The Strip’s long overdue for street-savvy, soulful show like ‘A Bronx Tale’

Our sit-down takes place not in a shadowy social club filled with characters with colorful nicknames, but at a sunlit table at Mimi's Café.

That's my first clue this Chazz Palminteri fellow is the real deal and, thankfully, not just another Hollywood tough guy.

He's friendly, spiritual, well-read, candid. Most of all, he appears to be genuinely grateful. Not merely for his success, which includes a long list of movie credits and an Academy Award nomination for his role in "Bullets Over Broadway," but for the influence of his parents on his life.

It's that sense of heartfelt gratitude he used to infuse the soul into his one-man play, "A Bronx Tale," back when it was just a series of sketches Palminteri penned for an acting workshop. Talk to him awhile, and you'll hear how grateful he is to have been raised by strict and loving parents in a working-class Bronx neighborhood brimming with characters and mob guys with dark souls and manicured fingernails. His parents fought hard to keep their son from being fooled by the mob guys' myth of easy money.

The street of Palminteri's youth comes to life in "A Bronx Tale." Starting Oct. 7, his Memory Lane stretches from a tough street corner to The Venetian showroom with a performance that includes 18 characters in about 90 minutes.

"A Bronx Tale" is a helluva story. But the story of how it came into existence is almost as good. After refining the material, he borrowed $25,000 from a pal to produce it in a little theater in Hollywood. Soon enough, the reviews were sparkling, the lines were long, and the Hollywood hustlers interested in buying his dream were plentiful.

You get the sense Palminteri would rather bury a body than deal with another phony director. Throughout the courtship, he was reminded of the lessons he'd learned from his father.

The street-corner drama pitting good versus evil and doing the right thing resounded across ethnic and cultural barriers. But for Palminteri, it was more than a movie. It was a piece of his heart.

On the day he was offered a bundle for the rights, Palminteri was told, "Chazz, you sign that paper right now. You'll have a check tomorrow for $1 million."

Then he heard another voice, the one that's always with him.

"I get up, I walk into the bathroom, and I shut the door," he recalls. "My father wrote this thing, 'The saddest thing in life is wasted talent.' He always used to tell me that, and I have the card with me in my pocket for good luck. I take out the card, I look in the mirror, I wash my hands."

And he turned down the offer after it became clear he'd be pushed out of writing the script and playing the role of the neighborhood mob star, Sonny.

At the end of a long line of dealmakers with increasingly deep pockets, Palminteri accepted a handshake agreement from Robert DeNiro. Palminteri would write the script and play Sonny. DeNiro would direct and play Palminteri's bus-driver/father.

"If you do this with me, I'll make it right, Chazz," DeNiro said. "If you shake my hand, that's the way it will be."

Palminteri adds, "I shook his hand, and the rest is history."

Now "A Bronx Tale" has returned to the stage thanks in large part to Las Vegans Trent Othick and John Gaughan. The sons of successful gambling men from the handshake era of Las Vegas, they befriended Palminteri during the filming of their independent movie "Yonkers Joe" and were captivated by the journey "A Bronx Tale" had taken. As producers, Othick and Gaughan were Broadway neophytes. Gaughan cracks, "I saw 'Fiddler on the Roof' in the eighth grade, does that count?"

Palminteri was rock solid.

"It felt right from the start," Othick says.

The result, despite the complications of a stage strike, was a successful Broadway run that led to a nationwide tour and all the way to Las Vegas. Not bad for a couple of gamblers' sons and a kid from the corner.

"For Vegas," Othick says, "it's very different."

He's right, I guess. But I've been thinking about that. I think the Strip's long overdue for a show with a little street savvy and a genuine soul. It's time for the real deal.

Mr. Palminteri, that's your cue.

John L. Smith's column appears Sunday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. E-mail him at Smith@reviewjournal.com or call (702) 383-0295. He also blogs at lvrj.com/blogs/smith.