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Originally posted by: DonDiego
DonDiego enjoyed the Crime Story series.
On one evening in Downtown he observed the crew and Mr. Farina filming an upcoming episode, after the locale for the show had been changed to Las Vegas.
It was cool, . . . and educational.
There were lots of old 1950's and '60 automobiles on the street. The drivers were also the owners and they were being paid several hundred dollars for the filming session just to sit around in their vehicles and wait, in case they were needed. For the three or four hours DonDiego hung around they were not needed.
The only star of the show present was, in fact, Mr. Farina. For about an hour-and-a-half he was seated on a stool right at one of the entrances to Binions, . . . chain smoking, and chatting with all the Las Vegas passersby.
Right before filming was to begin a water truck coated Fremont Street with water.
A van with a camera in the back pointing at the street maybe four or five feet behind the vehicle was positioned on Fremont Street. Mr. Farina took a position behind the van such that his feet and lower pant leg were visible to the camera. The van began moving toward the Union Plaza and Mr. Farina began running after it.
And that was it. Mr. Farina ran after the van as the camera filmed his feet running on Fremont Street. All the lookie-loos like DonDiego started laughing; they'd expected more of an action-scene. Mr. Farina smiled and waved at everyone on the sidewalks as he jogged behind the van for about a block.
And then it was over.
Mr. Farina returned to his stool in front of Binions and resumed smoking and chatting.
DonDiego moved on to The Mint where he spent the next several hours extracting money from the trays at the blackjack tables.
Times were good back then.
RIP Dennis Farina.
He died young (at least by today's standards). I hope that those bad old cigarettes were not the reason he died before his time.
We have one person in our office who rented his house out for filming. Dennis Farina was in the movie.
