His Way_ The Unauthorized Biography of Frank Sinatra - Kitty Kelley [172]
“That’s class,” said Frank later. “That’s real class.”
Everything about Jack Kennedy impressed Frank, who was still reeling from the thanks he had received from him the night before. He paid to have the President’s remarks reprinted in Variety and played the recording of that evening over and over for his friends, saying, “I only wish my kids could have seen it. I can’t find the words. I’ll never be able to find the words.”
“After the inauguration we all had to sit around Frank’s hotel suite at the Sands in Las Vegas and listen to that record of Kennedy thanking him,” said the woman who was living with Jimmy Van Heusen. “Frank would stand by the mantel and play it over and over, and we had to sit there for hours on end listening to every word.”
Frank framed the President’s note of thanks and put a gold plaque on the door of the bedroom where Kennedy had slept when he visited Sinatra in 1959, although he confused the date, saying “John F. Kennedy slept here November 6 and 7, 1960.”
Visitors were always shown the “Kennedy Room,” where Frank exhibited his presidential mementos, including photographs of himself with Jack Kennedy and the half-dozen notes that JFK had dashed off to him during the campaign, each framed as beautifully as a precious painting. Aware that Nevada was one of the two western states that went for Kennedy in the election, Frank was pleased to point out the note that said: “Frank—How much can I count on the boys from Vegas for? JFK.”
Upon returning to the West Coast, Frank sent the President every one of his albums, plus tapes of Rat Pack hijinks in Las Vegas. In return, President Kennedy sent him a thank you note on White House stationery; that, too, was framed and hung in the Kennedy Room.
Returning home was a letdown for Frank, and he seemed out of sorts. He performed at the Sands in Las Vegas and flew to Miami for his opening at the Fontainebleau. There he spent time with Sam Giancana, who was working on a CIA plan to assassinate Fidel Castro. Back in California, Sinatra was still in a foul mood. He stayed at his Palm Springs house and entertained a regular crowd of friends, including Marilyn Monroe, Pat and Peter Lawford, Sammy Davis, Jr., and Mai Britt, and Jimmy Van Heusen. Long days were spent at the pool lying in the sun, and in the evening everyone ate one of Frank’s Italian dinners served by George Jacobs.
“Frank was awful during this time,” said one of the guests. “He yelled at Marilyn, saying ‘Shut up, Norma Jean. You’re so stupid you don’t know what you’re talking about.’ She was drinking out of a flask by that point and rather pathetic. He barked at George constantly: ‘George, get this; George, fill the drinks; George, clean my ashtrays; George, clear the table.’ He never said ‘please’ or ‘thank you’ and was always yelling at that poor guy, but George never said a word. He just took it all with silent dignity.”
Frank’s agitation was due, in part, to Desi Arnaz, who rented space to Frank’s production company at Desilu Studios. As president of Desilu, Arnaz was responsible for developing The Untouchables, a popular weekly television show about Eliot Ness battling the Chicago mob in the days of Al Capone, when Sam Giancana was Capone’s driver. The Chicago names being mentioned on the series were making Giancana and Tony Accardo extremely uncomfortable. They didn’t want to see their notorious predecessors depicted as murderers, so they secretly backed the Federation of Italian-American Democratic Organizations in starting a boycott against the show’s sponsor, Chesterfield cigarettes. In March 1961, Chesterfield bowed to the pressure and withdrew its sponsorship. But that wasn’t enough for Sam Giancana. He wanted Desi Arnaz killed.
In April, after an evening of drinking in Palm Springs, Frank announced that he was going to take care of Desi.
“I’m going to kill that Cuban prick,” he said.
With actress Dorothy Provine beside him, Frank drove to the Indian Wells Country Club,