His Way_ The Unauthorized Biography of Frank Sinatra - Kitty Kelley [183]
When Frank refused to be fingerprinted by the New York police for a cabaret license, his publicists backed him all the way, saying it was the principle of the thing. Rogers and Cowan, not knowing of Frank’s old New Jersey arrests, told the press that he did not have a police record.
Henry Rogers became so frustrated with Sinatra’s behavior that when Frank asked him why he did not have a good public image, he impulsively said that Frank was his own worst enemy.
Silence followed Rogers’s rebuke, but Frank did not flinch. He asked Rudin’s opinion, and Cowan’s, and listened to both men discuss his poor public persona and what could be done to rehabilitate it. They decided that Frank should undertake a “people-to-people” type of personal appearance tour and do benefits around the world that would raise money for handicapped children.
Having decided on a European tour, Frank then fired Rogers and Cowan and hired another publicist, Chuck Moses, a serious, conscientious public relations man.
“Frank wanted to be not just an entertainer and an important factor in show business,” said Moses, “but he also wanted to play a role in the community other than that which is always imagined of him. He was very serious about this.… He wanted to do good. He wanted to change his image.”
It was no longer enough for Frank to be the most famous Italian-American singer in the world or an international movie star; he had to be esteemed and venerated. In Sicily, such men are revered as uomini rispettati—men of respect; men who are honored by village folk, whose hands are kissed, whose advice is heeded, whose greeting is cherished.
“Frank is totally committed to public respectability,” said Richard Condon, “but on his terms, and being a friend of the President… was in his eyes the ultimate respectability.”
“The breach with JFK was brutal for him,” said Chuck Moses, who had the task of reshaping Frank’s public persona, and who began by trying to get rid of the Rat Pack image. “It gives the public a wrong impression,” he said. “People think Frank and Dean and Sammy and a few others are inseparable. Sure, they’re good friends, but Frank has many other friends, interests, and activities.”
The first step in remaking the Sinatra image was the European concert tour arranged by Mickey Rudin in 1962 to benefit underprivileged children and to introduce his client as a philanthropist with a social conscience.
“I was married to Mickey at the time, and together the two of us had to go out and get Frank concerts,” said Elizabeth Greenschpoon. “We went all over the world—to Rome and Tokyo and London, and I watched Mickey create an atmosphere of demand for Frank, that he was desirable. Never mind the henchmen and goons. Mickey made them book Frank. Because of my husband’s strong ties to Israel, he also managed to get a youth house named for Frank because supposedly this was a tour to benefit children and youth. I say ‘supposedly’ because the real purpose was to benefit Frank. He needed a good press at the time, and Mickey saw to it that he got one.”
In Tokyo, they gave Frank the key to the city and named an orphanage for him.
In Hong Kong, hundreds of children lined the streets waving garlands of flowers in his honor.
In Nazareth, they presented him with a silver-embossed Bible in a ground-breaking ceremony for the Frank Sinatra International Friendship Youth House. But this antagonized the Arab League, which promptly banned his movies and records.
In London, Princess Margaret shook his hand and Lord Snowden bowed in admiration.
In Paris, General de Gaulle made him an officer of the “Order of Public Health.”
Throughout the ten-week tour, the press coverage was outstanding because Moses had hired a still photographer, a three-man television team, and two publicity people to accompany Frank. Photographs of him holding blind children in Greece and talking with crippled children in Italy appeared around the world, inspiring newspapers to commend “the new Frank Sinatra.” In Japan, they hailed him as “a nice, gentle guest,