His Way_ The Unauthorized Biography of Frank Sinatra - Kitty Kelley [248]
“We lived in a housing project at the time, but he made it possible for us to move to this house,” said Mrs. Wyatt. “He has given us a completely different life.”
When Emogene Slayden of West Frankfort, Illinois, who was born with no arms and only one leg, lost her welfare payments because of a technicality in the law, Frank sent her one thousand dollars so she could hire a housekeeper to cook and clean and help her get dressed. “I just wanted to run out and buy the biggest color television I could find and then I could say Frankie bought me a television, but I didn’t dare,” she said. “I needed the money to live.”
When Bernice Mitchell of Desert Hot Springs, California, lost most of her welfare grant due to a cut by the California health department and could not afford to buy Christmas presents for her son, Frank personally delivered a red bicycle to her eleven-year-old boy, saying it was a gift from Santa Claus sent by way of Governor Reagan.
When Mario Victoria, an eight-year-old boy from El Monte, California, who was suffering from two malignant brain tumors, had to celebrate Christmas early because he would die before December, Frank sent him a check for five hundred dollars.
When Morgan Rowe, a ten-year-old boy from Gainesville, Florida, fell from a tractor into a spinning thrasher that mangled his arms and upper torso, Frank sent him a check for fifteen thousand dollars.
All of these spontaneous acts of generosity, accounts of which were published in newspapers around the world, contributed to Sinatra’s international reputation as a humanitarian and helped to bring him innumerable honors. He won the March of Dimes Foundation’s Man of the Year Award in 1973, followed by the Thomas A. Dooley Foundation’s “Splendid American Award.” He shared the latter tribute with his good friend Vice-President Agnew a few months after the inaugural, when both of them appeared at the organization’s annual fund-raising dinner at the Plaza Hotel in New York.
“We chose Sinatra and Agnew because they reflect the true spirit of the ‘ugly American,’ ” said Dr. Verne Ghaney, president of the foundation that sponsors medical aid and health education in Southeast Asia. “They are people who reflect well the image of what this country stands for, the qualities that make people great—strength, integrity, courage, and forthrightness. No matter what Americans may think of them, these two men have a good image abroad. Besides, if we had chosen two Peace Corps volunteers, nobody would have paid to come.”
The favorable press coverage of this event persuaded President Nixon to reinstate Frank as the featured performer at the White House state dinner on April 17 for the Italian prime minister and his wife. Frank gratefully came out of retirement for this occasion and was so excited by the invitation that he took all three of his children to Washington so they could hear the President of the United States praise him to the hilt: “Frank Sinatra is to American music what the Washington Monument is to Washington—he’s the top.
“This house is honored to have a man whose parents were born in Italy but yet from humble beginnings went to the very top in entertainment,” Nixon said.
The two hundred twenty guests in the East Room sat enraptured as Frank sang a medley of his classics, including “Moonlight in Vermont,” “Fly Me to the Moon,” “OF Man River,” “I’ve Got the World on a String,” “One for My Baby,” “I’ve Got You Under My Skin,” and “Try a Little Tenderness.”
“When I was a small boy in New Jersey, I thought it was a great boot if I could get a glimpse of the mayor in a parade,” Sinatra said. “Tonight, here with my President, the Italian prime minister, and their guests, it’s quite a boot to me. I’m honored and I’m privileged to be here. Today, after the rehearsal, I looked at the paintings