His Way_ The Unauthorized Biography of Frank Sinatra - Kitty Kelley [167]
Frank and the rest of the Rat Pack opened the convention ceremonies in the sports arena on Monday, July 11, singing “The Star-Spangled Banner,” which was marred only by the delegates from Mississippi, who booed Sammy Davis, Jr. The jibes were so loud and ugly that Sammy lost his composure. As Davis tried to blink back his tears, Frank whispered to him: “Those dirty sons of bitches! Don’t let ’em get you, Charley. Hang on. Don’t let it get you!” But unable to hide his humiliation, Sammy left after the national anthem while Frank, Dean Martin, Peter Lawford, Janet Leigh, and Tony Curtis took their places on the floor in front row seats reserved for the press. They prowled the aisles restlessly, wanting to be part of the Kennedy power-brokering that was being handled by Kenny O’Donnell and Larry O’Brien. Although reporters, delegates, and even the Speaker of the House of Representatives were barred from the floor unless they could produce a highly coveted pass, Frank and the Rat Pack wandered at will from one delegation to the next, impervious to barriers and restrictions. Conscious of television, Frank had painted the back of his head black so that the cameras would not pick up his shiny bald pate.
Ambassador and Mrs. Kennedy stayed at Marion Davies’s mansion in Beverly Hills, and while Rose attended the convention every day, her husband entertained labor leaders and big city bosses at home. On Wednesday, July 13, the day of the nominations, Frank was sitting with Jack Kennedy and his father when David McDonald, president of the steelworkers union, arrived.
“Bobby was there … and quite a number of the members of the Kennedy family were there,” recalled McDonald. “I walked in and said hello to everybody. Jack said, ‘Would you like a drink, Dave?’ I said, ‘Yes, I’d love a beer.’ He said, ‘Right out there.’ So I went out there and Frankie Sinatra, of all people, was the bartender. So Frank said, ‘What would you like, Dave?’ I said, ‘Got an ice cold beer here?’ He said, ‘Sure.’ I said, ‘Frank, would you do me a favor? How about calling [my wife] Rosemary. She couldn’t be here because she has this terrible headache from the demonstration.’ So he called Rosemary. Her headache stopped immediately because she was such a great admirer of Sinatra, of his singing ability, anyway.”
Jack Kennedy stayed at the house with his father to watch the nominating speeches while Frank returned to the convention hall, where the Stevenson demonstrators were threatening to tear down the hall in their fervor. As Senator Eugene J. McCarthy (D-Minn.) stepped to the podium to make his eloquent nominating speech for Stevenson (“Do not reject this man who has made us all proud to be Democrats. Do not leave this prophet without honor in his own party.”), the convention turned into a screaming, screeching mass of waving straw hats and blowing horns beseeching the heavens to thunder in praise of their man. Frank sat backstage, glumly watching the wild Stevenson demonstration. After five minutes of pandemonium, he signaled the orchestra leader, Johnny Green, giving him the “cut” sign with his hand to his throat, and effectively put a stop to the outpouring of adulation.
Minutes later, Minnesota Governor Orville Freeman made the nominating speech for Kennedy, which didn’t match McCarthy’s rousing speech for Stevenson, but that made no difference, because by 10:07 P.M., when the roll of states was called and Wyoming gave its fifteen votes to Kennedy, the Democratic nomination was his. The convention hall erupted with excited Kennedy delegates screaming “All the way with JFK.” The Rat Pack jumped up and down, pounding one another on the back. “We’re on our way to the White House, buddy boy,” Frank said to Peter Lawford. “We’re on our way to the White House.”
Frank had arranged for political satirist Mort