Goodman reviews unpublished biography manuscript

Thursday, July 31, 2003 | 11:26 a.m.

A book about Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman, previously hyped as an unauthorized biography, is not.

Nor is it authorized, says Las Vegas publisher Anthony Curtis of Huntington Press, and Las Vegas author John L. Smith.

The apparent change in the direction of promoting the book came in the last few weeks after a New York publishing company apologized to Goodman over a passage in one of its books that Goodman claimed was both untrue and defamatory.

"Yes, as a small businessman, you have to be concerned about something like that," Curtis said. "Oscar has seen most of the book. Some of it he likes, some of it he doesn't."

Curtis, who said his company never promoted the book as "unauthorized," and Smith said that other than making factual corrections about dates, locations, etc., no changes were made to the content. Goodman agrees with that assessment.

"My mother is upset over a physical description that says I'm homely," Goodman said Wednesday, noting that to his knowledge that will not be changed in the book "Of Rats and Men" that is scheduled to be released Oct. 1.

"Also I've seen the cover of the book and it shows me with a big head -- it's unflattering."

Smith said that the reason he previously called his book an "unauthorized" biography was because at the time he was writing it there were some disputes over what Smith would write.

"It is neither an authorized biography, nor an unauthorized biography -- it's a biography," said Smith, a columnist at the Las Vegas Review-Journal, who also has written biographies of gaming notables Steve Wynn and Bob Stupak.

"I showed Oscar Goodman a manuscript and I also showed Steve Wynn and Bob Stupak manuscripts before they were published."

Smith said that he spent more than five years writing the Goodman book and "I'm very proud of it." As did Curtis, he said that other than factual corrections, he made no changes to the content after Goodman perused it.

Goodman said he looked at the manuscript primarily "for dates and locations" and to make sure "the address of the street where I grew up and things like that were accurate. I did not change any content."

The book focuses primarily on Goodman as the attorney who rose to prominence defending some of the most notable mob figures of the 1970s and '80s -- among them the late Anthony Spilotro.

Only a couple of chapters of the book are on Goodman's tenure as mayor, which began in 1999, Curtis and Smith said.

Curtis said that the focus of the book has changed since his company signed a book deal with Smith six years ago.

At times, Curtis said, Goodman was more cooperative than at others. As Smith said, the "unauthorized" tag came at a time when Goodman was being less cooperative with Smith, Curtis confirmed.

Smith's other books are "Running Scared: The Life and Treacherous Times of Las Vegas Casino King Steve Wynn" and "No Limit: The Rise and Fall of Bob Stupak and Las Vegas' Stratosphere Tower."

In June, Goodman hired a high-powered Los Angeles defamation attorney to sue Farrar, Straus and Giroux publishing company of New York over a passage in the best-seller "Positively Fifth Street," which is about high-stakes poker and the Binion murder trial.

The publisher apologized to Goodman in a letter that was published in the July 6 edition of The New York Times Book Review.

Also as part of the confidential settlement, future editions of the book will not include the passage that caused the apology.

Smith's book about Wynn, which also had legal problems unrelated to Smith's role as the author.

In August 1997 a District Court jury found that Wynn was libeled in a New York publisher's catalog ad promoting the unauthorized biography and awarded him $2.1 million for the damage to his reputation.

In 2001 the Nevada Supreme Court, in a unanimous decision, overturned the verdict. The case was sent back to the trial court and a new trial is pending.

Smith was not named as a defendant in that suit because it was the publisher who had written the catalog promotion.