His Way_ The Unauthorized Biography of Frank Sinatra - Kitty Kelley [135]
Conceived and built by the Mafia, Las Vegas remains a town where the mob feels comfortable and where hoodlums are welcomed with open arms.
“You’ll find the mob people get the finest suite of rooms—rooms that might cost three hundred bucks a day—and invitations to the best shows in town, and we never pick up a tab because it’s all on the house,” said Vinnie Teresa of the New England Mafia. “I don’t know how many times I got telegrams inviting me to the biggest hotel in Las Vegas because Frank Sinatra or Sammy Davis was in town that week. All the mob would show up for their shows. ‘Come on down and be our guest… we have a suite of rooms reserved for you,’ one of the hotel’s bosses would say. Why? They want you because you’re a gambler and because suckers love to see tough guys just like they like to see big-name entertainers. They love to walk into a casino or a card room, spot you, and whisper in someone’s ear: ‘Hey, Joe, do you know who that guy is? That’s Vinnie Teresa from the New England mob.’ If a place gets the name that mob people come in regularly, suckers will flock there just to gape at mob people like they were movie stars and to get next to a table to watch how you gamble.… Before you know it, they’re into the game themselves, and they’re dropping a bundle.”
Frank had begun going to Las Vegas with his gangster friends shortly after he moved to the West Coast, sometimes dropping thousands of dollars at the tables. Gambling was second nature to him. He had grown up with a mother who had her own bookie and frequently woke up the neighbors by playing boccie (an Italian bowling game) outside their windows with truck drivers, challenging them to five-dollar throws. Accustomed to his father’s regular poker games, Frank became familiar with betting on all sports, especially boxing and horse racing. His Uncle Gus ran numbers in Hoboken and was arrested several times for possession of lottery slips; his Uncle Babe was arrested more than twenty times for crimes like usury and loan-sharking, often lending money to gamblers at illegal interest rates.
Frank had an affinity with the men who ran Las Vegas; he felt at home in their nocturnal environment, and gambled with abandon. One evening, he lost over fifty thousand dollars at baccarat. He first played this fast, big-money card game in the south of France and was so enthralled by the action that he insisted the Sands start its own baccarat game in 1959.
“I’ve seen Frank go up to the baccarat table with ten thousand dollars, sit down, put the bundle on the table, ride it up to thirty thousand, lose it, and walk away from the table with a shrug,” said vibraphonist Red Norvo.
Away from Las Vegas, Frank continued to gamble by telephone, calling in his roulette bets. He chose roulette, he said, “because you can’t shoot craps by phone.”
“Frank destroys money,” said Joe DiMaggio.
“He’ll bet on anything,” said Al Algiro.
Frank’s good fortune held throughout 1954. He was named the most popular male vocalist in the year-end Downbeat poll, an honor he had not received since 1947. The magazine also selected him as the Top Pop Records Personality of the year, and Metronome christened him Singer of the Year for his best-selling single, “Young at Heart,” and his album, Swing Easy.
Feeling the need to chronicle his comeback, Frank placed a full-page ad in Billboard at the end of the year enumerating the various awards he had received, the films he had in release (Suddenly and Young at Heart), the film he was shooting (Not as a Stranger), and the film he was scheduled to start (Guys and Dolls). He signed the ad, “Busy, busy, busy—Frank.”
But his string of good luck was broken at two A.M. the morning of December 9, 1954, as he was leaving the Crescendo on Sunset Boulevard with Texas oilman Bob Neal,