- "What is past is past. Never go back. Not for excuses, not for justification, not for happiness. You are what you are, the world is what it is."
- ―Alfred Gronevelt[src]
Alfred Gronevelt was the owner of the Xanadu Hotel and a friend to the Clericuzio crime family.
Biography[]
Born in Sweden in the early twentieth century, he moved to Las Vegas as a young man and eventually rose to become manager of the Xanadu Hotel, which was soon known as the finest hotel in Vegas. He was initially supported by the Santadio crime family, until 1964, when Domenico Clericuzio had the Santadios wiped out and claimed Alfred's friendship for his own. Around this time, Gronevelt's second-in-command, Cully Cross, began to get ideas above his station and Gronevelt had him murdered.
Under the Clericuzios[]
Alfred enjoyed the friendship of the Clericuzios, who allowed him greater freedom than the Santadios had, but kept him managed by their most notorious enforcer, Joseph "Pippi" De Lena. Gronevelt and De Lena became friends, and it was at the Xanadu where De Lena met Nalene Jessup, who he later married and fathered two children with. The eldest, Cross, became Gronevelt's pupil in the ways of business.
The Hotelier and the Senator[]
Gronevelt also enjoyed the friendship of Walter Wavven, the Governor of Nevada, and gained special favours from him in return for preferential treatment at the Xanadu. When Wavven's daughter Marcy was murdered, Alfred had Cross and Pippi eliminate the murderer, Theo Tatoski, snapping Walter out of his grief and enabling him to run for Senator.
Gronevelt eventually died. His funeral was absolutely monumental, befitting of a man who had given so much to so many. He bequeathed Cross his shares of the Xanadu in his will.
Behind the scenes[]
- He was portrayed by Seymour Cassel in The Last Don miniseries. He appears in two novels by Mario Puzo, The Last Don and Fools Die.