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By Root 1988 0

supposed to write the hostess, in this case, Mrs. Green, a very nice letter telling her how happy you were to share her hospitality? I can’t believe you haven’t done that yet.’ He shook his head in disgust, and Joe Tomatoes, a real gorilla, went back into the main house. He walked out three hours later with a letter that looked as if it had been written by a five-year-old in left-handed print. The note said: ‘Thank you Mrs. Green for the good food and the nice time. Thank you. Joe Tomatoes.’ Dad and Judy so loved that letter that they had it framed in gold and hung in the guest room for all future guests to see.”

Introducing the bizarre into the privileged lives of his rich society friends was one of Frank’s most memorable traits. He brought them a touch of vulgarity, a hint of the sinister. Though ordinarily they saw only the good Frank, who lavished presents upon them, sang at their benefits, and championed their charities, they occasionally glimpsed the bad Frank, who acted like a monster.

Sinatra gave the country a televised look at his schizoid self in the winter of 1983: the good Frank graciously accepted a major national tribute, but days later the bad Frank berated a woman blackjack dealer at the Golden Nugget in Atlantic City.

The national tribute came on December 4, 1983, when the President of the United States paid homage to Frank for his lifelong achievements in the performing arts. He was one of the five honorées saluted in The Kennedy Center Honors: A Celebration of the Performing Arts, televised by CBS. Quoting Henry James, the President said that “art is the shadow of humanity” as he slipped a rainbow-colored ribbon around Frank’s shoulders, and he continued: “You have spent your life casting a magnificent and powerful shadow.”

Standing alongside dancer-choreographer Katherine Dunham, director Elia Kazan, actor Jimmy Stewart, and composer-critic Virgil Thomson, Frank glowed in the grandeur of the occasion.

“For the country itself,” Sinatra said, “it’s an important thing to do, to honor the arts people. I suppose it’s like the Oscars or the Tonys, but the biggest. But in any award, when you’re honored by your peers, that’s what really counts.”

“And your government,” said his wife, Barbara.

“And our government,” Frank added.

Yet days later, the honorée was gambling at the Golden Nugget in Atlantic City with Barbara, Dean Martin, and Martin’s manager, Mort Viner. Frank told Kyong Kim, the thirty-three-year-old blackjack dealer, to deal to him by hand, not from the legally required sealed plastic box, which is called a shoe. The dealer paused, saying she would have to check with her supervisor.

“You don’t want to play one deck, you go back to China,” snarled Frank.

Hearing the disturbance, the casino supervisor, Joyce Caparele, walked over.

“He said he wanted the single deck, or if he didn’t get his way about it that he would not be putting on the show,” she said. “I thought if I didn’t go along … if I would have said anything to Mr. Sinatra about anything that might have ruffled his feathers, I was afraid I would get fired.”

The pit boss, Maxwell Spinks, was summoned to tell Frank that it was out of his authority to allow the dealer to deal to him by hand.

“I can’t make a decision on this,” he said. “You would have to take it to higher authority.”

“Just run along and get higher authority,” said Frank.

Alarmed by what he had heard of Sinatra’s volatile character, the shift manager, Robert Barnum, thought the singer should be accommodated. Fearing that violence might erupt any minute, the pit boss acquiesced to the demand. “[Sinatra] seemed to be pumping himself up into a very dictatorial-type attitude,” he said.

The dealer, close to tears, began dealing by hand, more afraid of Frank than she was of breaking the law. The incident was videotaped by surveillance cameras and later shown on the CBS Evening News, giving Americans a disconcerting look at the petty tyrant within the man so recently honored at the Kennedy Center.

Months later, the New Jersey Casino Control Commission fined the Golden