His Way_ The Unauthorized Biography of Frank Sinatra - Kitty Kelley [302]
“Today is quite a day for me … along with Jimmy Stewart, Jacques Cousteau, and others, I received a Medal of Freedom from the President of the United States,” he said. “And now, here I am with you, at this institute of higher learning—the school I dreamed of attending when I was a kid.” His face was flushed and his words, some garbled, came haltingly as he referred to the college as “the Stevens Institute of Humanities.” He talked about his father who could not read or write. “My father was a great believer in education.… This is the school he had chosen for me to attend. My dad was—like all other dads I suppose—a wonderful man. … I must say I have that little bit of regret at all times at not having continued my education. … I am so honored … to be a small part of your day. This is more enjoyable than being at the White House. There nobody raised a fuss.”
The crowd broke into cheers, as if their applause could wipe away the embarrassment of the student protest, but Sinatra was without rancor on that sunny afternoon at Castle Point. At peace with himself and his past, he told them how Stevens had helped him as a singer when he sprinted across the campus track trying to improve his lung capacity. Again the crowd cheered, happy to have been a part of this American dream. And Frank was grateful to them.
“I … I … hope you live to be four hundred years old,” he said, “and may the last voice you hear be mine.”
Then, just weeks after he had received his nation’s highest accolade and the most coveted honor his hometown had to offer on one and the same day, his awards fell victim to the satirical pen of Garry B. Trudeau, the creator of “Doonesbury,” one of America’s most popular comic strips.
In a series of six strips, the artist depicted Frank’s ties to the Mafia and mocked the values of a society that would honor such a man with a Medal of Freedom and a doctorate from the Stevens Institute of Technology. With scathing humor, Trudeau showed the President of the United States paying homage to a man who literally embraced the worst criminal elements of America, as Frank did when he posed for a picture with his arms around Carlo Gambino.
The prestige of the Medal of Freedom was tarnished by Trudeau’s caricature of Frank shouting obscenities, bullying young women, and chasing after gangsters like a lovestruck teenager. Even sillier was the honorary degree, awarded to him for applying “his talents to the benefit of mankind,” which in Trudeau’s comic strip included trying to get a casino employee fired for refusing to break the law.
Sinatra responded to the stinging satire by issuing a statement: “Garry Trudeau makes his living by his attempts at humor without regard to fairness or decency. I don’t know if he has made any effort on behalf of others or done anything to help the less fortunate in the country or elsewhere. I am happy to have the President and the people of the United States judge us by our respective track records.”
Some newspapers, including the Los Angeles Times, refused to publish the strip because of a possible lawsuit from Sinatra. The letters to the editor of the Times about their refusal totaled 221. Two hundred and six letters criticized the decision and praised Trudeau; only fifteen letters praised Sinatra or criticized the cartoonist. That tally gave Frank a harsh barometer of public sentiment.
Still, bedecked in his ribbons, his awards, and his citations, he continued to present himself to the world as a great humanitarian, an inheritor of the American dream who had all that society could offer in terms of wealth and power and fame. Yet the honors of polite society and grateful politicians could never wipe out the stain of his Mafia associations or his ties to organized crime.
To those who had