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CHAPTER 14

The story of Sinatra and From Here to Eternity was obtained from the author’s interviews with several people, among them, Abe Lastfogel on June 10, 1983, Corinne Entratter on April 25 and September 24, 1984, Joan Cohn Harvey, Eli Wallach on November 28 and December 5, 1984, Daniel Taradash on July 6, 1983, Walter Shenson on June 1, 1984, John J. Miller on December 12, 16, 1983, and law enforcement sources. Books including Shaw’s and Wilson’s on Sinatra, Flamini’s on Gardner, Patricia Bosworth’s Montgomery Clift, New York and London: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1978; Robert Laguardia’s Monty, New York: Arbor House, 1977; William Goldman’s Adventures in the Screen Trade, New York: Warner Books, 1983; and Leonard Katz’s Uncle Frank: The Biography of Frank Costello, New York: Drake, 1973, were also consulted. MGM legal files provided additional information.

Sinatra’s letter to producer Leland Hayward signed “Maggio” is on file in the correspondence collection at the Performing Arts Research Center at the New York Public Library. It reads: “Dear Leland—my paisan Mr. Sinatra is still on cloud nine and the bum refuses to come down.… He’s so thrilled, he’s ridiculous. … I wish I had as many nice friends and relatives as he has—Thanks for making him happy. Maggio.”

The author obtained FBI files on agent George Wood under the Freedom of Information Act that illustrate Wood’s association with gangsters. One file showed that Wood visited Frank Costello in prison more than ten times.

CHAPTER 15

Some of the information in Chapter 15 comes from published sources such as Billboard, Modern Screen, New York Post, Los Angeles Times, New York Journal-American, Los Angeles Herald Examiner, Lee Israel’s book, Kilgallen, New York: Delacorte Press, 1979; Verità Thompson and Donald Shepherd’s Bogie and Me, New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1982; Sammy Davis, Jr.’s, Hollywood in a Suitcase, New York: Berkley Books, 1980; and Wilson’s Sinatra. The author also interviewed Nick Sevano, Peter Lawford on May 15 and June 2, 1983, Marvin Moss on March 9, 1984, a girlfriend of Jimmy Van Heusen’s on November 18, 1983, Abe Lastfogel, Nelson Riddle on July 15, 1983, Norma Ebberhart on March 15, 1985, Vanessa Brown on June 22, 1983, Ketti Frings on February 6, June 26, and December 27, 1980, Peter Darmanin on November 22, 1980, and Shecky Greene on August 4, 1983. In a December 1982 interview with Mike Douglas, the author was told that Douglas “went to look at Frank’s house years ago and there was a shrine to Ava. So help me God, there was actually a statue of her in the backyard.” A 1958 Walter Winchell column in the Los Angeles Herald Examiner also said, “We visited Sinatra’s beautiful castle-in-the-air home on top of a movie town mountain. On the lawn is a statue of Ava Gardner.”

CHAPTER 16

Material in Chapter 16 was obtained from a variety of sources. The author examined arrest records in the Hudson County Courthouse as well as local news articles relating to Sinatra’s uncles Augustus Garavante and Lawrence Garavante. The author also obtained a copy of an August 3, 1962, Justice Department FBI report entitled “Francis Albert Sinatra, a/k/a Frank Sinatra.” She examined the Oral History of Robbins E. Cahill at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas. Many published sources were also consulted, including the New York Daily News, New York Post, New York Herald-Tribune, Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles Mirror News, Look, and Sammy Davis, Jr.’s, Yes I Can, New York: Pocket Books, 1966.

In the late 1940s, Frank gambled at the Cove, an illegal club in Palm Springs run by Bobby Garcia. “At that time, I thought Frank Sinatra was one of the nicest guys I ever met,” Garcia told Ovid Demaris in 1979. “He was gambling, and the way he was gambling he didn’t have a prayer. … He used to come down on weekends. At that time he was married to Nancy. He owed the joint a marker for about $5,800…. One night Sinatra came in and he’s telling me about Mickey