission would allow Argent to run the non-gaming parts of the hotel.  But the two companies were not a good mix.  Argent was less than cooperative on booking rooms.  They finally came around but not before Sam Boyd complained to the Gaming Commission.  When asked what would improve the situation for next time, Boyd suggested that the monies earned by the casinos be held in an escrow account instead of being paid to the owner of record, in this case Argent, whose license had been revoked.  The Gaming Commission took the suggestion under advisement and later implemented the idea.

Just before Christmas, 1983, federal agents entered the Stardust Hotel and fired just about everybody. 

Boyd Gaming ran the casino for almost a year when they were approached by an Argent attorney about buying the property.  On February 25th, 1985 Boyd Gaming bought the Stardust and Fremont Hotels.  Argent Corporation was officially out of the Las Vegas resort business and the Mob was officially out of those hotels. 

The dark days at the Stardust were over but an uncertain but more stable future was ahead. 

The Frank Rosenthal Show with Frank Sinatra

Siegfried and Roy and friend

Tony and Nancy Spilotro (courtesy of the LVRJ) 

UP NEXT:

THE STARDUST AFTER THE MOB!

ENTER THE NIGHT, WAYNE NEWTON

AND MORE!

IT'S ALL HERE IN THE BRIEF HISTORY OF THE

LAS VEGAS STRIP HOTELS!