Schirripa: An original Vegas Goodfella
Actor Steven Schirripa (left) shared stories of Old Las Vegas during a recent Zoom session.
LAS VEGAS — I've never met Steven Schirripa.
After a 72-minute Zoom session, I feel as if I should have long ago.
For the amount of talk I sling about being a true old-school Las Vegas resident - I moved here in 1972 - I can tell you the Brooklyn-native is every bit of an old-school Vegas guy as anyone else.
I'm just shocked we had never met before our entertaining Zoom conversation about the good ol' days, despite the 11 1/2-year-old age-gap between us.
Schirripa worked for my grandfather, he ran with many of the same people I knew, remains close with one of my best friends from back then, was a main fixture at the same Riviera Hotel I frequented several nights a week... it's baffling quite honestly.
But what I can tell you about the person widely known for his portrayals of one of the more popular characters from The Sopranos - Bobby Baccalieri - and retired NYPD detective Anthony Abetemarco in the show Blue Bloods, is he comes across like anything but an actor.
At least not when he's talking about Las Vegas of yesteryear.
In the same colorful voice and tone and mannerisms of his character in The Sopranos, the 63-year-old was as down to earth and endearing as anyone else. I felt as if I was talking to a member of my old-school crew.
"Steve is probably more the guy he was back then, than I am and more than anybody I know from that time," said Frank Anobile, the mutual friend we share, affectionately known around town as DJ Frankie. "This guy is a good ol' boy."
To say the least.
And for a writer who has interviewed some of the greatest professional athletes in the world over the past 30 years or so, being able to conversate with a guy who ran the same streets as myself, but also starred in what is my all-time favorite television series, I admit it, I was enthralled to speak to Schirripa.
I mean, fuhgeddaboudit!
GOOMBAH
A 'goombah,' as they say in Italian, is not a derogatory term.
It's a compliment.
"A 'goombah' is not a 'guido' and 'goombah' is not a 'gangster,'" Anobile explained. "It's one of those Italians that does the right thing. Just lives by doing the right thing, being morally and ethically correct his whole life."
Schirripa, emphatically, is a goombah.
Always has been, even before he dropped into Las Vegas in 1977 during a trip to Hawaii. He returned the summer of 1979, lived with a friend in an apartment complex on Sahara Road and Valley View Boulevard - an extreme West end of town at the time - and became hooked.
Schirripa's East coast mentality and Brooklyn upbringing made him a likeable guy. His what-you-see-what-you-get attitude was a realness Las Vegas was still in an infancy stage with, outside of the wiseguys who ran the town.
Though he still needed to finish his senior season playing basketball and earning a degree at Brooklyn College, he knew where he wanted to be.
"When I hit Vegas, I said this is everything I've been looking for," Schirripa said. "Fuckin' wild, every night going out. Cocktail waitresses, dealers, it was just incredible to me."
Soon after graduating in June of 1980, he packed up his 1969 Javelin with $1,400 in his pocket, stopped in New Orleans and landed in Las Vegas on July 4 with $1,000 to start anew.
Little did the impressionable 22-year-old (at the time) know the same impact Sin City had on him, paled in comparison to the impact he was about to have on Las Vegas over the next two decades.
"Steve Schirripa is Mr. Las Vegas," longtime columnist John L. Smith said. "Who doesn't love him? I think he's the greatest."
Like many of us back then, Schirripa had a couple of one-day jobs before settling in at a Villa Pizza, making roughly $400 per week delivering pies. That was plenty in 1980, when you might have needed $350 a month for rent and bills.
His bankroll increased when he began working as a bouncer at Paul Anka's Jubilation, but not before a tough screening from the legendary singer's old man.
"I had to take a lie detector test," Schirripa said. "Paul Anka's father, Andy, was very into that. Andy was a good guy; he was a good guy to me. I liked him a lot. He was a nice man. He was leery of everyone, that they were robbing him. So I took a lie detector test, got the job, made okay money."
It was at Jubilation where Schirripa's star rose quickly and, unbeknownst to him, he began laying the path as a bouncer-turned-actor that others such as Mr. T, Chazz Palminteri, Vin Diesel, and James Gandolfini (who portrayed Tony Soprano) also followed.
"Steve Schirripa, I think of Jubilation," said Don Logan, president of the Las Vegas Aviators baseball club. "The big boy would be standing there at the door looking like I'll rip your fricken throat out if you're not supposed to be here. Vegas was a protocol kind of place. And the protocol was either you had a shitload of money, (and) you could get in, or you had juice. Otherwise you had to wait in line.
"And none of us who knew Steve were gonna wait in line."
He worked at the popular and elegant nightclub for roughly a year and a half and began meeting some of Las Vegas' most colorful personalities - from world renowned celebrities, to local headliners, to notorious names like Tony Spilotro and Herbie Blitzstein.
To put things in perspective, Schirripa used to let future casino mogul and UFC owner Frank Fertitta into Jubilation when he was underage. Schirripa shared stories of certain celebrities who stayed on Quaaludes, others who partied with droves of women, and even one television actor and comedian who tried walking out on his bill.
But it was the relationships he built with Spilotro and his crew, in particular Blitzstein, that helped Schirripa's reputation grow as a loyal guy, and someone who was good to know.
"Wherever I worked he would come," Schirripa said of Spilotro. "He told me 'if anyone ever fucks around, anyone uses my name, you do what you gotta do.'"
And when Schirripa wasn't making sure Spilotro, or singers, or actors or professional athletes were situated inside Jubilation, he was hitting popular places like The Brewery, or Bogies, or The Oz, or Escape, or El Jardin, or Village Pub, or Alias Smith and Jones - all hot spots those from the old school know and appreciate.
A little less than two years into working at Jubilation, he moved down the road to The Brewery when general manager Mike Paglia recruited him away and hired him as an assistant manager, a job that netted him roughly $40,000 annually at 25 years old.
"It was a tough job, a lot of fights, a lot of problems," said Schirripa, who would look at himself in the mirror nightly, dressed in a tuxedo, wondering what would happen that night. "Big problems. It was a really tough fucking spot. A lot of dope dealers, a lot of hookers. (Then) you had Bill Cosby, Bob Hope, Rich Little - all these celebrities. Tough fucking place."
Steven Schirripa, seen here with dancers from the old Crazy Girls show and ZZ Top’s Billy Gibbons, helped rebuild the Riviera Hotel’s attraction for tourists, by booking entertainment from 1986-2000. (Photo courtesy: Steven Schirripa Instagram)
RUSTY STAPLE
As places like Caesars Palace, and the Dunes, and the Desert Inn, and the Stardust, and the original MGM Grand (now Bally's) continued to be main attractions, the little-respected Riviera was fledgling on the north end of The Strip. It was in dire need of a jolt. It needed someone to give it life, bring some faces inside and immunize what back then was a rusty staple situated next to the much more popular Peppermill restaurant.
Enter Schirripa, who wanted badly into a hotel by the mid-1980s, knowing that was where the real money was made.
Maître d's were just as important as headliners back then, like the infamous duo at the Sahara, Harry Karn and Johnny Joseph. They were as popular as Don Rickles and Buddy Hackett.
"It was next to impossible back then," Schirripa said. "Being a maître d or a captain, those were the jobs you wanted. Though I knew people, it was hard making that jump from outside (to) inside."
But, as it was back in the day, contacts were golden. And he had made one at another local nightclub, Mr. G's.
In 1986, Schirripa was hired to revitalize the Riviera's comedy shop that was tucked away upstairs, just above a food court. It took some time, but after five months of the show making next to nothing, not to mention seeing his pay dip from what he was making at The Brewery, crowds and revenue started to increase.
Impressed with his hustle - Schirripa's gift of gab and infectious personality was spreading around town - management decided to give him two additional shows to oversee: Evening at La Cage and The Crazy Girls.
"He not only worked there and promoted a bunch of acts that kept the Riviera alive, I think Steve Schirripa helped hustle acts that kept people interested in this place, on the wrong end of the Strip," Smith said.
Schirripa's grind was on overload, working six days a week for nine years, meeting and greeting people as the entertainment director, eventually booking lounge acts and running a showroom where he eventually landed Frank Sinatra. Finally making real money, Schirripa settled down after years of galivanting around town, got married and built a big house, where he landscaped an acre and built a park for his kids to enjoy.
He eventually opened Blue Diamond Talent, booking comedy and musical acts for the Riviera and Maxim hotels. And from his connections with comedians who were also actors, Schirripa started dabbling in acting - "I half-ass pursued it," he said - with a friend who was an agent and would get him occasional gigs.
"It's very dear to me," Schirripa said of Las Vegas. "If it wasn't for Vegas, it brought me all the success. I love Las Vegas."
Well, he loved that Las Vegas.
19 DOLLARS
"I'm not crazy about the Vegas I see (now)," Schirripa said. "It's a big city and it's got big city problems and I don't believe they kept up with it. I don't believe the casinos put the money back into the city like they should have."
His tell-it-like-it-is mentality quickly turned our conversation to present-day Las Vegas, which Schirripa is none too pleased about.
"I read the (local newspaper) everyday (and) I'm stunned by what goes on in the casinos now," he said. "There was a time you wouldn't dare fuck around in a casino, you wouldn't dare have a fight, you wouldn't dare steal something - you would be arrested. You fuck around down the Horseshoe, and this is no lie, Binion had them security guards, they'd take you down in the basement, they handcuff you to a pole and put the fire hose on you. You did not fuck around in the casino."
And long gone are the days where a host had 15 or 20 comp (freebie) numbers and when nobody questioned hosts providing comps to their regulars.
"Now it takes an act of God to get a comp," Schirripa said. "Corporate people now don't understand that. It's cut and dry."
Prices have skyrocketed, too. Forget about Schirripa's net worth, and what he can or can't afford - this is principle.
Some of the best hotels back in the day might cost you $45 a night. A relatively inexpensive weekend would net good food, good drinks, and a good room at a good price.
"Now it's gouge, gouge, gouge - let's get as much out of this guy as we can," Schirripa said. "This couple, let's get as much out of them as we can. We want to make money on every single department. Vodka rocks is $19, and they're short shotting you on top of it cause they're being watched so it's not even a good drink - $19 fuckin' dollars! I ate a little turkey sandwich, it was $14.
"Everything is really expensive, and if you don't know someone there, you just get treated like another fuckin schmuck. Wait on line, there's a line for the buffet, there's a line for this, line for that. Unless you know someone and you're a high roller, you're basically just a guy that's gonna get fucked because you're gonna overpay for everything."
Which is in large part why he only returns once a year, for a Lou Ruvo fundraiser and insists on staying at the Southpoint, a place that reminds him of a time he loved living in Las Vegas. He may also visit some of the older Italian restaurants he used to frequent, like Pasta Mia and Chicago Joe's.
"It's 1986 at the Southpoint, I like it there," Schirripa said. "I'm an old school guy."
And, because he's the same 'goombah' who drove into town in 1980 and has never changed, he always stays in touch with his Vegas crew from the late 70s and 80s.
A crew I'm still shocked I was never a part of, but somewhat now feel I always have been after a 72-minute Zoom session.
Fuhgeddaboudit!
