His Way_ The Unauthorized Biography of Frank Sinatra - Kitty Kelley [288]
The chairman then extolled Frank for his generosity: “You have built orphanages, you have built orthopedic hospitals, you have built mental facilities for retarded people, you have built blind centers, you have helped build universities. … I believe that we only have one alternative in this thing. The only thing that we can do, contrary to what anybody thinks, and the fact that they’re never going to stop writing about your association with Sam Giancana, they’re never going to stop writing about the fact that … you gave Lucky Luciano a cigarette lighter [sic]; they’re never going to stop talking about Fratianno … I don’t know now what the commission is going to do, but I would certainly hope that one of the commissioners would make a motion to grant you a license, taking away the six-month limitation, and just give you the license.”
The commissioners rushed to vindicate Frank.
“I am satisfied with Mr. Sinatra’s responses,” said one, “and I am satisfied with the investigation that was performed by our staff on the Gal-Neva incident. With regard to the other incident or incidents that allegedly happened, whether they did or not remains to be seen. …”
“I think we have heard testimony today and our investigation indicates that Mr. Sinatra was not on the premises at the time Mr. Giancana was at the Cal-Neva. Possibly that’s right,” said another.
“I am not suggesting that [Frank Sinatra] is a saint by any means,” said a third, “but I am suggesting in the areas that we have investigated, we have not found any substantive reason that he should not be granted a gaming license. One other thing the people of our state need to know is that in the gaming business we aren’t necessarily going to have a group of choir boys. There are going to be people that have had some types of associations.”
Yet the Nevada statutes are very clear as to what type of person is eligible for a gaming license:
A person of good character, honesty and integrity, a person whose prior activities, criminal record, if any, reputation, habits, and associations do not pose a threat to the public interest of this state or to the effective regulation and control of gaming or create or enhance the dangers of unsuitable, unfair, or illegal practices, methods and activities in the conduct of gaming, or the carrying on of the business of financial arrangements incidental thereto.
By a four-to-one vote, the board removed the six-month limitation on Frank’s license, and sent him out of City Hall with its seal of approval.
“We got that junk behind us,” Frank said wearily. “We cleared the air.”
* Sinatra listed the following privately held companies:
Somerset Distributors, Inc. — $1,123,130.26
Artanis Productions, Inc. — $10,000.00
Bristol Productions, Inc. — $12,000.00
Sergeant Music Go. — $1.00
Saloon Songs, Inc. — $1.00
Frank & Nancy Music — $14,000.00
Danny Stradella, Inc. — $6,000.00
Affiliated Capital Corp. — $30,000.00
Total — $1,195,132.26
† In 1971, Frank sold his twelve-seat Grumman Gulfstream jet for three million dollars to Allen Dorfman’s Chicago insurance company, a firm that the Chicago Crime Commission had listed as having syndicate connections. Dorfman, a good friend of Sinatra, had leased the luxurious jet, which bore the markings of 711-S (seven and eleven are a crapshooter’s winning rolls; the “S” was for Sinatra), to the Teamsters Union Central States, Southeast, and Southwest Pension Fund for thirty thousand dollars a month. Dorfman paid Sinatra three million dollars for a used plane when a new one would have cost about the same amount.
34
By 1980, Frank Sinatra’s movie career was over. He had made his first television film in 1977, Contract on Cherry Street, because it was his mother’s favorite story about the mob, but the reviews had been disappointing. The Los Angeles Times called it “dreadful … tawdry, slow, and tacky.”
The following year, he had played a tired detective in the movie of The First Deadly Sin after Marlon Brando rejected the role. The reviews were devastating. He had wanted to play