Frank "Lefty" Rosenthal, who earned his unusual nickname by once holding up his left hand to fend off countless questions at a congressional hearing, is dead of heart failure. He was 79.
For years Lefty Rosenthal was considered the Chicago Outfit's top oddsmaker in Las Vegas and a living legend in the field of sports handicapping. He was the inspiration for the hit movie "Casino" that chronicled the violent, sadistic days of the Chicago mob's reign in Vegas during the 1970's.
Mr. Rosenthal himself survived a car-bombing attack on his life 26 years ago in Las Vegas. When he turned the ignition key on his '81 Cadillac Eldorado, the caddy blew up. Rosenthal escaped the blast with minor injuries because he had a steel plate installed under the floorboard, fearing such a threat.
Rosenthal ran the Chicago mob-owned Stardust, Fremont, Hacienda and Marina casinos through the 1970s and into the mid 1980s. Sports Illustrated once crowned him as the greatest living expert on sports handicapping but Rosenthal ended up in Nevada's "black book" of hoodlums and other unsavory characters who were barred from the state's casinos.
Rosenthal was born of Jewish parents in Chicago the year of the great stock market crash. He learned to make money by hustling bets and setting odds. Rosenthal learned the gambling trade through illegal bookmaking operations and made friends with Italian Chicago mobsters - ties that would last a lifetime. In 1961, he appeared before a Senate hearing on gambling and organized crime. During the proceedings he invoked Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination 38 times - and kept his left hand aloft throughout while doing so. ...
linkI am sure that this setback will not prevent him from voting for Obama.
