Rat Pack Party Girl: From Prostitute to Women’s Advocate

by McCormick, Jane

  It was one of the funniest things that ever happened to me and the fish was the biggest carp I’d ever seen. We got it off the hook and threw it back in the lake because the people in Minnesota don’t eat bottom feeders like carp. Instead, we went home with a few sunfish that Patti cleaned and we fried them up for breakfast.

  She said she’d always bait my hook if I’d come and live with her and after a year had flown by I moved in with her at her downtown St. Paul apartment. She had a tabby cat and a fifty-five gallon saltwater fish tank. It became my new home.

  Over the years, I had worked occasionally as a nanny and learned to be a very good housekeeper. Looking for a new way to earn money, I put an ad for custom house cleaning in Lavender Magazine, a gay and lesbian publication. I got a call from Joe who was the Human Resources Manager for The Musicland Group and after cleaning his beautiful home, he placed an ad for me in the Musicland newsletter with a strong recommendation of quality cleaning and trust. After being established, I put an ad in the St. Paul Pioneer Press and my one-lady cleaning business began to soar.

  We had fun exploring St. Paul and all the Winter Carnival events. We lived close to the Science Museum, the State Fair, and could see the State Capital Fourth of July fireworks from our living room window.

  Patti graduated from Minneapolis Art and Design and Metropolitan State University. She had beautiful oil paintings, charcoal drawings and photography hanging on her walls. Her photos were based on her thesis called Impersonalization and Dehumanization Occurring in Society, and the images showed how we use drive-in fast food, high-rise building apartment living and computers as a way of showing how society practices less social personal interaction. Her imagination was outstanding and she inspired me to explore.

  I continued to do my All Girl Review that Patti supported and enjoyed for the next two years. Then we bought a townhouse in Vadnais Heights, a suburb of St Paul, and we moved into the three-bedroom, two-bath home with a fireplace and we adopted a golden lab from the Golden Valley Rescue. I couldn’t have been happier.

  Not long after that Patti’s mom, Phyllis, moved near us, and I’d gotten a chance to love her like the mother that I’d never had before. Phyllis was a God-loving, humorous woman with dignity and poise. She joined us every Sunday for football, summer barbecues and many good times.

  Two years later, Patti accepted a severance package from her employer, Deluxe Corporation which was downsizing. While she looked for work, I kept getting more referrals from my happy customers and I asked her to come and help me. That’s when we made a bet that she would have to help me clean for a year if she didn’t find work in the next month. After that, she began to help me with my house cleaning business and we put an ad in the paper and before we knew it we had eight to ten customers per day, earning a healthy income of up to $100,000 per year.

  In 1998 we opened up a new business called #1 Dustbusters and we rented a space downtown in White Bear Lake and hired workers. I handled the phones, scheduled the cleaning and trained employees. Patti purchased supplies, did the bookkeeping and cleaned. Business was booming and we couldn’t have been happier.

  It was during that time I began to tell her in more details about my days in Vegas. She didn’t understand how I’d ended up in prostitution and wanted to know how I connected with big name celebrities like Frank Sinatra. She always thought it had something to do with my outgoing personality.

  One night, Patti watched Ocean’s 11 on the local television channel, with Frank, Dean, Sammy, Peter and Joey. After watching it she could see their personalities as I had described them, knowing that I was with them to booze and party it up shortly after they’d shot their scenes; that in fact, I actually stood behind the front entrance of the Sands and watched the boys being photographed in the now-famous photo in front of the Sands Hotel and Casino marquee with their names on it.

  On Thanksgiving in 2003, Patti, Phyllis and I went to Las Vegas to have dinner with my daughter Roberta. We enjoyed our Thanksgiving turkey as a family then the three of us got a room downtown at the Plaza. Patti rented a car and I took Phyllis and her around the town and showed them a good time.

  One night the three of us had dinner at the domed restaurant in the Plaza and we feasted on King Crab legs that were served to us in the same booth where Sharon Stone and Robert DeNiro sat at in filming of Casino. We didn’t know it at the time but after seeing the movie, we learned the coincidence of us sitting in the same booth. I sat right where Sharon Stone sat during the making of the movie.

  Another time, in 2005, we went to Vegas and stayed at the Plaza downtown where in the coffee shop there was a picture of the Rat Pack on stage reading from a cue card that one showgirl was holding. The left side of the picture was cropped-off. Patti and I looked at it and I thought it looked familiar but couldn’t remember, but thought that was me holding the other side. After we’d returned home Patti searched the Internet for the photo and found it, only it had me in it, and when she asked if it was me on the left side, I said, “Oh, I always hated that picture!” But, after Patti had seen the picture of the Rat Pack at the Plaza in Vegas, she started writing my life story.

  At first she began writing as I told her my story. While we cleaned, Patti kept asking me questions, looking for the right angle to tell my story. She loved the Vegas stories, but like me didn’t want to glorify prostitution. We hoped to bring interest to a serious problem that happened to me and that happens to many others throughout the world.

  Later that year we went back to Vegas and I took Patti around my old stomping grounds. I wanted her to see the Sands Casino where I threw the dice for forty-five minutes. Just like old times, I got on a roll. The crowd surrounded me at the craps table and the pit boss had to bring out other racks of money as I kept winning. As I won point after point, I could feel the old boys cheering me on from their graves and it gave me goose bumps.

  I took Patti back to the Copa room and wanted to show her what it looked like. The room was locked and we couldn’t get in so I took her to the coffee shop where Frank had knocked the chair over and threw the plate at the chef. Then I took her to the pool area and showed her where Dean had jumped into the pool with his suit on. For her, seeing was believing, and my stories became more realistic to her.

  Chapter 30

  Eppolito

  Later in 2002, Roy, a friend of mine whom I’d known for seven years from Los Angeles, was refinancing Lou Eppolito’s home in Las Vegas. While they sat in his office, a sectioned-off portion inside his three-car garage, Roy saw a photograph of Eppolito, who played Fat Andy in Goodfellas with Martin Scorsese. After completing the paperwork for Lou, Roy asked about the pictures on the wall and Eppolito told him he’d been in many movies and was the CEO of Da-An-Tone Productions. As Lou told him about the pictures on the wall, he also said he was a screenwriter and was looking for a good story.

  With that, Roy told him about my life in Vegas and Eppolito asked him to call me.

  When Roy got home, he called and told me that he’d just come from Lou’s house and had seen wall-to-wall pictures of celebrities hanging there along with his NYPD medals and awards. He was a retired, highly-decorated police officer who’d become a detective.

  He filled me in on his accomplishments as a character actor in other notable Hollywood films, such as David Lynch’s Lost Highway, Woody Allen’s Bullets Over Broadway, Jim and John Thomas’s Predator 2, and he had credits for writing Turn of Faith.

  In addition to his movie stardom he wrote a best-seller book called Mafia Cop: The Story of an Honest Cop Whose Family Was the Mob. He told me about his father who was a Mafia hit man and how he chose to be a good cop for the NYPD—only to become one of its most highly-decorated officers.

  I was excited to get an opportunity to talk to a movie producer so I called him as soon as I finished talking to Roy.

  Lou answered the phone and in his excitement he told me he wanted to hear more about my life with Frank Sinatra and all the celebrities I knew back in the 60s
.

  I laughed and said, “It will take me too long to tell you everything I know about all those guys!”

  We continued to chat and I could tell he was anxious to meet me in person. He wanted to know when I could fly out to meet him and I told him I’d book a flight today and could be out there next week.

  After hanging up, I talked to Patti and she looked him up on the Internet. She said he looked like the real deal and that I should go talk with him. I called my sister-in-law Paula, who lived in Vegas, and she too wanted to come and support and defend me in my adventure.

  The following week, Roy picked me up at the airport and took me to Lou’s home. It was in a gated community in a prestigious part of town, not far from my brother and sister-in-law’s home. After ringing the doorbell, Lou graciously met us with open arms, an Italian hug, and a kiss on the cheek like I’d seen him do in Goodfellas. He introduced me to his wife Franny and her mother who welcomed us warmly into their home.

  Lou, Roy and I walked through the gourmet kitchen and out the patio doors into the backyard that had a raised platform deck with white coliseum pillars and Greek statues alongside the swimming pool with a putting green in the back part of the yard.

  My eyes bugged out when I saw his yard and he said, “Don’t ever think I bought this house on a cop’s salary!”

  I had to laugh to myself when I saw the two of them standing next to a stainless-steel barbecue beside the house. Lou was a five-foot-ten, stocky-built man with jet-black hair, a soap star mustache, with cold black piercing eyes in his mid-fifties. Roy was a striking six-foot-ten man sporting a Wallisian beard in his mid-forties who towered over Lou.

  Lou’s 115-pound mastiff dog romped around us with a ball while Lou offered us a cold cocktail. I sat down on the luxurious patio furniture and I graciously began to tell Lou about my life in Las Vegas.

  After talking for an hour, Lou invited us into his office. Lou told me he thought that my story could be a blockbuster movie. He pointed to the photographs on the wall and explained who the people were and signed and gave me a copy of his best seller Mafia Cop.

  I was impressed.

  Before leaving I told him I wanted him to meet my friend Jim and sister-in-law Paula. He offered to take us out to lunch the next day so we could talk further about my story and possible screenwriting contract.

  Afterwards Roy took me to his home where I stayed for the night. He was thrilled to have me and we had a lot to catch up on. I met Roy when Sue, my ex-girlfriend from Chicago, and I first moved back to Orange County. We were living in the house that my grandmother left me. Roy was at that time a bouncer at Tricks, and I was a happy hour bartender during the afternoons. The owners posted it as “Happy Hour with Tricksie,” and I’d dress in my black boa, put on my false eyelashes and razzle-dazzle them with my Vegas stories. I was a hell of a bartender and believe me, nobody was without a drink!

  It was so crazy being back around Roy because the two of us were Aries. Both professionally self-motivated, highly energetic and extremely expressive. He had an immaculately kept three-bedroom home with a fireplace, backyard pool and small cuddly golden retriever. That night he barbecued steaks and he served expensive chardonnay while we talked old times together. He’d been quite successful as a realtor and I was proud to know him.

  That night when I mentioned that Lou wanted me to sign a contract, Roy advised me to be cautious.

  The next day Roy took me to Rent-A-Car and I got a room at the Plaza. I wanted to see Lou when I wanted to and not bother anyone to drive me.

  The next day I called Lou and he asked me to come over by myself. I drove over to his house and we went into his office to talk.

  He said, “I have very good connections for projects like this and I believe that this will be a blockbuster movie within a year if not before.”

  I smiled thinking that I was going to make some money for my story, but then he said he wanted $74,000 to write my story. I was dumfounded. I thought that he should have paid me. It was my unique story.

  After we’d spent money for me to come and meet him and only after a few days, the real story came out. He wanted to have us pay him for writing my true-life story!

  I almost fell to the floor and I told him, “No way. We can’t ever do that!”

  Then Lou said, “You could ask your family for a loan!”

  I said, “Are you kidding or what?” That’s when I realized that my life story would never happen in a million years.

  We sat there for a minute saying nothing then Lou looked at me seriously and said, “I believe in your true life story so much that I will do it for only $45,000.”

  I said, “We cannot do that either!”

  Then he said, “Let’s have a drink and think about it for a while. But I’d like to get something in writing before you leave tomorrow!”

  I told him that I didn’t know what to do and that I had to talk to Patti.

  Then he said, “Would you sign a contract with a stipulation that you gals get a loan for only one year from your bank? You’ve had your business for many years. You’ll make up to $180,000 within one year after the movie is made and you will be able to pay the loan back.”

  I told Lou I had to think about it and that I’d get back to him. I went back to the Plaza and called Patti. I told her what he’d said and she couldn’t believe what he was asking. Patti told me to talk to Roy and Paula.

  I told them about the $45,000 and Paula thought I should go for it, but Roy didn’t think it was a good idea.

  The next day I went back to Lou’s house with and I signed a contract on contingency that we pay only if we could get a loan.

  Following my return, Eppolito and I talked a lot and he sent me a copy of another script he’d written and copies of the movies he’d been in. As we continued to talk, I began to believe in him and made an appointment with the bank.

  After taking a loan out against #1 Dustbusters, Eppolito began to interview me. He’d call me late at night around eleven, and I’d sometimes cry, yelling and reliving my story. It was very hard for me to go through and he recorded my conversation every Sunday for ten weeks.

  A couple of months later he sent me a rough copy of his first draft, titled Never Met a Stranger. I was displeased with the shabby misspelled work and called to give him a verbal trashing. Not long after that he sent me another copy, only this time the errors were corrected. It was much better but I still felt that it was lacking story.

  During this process and after hanging up with Lou, I couldn’t go to sleep. Patti and I talked about our discussion and she decided to recreate our conversation and she wrote her version and called it The Confidence Game, which was the ongoing conversation between Eppolito the Mafia Cop and my life back in Vegas. We had it copyrighted but never published it.

  A few weeks before he finished, Patti and I flew out to Vegas to see the work that we’d hired him to do. In his office Patti saw his famous photographs on the wall and he handed us a copy of the script and he left the room. We read the script out loud and an hour later he returned to see how we were doing. We thought he did a good job but truthfully, neither of us knew a thing about movie scripts.

  Then he left the room again and returned to show us his gold plated hand revolver. It was heavy to hold and he told us how expensive the gun was.

  Then Patti looked him in the eye and said, “How do I know if you’re going to get our money back in the year’s time?”

  He stared back into her eyes and said, “If you can’t trust a cop, who can you trust?”

  We went back to the Plaza feeling satisfied and later that evening we returned to Minnesota.

  A couple of months later he provided us with a revised movie script and he changed the name of it to I Never Met a Stranger.

  After a year had passed and the movie wasn’t made, I began to call Eppolito almost daily complaining about the money he’d promised that we’d get back. We had to file for bankruptcy against the bank loan.

  Then one day a
month later, Eppolito called and told me that my movie was going to be made, that he was going to meet the investor the next day and that I’d get my money back soon.

  However, the next day, on March 9, 2005, I got a call from Roy. He told me to turn on the news and I saw Eppolito being arrested with Stephen Caracappa, his NYPD detective partner, who worked for the New York mafia and Lucchese crime family—the two of them were arrested for mafia crimes and murders in New York.

  Later I learned that the investor was an FBI Agent who said he was going to buy all of Eppolito’s scripts and promised to make all of the movies.

  The day before he was arrested, Eppolito provided the FBI Agent with his request for prostitutes and drugs during his visit to Las Vegas through his son’s connections.

  It was shocking to learn that we’d been dealing with a murderer and when they picked him up at Piero’s, an upscale Italian restaurant frequented by Vegas wise guys as well as Robert De Nero and Joe Pecsi during the filming of Casino, that he was wearing the gold-plated gun that he’d shown us.

  I always suspected that Scorsese was inspired by “my” character in his movie, Casino, and the role of Ginger played by Sharon Stone. I believe that because there are so many coincidences in the film that depict my character, such as the clothing, hair styles, cars, money in shoe boxes, beatings, my boyfriend Johnny and most of all my chinchilla jacket that Sam Snead had bought me to keep Arnold Palmer entertained all night.

  Weeks later, I got a call from the FBI telling me that they couldn't keep Eppolitio in jail because they had no proof of the crimes and needed time to build a case against him. The only way they could keep him behind bars was for tax evasion. The FBI learned that he didn’t pay taxes on the money that he'd gotten from us, so I had to provide proof that we’d paid him for writing the movie script and the FBI convicted him for tax evasion. That conviction would keep him in jail until the trial in New York for murder.