Show business and gambling have always gone hand in hand. The recent poker scandal involving Ben Affleck, Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, and Tobey Maguire gained a lot of attention for high stakes, illegal poker. This is like the Frair's Club cheating scandal in Los Angeles in the 1940s. It also gained world-wide press because of the stars involved: George Burns, Chico Marx, Phil Silvers, and Mafia biggie Johnny Roselli. The Mob was in on the movie industry, and show business figures were used to dealing with them, and socializing with them.
From the 1930s on, the Mob show clubs in places like Atlantic City featured top entertainers, and had every game you'd see in a Las Vegas casino in the back. Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, as well as Frank Sinatra got their starts in these clubs and had long ties to the mob. When Martin and Lewis were booked at the Flamingo, Lewis' gambling addiction quickly left him heavily in debt. The Mob set him up on a budget and a pay back plan and he paid them back. Frank Sinatra had played their clubs, paled around with them, and they promoted his career, as they did Martin and Lewis' career. The scene in the Godfather, where a horse's head is put in a producer's head to secure a movie part was about Sinatra. Johnny Roselli, Mafia biggie, went to the movie producer and Sinatra got a career-mending, academy award-winning part in From Here to Eternity.
In the 1950s and 1960s, the Mob controlled the Las Vegas strip hotels and show rooms, and paid talent higher than anyone. Sinatra helped them by making the star studded movie, Ocean's Eleven, and by having the Rat Pack: Sinatra, Martin, Sammy Davis, Jr., Peter Lawford and Joey Bishop play the Sands. These events really elevated the drop at the joint.
Fats Domino was a rock and roll founder, legend, and gambling addict. He estimated he lost $2 million. He liked to watch those gallowing dominoes jump across the green. Like Jerry Lewis, Fats got heavily indebted to the casinos, and paid them back as a performer, like so many others.
When the mob was controlling the strip during the 1950s, and 1960s, Las Vegas became the highest paying place for big name stars. Whales and producers flocked to shows like the Rat Pack which filled hotels, and casino floors.
Col. Tom Parker, Elvis Presley's manager, was the worst gambling addict of all. He had been a carnival worker, owner, hustler. He had dancing chickens, chickens on a hot plate. With little experience and a checkered past of which little is known, Parker became the manager of Eddie Arnold, a country star, and then Elvis. The Colonel dominated Elvis, got the same income as Elvis, and kept them in Las Vegas many, many years because he owed the Hilton a reputed $30 million when Elvis died. With all that income, Col. Parker left only a $1 million estate. He would stand at a dice table hour after hour betting as high as they'd let him. He sometime spent 12 hours a day gambling.
Casinos used a system of getting show business people or key employees in debt as a golden handcuffs, way to keep them management strategy, and it worked.
Last edited by Johnny Hughes; 10-23-2011 at 01:54 PM.