His Way_ The Unauthorized Biography of Frank Sinatra - Kitty Kelley [317]
When Nancy Sinatra was writing a book about her father, she sent letters to her father’s friends and associates seeking quotes and loving anecdotes “from all those who have had close contact” with him. Unamused by the letter, Ava Gardner refused to respond. “Close contact?” she snapped. “Doesn’t she remember I married him?” (Ladies’ Home Journal, July 1972.) Still steaming about the letter, Ava mentioned it to Michael Thornton in 1982. “Did you know that [she] wrote to me recently to say she was writing a book about Frank and that maybe I could help her with recollections as somebody once associated with him. As if I didn’t have a rather closer relationship than that! I told her sorry, but no thank you.” (Thornton’s interview with Gardner, November 1982.) Nancy, in turn, exploded when Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis refused to contribute. “My father escorted, campaigned—he helped JFK in every way—and this is how Mrs. Onassis handles it,” she said. “The late John Kennedy was a very big part of my father’s life. How dare she be that cruel!” (Los Angeles Times, June 4, 1972.) Nancy’s book, which was started in 1966, was not completed until 1985.
CHAPTER 27
In gathering information for Chapter 27, the author interviewed Norman Sherman on February 15, 1984, William Connell on December 14, 1984, Al Algiro, Michael Viner on September 8, 1981, Nancy Seidman on December 14, 1983, Mrs. Ted Allen on August 5, 1983, George Jacobs and Joseph L. Nellis. The author also examined documents in the Hubert Humphrey Archives at the University of Minnesota.
The author consulted articles in McCall’s, Cosmopolitan, The Star, Time, Photoplay, Miami Beach Sun, Ladies’ Home Journal, and numerous newspaper clips. In the Bedside Book of Celebrity Gossip, New York: Celebrity Research Group, 1984, Ruth Gordon was quoted:
“Did you ever try to tell a story to Frank Sinatra? If you do, he’s apt to interrupt: ‘Is this going to take long?’ ”
The New York Times reported on August 15, 1978, in an article headlined “Sinatra, Now a GOP Insider” that
“knowledgeable sources said here that at one point in 1968, a member of Mr. Humphrey’s staff asked the Department of Justice, ‘Are we going to be embarrassed by Sinatra if he participates in our campaign?’ The answer was affirmative.”
In a January 15, 1983, interview with Frank Sinatra, Jr., Sinatra, Jr., claimed to know what happened to Jimmy Hoffa. Jimmy Hoffa was pardoned by President Richard Nixon in 1971. Four years later, on July 31, 1975, Hoffa was abducted in Detroit and never seen again. Law enforcement officials assumed a Mafia murder to keep Hoffa from running against Frank E. Fitzsimmons for the presidency of the Teamsters Union in 1976. To date, the case has never been solved, although there are several theories. Yet Frank Sinatra, Jr., said:
“I know what happened to Jimmy Hoffa. I know people—certain people … and they know me.… No, I can’t tell you, but I do know what happened.”
CHAPTER 28
The author interviewed Sister Consilia, Al Algiro, Nancy Siracusa, Peter Lawford, George Franklin, Ralph Salerno on December 16, 20, 1983, Steve Allen on March 22, 1984, and an IRS undercover agent who requested anonymity.
Sinatra was eager to keep his New Jersey State Crime Commission testimony confidential. Before he started testifying, he presented the commissioners with a piece of paper, saying:
I want you to just familiarize yourself with it as your attorneys have. And very loosely paraphrasing it, it means what goes on in this room with respect to testimony or evidence is to remain in this room, as it’s an executive session.
The next year Frank was negotiating with Tommy Thompson of Life magazine to photograph the Joe Frazier-Muhammad AH fight in March. In an interview with Denny Walsh on March 7, 1984, Walsh told the author that after