His Way

by Kitty Kelley

  “The girls were screaming and running around like a bunch of chickens in every direction because nobody knew what was going to happen.… George just stood there with the whites of his eyes rolling around and around in his black face, because he knew who Sam was, and nobody ever fought with Sam, least of all me, a short little guy.… Sinatra and George pulled me off Sam, who ran out the door. Then Sinatra called me a troublemaker, and said the gangsters were going to put a hit out on me because of this fight. I told him the only way they’d get me is from a long distance with a high-powered rifle because none of them had the guts to hit me face to face. I’m not afraid of nothing, Wop,’ I said, and he started yelling that I was going to lose the place for him because of this fight. Because of the notoriety he was going to lose all his money. I said, ‘What do you mean, your money? You don’t have a dime in the place. It’s all Mafia money and you know it.’ He and George ran out then, and I left the next day for Nebraska.… Later I wrote in my diary for July 27: ‘One son of a bitch of a day and night.’ ”

  The FBI agents reported Giancana’s presence to the Nevada Gaming Control Board, which began an investigation. On August 8, 1963, Ed Olsen, chairman of the Nevada Gaming Commission, called Frank at the Sands in Las Vegas, saying he wanted to meet with him at five o’clock.

  “We interviewed him at length, and he acknowledged that he had indeed seen Giancana,” said Olsen. “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 had no further knowledge of it or anything else.”

  Having been informed of the fight by the FBI agents, Olsen’s investigators flew to Nebraska to interview Victor LaCroix Collins, who confirmed the FBI’s report, but Frank denied knowing anything about the fight. “If there was a rumble there while I was there, they must be keeping it awfully quiet,” he told Olsen. Chairman Olsen asked him to repeat that assertion under oath, but Frank refused, saying that he never talked under oath without consulting with his attorney.

  “[Sinatra] explained his philosophy to us in a very reasonable manner,” Olsen said later. “He wasn’t cantankerous or anything of that nature. … 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 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. As he said, ‘This is a way of life, and a man has to lead his own life.’ ”

  By Labor Day weekend, the press was looking into the story that the Nevada Gaming Control Board was investigating the presence of Sam Giancana at the Cal-Neva Lodge. Frank’s attorney denied any wrongdoing to the Los Angeles Herald Examiner.

  “There’s no truth to the fact any underworld figure was at the lodge or got in a fight there,” the attorney said. “Your information was wrong.”

  Olsen told the paper that the investigation could not be concluded until “certain discrepancies in the information provided by various people at Cal-Neva could be resolved.”

  When Frank read the story, he was incensed. He told his accountant, Newell Hancock, to phone Olsen to come to the lodge for dinner “to talk about this thing.”

  Olsen did not think such a visit appropriate because the board was investigating Cal-Neva. “But [Frank] kept insisting and I kept refusing,” said Olsen. “The more I refused, the madder he got, until he seemed almost hysterical. He used the foulest language I ever heard in my life.” Finally, Olsen agreed to meet with Frank in the gaming commission office, and the meeting was set for three-thirty P.M. on September 1.

  But Frank did not show up. At four P.M. he called Olsen in a rage. “You’re acting like a fucking cop,” he said. “I just want to talk to you off the record.”

  Olsen explained that he wanted the meeting on the record in his office in the presence of others, including his secretary, who would make a record of the conversation.

  “Listen, Ed, I haven’t had to take this kind of shit from anybody in the country, and I’m not going to take it from you people,” said Frank. “I want you to come up here and have dinner with me … and bring that shit-heel friend, La France. [Charles La France was the board’s chief investigator.] It’s you and your goddamn subpoenas which have caused all this trouble.”

  Olsen said that the publicity was not caused by his subpoenas because no one knew about them except those subpoenaed for interviews.

  “You are a goddamn liar,” said Frank. “It’s all over the papers.”

  “No, they are not,” said Olsen.

  “I’ll bet you fifty thousand dollars.”

  “I haven’t got fifty thousand dollars to bet.”

  “You’re not in the same class with me,” said Frank.

  “I certainly hope not,” said Olsen.

  “All right, I’m never coming to see you again. I came to see you in Las Vegas and if you had conducted this investigation like a gentleman and come up here to see my people instead of sending those goddamn subpoenas, you would have gotten all the information you wanted.”

  Pointing out that Skinny D’Amato refused to be interviewed and that the maître d’hôtel had obviously lied, Olsen said that he wasn’t satisfied that Frank had told the truth either.

  “I’m never coming to see you again,” Frank repeated.

  “If I want to see you, I will send a subpoena,” said Olsen.

  “You just try and find me, and if you do, you can look for a big, fat surprise … a big, fat, fucking surprise. You remember that. Now listen to me, Ed … don’t fuck with me. Don’t fuck with me. Just don’t fuck with me.”

  “Are you threatening me?” asked Olsen.

  “No … just don’t fuck with me and you can tell that to your fucking board and that fucking commission too.”

  At six P.M., two audit agents from the board arrived at Cal-Neva to observe the count of gambling table drop boxes. When Skinny D’Amato informed Frank of the agents’ presence, Frank told him, “Throw the dirty sons of bitches out of the house.”

  Because the employees had already started the count, the agents left, but they returned two days later. At that time, Skinny tried to bribe them with one hundred dollars each. The agents turned down the bribes and reported the attempt to Olsen, who decided to issue a complaint seeking the revocation of Frank’s license at Cal-Neva and the Sands. He cited several grounds: violating Nevada’s gambling laws and regulations by permitting Giancana’s presence at Cal-Neva, trying to intimidate and coerce the chairman, Olsen, and members of the Gaming Control Board, hiring people who proffered bribes, instructing employees to resist subpoenas, and associating with people who were harmful to the gaming industry.

  Frank was given fifteen days to answer the charges. Hank Greenspun, publisher of the Las Vegas Sun, hurried to his defense, writing daily front-page columns in his paper extolling Frank’s generosity and philanthropy.

  “I cannot think of any individual who has possibly been more instrumental in spreading the name and fame of Nevada to the outside world than Frank Sinatra,” he wrote. “I think [revoking his license] is a rotten, horrible, mean, and cheap way to repay this man for all the good he has brought this state.”

  The governor, Grant Sawyer, disagreed. “Threats, bribery, coercion, and pressure will not be tolerated, and the full weight of the state’s gaming control machinery will be brought to bear on any person who wishes to test us,” he said. “Nevada’s gaming authorities hold a sacred trust from the people, and no man, regardless of his wealth, social status, or business and political connection, is bigger than this trust.”

  The governor said that he had received several phone calls from wealthy men who talked about resolving the “Sinatra problem” and about
making large contributions to his coming election campaign. “I told them that the rules were made for everybody, including Mr. Sinatra.”

  The governor’s position was supported by the lieutenant governor, Paul Laxalt, who felt it was about time that the state did something about Sinatra.

  But while the case was pending, President Kennedy came to Nevada and was given a caravan tour through Las Vegas. Riding in the first car with Sawyer, Kennedy said to the governor, “Aren’t you people being a little hard on Frank out here?” Sawyer said that the matter was out of his hands and that the issue would be settled legally. He later told Ed Olsen what the President had said, and Olsen was flabbergasted by Kennedy’s intervention in Frank’s behalf.

  “That’s about the highest degree of political pressure that you could ever put into the thing,” Olsen said many years later. “There was this very definite suggestion from the President of the United States that, frankly, we were being a little tough.”

  On the other hand, Sam Giancana was disgusted with Frank for losing his temper. “He [Sinatra] called Ed Olsen a cripple,” said Phyllis McGuire. “Sam couldn’t get over the fact that Frank had done that. Sam said, ‘If he’d only shut his damned mouth.’ But Sam never could figure out why Frank would deliberately pick fights … he would always say to him: “Piano, piano, piano’ (Softly, softly, softly). ‘Take it easy, take it easy.’ Sam could never get over the hotheaded way Frank acted.”

  Cal-Neva became a running issue in the nation’s newspapers, because it coincided with the public testimony of Cosa Nostra gangster Joseph Valachi. Appearing before Senator McClellan’s rackets committee, Valachi named Sam Giancana as the chief of the Mafia’s Chicago family, adding that the Chicago hoodlums are “the smart guys” of the syndicate.

  When reporters asked Frank if he had harbored the top “smart guy” at Cal-Neva, he said he had no idea Sam was on the premises. “I’ll fight the charges,” he said in New York, where he was performing at a United Nations benefit.

  As Frank mounted the dais of the General Assembly hall, he said, “Anybody want to buy a used casino? I didn’t want it anyway.”

  Mickey Rudin retained Harry Claiborne, a Las Vegas criminal attorney, to represent Frank in the action brought by the board. On September 27, 1963, Claiborne, who later became the first federal judge to be convicted of tax evasion, subpoenaed Olsen for a deposition. He and Rudin cross-examined the board chairman for four hours. Once they realized that Olsen had a statement from Victor LaCroix Collins about the fight with Giancana in Chalet Fifty as well as a memorandum of Olsen’s telephone conversation with Frank, and memoranda prepared by those who were listening in on an extension, they decided not to fight the action.

  Rudin called Frank and then called Jack Warner to discuss leasing Sinatra’s casino holdings, totaling $3,500,000, in exchange for a business arrangement that would align Frank with the studio.

  “I was with Jack at that time and remember very well how he bailed Frank out of the Cal-Neva mess,” said Jacqueline Park, Warner’s mistress for seven years. “Jack agreed to buy something like two-thirds of Reprise Records and sell Frank one-third of Warner Bros. Records. He also made a movie deal with him, which enabled Frank to move his Sinatra Enterprises to the Warner Bros, lot, but Frank wouldn’t agree to anything until Jack promised to make him assistant to the president. That was the biggest thing Jack did for him because that title helped Frank save face and tell the press that he was going to concentrate on the movie business from now on.”

  The day after the joint announcement by Sinatra and Warner of their new merger, Frank walked around flashing a certified check from Warner Bros, for one million dollars.

  “This is what I call real pocket money,” he bragged.

  Jackie Park remembered that Sinatra’s actions caused press speculation about whether he would eventually try to buy Warner Bros. Pictures, Inc.

  “Jack went crazy when he read the newspapers,” said Jackie Park. “We were in New York at the Sherry Netherland having breakfast in Jack’s suite. He was screaming mad and 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.’

  “Jack was jumping to conclusions, assuming that Frank had had something to do with the speculation, and he was hysterical, absolutely hopping mad. I only heard his end of the conversation, but Frank must have been trying to placate him because Jack said, ‘I’m not getting excited, Frank … just as long as we understand each other. I have friends too.’ When Jack hung up, he was red-faced and angry and patting the sweat from his forehead. He said he needed a drink, and swished down a Jack Daniels like it was water. ‘Whether or not you’re afraid, you must never show it,’ he said, ‘and the worst people you can show fear to are gangsters. Then they try to take over, you understand?’ I said I understood.”

  The next day, Jack Warner issued a statement clarifying the position of Frank Sinatra in the corporation:

  Since there has been considerable uninformed comment about this relationship, it is appropriate that these inquiries be answered [he stated], 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. [Frank’s corporation name, Sinatra spelled backward], 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.

  The day before Frank was supposed to answer the charges of the Nevada Gaming Board, Harry Claiborne issued a statement to the press saying that Frank had decided to disassociate himself completely from the gaming industry and would give up his half interest in Cal-Neva as well as his nine percent interest in the Sands.

  “I have recently become associated with a major company in the entertainment industry, and in forming that association I have promised not only to devote my talent as an entertainer to certain of our joint investments, but I have agreed to devote my full time and efforts to that company’s activities in the entertainment industry.”

  The board immediately revoked and terminated Frank’s gaming license, stating that “all the allegations of the complaint as to Park Lake Enterprises and Frank Sinatra are deemed admitted by reason of their failure to file any notice of defense as required by law. …”

  Castigating him as a discredit to the industry’, they ordered him to get out of gambling by January 5, 1964, which meant he had to dispose of property worth $3,500,000.

  A few weeks before the board’s order, Hank Sanicola and Frank had broken up their partnership. Hank had been so enraged about the trouble with Giancana that he had refused to take Frank’s call. This had so incensed Frank that he refused to show up for his scheduled performances at Cal-Neva, leaving Hank to search frantically for a last-minute replacement.

  “He [Hank] called me, and I arranged for Jack Jones to take over the billing,” said Chuck Moses. “I went out and got the best, most expensive gold watch in existence and had it inscribed, ‘For Jack—Thanks so much. Frank.’ But there was nothing I could d
o to get Frank and Hank back together again.”

  Speaking to each other only through intermediaries, Hank told Frank that he wanted out of Cal-Neva, precipitating the worst fight the two men had had since they had first started working together in 1936.

  “Out of Cal-Neva, out of everything,” said Frank, instructing Mickey Rudin to buy out Hank’s interest in all the financial ventures they had put together in twenty-seven years. Frank was so strapped for cash at the time that in lieu of money, he gave Sanicola all the Sinatra music companies—Barton, Marivale, Sands, Saga, Tamarisk, and Ding Dong Music—containing catalogues of more than six hundred songs, an inventory worth close to one million dollars.

  “In the beginning, Hank was indispensable to Frank,” said Ben Barton. “He rehearsed him, ran his errands, fought his fights, and kept him protected. He did everything for Frank. Everyone tried to get the two of them back together, but once Frank cut him off, that was it.”

  “It’s true that Frank barely spoke to Hank again,” said Nick Sevano, “and the day of Sanicola’s funeral, sixteen years later, Frank drove around the church with Jimmy Van Heusen so everybody could see him in the car. I don’t know if he wanted people to think that he’d come to the funeral or just wanted to show everyone that he carried a grudge to the end and wouldn’t come inside to pay his last respects. I don’t know. I gave up trying to figure out Frank a long time ago.”