Sinatra

by J. Randy Taraborrelli

  The next day, Ava moved out of Frank’s apartment. She was out of his life again.

  Sinatra Surrenders His Gaming License

  By the end of 1963, Ava obviously wasn’t the only one concerned about Frank’s underworld connections. Since he had openly continued socializing with “the boys,” his name was to be found on hundreds of FBI and police surveillance documents compiled from 1960 through the beginning of 1963. Then, in mid-1963, what started out as an inconsequential dispute between a famous pop vocalist and her road manager—one that didn’t even involve Frank—ended up costing Sinatra his gaming license and severing his relationship with both Hank Sanicola and Sam Giancana.

  According to FBI documents, Giancana decided to visit his girlfriend, Phyllis McGuire, while her group, the McGuire Sisters, was appearing at Cal-Neva. As one of the twelve governing chieftains of the Cosa Nostra, Giancana was persona non grata in the eyes of the Nevada gaming officials, who were attempting to ensure that no criminals were even remotely connected with the state’s huge gambling industry. The FBI had issued a “Las Vegas Black Book” containing the names of the eleven known criminals not permitted in Nevada casinos. While it was not a criminal offense to permit one of the men listed in the Black Book on the premises, doing so could result in the loss of the casino’s operating license. Sam was in that book—on the very top of a list. Of course, he had been to Cal-Neva on several occasions, most recently when he was there at the same time as Marilyn Monroe and Pat and Peter Lawford. Giancana’s presence at Cal-Neva had actually become an issue between Frank and Dean Martin, who was one of the original investors in Cal-Neva. According to his daughter Deana, her father warned Frank, “We could lose our gambling license.” Frank told Dean, “Don’t worry about it, pallie.” Dean, who had a low tolerance for monkey business, said, “Fine. I want you to buy me out, then,” which Frank did.

  Again according to the FBI, “Giancana sojourned in Chalet Fifty at the Cal-Neva Lodge at various times between July 17 and July 28, 1963, with the knowledge and consent of the licensee [Sinatra].” It was true; Giancana was hunkered down in Cal-Neva’s Chalet 50, a suite overlooking the lake—two chalets away from the last place Marilyn had stayed at Cal-Neva—that had been assigned to Phyllis McGuire. At night, he and his “boys” would drink and gamble and have fun with the ladies. During the day, he would keep a low profile.

  “Frank wasn’t happy about it,” said Andrew Wyatt, a former Lake Tahoe police investigator who at the time was working for the Nevada gaming board. “Frank didn’t send for [Giancana], as he had in the past. This time, Sam just showed up. Frank said he didn’t want to take the heat for Sam’s presence. But you didn’t tell Giancana what to do. Sam said not to worry, he would leave in a few days. Frank just had to take his chances that nothing would happen. But this time his luck ran out.”

  One evening, Victor LaCroix Collins, the McGuire Sisters’ road manager, got into a disagreement with Phyllis in Chalet 50. One thing led to another, and Collins inadvertently shoved Phyllis, who landed on her butt in the middle of the floor. Hearing the shrieks of the other two McGuire Sisters, Christine and Dorothy, Sam came bounding into the bedroom from the bathroom, saw what had happened, and, with a sharp left hook, decked Collins. Then Collins—either demonstrating extreme bravery or extreme foolishness, depending on how one looks at it—rose and retaliated with his own fists. Before anyone knew what was happening, he and Giancana were rolling on the floor, throwing punches at one another. “And there was Phyllis McGuire pounding on Collins’s head with one of her high heels,” recalled George Jacobs, who ran into the room to see what was happening. He was followed by Frank and two of Frank’s bodyguards.

  Somehow the fight ended up outside on the patio. Just as Victor was about to land a solid right to Sam’s chin, one of Frank’s bodyguards hit him on the back of the head. “What the hell?” Frank asked, pulling the road manager off the gangster.

  “I’m not the one who started it,” Sam said as George Jacobs held Collins at bay. “Let me at ‘im,” he added, trying to break free of Frank. “I’ll kill him. No one shoves my girl and gets away with it.”

  Finally, Sam stormed out of the dining room, angry at Frank and his goons for breaking up the fight.

  Later, Frank and Sam went for a walk on the property surrounding Chalet 50, and as the two gazed up at a starless sky, Frank suggested that Sam leave in the morning. Sam agreed. “I caused enough trouble,” he said. The two had a good laugh. “George will drive you back to Palm Springs,” Frank told him.

  Frank wasn’t laughing a month later though when the Nevada Gaming Control Board learned that a fight had occurred at his establishment, and that Sam Giancana had been involved. This was trouble in the making.

  A few weeks later, Frank was working at the Sands in Vegas when he was asked to meet with the gaming board. At that meeting, Commissioner Edward Olsen asked a great many questions; Frank didn’t give many answers. He did say that he’d run into Sam Giancana at Cal-Neva but that it was a brief meeting. He also said he didn’t know of any fight that had occurred. When reminded that he could lose his license if he had allowed Giancana on the premises of Cal-Neva, Frank promised that he would not see Giancana in Nevada, “but I’m gonna see him elsewhere if I want to, and I want to,” he said. “This is a way of life. This is a friend of mine. I won’t be told who I can see and who I can’t see.”

  Just when Frank thought he was probably in the clear and that the Sam Giancana–Victor LaCroix Collins fight would be forgotten, it was learned by licensing officials that the entire incident had been witnessed by one of Frank’s Cal-Neva employees. That employee was then called in to answer questions before Edward Olsen. However, when he didn’t show, Olsen speculated in the press that perhaps he had been intimidated by Frank. When Frank read Olsen’s speculation in the media, he was angry. He insisted that he did no such thing. “The guy didn’t show up because he took off, scared to testify. Don’t ask me why,” Frank said. “I didn’t have nothing to do with it. How dare he blame me?”

  In the weeks to come, Frank had a few more volatile meetings with Olsen. Olsen wanted “official” meetings with Frank; Frank wanted “off the record” conversations.

  During one meeting, Frank asked Olsen to put off any investigation until after the summer season was over—a few more weeks. As it happened, Cal-Neva was not doing well, and Frank wanted to get as much as he could out of the summer season, because by November, as was Cal-Neva’s practice, the casino would be open only on weekends. Olsen told him he didn’t care about the state of Sinatra’s business.

  As the discussions continued, Frank became more irate. Then, in a final telephone call, he really let him have it after Olsen threatened him with a subpoena. “You’re not even in the same class with me,” Frank hissed at him. “So don’t mess with me. And you can tell that to your board and your commission, too.”

  Edward Olsen was the wrong man to threaten. The next day, he filed an eight-page complaint against Frank Sinatra, saying he used “vile, intemperate, base and indecent language” in their conversation. That same night, gaming control investigators showed up at Cal-Neva. Frank threw them out. Antagonized, the gaming board stepped up its investigation, filing official charges against Frank and threatening to revoke his license for having ever allowed Giancana to be at Cal-Neva. Subpoenas were served on just about everyone who knew Frank—Sam, Phyllis, and the rest. Even Christine and Dorothy McGuire got dragged into the fracas. Of course, Victor LaCroix Collins was also served.

  Now questions would be asked about Giancana’s financial involvement in Cal-Neva; Frank’s relationship with Sam; Sam’s with Phyllis; and any other relationship even remotely connected to Cal-Neva.

  It all came to a head in September 1963 when the Nevada Gaming Control Board filed charges against Sinatra for having entertained Giancana—who was described in the complaint as being “fifty-four years of age, one of the twelve overlords of American crime and one of the rulers of the Cosa Nostra”—
at Cal-Neva. The complaint went on to note that “Sinatra has maintained and continued social association with Giancana, well knowing his unsavory and notorious reputation, and has openly stated he intends to continue such association in defiance of Nevada gaming regulations.”

  Frank would now be compelled to officially address the allegations. Further complicating things, Mickey Rudin got a telephone call from Jack Warner saying that if Frank was going to continue to work for Warner Bros., the studio didn’t want this kind of bad publicity associated with it. At this time, the studio was actually in the midst of a big negotiation with Frank whereby he would be a partner in its business. “I know it’s all bullshit about Giancana,” Warner reportedly told Mickey Rudin, according to Nancy Sinatra, “but I’m tired of the [bad] image of Las Vegas. I like having Frank as a partner, but if he’s going to become involved in Warner Bros. Pictures and own a third of Warner Bros. Records, I think he should not go on with the hearings.”

  Therefore, on October 10, Frank announced that he would surrender his gaming license and Cal-Neva before the board had a chance to make a ruling. He knew he was beaten. Along with his license would go his 9 percent interest in the Sands casino in Las Vegas. This really hurt. Frank had purchased the 9 percent share of the Vegas resort for $50,000. In a few years, his shares’ worth had swollen to a hefty $500,000, and the projected income was in the many, many millions. The total of Frank’s gaming interests—Cal-Neva and the Sands—was estimated at $3.5 million. However, he knew he had no choice; he knew he had invited Giancana to Cal-Neva, and there was no getting around it.

  “No useful purpose would be served by my devoting my time and energies convincing the Nevada gaming officials that I should be part of their gambling industry,” Frank said in a statement. Then he added that he hoped the casinos he was abandoning would continue to thrive, “because they provide wonderful opportunities for established and new performers to present their talents to the public.”

  That same day, the gaming board formally revoked his license and moved to divest Frank of his $3.5 million investment in the Sands and in Cal-Neva. He was given until January 9 to sell off his interests in the two casinos.

  Frank sold all of his casino holdings to Warner Studios in exchange for the lucrative deal there for his own film production company. He then issued a statement saying he was giving up the gaming business because he now had a new production deal with Warners and wanted to focus on making movies instead. He made it seem as if the new deal was totally unrelated to anything having to do with divesting his interest in the Sands and Cal-Neva. Actually, the deals were linked; it was just an expedient way for him to get out of the Cal-Neva mess and continue his relationship with Warners.

  As it would happen, the incident at Cal-Neva would have a long-lasting effect on Frank’s reputation as well as on his relationships with Hank Sanicola and Sam Giancana.

  Where his reputation was concerned, Frank would forever more be known as the Italian-American singer who lost his gaming license because he allowed a mobster onto the premises of his casino. “There was never a finding that he would lose his license and there was never a finding that he had invited Sam Giancana to the Cal-Neva Lodge,” his attorney Mickey Rudin would say. “Notwithstanding those facts, for many years afterward whenever there was a mention of the name Frank Sinatra . . . there would be a tag line that Frank Sinatra had invited Sam Giancana to the Cal-Neva Lodge.” To clarify Rudin’s comments, there may not have been a “finding” that Sinatra had invited Giancana to Cal-Neva, but in fact Frank threw in the towel before the gaming board could fully issue its findings. He knew he had invited Giancana to Cal-Neva on many occasions, and so did Mickey Rudin. He ended the investigation before anything became official.

  Considering what had happened with Cal-Neva, Hank Sanicola was very unhappy about Frank’s ongoing relationship with Sam Giancana. The two had worked hard over the years building the Sinatra empire—Sanicola even had $300,000 invested in Cal-Neva. They’d known each other since the 1940s when Sanicola started unofficially managing Sinatra during the Rustic Cabin days. He couldn’t accept that Frank was willing to jeopardize all of their hard work for a mobster. The two had an argument about Cal-Neva and Giancana while driving through the desert from Palm Springs to Las Vegas. Frank, who was already very upset and on edge, blew up. He insisted on buying Sanicola out of all of their joint partnerships (including the one they held in Sinatra’s Park Lane Films), and impulsively gave him the rights to five of his music publishing companies—Barton, Saga, Sands, Tamarisk, and Marivale—worth anywhere from $1 million to $4 million. Then he kicked him out of the car, right in the middle of the desert. Sinatra never spoke to Hank Sanicola again. Jilly Rizzo, who had been a pal for years, would now be considered Frank’s best friend in place of Sanicola.

  Considering the way he treated George Evans, Peter Lawford, and many others over the years, it wasn’t much of a surprise to anyone in his circle that Frank had ended things so abruptly and finally with Hank Sanicola. It was well known by now that while Sinatra expected loyalty from his friends, he often didn’t show much in return. “He got away with a lot because he was Frank Sinatra and people wanted to be in his world,” Phyllis McGuire observed. “But really, if you looked at it realistically, why would you ever want this man for a friend?”

  Meanwhile, Phyllis’s boyfriend, Sam Giancana, thought Frank had been wrong for blowing up in the meeting with Edward Olsen. “Basta con questa merda!” he said in Italian (“Enough of this shit!”). “This whole thing could have been avoided if Sinatra had just kept his cool.”

  “Sam lost a bundle [about half a million] because he was a part owner of Cal-Neva,” says Thomas DiBella. “The bigger issue, though, was that he didn’t feel that Sinatra had stood up for him, had properly vouched for him. I don’t know what he expected Sinatra to do, but he wasn’t happy about any of it. It wasn’t the same pallie relationship between Frank and Sam, not after the Cal-Neva incident.”

  Part Nine

  THE KIDNAPPING OF FRANK SINATRA JR.

  Planning a Kidnapping

  Listen, I want to talk about your drinking,” Frank Sinatra said, pulling Dean Martin aside.

  “Whassmatter?” Dean asked, slurring his speech. “Did I miss a round?”

  The small crowd laughed.

  “C’mon, let’s have a drink, boys,” Dean suggested.

  “You are drinking,” Sammy Davis reminded him.

  “What? Is that my hand?”

  More laughter.

  “Actually, I’m gonna stop drinking tomorrow,” Dean offered after taking a sip.

  “Well, good for you, buddy boy,” Frank said, patting him on his back.

  “That’s right,” Dean continued proudly. “Starting tomorrow, I’m just gonna freeze it and eat it like a popsicle.”

  It was late September 1963. The occasion was a private party in the fabled Polo Lounge of the old Mission Revival-style Beverly Hills Hotel on prestigious Sunset Boulevard in Beverly Hills. Frank, Dean, and Sammy were making a public appearance for a charity. No songs—just stage patter, audience questions, and autographs.

  Among those in the small audience of about two hundred were three young men whose lives would intersect with Frank Sinatra’s in a bizarre way: Barry Worthington Keenan, twenty-three; Joseph Clyde Amsler, also twenty-three; and John Irwin, thirty-two. “See, Sinatra’s not so big and bad,” Keenan told his pals. “That’s why I brought you guys here. I wanted you to see that he’s just a man, just like you and me,” he said, according to his memory of the conversation. “So, do you think you guys can do it?” asked Keenan, a crew-cut blond.

  “Kidnapping? Man, I don’t know,” Amsler said, sipping his drink. “That’s a big deal.”

  “It’s not a big deal,” Keenan insisted. “I’ve got the whole thing worked out. We know the Sinatras, Joe,” he reminded Amsler. “And what I don’t know from going to school with Nancy, I learned at the library.”

  Keenan then explained that
he had spent a week in the Palm Springs library researching Frank Sinatra’s background and personality. He said he’d also gone to the Los Angeles library and studied the history of major kidnappings from biblical times to the present day. “Where they always go wrong,” Keenan told his friends, “is that they get caught when they pick up the ransom. If we get past that point, we’ll be okay. If we pull this thing off,” he continued, “we’ll be able to live like the movie stars who hang out here,” Keenan concluded, surveying the room. “It’s symbolic, us being here.”

  The audience laughed at another of the Rat Pack’s gags, but by this time Keenan, Amsler, and Irwin weren’t paying attention. Instead, Keenan continued trying to convince his friends to join him in what would go down as one of the strangest—and most bungled—capers in show-business history, the kidnapping of Frank Sinatra’s son.

  Frank on Frank Jr.: “I Got a Good Kid Here”

  Frank Sinatra Jr. was always determined to forge his own way in life, never wanting to leave the impression that he was, even for a second, riding on his famous dad’s coattails. “When I was twelve years old, I got a job taking care of little kids in a swimming camp,” he recalled in 1963 to the writer Fred Robbins. “When I was thirteen, I sold toys in a toy store. When I was fourteen, I was a projectionist in a local movie theater. At fifteen, I went again to a summer camp where I was a counselor. When I was sixteen, I drove a truck for a sporting goods warehouse in downtown Los Angeles. When I was seventeen, I was an errand boy on a movie studio lot. When I was eighteen, I was a teller in the City National Bank in Beverly Hills. And now, in my nineteenth year,” he concluded with a laugh, “I’m a lonely, old broken-down Itralian road singer.”

  Above all, Frank Jr. always had a deep love for music; he appreciated it, studied it, and understood it academically. At nineteen, he chose to follow in his dad’s footsteps and be a singer. Had he been a doctor, an attorney, an accountant—anything but a singer—perhaps his life would have been easier. In any of those professions his name might have been a blessing, an asset. Though some critics would feel his sound was too close to his dad’s for comfort, in fact Frank Jr. developed a personal style very early in his career. He actually doesn’t sound at all like his father, nor has he ever set out to do so. He has his own way of turning a phrase, of connecting with a melody. However, despite his best efforts, he would always be destined for constant comparison to his legendary father.