His Way_ The Unauthorized Biography of Frank Sinatra - Kitty Kelley [190]
GIANCANA: He [Sinatra] can’t get change for a quarter.
D’ARCO: Sinatra can’t?
GIANCANA: That’s right. Well, they [the Kennedys] got the whip in their office, and that’s it, and they got the money behind them, so they are going to knock us guys out of the book and make us defenseless. They figure if you’ve got the money, you got the power. If you don’t have the money, you don’t have the power.
Giancana sued in U.S. District Court in Chicago to enjoin the Bureau from harassment, claiming the FBI was depriving him of his constitutional rights to privacy. The court ruled in favor of the gangster, fined the FBI five hundred dollars, and ordered the agents to reduce their surveillance by parking at least one block from Giancana’s home and remaining one hole behind him on the golf course. But this did not stop the agents from following him to New York City in June 1963, when he, Phyllis McGuire, Frank, and Ava Gardner went to New Jersey for dinner with Frank’s parents. Although Frank and Ava had been divorced for eight years, Frank still saw her frequently.
“We had a great time,” said Phyllis McGuire. “We took Dolly and Marty a bottle of Crown Royal in a purple felt bag. Ava was so fascinated with it that she couldn’t wait until we got there to have a shot, which she chased with beer. She was adorable, and Dolly loved her. There was nothing Mama Sinatra wanted more than to get Frank and Ava back together again.”
But Frank and Ava couldn’t reach a reconciliation. Frank’s Mafia friendships still irritated her. “Ava didn’t like those types of people at all,” said Phyllis. “She hated the image. It wasn’t just Sam, either. Frank had others around him all the time, and when Ava found out that Johnny Formosa had stayed with him in Palm Springs, she really gave him hell.”
The next night, the McGuire Sisters appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show. After the telecast, Giancana took everyone out to celebrate.
“We went to Trader Vic’s, which was closed because it was Sunday,” said Victor LaCroix Collins, the McGuire Sisters’ road manager. “But Sam knocked on the door and another dago opened it and said, ‘We’re closed.’ Sam said, ‘Yeah, well you just opened,’ and, by God, they opened. We had a real drunken brawl in there. It was the McGuire Sisters; Sam; the musical conductor, Tony Riposo; Frank; and Ava Gardner, who is the most foul-mouthed woman I ever met. The two of them [Frank and Ava] got into the worst fight you ever saw … the names they called each other! She called him a bastard and said he was nothing but a stupid frigging Wop. Even though we were all feeling real good and half drunk by then, everyone looked at one another when she said this and then looked at her, but she just kept on like none of us were there.… Frank kept telling her to shut up.… Then they stormed out and the rest of us went to Phyllis’s apartment on Park Avenue. A little while later Sinatra showed up with Sammy Cahn. It was raining to beat the devil, and so Sinatra started bending everyone’s umbrella, thinking that was real funny. Or else he was still mad at Ava.”
Ava had been staying with Frank at his apartment in New York City, and he was doing all he could to please her. Jilly Rizzo, Frank’s close friend and bodyguard and the owner of July’s, Frank’s favorite New York bar, was doing all he could to help Sinatra please her. He enlisted Mike Hellerman to run down to Mulberry Street with him to get the littleneck clams that Frank wanted to serve her. When Frank asked where he could take Ava to dinner without drawing a crowd of reporters and photographers, Jilly recommended the HawaiiKai, saying no one would expect to see him there.
“The following day, Jilly and I went up to Sinatra’s apartment,” said Mike Hellerman. “He was as happy a guy as I’ve ever seen. We were all sitting there on the couch, talking, when the doorbell rang. Suddenly, Ava walked out of another room all dressed, carrying a suitcase, and headed straight for the door. She opened