Sinatra

by Anthony Summers

  172–73 “He said, ‘Pearl’ ”: Levinson, September, 111. Sinatra was also quoted as saying he learned he had the part while in London and—another variation— Montreal. Boston seems more likely (re Boston—Jan. entries, Where or When? LAT, Jun. 20, 1958; London—Hollywood Citizen-News; Montreal—Sinatra, My Father, 96); (FS/Clift) Patricia Bosworth, Montgomery Clift, New York: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1978, 224–, 232, Robert LaGuardia, Monty, New York: Avon, 1977, 110–; (put FS to bed) Sinatra, My Father, p. 97–; (“We would get”) Bosworth, 226; (worrying/called/still talked) ibid., 224, LaGuardia, 113.

  173–74 Marriage breakdown: (rushed to Europe) Kelley, 201; (disastrous tour) Hollywood Citizen-News, May 8, 16, LAT, May 17, 19, 1953, Giornale di Sicilia, Jan. 26, 1962, Kelley, 203; (booed in Naples) LAT, May 17, 1953; (Milan/Rome) Flamini, 193, int. Abbe Lane; (Scandinavia, etc.) May-June 1953 entries, Where or When?; (“I remember exactly”) Gardner, 191; (“more than anything”) Los Angeles Herald & Express, Oct. 15, 1953; (“exhausted”) LAT, Oct. 30, Hollywood Citizen-News, (LA) Daily News, Oct. 29, 1953, Shaw, Sinatra, 178; (wrist slashing)Time, Aug. 29, 1955, Look, May 14, 1957, Kelley, 207, Wilson, Sinatra, 95; (“thin cuts”) Fisher, Been There, 160, Nov. 29, 1953, entry, Where or When?; (Ava psychiatrist/proof of love) Kupcinet with Neimark, 214–; (FS psychiatrist) int. Hildi Greenson—widow of Dr. Ralph Greenson, Wilson, Sinatra, 120; (118 pounds) Flamini, 201; (lose hair) Woman’s Home Companion, Jun. 1956, Higham, Ava, 92; (“I was busted”) FS int. by Zion.

  Chapter 17: An Assist from the Boys

  175–76 Eternity Oscar: (Critics) O’Brien, 65–, Frank, 92; (“Now I’m a star”) Taylor, 173; (“Although Mr. S.”) Jacobs and Stadiem, 58; (Oscar night) undat. 1954 Hedda Hopper column, MHL, Wilson, Sinatra, 117; (“greatest change”) Parsons, 156; (“It’s funny”) Motion Picture, Aug. 1955; (“That’s it”) int. Hildi Greenson; (felt secure) Motion Picture, Aug. 1955.

  176 Improvement on musical front: (Capitol) Granata, 81; (“Ever see”) Billboard, Nov. 20, 1965, citing Metronome, Nov. 1953.

  176–77 FS and Mafia link: (Lanza) Chappell to White, Nov. 27, 1956, Box 4, File 13, Harry Anslinger Papers, Strait and Robinson, 145–; (no club appearances) Where or When?, corr. Ric Ross—not five years as in Kelley, 146; (Shamrock) Jan. 28–Feb. 10, 1950, entry, Where or When?; (Smiley) int. Luellen Smiley, Peterson, The Mob, 387–, LAT, Apr. 28, 1951; (Miller/godmother) Newsday, Apr. 17, 1991; (“He was always”) Kelley, 194; (Moretti/Fischetti at opening) ibid., 146; (Chez Paree) ibid., 157, Where or When? and see Taylor, 41, Kupcinet with Neimark, 150–; (Steel Pier) Sep. 4, 1950, Aug. 1953, entries, Where or When?

  177 500 Club/D’Amato: (returned to sing) Van Meter, 106– re ’51 run, multiple entries, Where or When?; (D’Amato background/Luciano) Van Meter, 46–, 59–; (sole owner) ibid., 179–; (Reginelli) Ovid Demaris, The Boardwalk Jungle, Toronto: Bantam, 1986, 32–; (Bruno) ibid. and Van Meter, 77—but, re name of son, see also Van Meter, 173; (FS/D’Amato) ibid., 103–, 200, 278–, 107, 167; (“Sinatra was down”) Philadelphia, Sep. 1983.

  177–78 Mafia provided work: (“Before he made”) Vincent Teresa with Thomas Renner, Vinnie Teresa’s Mafia, Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1975, 125; (Boston work) Jan. 1953 entries, Where or When?; (Palladino) Teresa with Renner, 370, 390, Boston Globe, undat. 1943; (Desert Inn) Sep. 13, 1951, 1952 entries Where or When?; (“At the time”) int. Sonny King; (D’Amato call) Van Meter, 107; (Dalitz background) undat. clip, “The Double Life of Moe Dalitz,” Las Vegas Review-Journal, Roemer, 141–, Earley, 46; (Dalitz/Luciano) Peterson, The Mob, 159, 229, 247; (intelligence report) Peter Noyes, Legacy of Doubt, New York: Pinnacle, 1973, 242.

  178 Mafia and FS family divorce: (Cohen/lesser mobster/“go on home”) The Cohen associate arousing Sinatra’s jealousy was Johnny Stompanato, the future lover of Lana Turner, who was stabbed to death in 1958 by Turner’s teenage daughter. According to one of Ava Gardner’s biographers she had dated Stompanato as early as 1948 (Cohen, 84–, Crane with Jahr, 33–, Wayne, Ava, 96); (“When Sinatra”) “Summary Memorandum,” Sep. 29, 1950, FSFBI.

  178 telegram: The full signature was “WILLIE MOORE,” an anglicization of Moretti and one of several names the gangster used. The first reference to the telegram located by the authors appears in The Green Felt Jungle, the ground-breaking 1962 book on Las Vegas by Pulitzer winner Ed Reid. Reid reported that the telegram was on file at the U.S. Bureau of Narcotics, and had been sent “when the singer decided to divorce his wife Nancy.” Other writers, including Nicholas Gage, have referred to the telegram in this context. That would date it to 1950. A search in available Bureau of Narcotics files failed to locate this telegram. William Gallinaro, however, a former New York police officer who became an investigator for the Senate Subcommittee on Investigations, told the authors he recalled having been shown the telegram by a law enforcement colleague (Reid and Demaris, 33; Gage, 91); (“The integrity”) Sterling, 72; (“showed a lack”) Katz, 220–, and see Sinatra with Coplon, 74, Nathan Glazer and Daniel Moynihan, Beyond the Melting Pot, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1971, 197.

  178 “Luciano was tempted”: The Bureau of Narcotics report in question refers to Luciano having seen Sinatra in April 1953, but he almost certainly saw him in May—when Sinatra performed in Naples (Siragusa to Anslinger, Jan. 5, 1954, LLBN).

  178–79 Moretti dead/“Because of my dad’s”: int. Luellen Smiley. Moretti was murdered in October 1951.

  178–79 Controversy over getting part in Eternity: (Fontane) Mario Puzo, The Godfather, London: Pan, 1970, 8–, 41–, 38, 35, 37–; (Woltz) ibid., 60, 55, 35–, 68; (Cohn parentage) Cohn entry, International Directory of Films and Filmmakers, vol. 4, London: St. James Press, 1996; (nickelodeon) Bernard Dick, The MerchantPrince of Poverty Row: Harry Cohn of Columbia Pictures, Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky, 1993, 20–, Bob Thomas, King Cohn, Beverly Hills, CA: New Millennium, 2000, 20–; (despot) Dick, 13, Zinnemann, 117; (sex appetite) Thomas, 61–; (horse racing/gambler/Omar Kiam) ibid., 58–, Wilson, Show Business, 199; (opposed casting FS) LAHE, Mar. 14, 1976; (“What phony stuff!”) New York Daily News, Jan. 24, 1978, and see TV Guide, Apr. 16, 1977, and Hour, CBS TV, undat. 1985.

  180 Mafia pressure/Eternity: (“Hey, I got that part”) Jacobs and Stadiem, 102, int. George Jacobs; (admitted to Dexter) int. Brad Dexter.

  180–81 as did Ava: Gardner was involved not least because, as reported in the previous chapter, she had herself urged Cohn to give Frank the part in Eternity. “For God’s sake, Harry,” she recalled saying, “I’ll give you a free picture if you’ll just test him” (Gardner, 178–, Dick, 183); (Jurow) ints. Erin Jo Jurow, Philip Wuntch, Jurow as told to Wuntch, 24–; (Wood “connected”) Rose, 91–; (Wood/ Costello/Lansky) ibid., 92–, 180, 190, Katz, 140; (Alo power) Miami Herald, Dec. 20, 1965, Sifakis, 6, “Correlation Summary,” Jul. 28, 1965, FBI 92-2815-355; (Alo knew FS & family) ints. Carole Russo, Hector Saldana, and see chapter 2, p. 10, and chapter 3, p. 21; (“his closest friend”) int. Kenneth Roberts; (Giné intimate) ints. Carole Russo, Kenneth Roberts, Peter Levinson; (Giné manager) corr. Ric Ross, Billboard, Nov. 20, 1965; (Alo/William Morris) Messick, Show Business, 185, 234; (Alo/Wood) ints. Carole Russo, Erin Jo Jurow, Jurow as told to Wuntch, 29, Rose, 190–; (Alo/Cohn) Jurow as told to Wuntch, 30, int. Carole Russo.

  181 Joan Cohn acknowledged/“two gentlemen”/horse’s head?: int. Peter Evans. Eternity scriptwriter Dan Taradash, however, said he knew nothing of the mob involvement; and that he probably would never have been told. He and Cohn’s widow dismissed the “horse’s head on the bed” element of the Godfather novel as fiction. So did Cohn’s former aide Jonie Taps and Abe Lastvogel of the William Morris Agency. Novelist Mario Puzo likely knew from his research that the planting of animal cadavers recurs in histories of the Mafia in Sicily. Delivery of a cadaver signaled that the recipient was under threat, and the gravity of the threat was indicated by the size of the animal delivered. Puzo likely saw the drama of this and made the horse-on-the-bed scene the climax of an episode of
which he knew the outline from real-life sources (int. Dan Taradash; Joan Cohn, Lastvogel, Taps denials—int. Peter Evans, Kelley, 194–, LAHE, Mar. 14, 1976; planting of cadavers—Henner Hess, Mafia & Mafiosi, New York: New York University Press, 1996, 114, Sifakis, 159); (“he was the one who got”) Katz, 250. Costello was in prison, for contempt of the U.S. Senate during the Kefauver Committee hearings, between August 1952 and late October 1953. The mafioso, however, was not cut off from the outside world during that time (Katz, 195, Wolf with DiMona, 241–); (Luciano authorized) Charles Rappeleye and Ed Becker, All American Mafioso, New York: Doubleday, 1991, 69; (Rosselli background) Rappeleye and Becker, 58–, 130; (“was the one”) ibid., 133; (“Give Frank”) Richard Mahoney, Sons & Brothers, New York: Arcade, 1999, 63, 388, n 54.

  181–82 FS & Mafia from Nov. 1953: (Shenker/agents) Kelley, 207; (Shenker background) Life, May 29, 1970, Sacramento Bee, Mar. 8, 1977, Las Vegas Sun, Jun. 17, 1985, Las Vegas Review-Journal, Feb. 18, 1989; (“When Frank ate”) New York Journal-American, Feb. 25, 1956; (FS to be part of Sands) Sinatra, My Father, 109, Pignone, 101, FS testimony, Nevada State Gaming Control Board, Feb. 11, 1981; (IRS lien) LAT, Aug. 20, 1953, Nevada State Journal, Oct. 31, 1953, LAHE, Jan. 16, 1962, Carpozi, Sinatra, 148–.

  182 paid only $10,000: Sinatra’s fee for Eternity is usually given as $8,000. The authors have accepted the $10,000 figure given by former William Morris agent Martin Jurow, who was involved in the deal (O’Brien, 63, Jurow as told to Wuntch, 30); (“until he has cleared”) LAT, Aug. 20, 1953; (FS got license) Nevada State Journal, Feb. 10, 1954; (paying off debt) ibid., (Reno, NV) Evening Gazette, Aug. 19, 1953, LAHE, Jun. 19, 1972.

  182 Costello/Alo/Sands: Sifakis, 182, Rose, 189, int. Ed Walters. The principal owner of record was Jake Friedman, a Texas gambler, but sources agree that big-name mobsters shared the real ownership with him. (Rose, 189, James Bacon, Hollywood Is a Four-Letter Town, New York: Avon, 1976, 185, LAHE, Jun. 19, 1972); (Alo monitoring) Robert Lacey, Little Man, Boston: Little, Brown, 1991, 293–, John Tuohy, “The Sands,” Aug. 2001, americanmafia.com; (Entratter background) Sifakis, 107, Reid and Demaris, 92, Sinatra, Legend, 52, 114, Fisher with Fisher, 30, “Sands Hotel,” Jan. 21, 1963, FBI 92-6314-2, 35–.

  182–83 FS cavorting: Ovid Demaris, The Last Mafioso, New York: Times Books, 1981, 63, 325. The enforcer, a suspected murderer, was Benedicto Macri, who was used by Luciano loyalist Albert Anastasia (Peterson, The Mob, 312, Sifakis, 12, Cook, 317–, Max Block with Ron Kenner, Max the Butcher, Secaucus, NJ: Lyle Stuart, 1982, 169); (Oct. at Sands) Where or When? Sinatra, Legend, 113; (in style) Wilson, Sinatra, 138–; (Vegas home) Sinatra, Legend, 113; (“King”) Wilson, Sinatra, 138.

  183–86 Nature of FS/mob relationship: (Kefauver/Nellis remembered) ints. Joe Nellis, M/G int. of Joe Nellis; (“I’ve always felt”) M/G int. of Eddie Jaffe; (“Sinatra is a paradoxical”) Ezra Goodman, The Fifty Year Decline and Fall of Hollywood, New York: MacFadyen, 1962, 240; (“I remember”) Fisher with Fisher, 277–; (Brothers Rico) Peter Viertel, Dangerous Friends, New York: Doubleday, 1992, 135; (FS told Coppola) Playboy, Jul. 1975; (Godfather III ) O’Brien, 209; (“The double doors”) Levinson, September, 136–; (“If anybody”) Davis, Boyar, and Boyar, 111, int. Tita Cahn, People, Jun. 1, 1998; (“Sometimes I wish”) Kelley, 439; (“I could have put”) Wilson, Sinatra, 6; (“When he said”) MacLaine, 71; (“I don’t think”) Las Vegas Review-Journal, Dec. 9, 1998; (“Sicilians were proud”) Wilson, Sinatra, 17; (“Sinatra wanted”) Shaw, Sinatra, 289; (“If they remain”) Esquire, Apr. 1966; (“very obviously”) Puzo, Godfather Papers, 187; (“These are the guys”/factual background) LAT Calendar, Jul. 26, 1992; (“The Boys”) int. John Smith; (reports 1951–54) “Correlation Summary,” Jun. 8, 1964, FSFBI, Siragusa to Anslinger, Jan. 5, 1954, and “Int. of George Evans” by Charles Siragusa, Apr. 12, 1948, LLBN; (“It was a symbiotic”) int. John Smith; (“There’s something”/“Sunday nights”) Tosches, 206, 152–; (“Tell the little”) Lewis with Gluck, 156–; (“Jerry got nervous”) Block with Renner, 129; (Lanza episode) Chappell to White, Nov. 27, 1956, Box 4, File 13, Harry Anslinger Papers, Strait and Robinson, 145–, 155–, 162–; (Lucchese/Luciano) Peterson, The Mob, 296, Hendrik De Leeuw, Underworld Story, London: Neville & Spearman Ltd., 1955, 50; (Luccheseand FS) Gage, Mafia, 89, “Frank Sinatra” memo, Feb. 10, 1961, FSFBI, Sinatra testimony, Select Committee on Crime, U.S. House of Representatives, 92nd Cong., 2nd sess., 1973.

  186–87 racetrack: ibid. The racetrack was the Berkshire Downs, near Springfield, Massachusetts. Sinatra’s involvement with the track was investigated by the House Select Committee on Crime in 1972 (LAT, Jul. 19, 1972); (angered mob bosses) Teresa with Renner, 125; (spat with Bruno) int. Jean Bruno; (“I told him”) Hamill, 146; (“He was always”) Miami Herald, Apr. 8, 2001.

  Chapter 18: A Triumph of Talent

  188–89 Career recovery: (late in Eternity shoot) Goldmine, May 3, 1991; (Capitol)Granata, 82; (four songs/two not released) Rednour, 239, 259, Scott Sayers and Ed O’Brien, Sinatra: The Man and His Music, Austin, TX: TSD, 1992, 54, corr. Ric Ross; (working with Riddle) ibid., 86; (chart successes) Lees, 100, Sayers and O’Brien, 260, 264, Tom Rednour, Songs by Sinatra, Beacon, NY: Wordcrafters, 1998, 109; (poll/music magazines) Shaw, Sinatra, 192, Billboard, Nov. 20, 1965, John Howlett, Frank Sinatra, New York: Wallaby Books, 1979, 76; (film offers) O’Brien, 67; (hits in eight years) Sayers and O’Brien, 260; (“well away”) Time, Aug. 29, 1955; (“I was never”) Good Housekeeping, Jul. 1960; (“absolutely right”) LAT, Dec. 12, 1965; (“meek”) Friedwald, 207.

  189 Capitol: (Livingston/Dexter) ibid., 206–, Goldmine, May 3, 1991; (contract) Esquire, Dec. 1987, Rolling Stone, Jan. 24, 1991, Friedwald, 207, Clooney with Barthel, 136; (“There must have been”) Granata, 82, Friedwald, 207.

  189–90 America of the 1950s and FS: (“Eisenhower Siesta”) Manchester, 772, 776; (Monroe) Anthony Summers, Goddess: The Secret Lives of Marilyn Monroe, New York: Macmillan, 1985, 59; (“sweet survivor”/“In the fifties”) undat. art. by Barbara Grizzuti Harrison, Los Angeles Tattler; (“had produced”) Playboy, Apr. 1998; (“when a vocalist”) M Inc., Feb. 1991.

  190–92 Nelson Riddle: (“Maestro”) Jacobs and Stadiem, 124; (in-house) Granata, 85; (teeth) Levinson, September, 64, Friedwald, 212; (Bob Crosby et al.) ibid., 213–; (obscure) ibid., 29, 208, 216; (“Do yourself a favor”/Stordahl) ibid., 207–, and see Vern Yocum’s taped recollections, supplied to authors by Vernise Yocum Pelzel; (“just conducting”) ibid., 217; (“Jesus Christ!”) Levinson, September, 113; (good deal in common) ibid., 17, 140, 217, 13, Friedwald, 254–; (classics) Hamill, 165, Levinson, September, 28, 26; (Dorsey) ibid., 46–; (“I watched”) Granata, 96–, (FS rejected) Douglas-Home, 34; (“a perfectionist”) Shaw, Sinatra, 174, and Vern Yocum’s taped recollections; (“He’d have very definite”) Douglas-Home, 34; (take notes/all night) Friedwald, 29, 254, Levinson, September, 136; (endless takes) ibid., Billboard, Nov. 20, 1965; (“If I wasn’t”) Kelley, 211; (“That gentle”) corr. Charles Higham, Sep. 18, 2003; (“There’s no one”) Shaw, Sinatra, 173–; (“the greatest”) Douglas-Home, 35; (“the finest”) Levinson, Trumpet Blues, 252; (“with the biggest”) Frank Sinatra Jr., As I Remember It.

  192–94 FS and 1950s albums: (nine albums) corr. Tom Rednour. The list of nine albums does not include four compilation albums, two movie soundtrack albums—for Pal Joey and Can-Can—or the five Riddle albums issued after 1963, when Sinatra was no longer with Capitol. Also not included is Songs for Young Lovers, which was a cocktail of orchestrations by Riddle and George Siravo—Riddle conducted (Tom Rednour—for more detail see Rednour, 234–, 249, Friedwald, 205; the Siravo-Riddle combination—Friedwald, 220–); (“First I decide”/“Tommy Dorsey did”) Douglas-Home, 36–; (knew how to get the best) Friedwald, 30–; (Capitol equipment) Granata, 23; (“lucid”) Hanna, 48; (“The ordinary”) Music, Spring 1955; (“the moment when”) Stereo Review, Nov. 1971; (“I changed record companies”) FS int. on CBS News special; (hats) ints. Peggy Connelly, Bob Neal, Ze
hme, 115–; (“the barometer”) Douglas-Home, 18.

  194–95 baldness: Baldness ran in the family, and hair loss had been evident in Sinatra since the mid-1940s (int. Frank Monaco, Kahn, 37); (“spray hair”) Jacobs and Stadiem, 56; (hairpieces) Goodman, 239, Kelley, 131, Woman’s Home Companion,Jun. 1956, Look, May 14, 1957; (“romantic”/“Even at the age”) Frank Sinatra Jr., As I Remember It; (“I didn’t care”) Levinson, September, 118, and see Lees, 100; (“up all night”) Taraborrelli, 175, and see ibid., 160, LaGuardia, 113; (Frankie) Frank Sinatra Jr., As I Remember It; (“man”/“cat”) e.g., “Makin’ Whoopee,” on Songs for Swingin’ Lovers, Capitol Records, 1956, rereleased on CD 1998, original “Makin’ Whoopee” lyrics, The Sinatra Songbook, www.vex.net; (“darling”/“baby”) “Night and Day” on A Swingin’ Affair, Capitol Records, 1957, rereleased on CD, 1998, “Night and Day,” The Sinatra Songbook; (“I’ve Got You”/“I’ve got, got,”) “I’ve Got You Under My Skin,” The Sinatra Songbook; (“Don’t sing”) William McBrien, Cole Porter, New York: Random House, 1998, 151, and see George Eells, The Life That Late He Led, New York: Putnam’s, 1967, 127; (studied lyrics) Douglas-Home, 34; (“I’ve always”) Granata, 98; (“He could practically”) Levinson, September, 118; (“Frank’s personal”) WP, May 16, 1998; (ballet/“stage-play”) ed. Mustazza, Popular Culture, 194; (“Music to me”) Douglas-Home, 35; (“points everything”) Granata, 11; (“plaintive”) Playboy, Apr. 1998, and see New Yorker, May 25, 1998, Charles Taylor, “Songs for Swingin’ Lovers,” www.salon.com; (“went beyond”) ibid.; (“darkness”) Rolling Stone, Jan. 24, 1991; (“He can say”) Dwiggins, 140; (“It was Ava”) Kelley, 209.