340 Palm Springs episode: (Rizzo took fall) LAT, Jul. 9, 1973, Sep. 13, 1974, LAHE, Aug. 12, 1973, Sep. 13, 1974; (“Respect!”/Rizzo guilty) LAT, Sep. 11, LAHE, Sep. 14, Variety, Sep. 16, 1974, Jilly Rizzo testimony, Nevada State Gaming Commission, Feb. 19, 1981. According to the victim, insurance executive Frank Weinstock, Sinatra also struck him. Sinatra denied having done so—saying he had merely put his “finger on his chest”—and Rizzo backed him up. The case was settled out of court after attorneys for Rizzo filed for a new trial.
Rizzo was also at the Sands with Sinatra in 1967, when Sinatra got his front teeth punched out by Carl Cohen. On that occasion, warned by Cohen that he would wind up dead should he intervene, Rizzo prudently stepped aside. He took a more active role in 1970 in another violent incident at Caesars Palace, when Frank lunged at casino official Sanford Waterman. When Waterman pulled a gun, Rizzo jumped over the table and knocked the weapon from his hand. Though Waterman was initially arrested on a weapons charge, the district attorney concluded that Sinatra had been “the aggressor all the way.” As the incident ended, by one account, the singer told Waterman, “The mob will take care of you.” Years later, testifying to the Nevada State Gaming Control Board, Sinatra said of the episode: “If we hadn’t stopped the people from wanting to take his head off, he would have been hurt very badly. . . . We actually saved his life” (FS first to strike/FS denied —LAT, Sep. 11, 13, 1974; Rizzo backed up/attorneys filed/settled—Carpozi, Sinatra, 326–, Wilson, Sinatra, 308; attorneys filed/settled—ibid.; Rizzo at Sands—Sheriff’s Report, Sep. 18, 1967; wind up dead—M/G int. of Sonny King, int. Joey Villa; arrested/“Sinatra aggressor” —LAHE, Aug. 10, 1970, LAT, Sep. 7, 1970; “mob will take care”—ibid.; “If we hadn’t”—FS testimony, Nevada State Gaming Control Board, Feb. 11, 1981).
340 Rizzo & Mafia: (“made man”?) “Jilly Rizzo,” New York Field Office Report, Oct. 31, 1966, Feb. 27, 1969, FBI 92-9522, “Jilly Rizzo,” Oct. 31, 1966, FBI 92-9522-2, May 27, 1970, FBI 92-4157-1, and Sep. 29, 1970, FBI 92-4157-3; (“LCN associate”) SAC Miami to SAC Los Angeles, Feb. 7, 1985, FBI 299- 5245-80; (Giancana/Fischetti) “Jilly Rizzo,” New York Field Office Report, Oct. 31, 1966, “Supplemental Correlation Summary,” Feb. 25, 1969, FSFBI, FBI Wiretap Summary, Feb. 20, 1962, supplied to authors by HSCA staff member; (Iacovetti friend) Hellerman with Renner, 101; (Iacovetti/Gambino) Teresa with Renner, 226, Wall Street Journal, Aug. 19, 1968; (Rizzo and FS socialized) ibid., “Supplemental Correlation Summary,” Feb. 25, 1969, FSFBI, Hellerman with Renner, 101; (intimate with Bilottis) ints. Joe Bilotti, Tony Montana, Mrs. James Bilotti, Kelley, 478; (Bilotti/Gambino) Sifakis, 33, Allan May, “Forgotten Man at Sparks,” Feb. 2, 1999, http:americanmafia.com.
340 Gambino/Rizzo stock scam: In an FBI report on a subpoena relating to Rizzo, the scam is described as having been “an attempted manipulation of stock named Computer Fields Express . . . while attempting to inflate price of stock [the participants] ran short of funds . . . allegedly Carlo Gambino, Frank Sinatra, and Jilly Rizzo invested in the stock.” A later document cited Sinatra’s attorney Milton Rudin as saying that, even if Sinatra did invest, he would probably not have been aware of the company’s name. Rudin said he did not think there had been a Sinatra investment, but suggested there might have been a Rizzo involvement. Neither Sinatra nor Rizzo were charged with any offense. Rizzo was reportedly close long afterward to Joe Paterno, the capo who looked after Gambino interests in New Jersey (scam—SAC New York to Director, Nov. 21, 1973, FBI 166-5477-31, SAC Los Angeles to Director, Nov. 26, 1973, FBI 166-5477-32; close to capo—SA (deleted) to SAC Miami, Jul. 30, 1985, FBI 183A-2166-339; Paterno background—Sifakis, 278, 164).
340 Rizzo mob connections: Rizzo shared with Sinatra a Mafia connection that tracked back to the Luciano organization and to New Jersey. Bob Buccino, a former senior organized crime investigator for the state, told the authors Rizzo was “real friendly” with New Jersey Mafia figure Angelo De Carlo, whose relationship with Sinatra has been documented in this book. Rizzo reportedly owned a house in Mountainside, the mob boss’s hometown (“real friendly”—int. Bob Buccino; Mountainside—“Jilly Rizzo,” New York Field Office Report, Oct. 31, 1966, FBI 92-9522).
340 $8 million fraud: One of Rizzo’s co-defendants was Michael Rapp, aka Michael Hellerman, who has featured elsewhere in these pages. Rapp/Hellerman, who had been in the restaurant business with Rizzo and met Sinatra on several occasions, had multiple Mafia associates. He was dubbed “the mob’s stockbroker,” and law enforcement officials described the list of those he had drawn into the case as “a Who’s Who of organized crime”—from the Lucchese and Genovese families in particular (Rizzo convicted/spared jail—NYT, May 7, 1992; Stephen Pizzo, Mary Fricker, and Paul Muolo, Inside Job: The Looting of America’s Savings and Loans, New York: McGraw-Hill, 1989, 141–, 144, 147; co-defendant Rapp/Hellerman—ADIC New York to Director, Apr. 20, 1990, FBI 290-17893-778, released to authors under FOIA, Hellerman with Renner, 97–, 102–; “mob’s stockbroker”/ Who’s Who—Pizzo, Fricker, and Muolo, 131–).
340 Jilly buried: NYT, May 18, 1998, “Interments of Interest” fact sheet by Kathleen Jurasky, Palm Springs Cemetery District.
340 Anti-Defamation League: (“taint”) “Why A.I.D.?” attachment to Di Lorenzo to Watson, Oct. 14, 1967, Frank Sinatra File, Box 320, White House Central Files, Lyndon B. Johnson Library; (FS chairman) NYT, May 4, 1967; (18,000/ Madison Square Garden) LAT, Oct. 21, 1967; (Salerno/“hardly matches”) NYT, May 12, 1967, and see NYT, May 13, 1967.
341 board’s Mafia associations/FS resigned: Messick with Nellis, 242, Gage, 89. Anthony Scotto, an AID vice president, was son-in-law of Tony Anastasia, waterfront racketeer and brother of Albert “Lord High Executioner” Anastasia. He was later convicted of having taken more than $200,000 in payoffs from waterfront businesses. Informants told the FBI that he and fellow board member Dr. Mario Tagliagambe were “members of La Cosa Nostra.” Former congressman Alfred Santangelo was the son-in-law of Vincent Rao, identified as a capo in the Lucchese family. Dr. Thomas J. Sinatra, apparently no relation to the singer, was Carlo Gambino’s son-in-law. There was also Carmine DeSapio, the Tammany Hall boss whose strings had long been pulled by Mafia bosses. A probe of a Gambino cousin later led to AID president and cochairman, former congressman Ross Di Lorenzo, being prosecuted, but not convicted, for perjury. Henri Giné, Sinatra’s East Coast representative and a close friend of Jimmy Alo, was also an AID board member (AID board—“Why A.I.D.?” attachment to Di Lorenzo to Watson, Oct. 14, 1967; Scotto—Life, Sep. 8, 1967, Sifakis, 13–, 263, 298, Cleveland to Gale, May 18, 1967, FBI 62-813217; Tagliagambe—ibid.; Santangelo—Ralph Salerno summary on organized crime for House Committee on Assassinations, 62, Sifakis, 127, 200; Dr. Sinatra—Life, Sep. 8, 1967; DeSapio—Sifakis, 90, 181, 198–; DiLorenzo—Salerno summary for HSCA, p. 68, and see Director to Attorney General, May 18, 1967, redacted document, FBI 62-83218, section 3; Giné— corr. Carole Cortland Russo.
341 Italian-American Civil Rights League: (attendance/dollars/national attention)Staten Island Advance, Oct. 19, NYT, Nov. 9, 1970, Apr. 4, 1971; (not to use “Mafia”) NYT, Mar. 24, Staten Island Advance, Mar. 25, 1971.
341 Colombo “founder”: NYT, Mar. 23, Apr. 4, 1971. Colombo was shot down by an assassin in June 1971 while addressing a league rally. By one speculation, Carlo Gambino ordered the attack in part as a personal reprisal, in part to snuff out league activity—which he and mob associates considered too high profile. Colombo survived in a vegetative state, his brain damaged by the would-be assassin’s bullets, for another seven years (Sifakis, 82–); (FS leery/“Colombo was furious”) int. and corr. Hector Saldana—who was working on a biography of Alo, ints. Carole Cortland Russo, Ken Roberts, M/G int. of Eddie Jaffe, Villa.
341 compromise: “Joseph A. Colombo,” Jan. 28, 1971, FBI 92-6210-65. A contemporary FBI report indicates that Sinatra was at first expected to perform at a league rally of Jun. 29, 1970. He did not appear, a fact that buttresses Alo’s reference to a
“no-show.” He did appear, though, on Nov. 20, 1970, which would reflect the compromise arrangement reportedly made by Alo on his behalf. Several sources indicate that Sinatra also appeared at a benefit on behalf of the league in Nov. 1971. Checks of relevant press coverage, and of the FBI’s running file on the league, however, reflect no such appearance (expected June 29—“Correlation Summary,” Feb. 18, 1972, FSFBI; November 20—SAC New York to SAC Las Vegas, Dec. 9, 1970, FBI 92-6210-39, NYT, Apr. 4, 1971; 1971 appearance—corr. Ric Ross, Nov. 20, 1971, entry, Where or When?, Sinatra, Legend, 224, FBI 92-6210, refs.); (skipped/“As far as”) handwritten letter sender and recipient names deleted, Mar. 19, 1971, FBI 166-3211-55.
341 The Godfather: (FS rebuked) NYT Magazine, Aug. 6, 1967; (Puzo background/$1 million/$8 million) Fox, 368–, (most lucrative) Robert Evans, The Kid Stays in the Picture, New York: Hyperion, 1994, 231; (optioned in advance) ibid., 217; (attorneys demanded) Mario Puzo, The Godfather Papers, New York: Putnam’s, 1972, 53; (get character written out?/“Sinatra still wasn’t”/FS told to back off) Mean, Sep. 2001; (Chasen’s/abused) Puzo, Godfather Papers, 54–, and see Chicago Sun-Times, Sep. 11, 1970, Sciacca, 9.
342 1969 revelations/De Carlo bugs: LAHE, Jan. 7, 1970, logs of convs. Mar. 10, Dec. 5, 1961, Oct. 29, 1962, Apr. 22, Nov. 11, 1963, Jun. 12, 1964, vol. 9, Misc. ELSUR Refs., HSCA Subject Files, Frank Sinatra, JFK. Steve Lenehan, a mobster turned informant, recalled how in the mid-1960s, when told that De Carlo was on the phone, Sinatra immediately took the call. In old age, De Carlo kept a photograph of Sinatra on his office wall. Sinatra acknowledged only that he had “met” the gangster (Lenehan—int. Steve Lenehan and see “Interview with Steve Lenehan,” americanmafia.com, Sep. 2001; photo—Sifakis, 98; “met”—LAT, Jan. 20, 1970).
342 FS and crime probes: (served with subpoena) LAHE, Oct. 15, 1969; (fought to avoid) LAHE, Oct. 15, 16, Dec. 18, 1969, Jan. 8, 14, 1970; (Supreme Court) Philadelphia Inquirer, Feb. 4, 1970; (solemnly told) LAT, Feb. 18, 1970, Kelley, 393–.
342 Fontainebleau suit: (judge’s order) LAT, Apr. 11, 1968, “Joseph Fischetti,” May 25, 1967, FBI 92-3024-92; (left Florida) int. Ralph Salerno, Ralph Salerno and John Tompkins, The Crime Confederation, Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1969, 166; (moot/suit dropped) LAT, Apr. 24, 1968. The Miami case was a libel suit between the Fontainebleau Hotel and the Miami Herald, which in 1967 published articles alleging that the hotel was controlled by mobsters. The previous year, again after much ducking and weaving, Frank had been forced to testify before a federal grand jury investigating skimming by Las Vegas casino owners (grand jury—Kelley, 366); (Four years later/prepared to appear) Hollywood Reporter, NYT, Jun. 8, 1972; (committee voted/FS vanished) NYT, Jun. 8, 22, LAHE, Jun. 8, LAT, Jun. 9, 1972; (belligerent appearance) NYT, Jun. 28, Jul. 19, 23, 1972.
342 “Let’s dispense”/“From the standpoint”: FS testimony, Jul. 18, 1972, Hearings, Select Committee on Crime, U.S. House of Representatives, 92nd Cong., 2nd sess., Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1973. Sinatra won justified sympathy when the Crime Committee took hearsay testimony from a convicted felon, Joe Barboza. Barboza claimed that Sinatra had held an interest in the Fontainebleau, and had had an interest in the Sands and at Lake Tahoe, as a front for New England Mafia boss Raymond Patriarca. In the view of the American Civil Liberties Union, the airing of these allegations subjected Sinatra to “trial by publicity” and “character assassination.” Before Barboza made his claims, however, the committee had planned to question Sinatra on a specific matter of unquestioned fact—his former investment and role as a vice president of the Berkshire Downs racetrack in Massachusetts. Coinvestors with Sinatra had been the mafiosi Patriarca and Lucchese. In his testimony, Sinatra denied knowing Patriarca. In his, Patriarca denied knowing Sinatra. When asked whether any of his associates had done business with or purchased stock from the singer on his behalf, however, the Mafia boss pleaded the Fifth. Sinatra testified that he agreed to join the racetrack venture at the suggestion of a man named Salvatore Rizzo, whom he had met while performing in Atlantic City, apparently in 1962. Rizzo, for his part, repeatedly pleaded the Fifth when asked whether he knew Sinatra and, if so, how long he had known him. The former controller of the racetrack, however, quoted Rizzo as having told him: “I’ve known Sinatra since New Jersey. I was a neighbor of his . . . lived right next to them. I know his first wife and his children, and I know him.” The Providence Evening Bulletin had reported as early as September 8, 1962, that Sinatra and Dean Martin were friends of Rizzo. As to Sinatra and Patriarca denying that they knew each other, an FBI report dated four years before they testified referred to Sinatra, at Caesars Palace, having “a message he wanted carried to Raymond Patriarca”—who was reportedly a hidden owner of Caesars. The Crime Committee’s eventual report gave an acid account of Sinatra’s version of events, but concluded that he had been an “unwitting front” in the corrupt Berkshire Downs scheme. It never cleared up the anomalies listed above (Barboza claim—Barboza testimony, Hearings, Select Committee on Crime, U.S. House of Representatives, 92nd Cong., 2nd sess., pt. 2, 752–, 756–, 763; ACLU—Chicago Sun-Times, Jun. 6, 1972; Berkshire Downs—NYT, Jun. 8, 1972; Sinatra testimony—Hearings, Select Committee on Crime, House of Representatives, 92nd Cong., 2nd sess., pt. 4, 1409–; Patriarca testimony—ibid., 1485; Rizzo—ibid., 1498, 1501, 1504; former controller—ibid., testimony of Charles Carson, 1447, 1451, 1457; Evening Bulletin— SA Boston to USA Boston, Nov. 6, 1962, FBI 92-2961; Las Vegas SA Aug. 29, 1968, FBI 92-1851-83; hidden owner—Dan Moldea, Interference, New York: William Morrow, 1989, 469n5; report—“Organized Crime Influence in Horse Racing,” Report, Select Committee on Crime, U.S. Senate, 93rd Cong., 2nd sess., Jun. 25, 1973).
343 sounded off in NYT: NYT, Jul. 24, 1972; (“like Lear”) New Times, Oct. 19, 1973; (echoed claim) NYT, Apr. 4, 1971, and see Hollywood Reporter, Oct. 21, 1969, NYT, Jul. 24, 1972; (“If a man”) New Times, Oct. 19, 1973.
343–44 1971 retirement: (Thompson/“try a little tenderness”) Life, Jun. 25, 1971; (five thousand people/included) ibid., and see LAT, Jun. 15, 1971. The “retirement” concert was in aid of the Motion Picture and Television Relief Fund, for which it raised $800,000 (Shaw, Entertainer, 43); (two months earlier) Sinatra with Coplon, 125; (statement) New York Daily News, Mar. 24, 1971; (“spectacular”) Life, Jun. 25, 1971.
344 record sales dipped/movie flopped: Sayers and O’Brien, 261, O’Brien, 186, 191, 195, 198, 205. The My Way album had placed number eleven in the charts in 1969, but the three albums released in the two years prior to 1971 had unexciting sales. The 1967 movie Tony Rome had decent audiences, as did The Detective and Lady in Cement in 1968. Dirty Dingus Magee, though, released in late 1970, was a commercial and critical disaster. Sinatra made no further movies until The First Deadly Sin in 1980, another failure. A 1984 cameo appearance in Cannonball Run II ended his movie career; (nine hundred songs) Rednour, 11–; (eighty-seven albums) ibid., 249–; (forty-three movies) O’Brien, Film Guide, 12—with cameo roles, the total would be fifty-five.
344–45 “I’ve had enough”: Life, Jun. 25, 1971. Sinatra had undergone a surgical procedure the previous year for Dupuytren’s contracture, a painful condition of the musculature of his right hand and palm, the hand in which he generally held the microphone. Its origin, Sinatra liked to say, was the bare-knuckle punch he had landed on columnist Lee Mortimer twenty-three years earlier. He had long since complained, too, that the Los Angeles smog affected his nose and throat. Rumors in 1971 that he was receiving secret treatment for throat cancer were unfounded. Sinatra sued one tabloid, which settled out of court by contributing a large sum to the medical facility established in memory of his father. There is no evidence that he had serious health problems at that time (Dupuytren’s—LAHE, Jul. 9, Sep. 7, LAT, Sep. 8, 1970, Screen Stars, Jul. 1971; origin?—int. Al Viola; Los Angeles smog—Time, Nov. 22, 1968; rumors unfounded —LAHE, Jul. 21, 1971, SAC New York to Director, Sep. 15, 1971, FSFBI; tabloid settled—Shaw, Entertainer, 42); (“Being a public”/“sl
obs”/“garbage collectors”) TV Guide, Nov. 17, 1973; (Gage story) Wall Street Journal, Aug. 19, 1968; (confrontational) see note re Rizzo in Caesars Palace incident; (Giancana abroad) Brashler, 294–, 304, 312–.
344 De Carlo/Alo/Fischetti: De Carlo, convicted on loan-sharking charges in 1970, was jailed for twelve years. The sentence was commuted in 1972, amid reports that Sinatra had used influence with the Nixon White House to get his former New Jersey backer out of jail. A study of De Carlo’s FBI file, and in particular reviews of his case by Bureau of Prisons personnel, do not support the allegation. De Carlo was suffering from cancer and other ailments, and died less than a year after his release.
Jimmy Alo was sentenced to five years in 1970 on charges arising from a Securities and Exchange Commission investigation, and went to jail in early 1971. He continued to be on friendly terms with Sinatra’s parents following his release in 1973, but his relations with the singer himself cooled. Alo felt Sinatra had failed in several ways to reciprocate his support over the years—not least his part in securing Sinatra the role in From Here to Eternity.
Joe Fischetti was indicted on conspiracy and other offenses shortly before Sinatra’s retirement, and in 1972 was sentenced to six months in jail. He remained the singer’s friend until his death in 1979 (De Carlo—Angelo De Carlo File, FBI 179-195-82 through 156, Sifakis, 98; Alo—“Vincent Alo,” May 28, 1971, FBI 92-2815-411, Jan. 10, 1975, FBI 92-2815-416, ints. Carole Cortland Russo, Ken Roberts, Hector Saldana; Fischetti—“Joseph J. Fischetti,” Oct. 22, 1970, FBI 92-3024-106, Jan. 12, 1971, FBI 92-3024-108, Jul. 24, 1972, FBI 92-3024-112, FS testimony, Nevada State Gaming Control Board, Feb. 11, 1981).