Lady Blue Eyes_ My Life With Frank - Barbara Sinatra [133]
“No, Sammy,” Frank said, “that would be the ultimate event.”
Fortunately, Liza jumped at the chance to fill in on what was launched at the Crystal Room of the Beverly Hills Hotel as the Ultimate Event. Their sizzling show went on to tour twelve countries and play to over a million people in twenty-nine cities. In one month alone they went to Rotterdam, Stockholm, Gothenburg, Helsinki, London, Paris, Amsterdam, Munich, Vienna, Dublin, Milan, and Oslo. They broke box office records across the United States, Japan, Australia, and Europe. The energy of Sammy and Liza was extraordinary. As Frank stood like a rock in the middle of the stage, singing and cracking jokes, the two of them danced and whirled all around him, performing their hearts out. Their onstage banter was a joy to witness, along with the individual versions of their signature tunes like “Cabaret,” “My Way,” and “The Candy Man.” Sammy did a terrific take on the Phantom of the Opera hit “The Music of the Night” by Andrew Lloyd Webber and a very funny Michael Jackson impersonation. Liza sang an extraordinarily moving love song that featured sign language, as well as a great number by Charles Aznavour, who came backstage once to meet everyone. Frank scratched himself all over as he sang “I’ve Got You Under My Skin” but then stopped joking for a heart-stopping rendition of “One for My Baby (and One More for the Road).” Their three-way rendition of “New York, New York” was surely the showstopper to end all. When Frank, Sammy, and Liza performed their entire routine for me at a benefit in aid of the children’s center, I knew nothing would ever top it.
Fortunately, George Schlatter recorded two Ultimate Event shows at the newly restored Fox Theatre in Detroit and his video became a bestseller. Not that George didn’t have his problems with the filming.
He had the whole thing set up perfectly. He knew what Frank would be doing and when, and he knew where Liza and Sammy would be. He made sure he knew exactly where I was sitting alongside Jolene, so that he could pan into the audience and get a shot of the two of us. On the first night, Henry Ford, Jr., showed up, and without thinking I told him, “You sit here.” I got up to give him my seat. George started filming and was looking all over for me. “Where the hell is she?” he cried, going berserk because I’d given my seat away. The next night he told us, “Wear exactly the same clothes, don’t move from those seats, and I’ll get the shot.” But when he looked through the lens, he knew the shot would never make the final cut. Sitting right behind us was the Mafia boss John Gotti, known as the Teflon Don, and George couldn’t get him out of the shot.
The Teflon Don caused a similar problem for George a few years later but in a different venue when he booked the seats that Jolene and I had sat in the previous night and that George needed us to occupy again for continuity. When George heard they were taken, he told Eliot Weisman, “You’ve got to get those girls in those seats. I don’t care what you have to do, just do it!” The following night, there we were sitting in the seats George wanted us to be in—much to his relief. He told Eliot, “I don’t know how you did it, but well done.”
Eliot replied, “I didn’t do a thing. The Teflon Don was arrested last night.” And so he was, along with several others in an FBI raid. He was charged with thirteen counts of murder, racketeering, gambling, and tax evasion. He remained in prison for the next twelve years until his death.
I traveled the world with Frank, Sammy, and Liza as the Ultimate Event took to the road and developed a life of its own. We went to places as diverse as New Orleans and Osaka. Such was the public demand for the three stars