His Way_ The Unauthorized Biography of Frank Sinatra - Kitty Kelley [59]
Spinning at the top of his fame now, Frank Sinatra’s star was in the stratosphere, where there were no black storm clouds, only the limitless reaches of success. His name was known throughout the nation; his fans numbered in the hundreds of thousands; his voice echoed around the world on phonographs and radio; his friends were celebrated. His influence even reached to the White House.
On one of his trips to New York, Sinatra was sitting in Toots Shor’s restaurant when Shor received a phone call from Democratic Committee Chairman Robert Hannegan inviting him and his wife to the White House for tea with President Roosevelt. There were to be only twenty people present, including Ed Pauley, treasurer of the Democratic National Committee, Senator Harley M. Kilgore of West Virginia, and former governors Keen Johnson of Kentucky and Frank Murphy of Michigan. Shor’s wife was sick and could not attend, so he asked if he might bring Frank and, in addition, comedian Rags Ragland. Hannegan called the President’s assistant, Marvin Mclntyre, for permission. He got it. Stage and screen stars were always welcome in Franklin Roosevelt’s White House, and Frank Sinatra was wanted especially because Bing Crosby had announced his support of Roosevelt’s Republican opponent the week before. So the three men flew to Washington on September 28, 1944. Frank said that he wanted to talk to the President about the political campaign “because I’d like to do all I can.”
Roosevelt had never endeared himself to Italian-Americans, especially after he said to the Attorney General: “I don’t care so much about the Italians. They are a lot of opera singers, but the Germans are different. They may be dangerous.” When Roosevelt ordered the internment of five thousand Italian-Americans, including opera singer Ezio Pinza, who was held at Ellis Island, Dolly Sinatra never forgave him. Berating Frank for not coming home to help her with a political campaign in Hoboken, she excoriated him with, “But you campaigned for that Roosevelt!”
Upon meeting the singer, President Roosevelt asked him to name the number one song on the hit parade. “Amapola,” Frank said. The President looked puzzled. “He thought I was talking Italian,” said Sinatra years later.
As Frank floated out of the White House, reporters asked him if he had sung for the President.
“No,” he said. “I wish that I could have.”
“What happened?”
“It was very nice,” said Frank. “I told the President how well he looked. He kidded me about making the girls faint and asked me how I do it. I said I wished to hell I knew.”
“Did he want any pointers?”
“No, he does very well himself.”
“Naw, that’s not what happened at all,” interrupted Rags Ragland. “Frank was speechless when the President said how wonderful it was that he had brought back the art of fainting after it had been dead fifty years. Frank swooned himself. We had to pick him off the floor.”
Frank told the reporters that he had voted for Roosevelt before and intended to do so again in November.
“Do you favor a fourth term?”
“Well,” he said, “you might say I’m in favor of it.”
The next day the President was criticized for inviting to the White House a 4-F singer who, unlike other stars, had yet to leave the country to make one USO tour.
“When our men are dying on foreign battlefields and fighting to maintain the foothold they have won in Germany, such a party is going from the tragic to the ridiculous,” said the Republican senator from Indiana.
“That crooner!” said the Republican senator from Nebraska. “Mr. Roosevelt could spend his time better conferring with members of Congress who will have to pass upon his foreign policy. I have no objection to Sinatra, but the business of the American people comes first.”
Frank’s fan clubs were delighted with FDR for inviting their hero to the White House and one, Sinatra Slick Chicks