Band member let actor take name

If you're familiar with Martin Scorsese's "Goodfellas," you know Joe Pesci won an Oscar for portraying a mobster-psychopath named Tommy DeVito who beats, stabs and shoots people to death or merely in the foot.

Well, meet the real Tommy DeVito of Silverado Ranch. He didn't do all that killing. But he grew up as a tough guy on the mean streets of New Jersey before he formed The Four Seasons with Frankie Valli.

When Pesci got the role in "Goodfellas," he reached out to DeVito for a favor because they were old friends from the neighborhood in Jersey.

"He came to me and asked me if he could use my name in the movie," DeVito says. "He said: 'I'm doing a mob picture. They whack me at the end of the movie.' I said, 'Couldn't you use me in, like, 'Romeo and Juliet' or something like that?'"

DeVito acquiesced. I ask him how much Pesci's "Tommy DeVito" was like the real guitar-playing Tommy DeVito. He laughs and rolls his eyes a little.

"Here and there," says DeVito, now in his 70s. "A couple of those scenes are kind of me, and a couple are other people. When you're younger, you might have done a lot of things you would never do today.

"I look back, and a guy looks in the mirror and asks how you got here. I came out of a rough neighborhood with rough people, and growing up, you have to survive."

Just like in "Jersey Boys," the musical about the rise of The Four Seasons, DeVito moved to Vegas in the 1970s. He became a hotel hand. So he had been playing "Sherry" and "Dawn" on a bill with Frank Sinatra, then he dealt poker and blackjack at the Sahara, Tropicana and Flamingo. And he produced some records without hits.

"Jersey Boys" doesn't dance around the fact DeVito often went to jail or prison for robbery, breaking and entering, doing things with money and so on, even when he was the early driving force of the group, which got a little help from the mob.

"A lot of people (who've seen the play) come up to me and say, 'I didn't know you were that bad,'" DeVito says with an easy, relaxed smile, sounding "Soprano"-Jersey in his perfect suit. "I say: 'I'm not bad! I'm a nice guy!

Pesci, 65, hung out with DeVito and The Four Seasons when they were nobodies. In "Jersey Boys," a Pesci side character gets smacked on the head, but he also introduces some band members to each other.

What's not in the play: In the '70s, before Pesci got his big break in "Raging Bull," he moved to Vegas, lived with DeVito and worked as a mason with DeVito's son for three or four months until Pesci returned to his own music roots.

"He asked me if he could borrow my guitar. I said, 'Yeah, but take care of it!'"

Pesci was a no-show at Saturday's red carpet "Jersey" opening at the Palazzo. DeVito was there. So were Valli and the other living Four Seasons member, Bob Gaudio, who wrote the hits "Sherry," "Big Girls Don't Cry," "Bye, Bye, Baby (Baby, Goodbye)" and "Can't Take My Eyes Off You."

"This is the biggest money we ever made in our lives. Even as The Four Seasons, on the road, we made a lot of money. But this is unbelievable. It's all over the world," this production.

The accuracy of the play is "pretty close," he says.

"There are a couple of added things. But I don't mind it. Say whatever you want to say. Send the check."

NO VEGOOSE THIS YEAR

The city's annual Vegoose music fest is kaput for this year. Billboard.com reported Monday the show might "resurface in a different form." This is terrible news for people who listen to good alternative music.

Previous Vegooses brought Public Enemy, Iggy and the Stooges, M.I.A., Jack Johnson, Beck, Muse, Atmosphere and dozens of other great acts. But in three years, attendance dropped from 72,000 to 37,000, and grosses fell from $4.6 million to $2.2 million.

VEGASLAND

Check out my blog for more interviews, such as John Cleese, who names his price to play God. Ollie North answers a question about the temptations of Vegas. And the producer of "American Idol" considers punching Simon Cowell in the face.

Doug Elfman's column appears on Mondays, Tuesdays and Fridays. Contact him at 383-0391 or e-mail him at delfman@reviewjournal.com. He also blogs at reviewjournal.com/elfman.