Sam Gilbert (businessman)

Sam Gilbert (1913 - November 23, 1987) was an American businessman who owned a construction company in Los Angeles, California. He is best known as a controversial athletic booster of the UCLA Bruins men's basketball team from the mid-1960s until UCLA was ordered to disassociate from him in 1981. He ran a money-laundering enterprise to finance the now-famous World Poker Tour tour stop called the Bicycle Casino, for which he was posthumously indicted in 1987. He was the husband of a well-known Los Angeles area teacher, Rose Gilbert.

Gilbert graduated from Hollywood High School, and then attended UCLA in the 1930s, but did not graduate. Gilbert had two sons, Michael and Robert, from his first wife.

Sam Gilbert met his second wife, Rose, through his younger brother. Rose was a graduate of UCLA, and became a renowned teacher at Palisades Charter High School. She was acknowledged by the Los Angeles Unified School District by a Lifetime Teacher and Golden Apple Awards. Rose was named Harvard University's Impact Teacher of the Year. She has appeared on CBS Television shows 48 Hours and the CBS Evening News with Katie Couric. Rose also has appeared on the May 2007 cover of Teacher Magazine. Rose had a daughter, Maggie, from her first marriage, who died of an embolism in 2004 at age 54. Rose Gilbert died on December 16, 2013 at the age of 95.

Rose was named by Star Wars: The Force Awakens writer/director J. J. Abrams as the influence for the character of Maz Kanata. Abrams told his home town newspaper, the Palisadian-Post, that he based Maz on his late Palisades Charter High School English teacher Rose Gilbert. He said:

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