The life of Geri Rosenthal, one of Las Vegas’s most notorious mob wives, recounted in new book
LAS VEGAS ( KLAS ) — In Hollywood's mobster films, men typically take center stage, while women are often relegated to supporting roles or mere accessories. However, the real-life history of Las Vegas reveals that mob wives and girlfriends were integral players in criminal operations.
A new book by local author Lissa Townsend Rodgers, "Shameless," delves into the dramatic rise and fall of several infamous women in the criminal underworld, shedding light on how these women navigated and thrived within the violent, male-dominated world of organized crime.
Las Vegas television viewers likely caught on that Geri Rosenthal, the statuesque blonde selected to dance with casino big shot turned TV host Frank "Lefty" Rosenthal, was actually his wife. The fact that Rosenthal had a TV show was viewed as an abomination by the lawmen who had been investigating him for years. Rosenthal, a.k.a. Lefty, was a brilliant but shady oddsmaker and sports gambler who'd grown up under the umbrella of the Chicago mob.
In the film "Casino," directed by Martin Scorcese, famed actor Robert Deniro portrayed the Rosenthal character. Actor Joe Pesci's character is based on Lefty's lifelong friend "Tough Tony" Spilotro, and Rosenthal's stunning but tempestuous wife was portrayed by Sharon Stone.
"Geri Rosenthal starts out as "Geri" Geraldine McGee, this California girl," recounted Rodgers, who wrote about Rosenthal for her book "Shameless." She's grown up... post Dust Bowl, post-depression. She's sort of the poorest family in town in California. But she is, as we've seen in the photos, gorgeous... classic."
Rogers pulled together everything known about Rosenthal for a chapter in "Shameless." She wrote that during the "Rat Pack Era," Like so many beautiful women, Geri was attracted to the bright lights of Las Vegas. She initially worked as a cocktail waitress before becoming a showgirl and evolving into a high-class hustler. Geri knew everyone on the Strip, and although she wasn't a hooker, according to late mob hitman Frank Cullotta, she earned a good living as arm candy for high rollers.
"[Geri] hits 30 [years old] and realizes... let's pick one," Rodgers said. "You know how this goes in Las Vegas for women after 30. So [...] she kind of looks at him and goes, that's the best bet., and he is absolutely besotted with her."
Lefty and Geri were married, had a couple of kids, and mingled with Las Vegas high society, but trouble was brewing. Federal lawmen were zeroing in on the mafia infiltration of Las Vegas casinos. Millions of dollars in loans from the mob-tainted Teamsters Union pension fund helped build the strip hotels.
Allan Glick was a businessman and frontman owner of four casinos purchased with Teamster loans. Still, Frank Rosenthal was the real power on the inside during a period when millions of dollars were skimmed off the top and sent back to mob bosses in midwestern cities.
Spilotro, the Chicago mob enforcer suspected in 25 murders, was sent to Las Vegas to make sure nothing interfered with the skim and to keep an eye on his longtime pal, Lefty Rosenthal. While Nevada gaming control tried to force Rosenthal out, he fought it every step of the way. Often, Geri was at his side at various hearings. As pressure from law enforcement mounted, cracks appeared in the Rosenthal marriage. Geri reverted to being a party girl, and like her husband, had affairs. One of her trysts proved pivotal in the downfall of her marriage, her husband, and the mob in Las Vegas.
"The affair she had with Spilotro, I remember that that news spread like wildfire from law enforcement to a couple of reporters, and it landed like an atomic bomb," Rodgers recounted, adding that the tryst was a big deal, beyond faux pas. "You don't mess with another guy's wife."
As the rackets boss of Las Vegas, Spilotro was under surveillance 24 hours a day, seven days a week. His dalliance with Geri was seen as an opportunity by the FBI. The story was printed in newspapers nationwide, possibly purposely in an effort to stir things up.
It worked. There were angry, tumultuous scenes in public, dire threats to spill various beans, and increasing pressure from news media and law enforcement. Geri and Lefty divorced.
Lefty barely survived a car bomb, and Spilotro was summoned back to Chicago by the bosses, where he was murdered and then buried with his brother in a cornfield. Rodgers said Geri fell in with a bad crowd on the Sunset Strip, blazed through all of her money and jewelry in a haze of booze and drugs, and died of an overdose.
"If you see videos of [Lefty], even after years after she's passed and he is old, he is still talking about this woman with like gaga eyes," Rodgers said. "He had it bad."
Journalists have since uncovered indications that both Geri Rosenthal and her husband became FBI informants. Some have speculated that her overdose was actually a murder. That has never been proven.
