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show was to be aired, Mickey Rudin sent CBS a letter demanding to review the program before it was broadcast. When CBS declined to make the show available, Rudin fired off another letter charging the network with a “breach of understanding.” Rudin said Frank expected treatment similar to that accorded cellist Pablo Casals, violinist Isaac Stern, and contralto Marian Anderson in previous CBS-TV portraits, and withdrew his permission to use material that he had already furnished for the news special. The network also received five identical telegrams from Dean Martin, Alan King, Sammy Davis, Jr., Soupy Sales, and Trini Lopez demanding that CBS delete them from the program, as well as wires from Nancy, Sr., and Nancy, Jr., saying the same thing. But CBS refused to alter the show, and the resulting publicity about “Sinatra: a CBS News Documentary” made it sound as though the public could look forward to the biggest exposé in television history at ten P.M. on November 16, 1965.

Despite the furor, the program, which won the Arbitron ratings for that time slot, was a highly flattering hour showing Frank cavorting with Dean Martin and Sammy Davis, Jr., telling jokes and singing during a recording session and at a benefit for prison inmates. The critics were disappointed.

“We expected a tiger last night and we got a pussycat,” said the Associated Press.

“… Journalistically it was a placebo of rewrite,” said Jack Gould in The New York Times, adding, “[It] wasn’t authorized but it could have been.”

The Chicago Daily News wrote: “Frank Sinatra owes CBS one more telegram. This one should say, ‘Disregard all previous telegrams from me and my friends and thanks for the fair, honest treatment.’ ”

The Los Angeles Times said: “Sinatra and his loyal clan could not have put together a more flattering look at their leader.”

Jack O’Brian in the New York Journal-American wrote: “Sinatra had the chance to deny most of his established affinity for underworld characters, and not a cock crowed during that denial, which was virtually the comedy high point of the show.”

The Herald-Tribune said: “CBS and the public have been had.… Frank Sinatra not only perpetuated his public image. He gilded the self-made lily.… Once more, but this time under the CBS News aegis, he offered only the public image—the dedicated singer, the generous benefactor, the deep thinker, the happy comrade, the firm executive, the devoted parent—he wants the public to accept as the whole man.”

The Sinatra camp was delighted with the documentary. Jilly Rizzo sent a telegram to Frank, boasting: WE RULE THE WORLD!

Jim Mahoney suggested a public relations gesture toward CBS-TV. “Shall I drop a line to Hewitt?” he asked Frank, but Sinatra was still angry at Walter Cronkite for asking him if he was going to marry Mia—even though that segment had not been aired. “Can you send a fist through the mail?” he asked.

The crowning event of his fiftieth birthday celebration was the dinner party given for him on December 12 at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel by his former wife, Nancy, and his daughter, Nancy, Jr., who had relented and said that he was welcome to bring Mia if he wished. He declined, knowing how uncomfortable everyone would feel. Milton Berle was the master of ceremonies for the evening, which featured a filmed parody of the CBS-TV interview prepared by Jack Haley, Jr., and Sammy Cahn showing scenes from various Sinatra movies. George Burns and Jack Benny did comedy sketches, Tony Bennett sang, and Sammy Davis, Jr., jumped out of a cake to amuse the one hundred fifty guests. Tina Sinatra helped with the party and did a little skit with her sister, but their brother, Frank, Jr., did not attend.

After midnight, when everyone had gone, Frank was seen sitting alone in the ballroom with Brad Dexter sobbing because his son had not been there to share the evening with him.

“Everybody was here and it was a glorious party, but the one person in the world I would have wanted more than anybody else was my boy and he didn’t even send me a telegram, or a card, or anything,” said Frank.