All about Frank Sinatra and The Mob, by Anthony Bruno"A Hoodlum Complex"On February 10, 1961, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover sent a pointed memo to United States Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, regarding singer Frank Sinatra’s extensive connections to organized crime figures. It was a classic Hoover move. Information had always been Hoover’s best weapon, and in Sinatra’s case the director had stockpiled plenty of ammunition. Special agents had been keeping tabs on the singer since 1947 when he took a four-day trip to Havana and painted the town red with a gaggle of powerful Cosa Nostra members who had gathered there for a mob conference. Hoover’s unstated message to the attorney general in that memo was as subtle as a sledgehammer: Look who your brother the president has been hanging around with. In fact, Sinatra had been an avid supporter of John F. Kennedy in the 1960 presidential election, and they had become quite close.
In the memo Hoover gave a précis of Sinatra’s alleged criminal background prior to his Mafia involvement. Hoover wrote that in 1944, according to “an anonymous complaint,” Sinatra had paid $40,000 to get out of the draft. The FBI director went on to point out that Sinatra had “reportedly been associated with or lent his name to sixteen organizations which have been cited or described as communist fronts” even though the bureau’s investigation never uncovered sufficient evidence to prove that Sinatra was ever a Communist Party member himself.
Hoover then ticked off Sinatra’s criminal associates, including Joseph and Rocco Fischetti, who were cousins of Al Capone; New Jersey crime boss Willie Moretti; James Tarantino who was himself an associate of gangster Bugsy Siegel; Mickey Cohen of Los Angeles; and reigning Chicago boss Sam Giancana. According to Hoover, when Giancana had been arrested in 1958, the police found Sinatra’s private telephone number in Giancana’s wallet. Hoover described a command performance by Sinatra and singer Dean Martin at the home of “notorious Chicago hoodlum” Anthony “Joe Batters” Accardo. According to Hoover, in the summer of 1959, Sinatra allegedly hosted a nine-day, round-the-clock party at the Claridge Hotel in Atlantic City where Chicago wiseguys rubbed elbows with top East Coast mobsters, including Vito Genovese and Tommy Lucchese. Hoover even quoted a female informant who had met Sinatra and Joe Fischetti at the Hotel Fontainebleau in Miami and believed that the singer had “’a hoodlum complex.’”
Charges like these plagued Frank Sinatra throughout his life, and he repeatedly and vehemently denied having any formal association with the Mafia. But Hoover hadn’t pulled these names out of thin air. Even if Sinatra wasn’t a criminal himself, he certainly knew plenty of criminals and considered many of them good friends. Despite his denials, year after year, evidence piled up indicating that Sinatra enjoyed a very special relationship with the Mafia.
When police in Naples, Italy, searched Lucky Luciano’s home several years after the Havana getaway, they found a gold cigarette case with the inscription, “To my dear pal Lucky, from his friend, Frank Sinatra.”
Chicago boss Sam Giancana was known to wear a star-sapphire pinkie ring that was a gift from Sinatra.
The press had published damning photographs of Sinatra posing with known Mafia members.
In conversations secretly taped by the government, gangsters mentioned Sinatra’s name frequently, and not only with regard to his singing and acting talents.
Nevertheless, the singer continued to complain that he was being unfairly tarred with the organized-crime brush simply because he occasionally happened to meet someone who had a criminal record or because his last name “ended in a vowel.”
But the record shows that Sinatra’s relationships with known mob figures were often more than just casual meetings with fans. He performed in clubs and theaters controlled by the Mafia. He made investments with mobsters. He used his status as a celebrity to make requests on their behalf—all the way to the Oval Office in one instance. He hosted men of honor at his home, at his hotels, even at his mother’s home. He apparently valued their company as much as they valued his, and if he publicly chafed at being tarred with the Mafia brush, he often used his gangland veneer to instill fear and respect on his late-night romps in the “wee small hours of the morning.”
But what exactly was Frank Sinatra’s relationship with the Mafia? Was he so respected and revered by the wiseguys that they considered him one of their own? Was he actually an inducted member of the secret criminal society? Or was he simply used by mobsters for their own purposes as they used so many others? Was Sinatra a Mafia groupie, taken in by the aura of power and invincibility, intoxicated by the association? Was he their patron saint? Or was he their patsy?
"An Offer He Couldn't Refuse"Like the fictional character Johnny Fontane in Mario Puzo’s The Godfather, young Frank Sinatra found a paternalistic Mafia godfather in New Jersey gangster Willie Moretti, a.k.a. “Willie Moore.” Born in 1894, Moretti, who used the alias “Willie Moore,” provided the muscle for his longtime racketeering partner, Longy Zwillman. At the height of his power, Moretti controlled a gang of 60 vicious enforcers who would break bones—or worse—on his command. Besides contract murders, extortion schemes and illegal gambling, Moretti was heavily involved with narcotics trafficking, and he often worked in cooperation with New York mobsters Lucky Luciano, Joe Adonis and Moretti’s childhood pal, Frank Costello.
Based in Bergen County, New Jersey, just across the river from Manhattan, Moretti had interests in several gambling casinos, or “dice barns” as they were known at the time, which usually featured nightly entertainment for the customers. Moretti had heard the young crooner from Hoboken, and he was impressed with Sinatra’s talent. Sinatra had already appeared on the popular NBC radio show Major Bowes and His Original Amateur Hour with a singing group called the Hoboken Four in 1935, but now he was trying to make it as a solo singer. Moretti took him under his wing, hiring him to perform at his casinos, most notably the Riviera on the Jersey palisades overlooking the Hudson River. Sinatra soon became a regular at the Rustic Cabin in nearly Englewood Cliffs where a local radio station broadcast his live performances.
Sinatra’s popularity grew, and in 1939 he signed on with trumpeter Harry James to front his big band. Sinatra was unique in his ability to “talk” a lyric and make listeners feel as if he were speaking directly to them. Teenage female fans—known as “bobbysoxers” at the time—fell in love with the skinny crooner, and they came out to see him in droves. Nationally known band leader, Tommy Dorsey, who was admired for the mellow tones of his trombone, saw Sinatra’s remarkable drawing power and asked the young man if he’d like to join his band as a featured singer. It was an offer Sinatra couldn’t refuse, and James graciously let Sinatra out of his contract so that he could have his shot at the big time. Just twenty-four years old, Sinatra was giddy with his newfound success, which is why he agreed to the onerous terms of Dorsey’s contract. To join the Dorsey band, Sinatra would have to pay Dorsey one-third of his earnings for life and an additional 10 percent to Dorsey’s agent. By the terms of the contract, 43 percent of Frank Sinatra would belong to Tommy Dorsey and his agent forever.
Sinatra had several smash hit records in the early ‘40s, including “All or Nothing At All” (which he had recorded with the Harry James Band) and “I’ll Never Smile Again.” He was heard on live radio programs like Your Hit Parade, and his face was on every major fan magazine in the country. Sinatra’s popularity seemed to have no limits, and he soon came to resent his contract. Naturally Sinatra wanted to be his own gold mine, not Tommy Dorsey’s.
In 1943, Sinatra’s representatives tried to get him out of the contract, offering Dorsey $60,000 to rip it up. Dorsey, who had a reputation for being tough, refused. By some accounts, hard negotiation eventually convinced the bandleader to take the offer, but other accounts say that Sinatra’s godfather, Willie Moretti, convinced Dorsey to see the light. Sinatra himself consistently denied that Moretti had anything to do with it, but Moretti bragged in private that he and a few associates paid an unannounced visit to Dorsey in Los Angeles. Moretti allegedly jammed the barrel of a gun into the trombonist’s mouth and got him to release Sinatra from his obligations in exchange for one dollar. In 1951 Dorsey talked about the incident to a reporter from American Mercury magazine, describing his meeting with three men who, according to Sinatra biographer J. Randy Taraborrelli, “talked out of the sides of their mouths and ordered him to ‘sign or else.’”
It should be noted that the widely held belief that Sinatra’s godfather leaned on Harry Cohn, the head of Columbia Pictures, to force him to cast Sinatra in the wartime drama From Here to Eternity is untrue. Unlike the cantankerous producer in Mario Puzo’s novel, Cohn never woke up to find a severed horse’s head in his bed. In reality, Sinatra lobbied hard to earn the role. Actor Eli Wallach was being considered for the part of Maggio, an Army private, but in the script the character is described as small and skinny. A pivotal scene in the movie is a fight between Maggio and a large bully of a sergeant played by actor Ernest Borgnine. Maggio is beaten to death by the sergeant, and Cohn ultimately felt that Wallach wouldn’t be a convincing victim since he was quite well built at the time. Sinatra fit the bill perfectly. Besides being an Italian-American like the character, he was physically slight, a stark contrast to Borgnine’s hulking presence.
It was Sinatra’s 29-inch waistline and his natural acting talent rather than mob strong-arm tactics that landed him the role for which he earned an Academy Award in 1954.
Moretti kept an eye out for Sinatra through the 1940s and on at least one occasion scolded the singer for stepping out of bounds in his family life. When Sinatra fell head-over-heels in love with sultry actress Ava Gardner, it was widely rumored in the press that he would soon be leaving his first wife Nancy to marry Gardner. When Moretti got wind of it, he shot off a telegram to Sinatra: “I AM VERY MUCH SURPRISED WHAT I HAVE BEEN READING IN THE NEWSPAPERS BETWEEN YOU AND YOUR DARLING WIFE. REMEMBER YOU HAVE A DECENT WIFE AND CHILDREN. YOU SHOULD BE VERY HAPPY. REGARDS TO ALL. WILLIE MOORE.”
By the late ‘40s Moretti’s mental health had started to deteriorate as a result of untreated syphilis. He became delusional and extraordinarily talkative for a Mafioso, and his fellow mobsters worried about what he might say to the wrong people. Some wanted him rubbed out, but his old friend Frank Costello arranged to have him moved to a secluded spot on the West Coast where his ramblings presumably wouldn’t do any harm. After a period of rest and relaxation, Moretti seemed to have recovered and was allowed to return to New Jersey, but the improvement was only temporary.
When called before the U.S. Senate committee on organized crime headed by Senator Estes Kefauver, Moretti chattered like an old lady, essentially saying nothing of substance but taking a long time to do it. When he was finally through with his testimony, the committee thanked him for his candor, and he invited them all to drop by his house “down the shore” if they were ever in the area. High-ranking mobsters were not amused with Moretti’s antics. They feared that the next time, he would say something that would really hurt them. Vito Genovese led the movement to have the Jersey boss taken care of—permanently.
On October 4, 1951, Moretti was gunned down gangland style at a restaurant, Joe’s Elbow Room, in Cliffside Park, New Jersey. He was 57 years old.
"Just Hello and Goodbye"“I almost fell off my chair,” Joseph L. Nellis, a lawyer for the Kefauver crime committee, said about a package of surveillance photographs the senator gave him one day. “I opened the envelope and saw a picture of Sinatra with his arm around Lucky Luciano on the balcony of the Hotel Nacional in Havana.” As told by Kitty Kelly in her book My Way, Nellis went on to describe other photos of Sinatra and Luciano at a nightclub surrounded with beautiful women, Sinatra getting off a plane at the airport in Havana carrying a suitcase, Sinatra with Chicago mobsters the Fischetti brothers—Charles, Rocco and Joe. The pictures had been taken in February 1947, and when Nellis saw them in 1950, they couldn’t have been more shocking. Here was America’s heartthrob, the crooner adored by legions of screaming bobbysoxers, keeping company with Lucky Luciano, the head of the world’s largest drug cartel.
FBI intelligence had revealed that Sinatra had been vacationing with his wife Nancy in Miami in early February when he took a four-day side trip to Havana with the Fischetti brothers, leaving Nancy behind. The men arrived in Cuba on February 11, and by most accounts Sinatra had no idea exactly what he was getting into. He was good friends with Joe Fischetti who booked talent for mob-owned clubs around the country. Joe was the most affable of the three brothers, and he generally acted as front man for Charlie and Rocco, who carried more of the street in their demeanors. It was Joe who had convinced Sinatra to go to Havana with them to meet some of the “guys.”
Sinatra probably didn’t realize how many “guys” he was going to meet. The Mafia was holding a conference in Havana attended by some of the most notorious mob leaders in the world. The big shots were all there: Luciano, Frank Costello, Willie Moretti, Meyer Lansky, Albert “the Executioner” Anastasia, Joe Bonanno, Tommy “Three Fingers Brown” Lucchese, Joe Adonis, Chicago boss Tony Accardo, Carlos Marcello of New Orleans, and Florida boss Santo Trafficante, among many others. Sinatra’s presence in Havana during that conference put him on the fed’s radar screen, and he would never get off it.
Years later when questioned about the trip to Havana, Sinatra said that he had no idea that he was being taken to a major mob convention. But once he was there, he figured he couldn’t just walk out. Even though he had realized that it would become a public relations disaster for him if it ever got to the press, he had decided to go with the flow and make the best of it.
The mobsters, for their part, liked his style and they liked his singing. They also liked the fact that he was an Italian-American kid from a tough, working-class town. They identified with him. Many of these gangsters also took credit for fostering his career, either financially or by hiring him in their clubs. Everyone, it seemed, wanted to claim a little stake in the skinny kid’s success.
Lucky Luciano was a big fan of Sinatra’s singing and said that was why he had been invited to Havana. Luciano claimed that Sinatra was not involved in anything illegal during that trip. The mobsters just wanted him there to add a little stardust to the gathering. Yes, Sinatra did give him an inscribed gold cigarette case, but many gifts were exchanged there. It was the norm for a Mafia conference like that. No big deal, according to Luciano.
But the Kefauver committee wanted to know what had been in the suitcase that Sinatra carried off the plane? Joseph Nellis asked to interview the singer to see if his testimony would be worth a subpoena to appear before the committee. Sinatra’s lawyer, Sol Gelb, tried to dissuade Nellis, arguing that his client was innocent and that if he were forced to testify publicly in the company of men like Frank Costello, Meyer Lansky and Albert Anastasia, his career would be ruined. But Nellis would not be put off. After much back and forth, the lawyers agreed that Sinatra would sit for an interview with Nellis at a time when the press could be avoided. They agreed to meet at 4 a.m. in a law office on one of the upper floors of Rockefeller Center in Manhattan on March 1, 1951.
According to Nellis, Sinatra was nervous when he arrived and chain-smoked throughout the hour-long meeting. Nellis informed the singer that the U.S. Bureau of Narcotics believed he had delivered more than $100,000 in cash to Lucky Luciano at the Havana get-together. Sinatra denied it. Nellis asked about the suitcase he carried off the plane, and Sinatra said that it contained art supplies, his “razor and crayons.” One of Sinatra’s hobbies was sketching.
Nellis read off a long list of gangsters, including Joe Adonis, Bugsy Siegel, Longy Zwillman, Frank Costello and Meyer Lansky, and asked Sinatra how he had come to know the men. Sinatra said he had just happened to meet them at his singing engagements. Nellis asked if he’d ever had any business dealings with any of these men.
“No business,” Sinatra said. “Just hello and goodbye.”
Nellis asked Sinatra about his relationship with Willie Moretti.
Referring to Moretti at first by his alias, “Moore,” Sinatra admitted that Moretti had secured a few club dates for him in his early years, but made it clear that he had never been involved with Moretti’s illegal operations.
By the end of the meeting, Nellis decided that calling Sinatra before the committee in Washington would be less than enlightening. An entertainer with mere “hello and goodbye” relationships with gangsters was hardly worth the time and effort when compared with the real specimens being hauled before the committee. Sinatra escaped the hot glare of government scrutiny this time, but rumors and allegations in the press were becoming persistent. And over the years Sinatra did little to dispel them.
High HopeThe early ‘50s were hell for Sinatra. His popularity slipped; he was no longer the boy wonder idolized by the bobbysoxers. He even lost his singing voice for a time, and his career just about hit bottom. Only his old mob pals would hire him for their clubs. He was also embroiled in a tempestuous relationship with actress Ava Gardner whose career was on the rise while his was sinking lower and lower. When they married in 1951, gossip columnists snidely referred to Sinatra as “Mr. Ava Gardner.”
It’s widely believed that Gardner was the great love of Sinatra’s life. Perhaps more accurately, she was the great obsession of his life. He loved her madly and couldn’t live without her, but their fights were legendary, and when they got physical, rooms were trashed and furniture was demolished. When Sinatra and Gardner finally separated in 1953, Sinatra fell into a deep depression. He still loved her and was insanely jealous of any man who was with her. Their Mexican divorce was finally completed in 1957. Gardner dated several men after Sinatra, but she was never married again.
By the early 1960s Sinatra was back on his feet, swinging hard and flying high. His voice had returned, stronger and fuller than before. The dreamboat crooner had transformed himself into a confident, somewhat world-weary, brutally honest saloon singer. A bachelor in his 40s with money, fame and connections, he became the self-appointed leader of an elite group of entertainers who called themselves the Clan. The rest of the world knew them as the Rat Pack. The principal members were singer Dean Martin, singer and dancer Sammy Davis Jr., actor Peter Lawford, and comedian Joey Bishop. As accomplished as each one was individually, when they were together, they took their cues from Sinatra. People started calling him the Chairman of the Board, and they said it with the deep respect afforded a Mafia don.
Throughout his life, Sinatra sought out alliances with powerful men, both in the legitimate and illegitimate worlds. While his “hoodlum complex” led him toward Chicago boss Sam “Momo” Giancana in the early ‘60s, his power complex brought him into the ultimate circle of power, that of the newly elected president of the United States, John F. Kennedy. Sinatra was close to Giancana, and he wanted to be closer to Kennedy. Behind the scenes Giancana shared that desire because he wanted what no Mafia capo had ever achieved—access to the Oval Office. He saw Sinatra as his conduit. But to have the president’s ear, Giancana knew that he would have to give a little to get a little.
In the 1960 presidential election, Kennedy, then the Democratic senator from Massachusetts, was running against the sitting Republican vice president, Richard Nixon. The Kennedy campaign had pinpointed certain areas of the country that could go either way in the election, and they need help securing these areas. The word was passed from Kennedy’s father, former U.S. ambassador to Great Britain Joseph Kennedy, to Sinatra: Ask your “friend” in Chicago to help us with West Virginia and Cook County, Illinois. Giancana was willing to oblige, delivering his home turf as well as West Virginia where his outfit had enough sway to influence the election. When Kennedy won, Giancana expected the new administration to show its thanks by getting the feds off his back. Unfortunately for Giancana, it wasn’t going to be a simple quid pro quo.
Sinatra had done everything he could to ingratiate himself with JFK. He had performed at fundraisers during the campaign and personally planned a star-studded inaugural gala after Kennedy’s election. He had had the lyrics to his hit song “High Hopes” rewritten to make it Kennedy’s election theme song. And late at night when the press wasn’t looking, Sinatra had shown Kennedy the good life, Rat-Pack style—booze, broads and laughs galore.
Sinatra was living a Jekyll and Hyde existence. By day he was an outspoken advocate for civil rights and social justice. By night he was the bad boy-in-chief of the Rat Pack, personifying every naughty little vice that the American male desired. When the president joined the revelry, Sam Giancana saw an opportunity.
At Giancana’s suggestion, Sinatra introduced Kennedy to a fetching young brunette named Judith Campbell. Giancana felt that Kennedy would find her attractive because he thought she vaguely resembled the classy first lady, Jackie Kennedy. Kennedy did find Campbell alluring, and the two had an affair. At the same time Giancana started dating Campbell, but according to his brother Chuck in his book Double Cross, it wasn’t because he desired Campbell. Giancana had a habit of wooing the wives and girlfriends of men he wanted to control. It was his way of gaining inside information and showing that he could have anything his target held dear. Giancana’s affair with Campbell was brief, but this time the strategy backfired on him.
Kennedy’s advisors rightly felt that the president of the United States should not be sharing a bed with a woman who was also dating one of the country’s top mobsters, particularly when Kennedy’s brother Robert, the attorney general, was working so hard to rid the country of organized crime. Almost overnight the president made a turnaround, dumping Campbell and distancing himself from Sinatra, who was stunned by the sudden cold shoulder from the White House. (Kennedy, it should be noted, did not completely clean up his act as far as extramarital affairs were concerned.) The change in attitude was felt most dramatically when Kennedy, who had planned to stay at Sinatra’s home in Palm Springs during a California visit in March 1962, abruptly changed his plans and stayed with singer Bing Crosby, a Republican! Sinatra had even gone to the expense of building an addition on his house to accommodate the president and his staff.
Sinatra was mortified, but Giancana was furious. Wiretaps revealed Giancana’s disappointment with Sinatra and his low regard for the singer. When it became clear that Sinatra wasn’t going to get him what he wanted, the mobster had no use for him.
Never one to put all his eggs in one basket, Giancana was also courting the CIA at this time, promising to use mob hitmen to poison Communist Cuban leader Fidel Castro. It was all a scam, though, to get huge payments from the government for a service that Giancana had no intention of ever delivering. Giancana was playing them, the same way he had played Sinatra. But apparently Sinatra never caught on because he continued to value Giancana’s friendship. It was a friendship that would later cost him big time.
The Night LifeOn November 9, 1962, the roster of entertainers playing the Villa Venice Supper Club was beyond belief. Crooner Eddie Fisher was the opening act. Sammy Davis Jr. took the stage next, wowing the crowd with his song-and-dance routines. Then came Dean Martin, and finally the headliner, Frank Sinatra. At the end of the evening, the performers all came out and sang together, kibitzing with one another between numbers and generally hanging loose, letting the audience in on their private party. The crowd ate it up, cheering and applauding wildly. It was a performance that people would talk about for years to come, the kind of impromptu extravaganza that happened only in Las Vegas.
Except this wasn’t Vegas. It was Wheeling, Illinois.
The Villa Venice Supper Club, just outside Chicago, had first opened its doors in 1960. Most of its business came from private functions—weddings, bar mitzvahs, retirement parties, and the like. But in the summer of 1962 it underwent a major renovation. Canals were constructed on the eight-acre property and stocked with gondolas, each one manned by a gondolier and in most cases a prostitute. For those who didn’t care for water sports, there was the newly built Quonset Hut two blocks away, a clandestine and illegal gambling casino. Buses and limousines shuttled customers back and forth between the club and the casino all night long. Undoubtedly most of the people who flocked to the Villa Venice that opening week came for the entertainment, but a large enough percentage of the customers spilled over to the other attractions, wandering out of the club to try their luck at the gaming tables or take a little boat ride with a young lady for hire. This was exactly how the silent owner of the Villa Venice, Sam Giancana, had envisioned it. Sinatra and his pals were the lure for the more lucrative illegal delights at the Villa Venice. And the best part was that it was almost pure profit for Giancana because he wasn’t paying the talent. They were all working gratis as a favor to Sinatra who had arranged it for his old pal Momo. After all, from Giancana’s point of view, Sinatra owed him for his failure to deliver President Kennedy.
The FBI was paying close attention to the goings on at the Villa Venice, and special agents interviewed each of the performers. Eddie Fisher insisted that he had appeared there as a favor to his close friend Frank Sinatra. Sinatra said that he’d put it all together as a favor to his old friend Leo Olsen, who was in fact Giancana’s front man. But Sammy Davis Jr., who had lost his left eye in a car accident, was a little more forthcoming regarding the Villa Venice engagement. When asked why he had performed without pay, he responded, “…I have to say it’s for my man Francis.”
Did he do it for anyone else? the agents wanted to know. Like Sam Giancana perhaps?
“By all means,” Davis said.
When the agents asked him to explain, he said, “Baby, let me say this. I got one eye, and that one eye sees a lot of things that my brain tells me I shouldn’t talk about. Because my brain says that, if I do, my one eye might not be seeing anything after a while.”
Actor Peter Lawford, who was President Kennedy’s brother-in-law, elaborated on Sinatra’s relationship with Giancana: “I couldn’t stand him [Giancana], but Frank idolized him because he was the Mafia’s top gun. Frank loved to talk about ‘hits’ and guys getting ‘rubbed out.’ And you better believe that when the word got out around town [Hollywood] that Frank was a pal of Sam Giancana, nobody but nobody ever messed with Frank Sinatra. They were too scared….”
But Sinatra’s association with Giancana proved to be a major liability for the star in the fall of 1963. Sinatra owned nine percent of the Sands Hotel in Las Vegas, where he performed regularly, earning more than $100,000 a week. To own a stake in a Nevada gambling establishment, an individual had to have a state gambling license, which Sinatra had obtained in 1954. This license later allowed him to buy into the Cal-Neva Lodge in Lake Tahoe, which sat on a piece of property that was half in California and half in Nevada. The gambling casino was, of course, on the Nevada side. The state of Nevada maintained what was called the Nevada Black Book, which contained the names, photographs and criminal records of 11 men who were forbidden from entering any casino in the state. Casino owners who allowed any of these people into their establishments risked losing their licenses. Sam Giancana was one of the 11.
Sinatra was in no position to be inhospitable to Giancana in Nevada or any place else. Giancana had pulled strings to get Sinatra a $1.75 million loan to refurbish the Cal-Neva Lodge. And though Giancana never expressed his half-hearted feelings for Sinatra to the singer’s face, Sinatra always hosted Giancana lavishly at his homes and hotels. Whenever he was in Nevada, Giancana was always careful to stay out of the casinos, knowing that federal agents kept a close watch on them, and at the Cal-Neva Lodge, Sinatra made sure that Giancana was kept out of sight in luxury. This arrangement worked so well, Giancana became a frequent visitor to the state where he was officially persona non grata.
In July 1963 while Giancana was staying at the Cal-Neva, he had gotten into a public shouting match with a man named Victor Collins who was the road manager for the McGuire Sisters, a popular singing trio. Giancana’s longtime lover was one of the singers, Phyllis McGuire. The argument grew more heated, and someone threw a punch, igniting an all-out brawl. Witnesses recognized the Chicago mob boss, and the incident came to the attention of the Nevada Gaming Control Board. The board launched an investigation, and employees of the Cal-Neva unwisely attempted to bribe the investigator. At a hearing Sinatra allegedly used “highly insulting language” with the chairman. The board gave Sinatra an ultimatum: he had until October 7 to present evidence that would disprove the charges that he had willingly allowed an outlawed person into his establishment. The date arrived, but Sinatra failed to respond. As a result he lost his gambling license and was forced to sell his interests in both the Cal-Neva Lodge and the Sands Hotel.
"Now We Go See Frank"One morning in June 1985, Frank Sinatra’s breakfast must have been ruined by what he saw in the comics section of the morning newspaper. Doonesbury cartoonist Garry Trudeau had set his satirical sights on Sinatra after President Ronald Reagan awarded the singer the Medal of Freedom, the most prestigious civilian award in the country. At a gala ceremony on May 23 where actor Jimmy Stewart, marine explorer Jacques Cousteau and Mother Theresa were among the recipients, the president had praised Sinatra as “one of our most remarkable and distinguished Americans.” In a departure from Trudeau’s usual format of four drawn panels, the last panel in the strip showed a photograph of a smiling Sinatra surrounded by a gang of mobsters and mob associates, his arms draped around two of them. It was a frequently reprinted photograph from 1976 that Sinatra must have wished had never taken because it was used for the rest of his life as proof positive that he was all mobbed up.
Among the goodfellas and friends in the picture with Sinatra were capo di tutti capi Carlo Gambino, head of the crime family that bore his name; Gambino’s brother-in-law Paul Castellano, who would later succeed Gambino as head of the family only to be gunned down in a palace coup orchestrated by his successor, John Gotti; and West Coast boss Jimmy “the Weasel” Fratianno who would later turns state’s witness against his Mafia pals. The photo was taken backstage at the Westchester Premier Theater in Tarrytown, New York, on April 11, 1976. According to Fratianno in his authorized biography The Last Mafioso, it was Gambino’s idea to go backstage and pay a visit on the singer.
The wiseguys had been seated together at the same table at the dinner theater, “lingering over coffee” after the show when someone came up to Gambino and whispered in his ear. The old don raised his hand, and everyone was suddenly silent. “’All right,” he said, “Now we go see Frank.”
Backstage, Sinatra “welcomed Gambino with a kiss and a hug.” A photographer was present, and the men of honor gladly posed for a picture with the Chairman of the Board. Sinatra’s star power dazzled even Gambino, one of the most cautious Mafia chieftains who had ever lived.
The mob had built the 3,500-seat theater with money from legitimate investors, and in its first year they had brought in $5.3 million by booking top-shelf acts like Sinatra, Dean Martin, and Steve Lawrence and Edie Gorme. But it was a typical mob bust-out scam in which the mobsters defrauded their investors and sucked every penny they could out of the business until it was teetering on the brink of bankruptcy. But unlike other bust-out scams, the mob was unwilling to let the Westchester Premier Theater wither away. It had proved to be a good money maker. All it needed was a little infusion of working capital to keep it going, and for that the mob turned to Sinatra, booking him for two dates in 1976 and another in 1977 for which he was paid his going rate. Sinatra’s enormous popularity guaranteed sold-out shows, which gave the wiseguys enough money to keep their cash cow alive a little while longer.
The greed and chutzpah of a career criminal can never be underestimated. Sinatra had been good for the theater, but the way the wiseguys figured, he could be even better for them if he performed for free. It was Jimmy the Weasel who knew how to do it. Fratianno enticed Sinatra with the possibility of getting the singer inducted into the ultra-exclusive social order, the Knights of Malta. Fratianno even held out the carrot that he might be able to get Sinatra the Maltese Cross, an award for outstanding accomplishment, which had been awarded to only 700 people in the society’s 1,000-year existence. Sinatra took the bait—hook, line and sinker. In a dubious private ceremony, a Hungarian named Ivan Markovics, who claimed to be a high-raking Knight, donned red silk robes and presented Sinatra with a scroll, several medals, a ceremonial passport, and a red flag with the white Maltese Cross. Afterward Fratianno confided in Sinatra that the Knights were hurting financially, and it would be a wonderful gesture if a new Knight could find some open dates on his calendar to do a few benefit concerts for them. Sinatra agreed to donate his services without hesitation. Fratianno suggested that they use the Westchester Premier Theater because things had always gone so well for Sinatra there in the past.
When Sinatra agreed to perform for the Knights, Fratianno thanked him profusely and told him that if he ever needed anything, just say the word. According to The Last Mafioso, Sinatra did have something he wanted done. A former bodyguard named Andy “Banjo” Celentano was planning to write a tell-all about his experiences working for the singer. Sinatra wanted the man sufficiently roughed up so that he would change his mind about becoming an author. Fratianno promised to take care of the situation, but he later revealed in court testimony that his legbreakers were never able to locate Mr. Celentano to deliver the message.
"...Let the Record Show I Took the Blows..."Sinatra’s “hoodlum complex” only worked one way. While he was apparently enthralled with mobsters, ultimately the mob just used him the way they used anyone else—to make money and lots of it. But it would be unfair to characterize Sinatra as simply the mob’s patsy. He was a complicated man whose life was defined by contradictions.
As a young man he had been investigated for sympathizing with radical left-wing Communists, but after being rejected by the Kennedys, he turned conservative, becoming a staunch supporter of Ronald Reagan.
Sinatra had always been a vocal supporter of civil rights and had made Sammy Davis Jr. an equal member of the Rat Pack at a time when black entertainers, no matter how famous, were not allowed to stay in the hotels where they performed. Yet Sinatra reveled in the company of wiseguys who as a group have never been known for their racial tolerance. (In a wiretapped conversation between Sam Giancana and one of his chief henchmen, Johnny Formosa, the two men vented their anger over Sinatra’s failure to “deliver” President Kennedy. Formosa suggested that they “whack out” the entire Rat Pack to “show those a****** Hollywood fruitcakes.” Referring to Sammy Davis, Jr., Formosa said, “I could take that nigger and put his other eye out.”)
Sinatra was Hollywood royalty and often graciously acted the part, whether attending White House galas or receiving humanitarian awards for his charitable works. But he could also be crass and crude in public, cursing out underlings and making scenes when he was displeased. Kitty Kelly writes in her book His Way that on one occasion Sinatra spotted Godfather author Mario Puzo dining at Chasen’s Restaurant in Los Angeles. Sinatra had always blamed Puzo’s Sinatra-like character as one of the main reasons for his troubles regarding ties to organized crime. According to Sinatra’s longtime friend and associate Jilly Rizzo, who was at the restaurant that night, Sinatra flew into a rage and loudly berated the author who finally got up and left in the middle of his meal. Sinatra shouted at the author as he walked away, “Choke. Go ahead and choke, you pimp.”
Despite Sinatra’s atrocious behavior and groupie passion for gangsters, he had enormous talents as a performer. He recorded many classic albums and single-handedly turned the American pop standard into an art form with his unique ability to “tell” a song. No other singer in any musical genre can match him in terms of longevity and consistent quality. Though he never gave his acting career the attention he gave to his music, some of his film performances, such as in From Here to Eternity, The Manchurian Candidate, Guys and Dolls, High Society, On the Town and The Man with the Golden Arm, will live on forever. Sinatra gave his last concert in November 1996. He died in 1998 at the age of 82.
If, as J. Edgar Hoover wrote, Frank Sinatra had a “hoodlum complex,” perhaps he publicly suffered that syndrome for many men around the world who secretly harbor a desire to hobnob with enterprising outlaws, hoping to inspire a little fear and respect by association. Why else would Sinatra’s rendition of his hit song “My Way” (lyrics by Paul Anka) become an anthem of manhood for so many American males? Like many of Sinatra’s songs, it tells the story of his life—a grand, swinging, often reckless life that many men long for. As the song defiantly says, “The record shows/I took the blows/And did it my way.”
**Courtesy of Anthony Bruno - Crime Library**
Anthony Bruno
Born in Orange, New Jersey, Anthony Bruno is a graduate of Boston University where, as an undergraduate, he was accepted into Donald Barthelme's graduate creative writing workshop. He later earned a master's in Medieval Studies from Boston College.
While living in Boston, he worked as an archivist for the Boston University Twentieth Century Archives. After finishing graduate school, he moved to Hoboken, New Jersey, and started working in book publishing in Manhattan. His big break as a writer came in 1988 when his crime novel Bad Guys was published in hardcover.
Bad Guys was the first in a series of novels (Bad Blood, Bad Luck, Bad Business, Bad Moon, and Bad Apple) about FBI agents Mike Tozzi and Cuthbert Gibbons, odd-couple partners whose prime targets are New York and New Jersey wiseguys. Basing his stories on actual Mafia figures and their criminal activities, Bruno pioneered the territory that has made The Sopranos the monster hit that it is. Rave reviews compared Bruno to Elmore Leonard and Donald Westlake. People called Gibbons and Tozzi "the best fictional cop duo around."
Bruno turned to non-fiction for his next project. The Iceman: The True Story of a Cold-Blooded Killer is an in-depth profile of convicted murderer Richard Kuklinski, who claims to have killed over 100 people. Kuklinski was dubbed "the Iceman" when one of his victims was found in the woods, his heart frozen solid. Kuklinski had stored the man's body in an ice-cream truck for two years before dumping it in order to disguise the time of death. In researching this book, Bruno corresponded with Kuklinski extensively and interviewed him in prison-locked in a room alone with the killer, no glass partition separating them, noguards in sight.
In 1995 Bruno wrote Seven: The Novelization based on the runaway hit feature film starring Brad Pitt, Morgan Freeman, and Gwyneth Paltrow.
For his next fiction series, Bruno created a new law-enforcement duo, parole officers Loretta Kovacs and Frank Marvelli of the New Jersey Parole Violators Search Unit. Loretta and Marvelli made their debut in Devil's Food in which zaftig Loretta goes undercover at a Florida fat farm in order to nab a crafty embezzler. The second book in this series, Double Espresso, was nominated for an Anthony Award in 1998. The latest entry, Hot Fudge, takes Loretta and Marvelli into the world of gourmet ice cream and kinky sex as they track down a criminal opportunist who's looking to add murder to his extensive rap sheet.
The Seekers: A Bounty Hunter's Story, Bruno's latest non-fiction work, recounts the life and adventures of America's most unique and most successful bounty hunter, Joshua Armstrong, the leader of the Seekers, an elite Mission: Impossible-style team whose most effective weapon is their spirituality. The Seekers was nominated for the Edgar Award for Best Fact Crime book in 2001.
In February 2004 a television movie adaptation of Bruno's novel Bad Apple, starring and produced by actor Chris Noth, premiered on TNT.
Bruno is also a fourth-degree black belt in aikido.
