When I Stop Talking, You'll Know I'm Dead: Useful Stories from a Persuasive Man

by Jerry Weintraub; Rich Cohen; George Clooney

  "Fine," I told him. "What do you want me to say?"

  "I want you to say that you are sorry, that you made a mistake, and that you shouldn't have done what you did."

  "But I didn't do anything."

  "It doesn't matter. Just say it."

  We got back into the van and went to the arena. When we got out, with all the boys standing around, the Colonel said, "Jerry has something he would like to say."

  "I am sorry," I told them, "I made a mistake, I should not have done what I did, and I will never do it again."

  But I used that promise, the Colonel's price--"Do it for me and later on I will do something for you"--many times over the years. There is a lesson in this: Let the other guy save face with his people, but keep score.

  Years later, the Colonel was living in Las Vegas, working as an advisor to Hilton Hotels. He was a great man, and still he died like most men die, little by little, then all at once. He had a stroke on January 21, 1997. He was eighty-seven years old. I was a pallbearer at his funeral and gave a eulogy, paying my respects to one of the last great showmen, and, more important, to a mentor and a true friend.

  Old Blue Eyes

  Working with Elvis made me rich, taught me show business, made me a player. I did not have to hustle quite as much. Once you've established yourself, you can, to some extent, let business find you. You become a beacon, a door into a better life. "Can you do for me what you did for Elvis?" In other words, people seek you out.

  One afternoon, as I was reading through contracts, or whatever--I mean, who can remember?--the telephone rang.

  "Hello."

  "Is this Jerry Weintraub?"

  "Yes."

  The voice on the other end touched a sweet spot in the back of my brain. I knew it, but was not sure from where.

  "Jerry, you and I need to talk business."

  "Who is this?"

  "Frank Sinatra."

  "Oh, come on," I said. "Who is it really?"

  "This is Frank Sinatra, Jerry, but I want you to call me Francis."

  Now, you have to understand, for me, yes, there was Perry Como, and the Beatles, and the Four Seasons, and Elvis, but Sinatra was it. Head and shoulders above the rest. He was my idol, who I went to see when I was not working, when I was low down and in need of a pick-me-up, and when I was flying high and wanted to celebrate. I was in love with this man, or the man he was in his music, before I ever shook his hand. More than just a performer, he was a symbol. He was Vegas and the high life, the epitome of cool, but also one of us, a kid from Hoboken, who struggled on the same streets and dreamed the same dreams. He had been challenged but persisted. He was tough, too, and did not let himself get pushed around. He was Maggio in From Here to Eternity, for godsakes! In short, he was you as you dreamed you might be. By the early seventies, when I knew him, he was beyond the recklessness of youth, the ups and downs, Ava Gardner, the feud with Warner Bros. He was in the highest realm of show business. He was royalty. Then there was his music, how he wrapped himself up in each song and turned everything into an anthem. His records became the soundtrack of your life. To this day, if you look in my car, you will find only Sinatra CDs. Which is why, when the call came like that, out of the blue, I wondered if I was being hoaxed.

  "Yes, Mr. Sinatra."

  "Please, call me Francis."

  "Okay, Francis. How can I help you?"

  "I want to meet."

  "Great. When?"

  "Look, kid, when I say I want to meet, that means now."

  "Where?"

  "Go to the Santa Monica airport. My plane is waiting. It will bring you to Palm Springs."

  "I would love to, Mr. Sinatra. But it's the middle of the day. I have meetings."

  "Call me Francis."

  "Okay, Francis."

  "Now, do what I say. Go to the airport. You will be home in time for dinner."

  "Yes, Francis."

  I drove to Santa Monica, got on the plane.

  A driver picked me up on the runway in Palm Springs. We drove through hills studded with wood and glass houses, each turned, like a flower, toward the sun. Sinatra met me at his front door, shook my hand, brought me in. He was slender and handsome, always with a half smile, always fixing a drink, his words commented on by his famously blue eyes, which, unless he was angry or depressed, and he got very depressed, seemed to be saying, "Can you believe our lives? Can you believe how much fun we're having?" Let's say he was wearing chinos, white loafers, silk socks, and a V-neck sweater--the man could dress. We talked. This was 1972. Frank had "retired" the year before. It was one of the many retirements he announced then unannounced. He went in and out of the ring more times than Muhammad Ali. The real champions are torn: They want to go out on top, leaving an image of their best selves lingering before the public, but cannot stand to stay out of the fight.

  Frank tapped my knee. "Look, Jerry," he said, "I've seen what you've done with Elvis. Very impressive. I'm thinking of coming out of retirement. Do you think I can play those same kind of rooms?"

  "I don't see why not."

  Of course, I would not put Sinatra in the exact same rooms where Elvis was singing. These were different performers. Elvis was for the masses, for the people in the little towns between the big towns, the great crowds that filled the fields of the state fair. Sinatra was for the Italians and Jews, for the city people. He was urban. But the point remained--I could put Frank into new joints, bigger joints, the sort of arenas where crooners had never performed.

  "Well, Okay," said Sinatra, "let's say that happened: Where would you start me?"

  "Frank Sinatra? Well. Frank Sinatra has to open at Carnegie Hall."

  I said this quickly, decisively, as if there was no other answer; a sense of certainty is what management is selling.

  "Well, yes," said Sinatra. "Carnegie Hall sounds interesting."

  He stood up, walked around the room, shaking the ice in his glass. "Okay, good," he said, "let's go with this."

  "Go with what?"

  "I want you to book a tour," said Sinatra. "I want you to handle this tour as I come out of retirement."

  I got quiet, looked out the windows.

  "What is it, kid?" asked Sinatra.

  I said, "Look, Mr. Sinatra, I don't want you to take this the wrong way..."

  "Francis, please. My name is Francis Albert Sinatra."

  "Okay, Francis, I don't want you to take this the wrong way, but I have heard, just being around, talking to people, that sometimes, now and then, and again, don't take this the wrong way, you don't show up--you make the date, but don't turn up for the show."

  He put down his drink, turned, and looked at me--his eyes were not humorous anymore, but icy blue. We didn't know each other, and, looking back, I suppose I was accusing him of being unprofessional. He said, "Are you crazy, coming into my house, talking to me like that? What's wrong with you?"

  I said, "Look, no disrespect, Francis, but that's what I heard. And my career is just getting started. And I'm doing great. I'm a millionaire already. And I don't want to get into something I can't handle."

  And he pointed his finger at me, and I'll never forget this, and said, "Here's what we're going to do. You and I, the two of us here, we're going to shake hands. And we're going to promise. I'm never going to disappoint you. And you know what, kid? You're never going to disappoint me, are you?"

  I said, "No, Francis, I will never disappoint you."

  And we shook hands, had another drink, and that was it. Once Frank Sinatra, excuse me, Francis, made a decision, it stayed made. He was loyal, a great man. Being accepted by Sinatra, entering his circle, that fraternity of knock-around guys, Dino, Jilly, Sammy, was one of the honors of my life. It was also one of the best possible credentials. It was Old Blue Eyes telling the guy at the desk, "Take care of him--he's one of mine."

  We opened at Carnegie Hall. I had ditched my cowboy hat and jeans for a tux. I had slipped out of Elvis Country into Sinatra Land. This is another part of the job: being able
to cross frontiers, move from culture to culture, making everyone believe you are a fully committed citizen of each. The curtain was called for 8:00 P.M. This was a black tie deal. Celebrities up the wazoo. Everyone was there. I'm not going to give you a list, but close your eyes and think of who was big in the 1970s: Well, they were there. I was backstage at 7:59. The house was empty. The people were in the street or in the lobby, fashionably late. You call the show for 8:00, they arrive at 8:35. New York. I'm staring through the curtain, wondering what kind of delay we're looking at, when there's a tap on my shoulder. It's Frank--excuse me, Francis--in his tux, dapper as hell.

  "Jerry," he said, "it's eight P.M. Let's go."

  "Yeah, but, Frank, the house is empty--no one is sitting down."

  "Believe me," he said, "it will be like magic: When I start singing, they will be in their seats."

  He turned, walked on stage, hit the first note, and BAM, the house was full.

  On that first tour, I learned something new almost every night. Watching Sinatra work an audience of twenty thousand, take them up, bring them down, leave them in a kind of ecstatic high helped me in the movie business later on. It taught me how to structure a story: act one, act two, act three. Where did I go to school? Not to Harvard, Princeton, Stanford. I went to the school of Sinatra. I sat in his class every night. And while I was sitting there learning, I was making millions of dollars.

  But the best part of working with Sinatra was not the tours, or the concerts, or even the money. It was the friendship, the camaraderie, the sense of being in it with the boys, the Chairman and the rest of the Rat Pack. When Frank was in LA, we were at Chasen's three nights a week, lighting it up, drinking and laughing. It was always a party. You knew where it started, but not where it would end. One night, we met at Chasen's and the next thing I know we're at a poker table at Frank's house in Palm Springs, playing big stakes. The game went on and on. At some point, George Hamilton came in. He was a friend of mine. He said, "Jerry, the house across from me is being sold in foreclosure. Thirty thousand. You should buy it. You won't have to rent anymore. But you have to buy it today."

  "George, can't you see I'm in the middle of a game?"

  "Yeah, sure, but it's a hell of a deal."

  "You've seen this house?"

  "Yeah, it's a beauty."

  "Okay, if it's so great, buy it."

  I write a check for thirty thousand, at least that's what they told me, because I forgot all about it a minute after it happened.

  A few months later, Jane went to the desert to look at houses. We rented every winter. She found something she liked, then called our accountant to get money for the deposit.

  "Why are you renting?" he asked her. "Jerry owns a house in Palm Springs."

  She called me in a rage: "What the hell is going on? The accountant tells me you own a house in Palm Springs. How dare you! You have a girl set up down there? How dare you do this to me!"

  I said, "What? No, no. That's crazy, absolute bullshit, not true. I own nothing in the desert."

  I called the accountant. "What is this craziness?" I asked him. "You're telling Jane I own a house in Palm Springs? What's wrong with you?"

  "But you do, Jerry."

  "Do what?"

  "You do own a house in Palm Springs."

  "I do not. You're out of your mind."

  "Jerry, you do. You bought it last season."

  And when he said this, I had a fuzzy recollection of the card game, George Hamilton, and the rest. So we got the keys, went down, and checked it out. And you know what? George Hamilton was right. It was terrific, a sweet little house with a pool and a view of the hills. We stayed there for twenty years.

  Wherever you went with Sinatra, you were surrounded--by fans, by politicians, by celebrities, and yes, by mobsters. A lot has been made of this, but there was nothing much to it. If you were in show business, there really was no avoiding the Mafia. They were in the music industry, operated the nightclubs. They loved Frank, but they had no real place in his life. They came around for the same reason everyone else came around: because it was fun to be around Sinatra. The fact is, as much as these guys loved Sinatra, they loved Dino more. He was their guy, big and handsome and charming as hell. When it came to Dean, women would lie down and open their legs. It wasn't even a question of, "Should I?" "Maybe it's wrong?" They just did it. It was his manner, his way. He was Peck's bad boy. The gangsters swarmed around him. He worked as a blackjack dealer in the Beverly Hills Club in Cincinnati. Dean's whole philosophy was that everybody on the other side of the table is a sucker. Whoever he was dealing to was by definition a sucker. And when he got on stage, everybody in the audience was a sucker, too. That's why he sang the way he did, cocky and nonchalant--because he was singing to the suckers. He couldn't believe people actually paid to hear him.

  Most of that mob stuff was just rumor or misunderstandings. I will tell you a story:

  In the late seventies, I had a great idea for a show. Sinatra performing with Count Basie and Ella Fitzgerald. We would open on Broadway, then tour. We went through rehearsals, built sets, all the rest. Then, just before we were to open, word came down: The musicians are going to strike. The theater district will go dark. Did Sinatra care? Of course not. To him, it meant another night at 21. But for me, it was a disaster. I had a lot of my own money in the show. I would lose it all. I went around like a madman, meeting officials and union reps, trying to explain: Look, we're not a Broadway show. We're a concert that is opening in a theater on Broadway. There's a difference. We should get an exemption from the strike.

  After twenty hours of this, I was sitting in a room outside the office of the union boss. I was spent, beat, wiped out, exhausted, undone, about to give it up. Just then, the door opens and out comes a woman, all done up, legs from here to here. She says, "Jerry? Jerry Weintraub?"

  Uh-huh?

  "Don't you recognize me, Jerry? I went to school with you. P.S. 70 in the Bronx."

  "Oh, yeah," I say. "Of course, wow, you look fantastic!"

  "I wish I could say the same about you. You're a mess. What's wrong?"

  So I tell her the whole story--the show, the strike, how the show should not be part of the strike, and how a lot of the money in the show belongs to me, her friend from P.S. 70, Jerry Weintraub.

  She takes me into the office of the union boss. He's not there. It's just me and her. She picks up the phone, makes a call. She gets the boss on the line. I can picture him, floating in his pool in Westchester or something, his wife and kids all around, his city-side honey suddenly ringing on the phone.

  "I know you said don't call here, but I am sitting with an old friend from the Bronx, Jerry Weintraub, and what is happening to him and his show is just not fair... He needs an exemption... So I'm just gonna sign your name."

  Which is how I walked out with that magic piece of paper. The next day, the story was all over the tabloids: Look what Frank Sinatra has pulled off with his mob connections.

  Sinatra was not without flaws. He was a human being, after all. He had his problems and insecurities like the rest of us. You had to monitor his mood. He was usually happy Rat Pack Sinatra, but sometimes he fell into a funk. You never really knew what you were going to get. Now and then, he suffered bleak, dark, low-down moods--you had to throw him a rope and haul him back to the surface. If you really cared about him--and I loved the guy, it should be obvious--you had to be prepared, on occasion, to pull him out of the hole.

  So here's a story:

  One day, I was at home, early in the morning, reading the paper, when the phone rang. It was Frank. Francis. He sounded down. He was calling from Vegas. It was 9:00 A.M. there. He had a regular gig at Caesars and was staying in a suite on top of the hotel. He never went to sleep before 6:00 or 7:00 A.M., which meant he had been up all night, drinking and brooding on the roof of the hotel, where he had his own swimming pool. Could I hear all this in his voice over the phone? Yes. My job is reading people, keeping them level, and, when necessar
y, hip-checking them back onto the sunlit track.

  "You sound terrible," I said. "What's wrong?"

  "Depressed, Jerry," he said. "Depressed."

  "Why? What's going on?"

  "I can't do it anymore," he said. "The same thing, every day and night, going down to that same theater and singing the same songs to the same crowds, 'Fly Me to the Moon,' 'Chicago,' I just don't care."

  What was Frank? Sixty? Sixty-five? No, younger. Late fifties, but he seemed old to me, a man with a lifetime behind him. It was 1974. I was a kid. It was just the beginning. I got on a plane for Vegas that afternoon, took a cab to Caesars, sat on the roof, staring at the heat shimmers dancing over the flats. Frank talked. He had a drink in one hand, a smoke in the other, double fisted, his voice full of fatigue, but his eyes sparkled. He told me how unhappy he was, bored of this whole business of night after night and song after song.

  "Maybe I need a rest," he said.

  "It's not a rest you need," I told him. "It's a new hill to climb."

  This was Frank's nature. He was at his best when he was battling, fighting, struggling against all those fools who told him he had bitten off too much, gone too far. "You're bored," I explained. "You need a challenge."

  "All right," he said, "what do you have in mind?"

  "I have a great idea," I told him, "but I don't want to talk about it until I've had time to really put it together."

  "No, no, what is it?" he asked. "You've got to tell me."

  I said, "Look, I really do have a great idea, but I need a few days."

  Of course, I did not have a great idea. I had no idea at all, but I knew that Frank needed a great idea less than he needed the prospect of a great idea, the promise of an event that would lift him out of his funk.

  He said, "Tell me, Jerry. You've got to tell me."

  So I started talking, improvising...

  "Were going to do Madison Square Garden," I said.

  "Yeah, so what?" said Frank. "We've done Madison Square Garden before. What's so great about that?"

  "Now wait, Frank, hold on, let me tell you how we're going to do it..."