Blind Items Revealed #16 - Reader Blind - Anniversary Month

April 19, 2018

This man was no joke. He'd killed many times, both in a foreign nation during a war and on the streets in his own country. He got into a business after his military years that allowed him to become very wealthy. An illegal business. With the help of a tactical genius the expert met after the war when fleeing his hometown, he and their powerful new business associates located near the equator managed to bring in incredible amounts of cocaine to power millions of Americans during their partying throughout the late seventies and into the go go eighties. There were several other enterprising people who'd quickly made fortunes in the USA through this competitive business, but the presence and know how of their genius gave the expert and his crew the advantage over all of the rest. Air, land, sea, their genius outsmarted the government every step of the way when it came to smuggling. And anyone they needed to bribe, usually local authorities, they had no trouble bribing with big bucks. The expert met lots of people, some famous and some not so well known. Some he liked, some he couldn't stand. One he did not like was a movie star, among the hottest of the 1970s A listers. This still living actor assumed he was entitled to free blow wherever he went back then because of a role he played that established him as very cool among wannabe mob guys and real gangsters alike. This actor hoovered up a large amount of nose candy in record time when they met and demanded more immediately, not sharing it with any of the others there that day. The expert didn't enjoy his company during their meeting and basically told him off in no uncertain terms when asked for his number to later stay in touch. A group he socialized with after he became very rich were a legendary bunch of pros in another field, this one a legal business, but one that also had short career spans for most. They were at the top of their game in the late 1970s, destroying their competition and setting new standards for toughness. Some of them came to his home one night around a very important point in their careers and were impatient for the party favors to get doled out. Because the expert liked them a lot, he didn't treat them like the mob icon actor. Due to the source of his wealth, he never had trouble providing high quality party favors for his guests. He partied with lots of people in this field. After that year's big success soon afterwards, he was there with them again, partying in a hotel this time and enjoying the post-victory glow. Life was sweet for the expert. He had many women, but only one was truly the love of his life. They had a very volatile relationship. He cheated, she cheated. They fought. A lot. She wanted to get into acting. Already a stunning woman who made a career in modelling, she seemed like a natural for the big screen. And there was a trip out west to see if they could get her career off on the right foot. He met some people who worked in TV and movies, people easily impressed by guys from the other side of the tracks that seemed like they knew what they were talking about. He certainly had enough money to invest in productions if he wanted to. He saw how their so called experts advised them about how deals allegedly went down. Their scripted scenes often involved large amounts of product and money being openly exchanged in public places and in broad daylight by clueless fools who didn't resemble the dangerous, no nonsense men the expert dealt with all the time. He told the TV and movie people that their advisors were full of crap. Nobody for real dealt their product that way. It was TV BS. The lady of the expert eventually got a small role in a film, this one starring an A list 1970s star. One barely alive and not well liked by CDAN writers and readers alike. I think you'll all know who he is. His career was starting to run out of gas by this point. A new generation of young stars who weren't so cocky were about to emerge and this aging man was still acting like he was the king of the world. The poster for the film was a rather silly idea, based upon a plot device that you might not get away with today. The lady of the expert was on this poster with the A lister, but you saw something one didn't normally see in mainstream ads. It was mostly about her body and the fading box office power of the star. That was the high point of her acting career. She had a couple of other screen appearances. One in a tossed together sequel, another much later on as herself in a truly great film. The expert dealt with people who valued family above almost everything else. Even third cousins and in-laws were treated like royalty. And those often tenuous connections allowed another American who had a big mouth far more power than he should have ever possessed. This man married to a relative of the powerful people near the equator eventually got in very big trouble and then ratted out the expert, the genius, and basically everyone else he could when he got busted. He was the proverbial weak link in the chain that destroyed their whole empire. A guy who redefined WITSEC, way beyond Henry Hill in his overall impact. The expert and the rat are both dead now. The genius is alive, now back in trouble of a different kind, but out of that particular business which made him cool to many that revere Scarface nowadays. Someone should portray the expert in a biopic one day. And someone else should portray the genius as well. Someone who isn't a 21st century version of the widely despised former A list CDAN staple. He deserves better than that.

The expert: Jon Roberts ("Cocaine Cowboy")

The genius: Mickey Munday

Cokehead star: Al Pacino

Pros in another field: Pittsburgh Steelers

Lady of the expert: Toni Mooney

CDAN despised star: Ryan O’Neal ("So Fine")

Rat: Max Mermelstein