JFK Snubs Sinatra
In early 1962, Sam Giancana and his pals were still stewing over the way Frank Sinatra had broken his promise to intervene on their behalf with Bobby Kennedy. “Frank’s got big ideas about being ambassador or something,” Johnny Roselli had said in an FBI-wiretapped telephone conversation with Sam on December 4, 1961. “But Pierre Salinger [Kennedy’s press secretary] and them guys, they don’t want him. They treat him like a whore. You fuck her, you pay her, and she’s through.”
RFK’s ongoing investigations of Sam Giancana and others, such as Roselli, Carlos Marcello, Mickey Cohen, Jimmy Hoffa, and by virtue of his association with them, Sinatra as well, continued unabated. For the most part, Frank hadn’t been negatively impacted by his dealings with the mob. However, in March 1962 he would finally pay a steep price for his relationships with the underworld.
President Kennedy was due to stay at the Sinatra home while on the West Coast on March 24 through 26. Since Jackie had plans to be in India and Pakistan at the time, JFK was anxious to have a little downtime with his Hollywood pals. Sinatra was very excited about the visit, spending many hundreds of thousands of dollars completely renovating his compound on the grounds of the Tamarisk Country Club in Palm Springs. In the main house, he built an impressive new dining room with majestic cathedral ceilings. He also turned what had once been a small kitchen into a butler’s pantry and then added an enormous new state-of-the-art kitchen. He transformed one bedroom into a library—this was the room JFK had stayed in previously; he left in place the plaque that said, “John F. Kennedy Slept Here November 6th and 7th, 1960.” He also expanded the living room and bar. Outside, he relandscaped the entire pool area to shield it from the nearby golf course. He then redecorated everything else, all of the other rooms, with new wallpaper, new paint, new furnishings. The only room he didn’t touch was his own bedroom, which now seemed very small compared to the rest of the house. He’d even remodeled the so-called Christmas Tree House, adding to it two bungalows that were intended to house the Secret Service.
Demonstrating his motto that excess is never enough, Frank also built a fifty-by-fifty-foot asphalt heliport for the president’s helicopter. He had it built with the Federal Aviation Administration’s approval. (This wasn’t that unusual, apparently; Dean Martin also had a heliport at his estate in Ventura County, California.) However, later, when neighbors became upset about it, some began looking up the permits and discovered that Frank had failed to obtain one. When Frank finally applied for one, he was turned down by the Riverside County Planning Commission on the grounds that helicopter flights from his estate would endanger nearby homes.
In February 1962, Bobby Kennedy’s initial investigation of the underworld was completed and a report compiled by the Justice Department. In part, it read, “Sinatra has had a long and wide association with hoodlums and racketeers which seems to be continuing. The nature of Sinatra’s work may, on occasion, bring him into contact with underworld figures, but this cannot account for his friendship and/or financial involvement with people such as Joe and Rocco Fischetti, cousins of Al Capone; Paul Emilio [‘Skinny’] D’Amato, John Formosa, and Sam Giancana, all of whom are on our list of racketeers. No other entertainer appears to be mentioned nearly so frequently with racketeers. Available information indicates not only that Sinatra is associated with each of the above-named racketeers, but that they apparently maintain contact with one another. This indicates a possible community of interest involving Sinatra and racketeers in Illinois, Indiana, New Jersey, Florida and Nevada.”
After Bobby finished his report, JFK told him to make a decision about his visit to Frank’s home, whether or not it was safe not only from a security standpoint but also as a matter of public relations. Bobby didn’t have to think too long or too hard about it; he canceled the trip, reasoning that under the circumstances it made no sense for the president of the United States to stay with Sinatra.
Peter Lawford was chosen by Bobby to break the news to Frank, a task Peter dreaded.
Peter, who had known Frank since 1944, did not want to incur Sinatra’s wrath. He well remembered what had happened the last time Frank was angry at him. It was back in 1954, during Frank’s marriage to Ava Gardner. Peter and his friend Milt Ebbins had social drinks with Ava and her sister Bappie at a club in Beverly Hills. (Peter had once dated Ava back in the mid-1940s, years before she even knew Frank.) They were only together for about an hour, but that was enough time for the ever-pesky Louella Parsons to sniff out a story. The next day she erroneously reported that Peter and Ava had a “date” and suggested that it could be the rekindling of an old romance. When he heard about it, Frank became upset with Peter. One of his pallies fooling around with his wife. Not acceptable.
In a February 1976 interview with reporter Steve Dunleavy, Peter remembered what happened next: “I was in bed at three in the morning, and the telephone rings. Then comes a voice at the other end of the telephone, like something out of a Mario Puzo novel: ‘What’s this about you and Ava? Listen, you creep. You wanna stay healthy? I’ll have your legs broken, ya’ bum. If I hear anything more about this thing with Ava, you’ve had it.’ ”
After that call, Frank didn’t speak to Peter for five years. “It was as if Frank always operated from some sort of old Italian code: Just walk away, never look back,” Peter said. The two reconciled in 1959. Now Peter had to telephone Frank to tell him that JFK would not be staying at his home. At first, Frank was hurt, then he was angry—and he chose to take it out on the messenger. “If you can’t be loyal to me, then the hell with you,” he told Peter.
“I’m married to ’em, Frank,” Peter tried to explain. “My hands are tied.”
Frank slammed down the phone and then, according to George Jacobs, who was present in the room at the time, tore it right out of the wall.
Peter had already been on shaky ground with Frank before delivering the bad news. Frank’s close friend and confidant Tony Oppedisano recalled, “From what he told me, Frank had felt for a long time that the relationship with Peter had become one-sided. He felt that Peter’s loyalties didn’t run as deep for him as [Sinatra’s] ran for Peter, and this event with Kennedy served to reinforce that in his mind. If the tables had been turned, Frank would have fought like hell for Peter, and he didn’t feel that Peter had done that for him.” That said, Frank would now banish Peter from his world once again. He would also cut him from the two upcoming Rat Pack films, Robin and the 7 Hoods and 4 for Texas.
Again according to Jacobs, Frank’s next call—from another room—was to Bobby Kennedy. “What the hell, Bobby?” he wanted to know. Sinatra reasoned to Bobby that JFK had previously stayed at the house with no problem, so what had changed? Apparently Bobby said that what had changed was that he was in charge now, and he wasn’t going to allow it.
“They had angry words,” George Jacobs recalled, “back and forth. Until Frank finally just hollered into the phone, ‘Screw you, Bobby! Screw you!’ and slammed it down. Then, again, he pulled another phone right out of the wall, and I’m thinking it’s a good thing we had all those extra lines installed for the president!”
Storming to yet another room, Frank telephoned Peter for more information. That was when Peter told Frank of JFK’s plans to stay elsewhere. Frank was stunned. “You’ll never guess where he’s staying,” Frank told George. “Bing Crosby’s house! A Republican! I can’t believe this!”
“But why?” George asked.
“Peter says it’s because Bing’s house is up against a mountain and more secure than mine. It’s all bullshit.”
Then Frank went on, as George Jacobs recalled it, “a violent rampage,” ransacking his home, during which he even pried the “Kennedy Slept Here” plaque off the wall. “I followed him around the house while he was searching to destroy anything that represented Peter Lawford or the Kennedys,” recalled George Jacobs. “I was very scared that Mr. S. was going to have a heart attack, that’s how upset he was. I didn’t even try to stop hi
m. I knew better than to get in his way.”
After his tirade, Sinatra collapsed in a chair, exhausted and heaving, completely out of breath. He took a look around. “Jesus Christ almighty,” he exclaimed, shaking his head in amazement. “Can you believe what just happened here?” he asked George.
“Not really,” George said, studying the mess all around him.
“Well, what can I say? I guess this is why I don’t have ulcers,” Frank said, trying to collect himself. Then, after a moment, he got serious again. “You know, if Joe Kennedy hadn’t had that stroke [in 1961, which had rendered him paralyzed and in a wheelchair], none of this would be happening. Bobby would never do this if Joe was around to stop him.”
“I know that’s true, Mr. S.”
The two men sat silently among the ruins for a few moments. Frank chuckled. “By the way, if anyone ever asks,” he said, glancing around, “you did all this shit. Not me. Got that?”
“Got it, Mr. S.”
Elvis
In March 1962, while Frank was making another appearance at the Fontainebleau in Miami (where he would be joined by the Summit during the last three nights), he taped a television special for ABC—his fourth and last for the sponsor, Timex—with guests Sammy Davis, Peter Lawford, Joey Bishop, daughter Nancy Sinatra, and special guest Elvis Presley, who had just returned to civilian life after two years in the army. In fact, the show was called Frank Sinatra’s Welcome Home Party for Elvis Presley.
Despite the benevolent title of his program, Frank actually had little time for Elvis. “His kind of music is deplorable,” he famously said back in 1956, “a rancid-smelling aphrodisiac. It fosters almost totally negative and destructive reactions in young people.” In fact, Frank hated all rock and roll music—he said it was “sung, played, and written for the most part by cretinous goons.”
“He has a right to his opinion,” Elvis countered at a press conference in October 1957 when asked about Frank’s comments, “but I can’t see him knocking it for no good reason. I admire him as a performer and an actor but I think he’s badly mistaken about this. If I remember correctly, he was also part of a trend. I don’t see how he can call the youth of today immoral and delinquent. It’s the greatest music ever and it will continue to be so. I like it, and I’m sure many other persons feel the same way.”
Whatever Sinatra thought of Presley’s style of entertainment, he was shrewd enough to realize that Elvis’s return from the army was such big news that his first TV appearance would generate huge ratings. Therefore, he paid Elvis $100,000 to make a ten-minute appearance on the program. Colonel Parker, Elvis’s manager—in an unintentional tip of the hat to George Evans’s tricks back in the 1940s with Sinatra at the Paramount—made certain that three hundred girls from Presley’s fan club were present in the audience to guarantee a strong audience response.
After Elvis, who appeared constrained wearing an ill-fitting tuxedo, did a couple of numbers (“Fame and Fortune,” “Stuck on You”), Frank joined him onstage. “I’ll tell ya what we’ll do,” Frank said, taking charge. “You do ‘Witchcraft,’ and I’ll do one of those others . . .” (which meant that Elvis would sing one of Sinatra’s songs and Sinatra would sing one of Presley’s). Though they exhibited little chemistry together, this meeting of two pop-culture icons is still considered a classic moment by both Sinatra and Presley enthusiasts.
In retrospect, the most noteworthy part of that broadcast really had nothing to do with Elvis, and everything to do with Frank. At one point during the hourlong broadcast, Sinatra—wearing an exquisitely tailored dark suit and black bow tie—walked to center stage and casually lit a cigarette. Taking a puff, he looked at it intently as the orchestra swelled behind him. Then, tilting back his head, he began the first few notes of a lovely rendition of composer Allie Wrubel’s “Gone with the Wind,” from Sinatra’s pensive Only the Lonely album. It was a natural-feeling performance, simple and elegant. During it, Frank demonstrated once again what a masterful communicator he was as he conveyed the sadness of the song (“yesterday’s kisses are still on my lips”) in such a direct, easy manner. At one point, he paused and casually let out a small cough. It was Sinatra at his heartbreaking, aching best. Then, at the end of the song, he took a final puff and lowered his head sadly.
“Elvis was all the rage at the time,” Frank Sinatra Jr. recalled. “But I think that my father proved that when you strip away all the hysteria and mania, at the end of the day what matters is real emotion, real singing.”
Frank’s Plan to Marry Marilyn
In the summer of 1962, Frank Sinatra embarked on a record-shattering concert tour—called the World Tour for Children—during which he visited children’s hospitals and youth centers in Hong Kong (where he donated $95,000 to children’s charities); Israel (where he established the Frank Sinatra International Youth Center for Arab and Jewish Children); Greece (where he was awarded the Athens Medal of Honor); Rome, Geneva, Madrid, and London (where he visited the Children’s Home for the Blind); Paris (where he dedicated the Sinatra Wing of the Summer Home of the Saint Jean de Dieu for Crippled Boys at Bruyères-le-Châtel); and Monaco. In just ten weeks, Sinatra personally financed thirty concerts and raised more than a million dollars.
Frank was deeply affected by the World Tour for Children. Upon his return, he said that visiting and attempting to comfort so many ill and crippled children filled him with a deeper sense of compassion than he’d known before.
After the departure of Juliet Prowse from his life, Frank and Marilyn picked up where they left off and resumed dating. According to one of Frank’s trusted attorneys, Frank actually considered marrying Marilyn in 1962. “One day he came into my office and talked it over with me, asked me for my advice,” recalled the attorney. “What do you think about me and Marilyn gettin’ hitched?” Frank asked. The lawyer would recall being surprised, but trying not to show it. Putting on his best poker face, he said, “You’re generous to come up with this idea, Frank, but marrying Marilyn could pose a future problem.”
“How’s that?” Frank asked.
“She’s so desperate, if you marry her and it goes sour, she’ll go off the deep end and self-destruct . . .”
“. . . and I would end up feeling responsible,” Frank said, finishing the attorney’s thought.
“And one more thing,” added the lawyer. “Do you really want history to show that Marilyn Monroe killed herself while she was married to Frank Sinatra?”
Frank mulled it over. “Maybe if she’s my wife,” he said, “everyone will back off, give her some space, allow her to get herself together.”
“Could be,” the attorney offered.
The lawyer did what he could to discourage Frank, but Frank wasn’t deterred. Before he left the attorney’s office, he said, “I’m gonna want to do it in Europe, not in the States. I don’t want to have to deal with Joe [DiMaggio]. I want you to look into it. See how this can work, where the best place would be to do it quietly.”
Astonished, the attorney asked, “Frank, what does this mean?”
“Don’t go losing your head,” Sinatra responded. “Let’s consider it a project in development, like a picture [a film]. I’m gonna talk to her about it. And then we’ll see what happens.”
It’s not known if Frank ever discussed wedding plans with Marilyn. The attorney said that the subject was never again raised to him. Whatever the case, the chaos involving Marilyn continued in Frank’s life unabated, many of the problems having to do with her fixation over JFK. It didn’t help when, after JFK cut all ties with her, he asked her to sing “Happy Birthday” to him at a Madison Square Garden birthday event. The invitation caused her to spiral out of control, thinking that there was a chance for a future with him. When she went to New York to sing for him, she was fired from the movie she was making a the time, Something’s Gotta Give.
Memories of Marilyn
On July 26, 1962, Frank Sinatra called Pat Kennedy Lawford to say that he regretted what had happened with Peter
relating to JFK’s visit to Palm Springs. It wasn’t an apology. It was a “regret.” That said, he still didn’t want to make amends with Peter. However, he wondered if Peter and Pat might consider bringing Marilyn Monroe to the Cal-Neva Lodge for a brief vacation. He felt she could probably use it. Frank told Pat he was performing in the main room and that singers Buddy Greco and Roberta Linn were working in the lounge, therefore a good time could be had by all. Pat was against the idea. If Frank wasn’t going to apologize for what he’d done to Peter, she didn’t want anything to do with him. However, she felt she had to at least mention the invitation to her husband. When she did, Peter couldn’t wait to go. If Frank wanted to mend fences—and that’s how Peter took the invitation—he was going to cooperate and hope for the best. Marilyn said she would like to go as well.
The next day, July 27, Peter, Pat, and Marilyn departed for a two-day vacation to the Cal-Neva Lodge, via a plane chartered by Sinatra. George Jacobs picked them up at the airport in Nevada in a station wagon. “She looked bad,” he recalled of Marilyn. “She had on a black scarf, no makeup, just very washed-out-looking. I thought, ‘Christ, when Mr. S. sees her, he ain’t gonna be happy.’ When he finally did see her, he looked like he’d seen a ghost. He hugged Marilyn and then asked Peter and Pat to leave him alone with her for a moment. I left the room too. Mr. S. had some time alone with Marilyn during which time he assessed the situation. Then he summoned me back and said, ‘See to it that she’s okay. I’m worried about her.’
“We put her in Chalet 52, one of the quarters reserved for special guests,” Jacobs recalled. “Peter and Pat were next door. Mr. S. had made it his mission to ignore Peter even when they were in the same place at the same time with Marilyn. He told me, ‘I don’t want to make a big deal about it, I just don’t want a lot to do with Lawford. For Marilyn, though, let’s try to keep it civil.’ So when Peter was in his presence, Mr. S. would smile and be very ‘pallie’-like. But at one point I was standing next to Mr. S. and Peter came over and tried to make small talk. Frank glared at him and said, ‘You’re flying awful close to the sun right now. Get lost.’ Peter cringed and backed away.”
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