His Way_ The Unauthorized Biography of Frank Sinatra - Kitty Kelley [160]
Frank did not try to hide his association with Giancana from anyone except the federal agents who followed Sam everywhere. He was proud of his friendship with the Capone capo, and introduced him to his friends, among them Yul Brynner, Greg Bautzer, and Dana Wynter. Frank fixed him up with women in Las Vegas, Miami, and Hollywood, and included him in the dinner parties he gave at Las Brisas, an exclusive resort in Acapulco. Once, he sat Sam next to a New York socialite, and introduced him as “Sam Flood.”
Frank played golf with Giancana in Nevada, and opened his house to him in Palm Springs, occasions that were witnessed by FBI agents. One Easter, his former wife, Nancy, helped him entertain Giancana and Phyllis McGuire in the desert. Later, when he was with Ava Gardner, Frank took Sam and Phyllis to meet his parents in New Jersey, where Dolly cooked them one of her big Italian dinners. As a favor to Sam, Frank gave Phyllis a role in his movie Come Blow Your Horn. Giancana visited her on the set regularly and became a source of fascination to the cast and crew.
“He was there every day on the film, sort of hovering around,” said William Reed Woodfield, the unit photographer. “He was rather dour. He didn’t sit around and say, ‘We bumped off so-and-so today,’ or any of that stuff. I asked Frank once what the Mafia was and he said, ‘Oh, it’s, you know, just a bunch of guys.’ ”
Frank treated the crime overlord with deference. “If Sam said something, Sinatra was on his feet, saying, ‘I’ll get it for you, I’ll get it for you,’ ” recalled Victor LaCroix Collins, road manager for the McGuire Sisters. “He was like a bum boy. He just kissed Sam’s butt left and right. He didn’t dare do anything else.”
Phyllis McGuire saw the same thing. “Frank was in awe of Sam,” she said. “He adored him. They were the best of friends.”
The star sapphire ring that Frank had given to Giancana was part of an Italian friendship ritual that symbolized lifelong bonding.
“Those love rings are some kind of Mafia deal, something among the Italians,” said Joseph Shimon, a former Washington, D.C., police inspector who later became a close friend of Sam Giancana and a partner in Operation Mongoose, the CIA-Mafia plot to kill Fidel Castro. “I was with Sam at the Fontainebleau when Sinatra was appearing, and Frank must have called our suite twenty times trying to get together with Sam. He wouldn’t leave Sam alone. Finally, Sam said, ‘We’re going to have to see him sometime. Might as well get it over with now, but watch what you say because the guy’s got a big mouth.’ Sam was referring to the way that Frank bragged about his Mafia friends all over the place. Sam maintained that Frank’s mouth was the reason Charlie ‘Lucky’ Luciano got in so much trouble in 1947, because Frank was in a bar running his mouth about going to Cuba to see him and some guy tipped off the feds. Anyway, we went down and met Frank at the bar. I was sitting next to Sam when Sinatra walked over.
“ ‘I can’t even keep up with you,’ Sinatra said. ‘Where you been keeping yourself.’
“Sam said, ‘Look, I’m busy. You know I got to keep moving around.’
“Frank looked down at Sam’s hand. ‘I see you’re wearing the ring.’ Sam said that he always wore it.
“ ‘Oh, no, you don’t,’ said Sinatra. ‘I heard you hadn’t been wearing the ring. I heard you never wore it.’
“God, it seemed so ridiculous to me. He was talking