His Way_ The Unauthorized Biography of Frank Sinatra - Kitty Kelley [300]
The President also wanted to stay for the spaghetti dinner and zeppole dessert with the archbishop in the church basement. Frank begged off the dinner and did not sit on the dais as the President condemned abortion in front of people who still remembered his mother as “Hat Pin Dolly.”
Meeting the President in Newark, Frank flew by helicopter with him to Hoboken. They were driven in a presidential limousine to the church rectory at Seventh and Jefferson streets. Hundreds of people surged forward to greet Reagan, but hundreds more shouted to Frank, cheering his arrival and welcoming him back home.
“I can’t believe he came back,” said Margie LaGuardia, a lifelong Sinatra fan. “I felt like he would never be seen again in this city.”
Shaking the outstretched hands like a veteran politician, Frank, once an infrequent boyhood parishioner of St. Ann’s, smiled and laughed and greeted everyone amiably, but within twenty minutes he was back in the presidential limousine and heading for a concert in Hartford, Connecticut, while the President was inside the church pleading for the rights of the unborn.
New York Governor Mario Cuomo said he was disgusted by the sight of the President in Hoboken alongside Sinatra and the purple robes of the archbishop of Newark.
“It’s just the most outrageous kind of pandering,” he said. “Reagan probably thought, ‘I’ll get the Catholics, I’ll put Frank Sinatra next to me, he’s Italian,’ that means all the Italians will vote for him.”
The governor’s criticism made no difference. Reagan won reelection by one of the largest landslides in history and he later repaid his Hoboken friend in full.
Once again, the President named him as director of entertainment and executive producer of the inaugural gala, despite an editorial in the New York Daily News that said, “Find Another Singer.”
Reagan was inured to carping in the press about his friendship with Frank and dismissed it. He had ignored Joseph Kraft’s column months before that had questioned his judgment in honoring Sinatra at the White House.
“The singer is not under indictment or anything of the kind,” Kraft wrote. “But he is well known for alleged association with gangster elements. So holding him up for public admiration is the reverse of good taste. It is sleazy.”
Nevertheless, the President was not prepared for the menacing encounter that occurred on the eve of his inaugural at the gala rehearsal. Frank had walked into the Convention Center after reading a profile about himself on the front page of The Washington Post Style section entitled: “The Rat Pack Is Back—Sinatra and his Sidekicks: A Cool for Modern Times?”
Barbara Howar, a reporter from Entertainment Tonight, approached him, saying: “Frank, I wonder if I could …”
Wheeling around before she could finish her question, Frank shook his gloved index finger. “Listen, I want to tell you something,” he said. “You read the Post this afternoon? You’re all dead, every one of you. You’re all dead.”
Television cameras and microphones captured the ferocious encounter and replayed it on the evening news, much to the consternation of the Reagans. Neither of them uttered a word in rebuke, though, for they, too, had been smarting from press coverage of Nancy’s $46,000 inaugural wardrobe and insinuations that the streets of Washington were paved with idolatrous Republicans in mink coats and stretch limousines.
Sinatra continued seething about the Post article after the gala was over.
“You know why I get upset?” he said. “Did you see that thing in the paper? Geez! We’re working eighteen hours a day trying to put together a show and every second counts, every second is important because we had so little time to put the show together, and then this thing comes out!
“I’m upset because the entire [entertainment] industry is performing like the Marine Corps. They come here from all parts of the world. Some stars gave up dates to come here. The show biz people are like the civilian