by James Kaplan
The hard truth was that Sinatra was no longer emotionally engaged with his own record label. Having signed all his friends and frittered away a pile of money, he had simply turned his attentions elsewhere. “Giving up on Reprise bothered Sinatra not for a moment,” the former Warner-Reprise executive Stan Cornyn writes. “He’d had it. With his quick passions, Sinatra had craved his own label—the same as he’d other times craved that broad over there, or his own leather booth and bottle of Jack. Quick passion: You do it, you forget it.”
Now he was forgetting about Reprise and leaving the mess for others to clean up. And it was a mess. The Reprise Repertory Theatre project had been enormously expensive: each album cost $100,000 to produce. “It was a gamble that defied the marketplace,” Cornyn writes. “Only 17,900 real people ever showed interest in buying the series. It was Reprise’s biggest gamble, its biggest disaster.” And the label’s roster was bloated—the likes of Sammy, Dean, Bing, and Rosemary Clooney counterbalanced by the likes of Soupy Sales, Arturo Romero & His Magic Violins, and Don Drysdale, the singing Dodgers pitcher. Hardly anybody on the list, high or low, was moving product. Even Sinatra was barely selling 100,000 units per album. Dean Martin was down to 20,000 to 25,000.
To try to generate some profits, Ostin had hired the acclaimed pop producer Jimmy Bowen, who led the label on its first baby steps into rock ’n’ roll. (At the same time, he also signed the distinguished former big-band leader Sonny Burke—the man who had first brought Nelson Riddle to Capitol’s attention—as Reprise’s head of A&R. Burke would also work as an in-house producer.)
One of Bowen’s first moves was signing the cutting-edge producer-arranger-songwriter Jack Nitzsche. Nitzsche had a Top 10 single in the summer of 1963, a catchily grandiose instrumental (produced by Bowen) called “The Lonely Surfer.” And then there was the twenty-six-year-old Mexican-American Trini Lopez, whose folky live debut album, Trini Lopez at PJ’s, went gold. But one gold record and a hottish single alone couldn’t reverse Reprise’s losses. It took a feat of prestidigitation by Mickey Rudin to do that.
Jack Warner, the last Warner brother to stay in the movie business and the head of the studio that bore his name, had been wooing Frank Sinatra ever since Ocean’s 11 became a box-office smash. “It was a huge picture, and Jack was in love with Frank,” Mo Ostin recalled. “So he wanted him for a film deal.” The courtship grew hot and heavy throughout 1961 and 1962, and a two-picture agreement for 4 for Texas and Robin and the 7 Hoods partly satisfied Warner, but he wanted more. In August 1963, he got it.
It all began innocently enough, if a meeting between Warner Bros.’ dapper, dictatorial president (along with 20th Century Fox’s Darryl F. Zanuck, one of the last of the Hollywood moguls) and Frank Sinatra’s brilliant, pugnacious lawyer can be called innocent. Jack Warner wanted one thing badly—Frank Sinatra in his movie studio—and thought, when he first sat down with Mickey Rudin, that he was simply negotiating over Sinatra’s acting and film-producing services. He quickly discovered otherwise.
That the deal came together just as the Cal-Neva affair was beginning to come to light was no coincidence. The casino was a money loser in any case; Frank’s consigliere also knew there was trouble ahead in Tahoe. And Reprise was a problem that had to be solved quickly. Rudin’s masterstroke was letting Jack Warner solve it for him.
Warner Bros., too, had a record label, one that had endured years of losses and only recently emerged into the black, with best-selling albums by the Everly Brothers, the folk trio Peter, Paul, and Mary, the jazz-pop singer Joanie Sommers, and the singing comedian Allan Sherman. Warner Bros. Records was profitable but by no means complacent, and when Mickey Rudin dangled the possibility of adding Frank Sinatra to its roster, Jack Warner jumped. All Warner needed to do, Rudin said, was buy Reprise and merge it with Warner.
“Because Mickey knew Jack Warner wanted Sinatra so badly, he went ahead and forced the record company on him,” Mo Ostin said. “It wasn’t something that [Warner Bros.] would have bought under ordinary circumstances.”
And Jack Warner was willing to do almost anything to sign Frank Sinatra, and Rudin, a bulldog in negotiations and a no-holds-barred tactician, was ready to make demands that under any other circumstances would have seemed outlandish. What he had in mind was nothing less than unloading the two big money losers, Reprise and Cal-Neva, that Frank owned under the corporate umbrella of Essex Productions. And, of course, making a hefty profit in the bargain. Cornyn writes,
Draft one of the deal got memoed by Warner attorney Peter Knecht, who synopsized the Reprise part in one sentence: “What they are asking is that in exchange for all of the outstanding Essex stock, Frank Sinatra receive approximately 350,000 shares of Warner Bros. stock…” That deal had a value of about $5.25 million.
Warner balked. He didn’t want the other stuff, like the Cal-Neva Lodge. He didn’t want to co-own (with Danny Kaye) Essex’s radio stations or residuals from old Sinatra pictures. As for Reprise Records, well, he didn’t care one way or another.
But closed-door talks sped along.
First and foremost, Rudin needed to establish a dollar value for the deep-in-the-red Reprise. This, Cornyn writes, took some serious creativity. “A startled Ostin was commanded to evaluate the label: Add up the worth of the record masters, the contracts, the tables, chairs, paper clips—anything you could sell.”
Rudin, with a straight face, came up with a price of $2 million.
But, Ostin recalled, “Warner didn’t want to pay more than one and a half million. Finally, Mickey, in order to reconcile the situation, compromised by saying, ‘I’ll tell you what. We’ll make the price one and a half million. But for giving up on the other half-million, I want you to have Frank own all of his [Reprise] masters.’ So that’s how Frank got ownership of his masters.” It was the prize Sinatra had always sought from Capitol and never won.
There was more, no less audacious.
“Mickey, it was known in town, had balls of brass,” Cornyn writes. “To make the deal with Warner, Rudin threw in a curveball idea. What if Sinatra got 50 percent of the combined Warner-Reprise Records? Warner negotiated Rudin down to 33 percent.” (“That turned out to be a windfall later on,” Ostin said, putting it mildly: in 1969, Steve Ross’s Kinney National Company would buy Warner-Reprise—by then called Warner Bros.–Seven Arts—for $400 million.)
The deal was sheer fiscal wizardry. “Selling his two-thirds interest in money-losing Reprise, Sinatra got cash, plus a one-third interest in moneymaking Warner Bros. Records,” writes Cornyn. “Sinatra would own a third of Warner/Reprise but not have to underwrite it financially. Warner did all the funding.”
On August 7, a headline on Variety’s front page read SINATRA NAMED WB PROD’N CONSULTANT AS WAXERIES MERGE, 3D DEAL LOOMS. “Warner Bros. and Frank Sinatra shook hands yesterday on two far-reaching deals and renewed spade work on a third which, when and if finalized, would make their togetherness complete and involve over a period of years many millions of dollars,” the article began.
First link forged in extending chain is the merger, effective early next month, of Warner Bros. Records and Sinatra’s Reprise Records under new corporate handle of Warner Bros. Records–Reprise Records Co. New company will become a major factor in disk business with total of 90 artists comprised of individuals and groups. The WB roster currently numbers 28, while Reprise has total of 62.
Second phase of overall deal provides for Sinatra’s employment by Warner Bros. Pictures to act as a consultant on theatrical and TV pix. He will be active in arranging package deals for the company…“under the guidance” of Jack L. Warner, prexy.
Third and presumably last link hinges on outcome of continuing discussions which would see Sinatra Enterprises producing features to be financed and distributed by WB.
Frank didn’t get any Warner Bros. stock out of the deal, but Jack Warner’s company did issue Frank a nice down payment: a certified check for a million dollars. He carried it around for a week, showing it
off to all who wanted to see. “This is what I call real pocket money,” he said.
Yet money alone wasn’t enough for him. As part of the agreement, Sinatra’s production company—now called Artanis—would move to the Warner lot in Burbank, but Frank didn’t want to be just another schmuck with a production deal. He told Mickey Rudin to tell Jack Warner he wanted a title. Say, assistant to the president. Warner agreed; the title was announced.
And press speculation began immediately: Jack Warner was over seventy. Was Sinatra planning to take over the studio upon Warner’s retirement?
“Jack went crazy when he read the newspapers,” Warner’s mistress Jacqueline Park recalled.
We were in New York at the Sherry Netherland having breakfast in Jack’s suite. He was screaming mad and he showed me a newspaper article. “You see, this is what I get for trying to be a nice guy to that son of a bitch,” he yelled. He called Frank and said, “You better understand something, Frank, and understand it now. I’m the president of Warner Bros. Pictures and my brothers and I own the studio…I’ll blow the whistle on you if you try anything funny. You tell your friends that I’m not afraid of them. I didn’t get this far to have a gang of ruffians for partners.”
Warner felt compelled to issue a press release the next day, elucidating the agreement between Sinatra and Warner Bros.:
Since there has been considerable uninformed comment about this relationship, it is appropriate that these inquiries be answered. Warner Bros. Records is owned two-thirds by Warner Bros. Pictures and one-third by Mr. Sinatra. That company is in the business of producing phonograph records which are distributed on the Warner Bros. and Reprise labels.
As to motion pictures, there is an agreement between Warner Bros. Pictures and Artanis Productions, Inc., an independent producer, as the result of which Artanis produces features at Warner Bros. Studios, which are released by Warner Bros. Pictures. Mr. Sinatra owns substantially all of the stock of Artanis Productions and is the president of that company. Mr. Sinatra does not own any stock of Warner Bros. Pictures, Inc.
This association, plus the warm friendship that exists between Mr. Sinatra and myself, has led to a certain amount of speculation that I am considering Mr. Sinatra as my successor as president of Warner Bros. Pictures—or that Mr. Sinatra desires to be my successor. There is no evidence or reason for such speculation.
Frank wasn’t a gangster, even if he sometimes liked to playact the part. And he wasn’t trying to take over Warner Bros., but he had made out like a bandit, thanks to Mickey Rudin, who’d waved his magic wand and turned red ink into black. But all the lawyer’s powers were of little use in the case of Frank’s increasingly costly asset on the shores of Lake Tahoe.
—
On August 8, agents of the Nevada Gaming Control Board visited Cal-Neva, only to find the staff predictably mum. On the advice of his attorney, Skinny D’Amato declined to be interviewed. As Edward Olsen put it, “Everybody had a short memory and very limited knowledge of anything east of the Truckee River.”
At 5:00 p.m. on the same day, Olsen himself spoke with Frank in his office at the Sands.
Ed Olsen was forty-four, a tough-minded, drily witty former Nevada journalist who knew the gambling industry from top to bottom. As a result of a childhood case of tuberculosis of the hip joints, he walked with difficulty on crutches and a built-up shoe. He seems to have taken his handicap with remarkable equanimity, and he brought this same composure to his meeting with Frank Sinatra. “We interviewed him at length, and he acknowledged that he had indeed seen Giancana,” Olsen recalled. “He said he’d seen him rather briefly coming out of Phyllis’s cabin and that they just exchanged greetings, and that was all. He said no, they didn’t ask him to leave, they didn’t inquire any further into it, he had no further knowledge of it or anything else.”
On the subject of the alleged brouhaha in Chalet 50, Frank had a crafty answer. “If there was a rumble there while I was there, they must be keeping it awfully quiet,” he said. When Olsen asked him if he would repeat this under oath, Sinatra said that he never talked under oath without consultation with his attorney.
Frank was polite but undeferential. “He explained his philosophy to us in a very reasonable manner,” Olsen later recalled.
He wasn’t cantankerous or anything of that nature. He said that he saw Giancana perhaps six to ten times a year and occasionally played golf with him and said that Giancana had been a guest at his Palm Springs home. And he said that he would not associate with Giancana in Nevada, but he would continue his occasional association with him elsewhere whenever he felt like it. He said that he was acquainted with people in all walks of life and that Giancana was one of those that fit into that category. I asked him if he didn’t feel that his association with Giancana and people of that notoriety, whether it be in Palm Springs or Chicago or New York…didn’t reflect to his own discredit and also to the discredit of gambling in Nevada. Sinatra nodded at that, and he volunteered only a commitment that he would not see Giancana or people of that type in Nevada and he would continue to associate as he wished when he wasn’t in Nevada. And as he said, “This is a way of life, and a man has to lead his own life.”
His philosophy was quite clear: he would make some petty accommodations to the powers that be in order to stay in business, but the only rules he intended to follow were his own.
—
That night, a little after midnight, Frank Sinatra Jr. made his Las Vegas debut in the Driftwood Lounge of the Flamingo, singing with the orchestra that bore Tommy Dorsey’s name. Frank sat ringside with the two Nancys, the underage Tina (fifteen) having been unhappily excluded. “I’m so nervous—this is killing me,” the singer’s father muttered to a companion. The place was packed: standing room only in the lounge; behind a cordon, casino customers stood six and seven persons deep and gawked as Frankie opened the show with “Night and Day” and continued with other Sinatra standards such as “Too Close for Comfort,” “This Love of Mine,” and “I’ll Be Seeing You.”
Variety was clear-eyed but impressed. “It’s obviously good sentimental showmanship and great for the b.o. to have the 19-year-old Sinatra surrounded with a big show like his famed father started with, and since he revives some of the tunes identified with Sinatra, pere, there’s bound to be unfair comparison,” the weekly’s reviewer began, continuing,
Junior Sinatra has the potential for being highly successful on his own, and is young enough to develop his own style and sound. He may not now have the tonal texture of his father; he may not now generate the excitement; however, he has the stuff which can build into another Sinatra legend…
Like his father did with the original Tommy Dorsey orch and the original Pied Pipers, he sings with the updated Pied Pipers “I’ll Never Smile Again”—an amazing soundalike. With or without his present showcasing, Frank Sinatra Jr. is an extremely strong attraction for any showroom.
And Papa was pleased and relieved. “I’m very proud of him,” said the man whom newspapers now had to call Frank senior. “He has done this all on his own, I’ve given him no coaching.”
What he had given him: a new Pontiac convertible, courtesy of Pete Epsteen, the Chicago car dealer for whom Frank had done commercials (as a favor to Momo); all the money Frankie could spend; and, according to George Jacobs, “he had charge accounts so he could dress as well as dad, girls threw themselves at him, what more, Mr. S wondered, could the kid possibly need? Love? Love was for broads.”
—
Frank would skip the 500 Club that summer for the first time in years. “That huge seashore resort nightclub in New Jersey, which almost didn’t open for the season because of lack of money to cover theatrical and musicians’ union bonds, is in serious trouble again,” Dorothy Kilgallen had written in a July blind item that fooled nobody. “At the end of the first week of operation—and despite a healthy July 4 weekend crowd, they weren’t able to pay off the stars of the show or the band, and the owners are frantically trying to borrow
enough loot to keep going through the Summer.”
Not only was the nightclub business in the toilet, but the nightclub’s owner was in Nevada, facing considerable distractions of a legal nature.
—
On August 23, a color photograph of Frank and Frank junior graced the big cover of America’s magazine, Life. Father and son stood side by side in tuxes, Frank beaming, Junior with his mouth open in song. The cover line read,
NEW
SINATRA
SOUND
Frank Jr.
Takes After Pop
“The new Sinatra sound is an eerie, incredibly exact echo of Frank Sr.’s singing,” Life’s anonymous writer noted, somewhat inexactly. The brief piece sketched out the nineteen-year-old’s astonishing if asterisked rise—the Disneyland gig, the Benny show, the Dorsey offer, the Vegas opening—and quoted him remarking, with unintentional poignancy, on his sole influence. “I’ve studied with Frank Sinatra, although he doesn’t know I’ve studied with him,” Junior said. “But I’ve been following him around all my life, and I’ve heard him everywhere—theaters, saloons, strip joints.”
The pathos didn’t end there. “He lugs a stereo tape recorder with him on tour and every night while he is getting dressed he warms up his voice for an hour by singing along with Sinatra recordings,” the reporter wrote. “He can also quote whole scenes from his father’s films verbatim.”
“I think the kid has a future, but he needs experience,” Frank senior told Life. Junior then quoted his father: “He added as only the boss can, ‘by experience I mean he’s got to learn to drink, carouse and stay up all night.’ ”