A furious Australian press howled for blood. Sinatra refused to apologise and sparked an extraordinary chain of events that resulted in the cancellation of Sinatra's second Melbourne concert, a black ban of his private jet by airport refuellers and a three-day siege at Sydney's Boulevard Hotel. Only after the intervention of Bob Hawke, then leader of the ACTU, did Sinatra agree to sign a placatory statement to the effect that he regretted any inconvenience caused to patrons. It was one of the most bizarre episodes in Australian show business history and is the subject of a new film, backed by the Australian Film Finance Corporation, under the working title of The Night We Called It A Day.



One of the few Australians who knows exactly what happened was John Pond, then 31 and public relations manager of the Boulevard Hotel during the so-called Siege of Frank Sinatra. He describes it as "a week of surreal madness".

"I was the unofficial liaison officer between the world media, the Australian politicians and union leaders and Frank Sinatra, and I was on call 24 hours a day. The only sleep I got for the whole week was a couple of five-minute catnaps," said Pond, now a TV travel documentary maker. The siege was the last thing Pond expected when the Sinatra party arrived in Sydney in the second week of July 1974, in a 12-seat Gulfstream private jet owned by Harrah's Casino in Nevada. Sinatra was booked to perform two concerts in Melbourne and then three in Sydney. The jet landed in Sydney from Tokyo, where Sinatra had performed for the US Navy. Limousines took his party directly from the airport to the Boulevard Hotel near Kings Cross.

In 1974 the Boulevard was the only world-class hotel Sydney had to offer and Sinatra was installed in the 23rd floor Presidential Suite, for $250 a night. The adjoining suites were assigned to Sinatra's personal valet, plus five musicians and an interesting entourage which included Barbara Marx, ex-wife of Zeppo and later to become the fourth Mrs Sinatra; Jilly Rizzo, a lifelong friend and a personal bodyguard; Lane "Shotgun" Britton, a wisecracking New Yorker of about 70, a pot-bellied, balding, cigar-smoking character who wore a red satin windcheater with the word "Shotgun" emblazoned in huge letters on the back; and Milton "Mickey" Rudin, Sinatra's lawyer and personal manager.

Pond prepared the suite, installing a record library and all the exotic booze, including Old Blue Eyes's favourite whiskey. "There was also a particular brand of vodka that I'd heard Sinatra liked," Pond said, "but I couldn't find it anywhere in Sydney so in desperation I rang Qantas in San Francisco and got them to air freight a case of it to the hotel." When Sinatra spotted the vodka he burst out laughing. "That stuff is made by the father of a broad I used to know," he said. "For years, everywhere I'd go around the world, just for a joke, I'd ask for this crazy brand of vodka. I thought it might boost the sales for the old guy. If you want to know the truth, it tastes like cat's piss. I never touch it!"

Sinatra was still laughing a few minutes later, but then the afternoon newspapers arrived and the smile evaporated. There, on top of page three, was a story about his well-known mafia connections with a photographic line-up of some of the famous women in his life under the screaming heading: Sinatra's molls. Sinatra was then 58 and had been involved in a running battle with the press for several years, but this was the last straw. He was still fuming when he boarded the Gulfstream jet later that day to fly to Melbourne.

That night he took the stage at the Festival Hall, sang the opening numbers, then sat on a stool, sipping honeyed tea. This was his traditional opportunity to relax his vocal chords after the first singing session and to create an intimate atmosphere by having a chat with the audience. The verbal bombshell heard around the world was about to drop. Referring to Australia's journalists, he said: "They keep chasing after us. We have to run all day long. They're parasites who take everything and give nothing. And as for the broads who work for the press, they're the hookers of the press. I might offer them a buck and a half I'm not sure."

Next morning the Australian Journalists' Association demanded that Sinatra apologise for his remarks and Hawke quickly became involved. By noon it was announced on Melbourne radio that airport workers would refuse to refuel Sinatra's private jet. And it kept on snowballing. No member of an Australian union at an airport or anywhere else was permitted to provide any service to Sinatra whatever.

Hawke declared: "If you don't apologise your stay in this country could be indefinite. You won't be allowed to leave Australia unless you can walk on water." An urgent conference was held in Sinatra's Southern Cross suite and it was decided to return to Sydney on an Ansett flight using assumed names. The second Melbourne concert was cancelled and the Sinatra party then had to carry their own cases down to the lobby to hail a taxi. One enterprising teenage bellhop, however, defied his union's instructions when he saw Sinatra struggling with two heavy suitcases and was rewarded with a $US100 bill.

It was close to midnight when they all finally arrived back in Sydney at the Boulevard, where Sinatra supervised the cooking of pasta in a makeshift kitchen in his suite. Sinatra asked Pond: "Well, John, how the hell are we gonna get out of this enchilada? Got any ideas?"

Pond rang a friend, Tony Whitlam, son of the then Prime Minister Gough Whitlam, and the young Whitlam agreed to call his father. A few minutes later the phone rang in the Presidential Suite and an impressed Rudin handed the phone to Pond: "It's for you, John, it's your Prime Minister." Pond asked the PM if he could possibly intervene, but as he said: "Whitlam wasn't having a bar of it. He told me that Bob Hawke was the only one who could possibly sort this mess out." Pond invited Hawke to the hotel but he was too busy for a meeting and two days later he still hadn't contacted the Sinatra party. There was a lot of Jack Daniels going down, along with some wild ideas. Sinatra even suggested calling the admiral on board the American aircraft carrier in Tokyo Bay and asking him to sail into Sydney Harbour and send a helicopter to land on the roof of the Boulevard.

According to Pond, Sinatra was prepared to call controversial American Teamsters' Union figure Jimmy Hoffa and ask him to persuade thousands of US truck drivers to refuse to handle any Australian goods exported to the US by cargo ships or planes. Thankfully, on the third day, Hawke showed up, accompanied by three other union officials, for a conference with Rudin. Sinatra stayed locked in his suite.

Hawke's arrival, about 2pm, set the media alight and a small army of reporters and photographers gathered at the entrance of the Boulevard. Up on the 23rd floor Hawke insisted on a written apology but Sinatra wasn't budging. Rudin explained that Sinatra had never apologised to anyone in his life. Finally at close to 10pm, a compromise was reached. Sinatra agreed to sign a statement to the effect that he regretted any inconvenience caused to patrons who had missed his concerts. It was hardly an apology, but Hawke accepted it and Sinatra emerged from his suite to shake hands with him.

The Melbourne concert remained cancelled, but when Sinatra stepped on stage at Sydney's Hordern Pavilion the following night he summed it all up succinctly: "What a bunch of coconuts we've had this week!"