freddy
2011-06-21 19:44:01 UTC
Q:
I was wondering whatever happened to Lenny? He was on a Las Vegas
reality TV show that followed the lives of 4 people in LV. I think it
was on about ten years ago. Lenny was a compulsive gambler, who
divorced his wife and moved to LV. Another one was a showgirl who
worked in a topless afternoon production. There was also a
professional poker player.
A:
By the sound of it, it's a pure coincidence, but you actually picked
precisely the right place to pose this question since, in a former
life, the current writer was actually Senior Producer on both seasons
of Discovery Channel's Casino Diaries, which is the series you're
referring to. (As an aside, there may have been a subsequent third
series, but if so, it didn't get good reviews and was produced by a
totally different team.)
As you comment, it's been a long time -- the first season of 13 shows
aired in 2000 -- so I'm digging into the recesses of my mind here, but
I'll do the best update I can with the available resources, including
my less-than-perfect memory.
* Larry (as opposed to "Lenny") Sack was one of my favorite
characters in the series. My colleague and I were actually meant to
profile his boss, the manager of one of the race and sports books
downtown, but Larry was so much more colorful that we followed him
instead, often much to his chagrin.
For those who didn't catch "Casino Diaries" and are therefore
unacquainted with this character, he was affectionately known to the
crew as "Toothless Larry," for obvious reasons. Originally from
Brooklyn, NY, he'd formerly run a cab company (we have something like
"Taxi" in our mind's eye...), but even then somehow managed to drive
to Atlantic City every day to gamble. When it came time to quit the
business, Larry announced to his wife that they were moving to Las
Vegas, to which she responded that he was welcome to move there, but
she had no such plans.
When we discovered Larry, he was working as a ticket writer at
the Las Vegas Club, a job from which he was fired during the course of
our filming. He later landed a job at the Plaza race and sports book,
but that didn't work out too well, either. At the time, he was living
at a very dubious motel downtown (one of his neighbors got taken out
in a body bag while we were filming) and would walk across the street
in the morning in his bedroom slippers to the El Cortez, his home from
home, for his coffee.
To sum up his personality, Larry was primarily of a belligerent
disposition and never minced his words. On occasion we'd show up, by
arrangement, to film him, only to find him in a foul mood and
unwilling to let us put the microphone on him. But in his good moods,
Larry could be hilarious in a typically dry New Yorker way, and he was
full of great stories. He took a shine to my colleague, the camera
operator, and myself, and tried to fix her up with his son, who was
studying a law degree back east. Larry took his visiting son and I out
shooting craps downtown one night and we had a blast.
By the end of the series, Larry was not in a good spot and was
down to his last $300 or so. He was looking for work but still
gambling -- video poker was his main habit -- and his prospects
weren't looking too good. I stayed in touch for awhile and would go
hang out with him at the El Cortez every now and then. I took him a
bottle of Grey Goose for Christmas that year, but I returned to the UK
for awhile after that and we lost touch.
When I saw your question, I did a little sleuthing and found a
listing for a Larry Sack of the right approximate age still residing
in the Las Vegas area, although there's no way to sure it's the same
Larry (without camping out on the doorstep, and stalking is beyond the
remit of QoD). We placed a call to the players club at the El Cortez,
but they were unable to release any information; the supervisor we
spoke with did confide that the name didn't mean anything to him, but
then again he could be new to the job.
So, unfortunately, we can't tell you much at all about Larry and
his whereabouts these days. If anyone out there happens to know him,
or has seen him around town, please drop us a line as we'd love to
catch up with him.
* The dancer we followed is called Vanessa O'Brien and was
performing in Splash, a former long-running topless show at the
Riviera. Like Larry, Vanessa also got fired (it's a tough city) and
faced problems trying to keep up with her mortgage payments. She then
landed a new gig in Bottoms Up, another topless revue that had been a
part of the Las Vegas entertainment landscape for literally decades.
(We think we recall the sequence of events correctly, although it's
possible that she started in Bottoms Up and then went to Splash...) On
the side, Vanessa worked with her own team of dancers, trying to get
their own gig off the ground. We filmed their debut at the FreeZone
gay club for the series.
Vanessa was just what you'd expect a Las Vegas dancer to be --
very self-confident and self-centered, and highly ambitious. "I want
my name in lights" was her most frequently used phrase and she had
dreams of being a producer. She was a good sport in terms of always
being available when we needed to film her, but it was hard to get
past the veneer to the "real" person.
Again, the current writer stayed in touch for awhile after
filming, but hadn't heard anything of Vanessa for years until you
inquired. So, Google to the rescue again, I did a little online
sleuthing and the latest information I could find is that she attended
the ABC bartending school in Las Vegas and landed a job at the now
defunct Club SRO. Evidently showbiz didn't work out for her quite as
planned.
Fast forward a few years and the most up-to-date information we
could find was that Vanessa was bartending in Boston and, in 2004, was
a contestant on NBC's "Fear Factor," where she was apparently admired
for her killer physique, but was ultimately eliminated when she was
unable to drink her quota of shots consisting of blended worms and
maggots. No shame in that.
* The professional poker player you refer to in the series was the
ever-colorful Scotty Nguyen, owner of five WSOP bracelets, including
for the 1998 Main Event and the 2008 H.O.R.S.E. event.
Originally from Vietnam, Scotty emigrated to the U.S. at the age
of 14 and has been playing professional poker since the late '80s.
When we filmed him he was going through a lean patch and the 2000 WSOP
saw him cash in only one event, the Limit 7 Card Stud tournament, for
a paltry $30,000 pay day. We haven't followed his career too closely
since -- it's been the typical roller-coaster ride of many pro poker
players -- although we know he is now divorced from his wife of back
then and has since remarried. Scotty has yet to cash at the 2011 WSOP.
So, there's as much as we can tell you about the specific characters
you inquired about. As far as some of the others we recall are
concerned, here's what we know:
* High roller host Steve Cyr is still plying his trade at the Hard
Rock (we see him from time to time when he calls around to our offices
to pick up copies of Whale Hunt in the Desert, which features him
prominently).
* Professional gambler Bradley Peterson is still traveling the
globe finding and playing beatable games. He's also heavily -- and
successfully -- into sports betting these days. He no longer resides
in the U.S., although he comes back regularly to visit with friends
and family.
* Notorious blackjack pro Tommy Hyland, who we caught on camera
being ejected from the Hard Rock, still plays a little 21 for fun, but
these days Tommy's more likely to be found on the golf course. We
catch up with him at least once a year at the annual Blackjack Ball,
and he seems to be doing just fine.
* We're not sure what happened to the eccentric lady who ran
downtown's Divine Fantasy Wedding Chapel (Debbie?), but can confirm
that the chapel went out of business not long after we completed
filming, so no more Flash Gordon nuptials, unfortunately.
If anyone out there is familiar with the "Casino Diaries" series and
any of the numerous other characters we profiled, please drop us a
line with any additional information you may have (Mary Lou, are you
still out there?!). It was a fun, if arduous, project that gained
something of a cult status, especially in Las Vegas. It really was the
closest we've seen to true "reality" television, with nothing staged
and only "real" characters we found, not the wannabe celebrities of
"Jersey Shore" and "Survivor." We had a large, revolving crew working
all over town, filming characters from every walk of life for a year
or more, so people got to know us and the characters we were
profiling. Vanessa, of course, used to love being stopped to sign
autographs by people who recognized her; Larry, less so.
I was wondering whatever happened to Lenny? He was on a Las Vegas
reality TV show that followed the lives of 4 people in LV. I think it
was on about ten years ago. Lenny was a compulsive gambler, who
divorced his wife and moved to LV. Another one was a showgirl who
worked in a topless afternoon production. There was also a
professional poker player.
A:
By the sound of it, it's a pure coincidence, but you actually picked
precisely the right place to pose this question since, in a former
life, the current writer was actually Senior Producer on both seasons
of Discovery Channel's Casino Diaries, which is the series you're
referring to. (As an aside, there may have been a subsequent third
series, but if so, it didn't get good reviews and was produced by a
totally different team.)
As you comment, it's been a long time -- the first season of 13 shows
aired in 2000 -- so I'm digging into the recesses of my mind here, but
I'll do the best update I can with the available resources, including
my less-than-perfect memory.
* Larry (as opposed to "Lenny") Sack was one of my favorite
characters in the series. My colleague and I were actually meant to
profile his boss, the manager of one of the race and sports books
downtown, but Larry was so much more colorful that we followed him
instead, often much to his chagrin.
For those who didn't catch "Casino Diaries" and are therefore
unacquainted with this character, he was affectionately known to the
crew as "Toothless Larry," for obvious reasons. Originally from
Brooklyn, NY, he'd formerly run a cab company (we have something like
"Taxi" in our mind's eye...), but even then somehow managed to drive
to Atlantic City every day to gamble. When it came time to quit the
business, Larry announced to his wife that they were moving to Las
Vegas, to which she responded that he was welcome to move there, but
she had no such plans.
When we discovered Larry, he was working as a ticket writer at
the Las Vegas Club, a job from which he was fired during the course of
our filming. He later landed a job at the Plaza race and sports book,
but that didn't work out too well, either. At the time, he was living
at a very dubious motel downtown (one of his neighbors got taken out
in a body bag while we were filming) and would walk across the street
in the morning in his bedroom slippers to the El Cortez, his home from
home, for his coffee.
To sum up his personality, Larry was primarily of a belligerent
disposition and never minced his words. On occasion we'd show up, by
arrangement, to film him, only to find him in a foul mood and
unwilling to let us put the microphone on him. But in his good moods,
Larry could be hilarious in a typically dry New Yorker way, and he was
full of great stories. He took a shine to my colleague, the camera
operator, and myself, and tried to fix her up with his son, who was
studying a law degree back east. Larry took his visiting son and I out
shooting craps downtown one night and we had a blast.
By the end of the series, Larry was not in a good spot and was
down to his last $300 or so. He was looking for work but still
gambling -- video poker was his main habit -- and his prospects
weren't looking too good. I stayed in touch for awhile and would go
hang out with him at the El Cortez every now and then. I took him a
bottle of Grey Goose for Christmas that year, but I returned to the UK
for awhile after that and we lost touch.
When I saw your question, I did a little sleuthing and found a
listing for a Larry Sack of the right approximate age still residing
in the Las Vegas area, although there's no way to sure it's the same
Larry (without camping out on the doorstep, and stalking is beyond the
remit of QoD). We placed a call to the players club at the El Cortez,
but they were unable to release any information; the supervisor we
spoke with did confide that the name didn't mean anything to him, but
then again he could be new to the job.
So, unfortunately, we can't tell you much at all about Larry and
his whereabouts these days. If anyone out there happens to know him,
or has seen him around town, please drop us a line as we'd love to
catch up with him.
* The dancer we followed is called Vanessa O'Brien and was
performing in Splash, a former long-running topless show at the
Riviera. Like Larry, Vanessa also got fired (it's a tough city) and
faced problems trying to keep up with her mortgage payments. She then
landed a new gig in Bottoms Up, another topless revue that had been a
part of the Las Vegas entertainment landscape for literally decades.
(We think we recall the sequence of events correctly, although it's
possible that she started in Bottoms Up and then went to Splash...) On
the side, Vanessa worked with her own team of dancers, trying to get
their own gig off the ground. We filmed their debut at the FreeZone
gay club for the series.
Vanessa was just what you'd expect a Las Vegas dancer to be --
very self-confident and self-centered, and highly ambitious. "I want
my name in lights" was her most frequently used phrase and she had
dreams of being a producer. She was a good sport in terms of always
being available when we needed to film her, but it was hard to get
past the veneer to the "real" person.
Again, the current writer stayed in touch for awhile after
filming, but hadn't heard anything of Vanessa for years until you
inquired. So, Google to the rescue again, I did a little online
sleuthing and the latest information I could find is that she attended
the ABC bartending school in Las Vegas and landed a job at the now
defunct Club SRO. Evidently showbiz didn't work out for her quite as
planned.
Fast forward a few years and the most up-to-date information we
could find was that Vanessa was bartending in Boston and, in 2004, was
a contestant on NBC's "Fear Factor," where she was apparently admired
for her killer physique, but was ultimately eliminated when she was
unable to drink her quota of shots consisting of blended worms and
maggots. No shame in that.
* The professional poker player you refer to in the series was the
ever-colorful Scotty Nguyen, owner of five WSOP bracelets, including
for the 1998 Main Event and the 2008 H.O.R.S.E. event.
Originally from Vietnam, Scotty emigrated to the U.S. at the age
of 14 and has been playing professional poker since the late '80s.
When we filmed him he was going through a lean patch and the 2000 WSOP
saw him cash in only one event, the Limit 7 Card Stud tournament, for
a paltry $30,000 pay day. We haven't followed his career too closely
since -- it's been the typical roller-coaster ride of many pro poker
players -- although we know he is now divorced from his wife of back
then and has since remarried. Scotty has yet to cash at the 2011 WSOP.
So, there's as much as we can tell you about the specific characters
you inquired about. As far as some of the others we recall are
concerned, here's what we know:
* High roller host Steve Cyr is still plying his trade at the Hard
Rock (we see him from time to time when he calls around to our offices
to pick up copies of Whale Hunt in the Desert, which features him
prominently).
* Professional gambler Bradley Peterson is still traveling the
globe finding and playing beatable games. He's also heavily -- and
successfully -- into sports betting these days. He no longer resides
in the U.S., although he comes back regularly to visit with friends
and family.
* Notorious blackjack pro Tommy Hyland, who we caught on camera
being ejected from the Hard Rock, still plays a little 21 for fun, but
these days Tommy's more likely to be found on the golf course. We
catch up with him at least once a year at the annual Blackjack Ball,
and he seems to be doing just fine.
* We're not sure what happened to the eccentric lady who ran
downtown's Divine Fantasy Wedding Chapel (Debbie?), but can confirm
that the chapel went out of business not long after we completed
filming, so no more Flash Gordon nuptials, unfortunately.
If anyone out there is familiar with the "Casino Diaries" series and
any of the numerous other characters we profiled, please drop us a
line with any additional information you may have (Mary Lou, are you
still out there?!). It was a fun, if arduous, project that gained
something of a cult status, especially in Las Vegas. It really was the
closest we've seen to true "reality" television, with nothing staged
and only "real" characters we found, not the wannabe celebrities of
"Jersey Shore" and "Survivor." We had a large, revolving crew working
all over town, filming characters from every walk of life for a year
or more, so people got to know us and the characters we were
profiling. Vanessa, of course, used to love being stopped to sign
autographs by people who recognized her; Larry, less so.