Bruce Fessier

The Desert Sun

His widow, Barbara Sinatra, sits silently with his first wife, Nancy, and daughters Tina and Nancy Jr., reflecting on the cathartic funeral at the Good Shepherd Catholic Church in Beverly Hills. Then comes the plaintive voice of an air traffic controller: The private jet transporting the body of Frank Sinatra is completing its 20-minute flight from Van Nuys Airport to Palm Springs.

"You're clear for landing. And welcome home, Mr. Sinatra."

The jet lands at Palm Springs International Airport on Saturday, May 16, 1998. Frank Sinatra, the most enduring of all 20th century American entertainers, is taken to his final resting place at Desert Memorial Park in Cathedral City. The coffin, covered with his favorite gardenias, is filled with sentimental items packed for him on this journey by his family. There are cherry Lifesavers, Tootsie Rolls, a pack of Camels, a Zippo lighter, stuffed animals, a dog biscuit, a bottle of Jack Daniels and the 10 dimes he always carried in his coat in case he needed to make a phone call.

He's laid to rest around an entourage surrounding him in death as it had done in life. Besides his parents, "Marty" and "Dolly" Sinatra, there's Frank's Uncle Vincent Mazzola, who had lived with the Sinatras since Frank was a teen in Hoboken, New Jersey, in the 1930s. By his side is Sinatra's last best friend, Jilly Rizzo. Hovering in the background is the man who inspired his swingin' on a star lifestyle, composer Jimmy Van Heusen.

The Sinatra gravestone is marked simply, "Beloved husband & father" and "The Best Is Yet To Come," the title of a 1964 standard by Carolyn Leigh and Cy Coleman.

In his centennial year, that lyric seems more prophetic than anyone could have imagined. Before his death, Sinatra asked his three children not to let him be exploited like Elvis Presley. Please, he said, don't let them put my face on a coffee mug.

But, while his paintings wound up on a collection of ties, Sinatra's legacy has been carried on by the quality of his music and movies, and a life that was his greatest art work of all.

In Charles Pignone's new book, "Sinatra 100," Frank Sinatra Jr. quotes his father's first influence, Bing Crosby, as saying before his death in 1977, "Sinatra is the only one of us who consistently gets through to all ages."

Crosby doesn't explain why. Nor can the Sinatra kids or his widow. All they can do is tell the stories that perpetuate through the ages.

"If you have a misunderstanding with Frank Sinatra," Nancy Sinatra says in her 1995 book, "Frank Sinatra: An American Legend," "you've got to confront him directly. Battle it out. Yes, he'll get mad and so will you. But it'll be resolved. You have to have the guts to face his dark side. My father is tolerant and patient, but if you push it – or don't heed a warning – look out. He can be a hothead – like a child sometimes. But once he gets it off his chest, it's over and done with and he gets on with his life and you can get on with yours."

Fade in to 1975 at a restaurant in the Trinidad Hotel, Palm Springs. Johnny Costa, who speaks a broken Italian-accented English, like Sinatra's father, is a chef for Tony Riccio, who previously managed Costa at Sinatra's hangouts in Hollywood, the Villa Capri and Martony's. Costa also cooked at the Sands Hotel in Las Vegas, where Sinatra performed and had a small ownership stake. He makes Italian food the way Sinatra likes it – linguini with clams, and crablegs on ice with a shrimp for an appetizer. He'd eventually work for Sinatra at his Rancho Mirage compound.

Everybody in the Trinidad gets excited when Sinatra walks in with an entourage, which in the '70s often included movie stars Gregory Peck and his wife, Veronique, Roger Moore (James Bond at the time) and his wife, Luisa Mattioli, and Kirk Douglas and his wife, Anne.

The locals know not to approach Sinatra while he's having dinner. One night, Roberta Linn, Lawrence Welk's original "champagne lady," is dining at the Trinidad after fellow Las Vegas performer Freddie Bell divorced her. She's known Sinatra for years, having shared the family status all Vegas entertainers felt in the 1960s from attending each other's shows. But she knows not to address Sinatra until he waves her over, like Johnny Carson inviting a comic to his couch on "The Tonight Show." Sinatra has heard about her divorce and is consoling. He invites her to a party at his compound and seats her at a table of legends, including Douglas, Milton Berle and Burt Lancaster.

But the Trinidad waiters are bugging Sinatra tonight. They know they're in for some big tips. Sinatra carries a gold money clip with $100 bills because he doesn't like the way a wallet bulges in his slacks. He even folds Kleenex individually to avoid unseemly lines in his pockets. So, when he tips a waiter or valet, it's always a C note.

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That prompted a famous Sinatra story, which his Rat Pack-era publicist, Jim Mahoney, traces to an incident he witnessed outside of "The Tonight Show" studio in Burbank in the early '70s.

Sinatra hands a shoeshine boy $100 and asks, "Floyd, is that the biggest tip you ever got?"

"No, Mr. Frank," the young man replies.

So Sinatra gives him another $100 and asks, "Who gave you a bigger tip than $100?"

"You did, Mr. Frank!"

The Trinidad staff knows if it pleases Sinatra, each busboy will get a $100 tip and the waiters will get $200. If he goes into the kitchen to compliment the four chefs, they'll each get a C note.

So the busboys and waiters are standing at attention, waiting for Sinatra to indicate a need, but afraid to read him incorrectly. Sinatra feels their eyes watching him. But they aren't connecting in a helpful way. Maybe they're letting his glass get below half full, the ultimate sin for a Sinatra server, or they're slow in removing a dish. But they're either invading Sinatra's space or acting like voyeurs. Either way, he doesn't like it.

"Get out of here," he yells at a waiter. "When I call you, you come!"

He's drinking heavily now. Even his friend, Riccio, can't calm him in these situations. At some point, a waiter looks at him the wrong way.

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"He get mad," Costa says, his Italian accent evident. "He throw a bottle of champagne on the wall. He couldn't get the service the way he wanted. He doesn't like all the waiters standing up over there. He was drunk, so he throw the bottle at the wall."

His future wife, Barbara, was there and remembers, "It was very worthwhile. He needed to do that, in my opinion."

It won't be the last time Sinatra shows aberrant behavior at the Trinidad.

In 1976, Costa has opened his own restaurant in Desert Hot Springs. But Sinatra doesn't discover this until he returns to the Trinidad with Barbara and orders clams. He gets angry that it hasn't been made properly and, bam! He throws it against the wall like it's a pie-throwing contest.

"Johnny was at his restaurant in Desert Hot Springs when a waiter at the Trinidad called," says Costa's son and longtime cooking assistant, Vince. "They were scared because Sinatra had thrown the clams at the wall. Johnny had to tell the chef, Carlo, how he made the clams the way Sinatra liked them.

"(Carlo) says, 'What do you do with the linguini clams? What do you put in that he likes?' I say, 'What he likes is, you get the garlic. Three or four pieces of garlic. You put it in the pan, you fry it, then you pull the garlic and put in the clams and parsley. So he doesn't want the garlic in there. But you got the flavor in. The big pieces, you smash it up and then you put the clams over the pasta.' That's how he wanted it.""Frank got mad because the dish was not made right," Johnny says.

"He was very particular..." Barbara recalls almost 40 years later.

To know Sinatra was to know that.

Sinatra's third wife, actress Mia Farrow, who married Sinatra when she was 21 in 1966, claims Sinatra called himself a "24-kt. manic depressive." Barbara says he "never showed that side to me. Ever." And Mahoney concurs. Both say Sinatra just had a quick temper when triggered.

Mahoney takes us back to the early 1960s when Sinatra is making "Rat Pack" movies with his pals, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., Peter Lawford and Joey Bishop in Las Vegas by day, and performing at the Sands by night. He's also running his own film production company and his own record label, and making regular TV specials with no less than Presley in 1960.

He also had business and real estate investments. The New York Times in 1957 called him the highest paid performer in the history of show business. His favorite lyricist, Sammy Cahn, called him the most organized man he ever met. Quincy Jones, who produced Sinatra's brilliant recordings at the Sands with the Count Basie Orchestra, said in "Sinatra 100" he got things done because, "He didn't suffer fools gladly.

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"This man had no gray in him. He either loved you from the bottom of his heart – unconditionally – or he was capable of running over you in a Mack truck, backwards."

But he always found time to play. In the early '50s, film stars Humphrey Bogart and wife Lauren Bacall hosted parties at their West Los Angeles home with a clique as notorious as the Bundy Drive Boys of W.C. Fields, John Barrymore, Errol Flynn and painter John Decker in the 1940s. This "Rat Pack," as Bacall dubbed them, included actor David Niven, restaurateur Mike Romanoff, literary agent Swifty Lazar and singer-actress Judy Garland.

Mahoney discovered Sinatra's sense of Wild West justice while watching Garland at the Cocoanut Grove in the old Ambassador Hotel in L.A. in the early 1960s.

Midway through the show, Garland tells the audience her adolescent daughter, Liza, would like to sing a song. She knocks 'em dead and is basking with her "Uncle Frank" after the show when a man in a white suit and white hat deflates her with a verbal kidney punch. As Mahoney and Jack Entratter, entertainment director of the Sands, look on, this big, pompous plantation owner caricature tells Liza she should practice before going on stage. Make sure you know exactly what you're going to do, he says, before doing it again.

Liza fights back tears. Sinatra looks him over and tells Entratter and Mahoney, "Keep an eye on that guy."

Entratter cut his teeth working the Copacabana nightclub for New York mob boss Frank Costello. Mahoney, of La Quinta, is the son of Clark Gable's interior designer and one of L.A.'s top publicists. Sinatra felt he never needed bodyguards. But now Mahoney is his wing man.

"I could see it coming," he says. "Frank takes Liza back to where Judy was and the guy leaves the room. I tell Entratter, 'I'll follow him.' Entratter says, 'I'll come with you.'

"No," says Mahoney, "you better stay here with Frank."

So Mahoney's tailing this guy down the same long corridor Bobby Kennedy would traverse before being shot a few years later. He goes into a bathroom as Sinatra and Entratter arrive.

"Where is he?" Sinatra asks.

"He went into the john," Mahoney says.

"You wait here."

Sinatra sees the guy come out, gives him a quick word and belts him in the solar plexis.

"Let's go," says Sinatra, turning his back on the guy crumbled on the ground. "We're going to Patsy's" – where Riccio is managing the Villa Capri.

But Mahoney has to clean up this mess. He tells Sinatra and Entratter he'll meet them at the restaurant. Security arrives, asking questions, but Sinatra's punching bag is sitting on the ground disoriented, obviously more impaired by liquor than Sinatra's fist.

"I don't know," he says. "I just passed out!"

Mahoney goes along with the charade. He turns to the authorities and says, "That's what happens when you have too much to drink."

The 1950s and early '60s was an era of artificial stimulants. Jack Kerouac wrote his beat prose on Benzedrine. President John F. Kennedy and singing idol Eddie Fisher got booster shots from a "Dr. Feelgood." But Sinatra was fueled by alcohol. He called it "gasoline," and it might have kept him motoring through the night, but it left his patience on empty the next day.

Frank and Barbara had private and very public fights. Joe Hanna, who managed Sinatra's Romanoff's On the Rocks supper club in Palm Springs in the 1960s, recalls them fighting so loudly at his Pal Joey's restaurant before their marriage, he had a valet get their car. He gently separated them from their party and led them through his kitchen.

"I was not comfortable with what he said to Barbara Sinatra/Barbara Marx," he said. "It was bad! But, pretty soon after that, he married her!"

Barbara wrote in her autobiography, "Lady Blue Eyes," "He never hit me, although he did once raise his hands during a fight."

"God, I want to punch you," she related him telling her.

"Give it your best shot," she replies, offering her right cheek.

"What would you do if I did?" he retorts.

"I'd leave and you'd never see me again."

Sinatra drops his hands.

"Whenever he and I argued," Barbara says, "it was sudden, noisy and temporary."

Sinatra's opening comic for his last 14 years, Tom Dreesen, sees the effects of alcohol on Sinatra from the perspective as the son of two alcoholic parents.

"Drinkers either became Rocky Marciano, Rudolph Valentino or Rip Van Winkle after a few," he says. "Frank was Rocky Marciano. A couple of drinks and he got a little cantankerous sometimes. The staff used to like it when I'd be with him because I could always make him laugh. If I could see he was heading that way after a few drinks, I could say, 'Hey, remember you told me that story about you and Dean?' 'Oh, yeah!' And he'd start telling me the story. So I had ways of getting him out of that and making him laugh."

In reverse, Sinatra could be remarkably altruistic after a night of fueling up through drinking.

"Frank was always helping people survive," says Barbara. "And he never wanted to talk about it. I would get up in the morning and hear him on the phone with (his manager) Sonny Golden. He had read something in the paper that some family had lost their tree and all their (Christmas) gifts. Frank would say, 'I want you to go out and buy all the gifts and replace them. But never say who it's from.'"

Dreesen and Sinatra family members tell stories of Sinatra's almost sociopathic generosity. Even when he was down and out in the early 1950s – unable to get bookings and having voice problems – he'd literally take a ring off his finger and give it to someone who admired it.

A scene at the back of the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York is one Dreesen saw played out many times. Sinatra is getting into a limousine when a woman breaks through security and asks for an autograph – for her husband, she says, who is home sick. Sinatra signs his name and the woman compliments his cufflinks. So Sinatra takes them off. "Give these to your husband," he says. The woman says no, but Sinatra says sternly, "I want you to give these to your husband."

In the limo, Dreesen asks his boss why he gave away such beautiful cufflinks.

"Tommy," he says, "if you possess something you can't give away, you don't possess it. It possesses you. It's OK if someone says, 'I like your Mercedes Benz' and you don't give it to them. But, when you're alone in the bathroom shaving, you have to admit to that guy in the mirror that that car owns you because you can't give it away."

To cement a Sinatra friendship, it was almost a rite of passage to share a bottle with him. He didn't always misbehave while drinking. Saloons and restaurants with bars were his sanctuaries. His father owned Marty O'Brien's Tavern in Hoboken. Sinatra literally made his first nickel singing at his father's bar. He also met the mobsters that delivered Prohibition era liquor there. Marty Sinatra boxed for cash purses under an Irish name because the Irish ran New York area politics through their control of Tammany Hall. As the Italian gangs took control of the illegal liquor trade, Marty got jobs as a protector for their bootlegger trucks.

Sinatra first visited Palm Springs in 1944, after moving from New Jersey to Hollywood and being introduced to the desert by the asthmatic, philandering Van Heusen. Over the next 20 years, he fueled up or worshiped at the altars of the Chi Chi, Ruby's Dunes, the Biltmore, Howard's Manor, the Trinidad, Don the Beachcomber and Romanoff's on the Rocks, which Sinatra owned with an entourage of celebrities including Lauren Bacall and Beverly Hills restaurateur, Mike Romanoff.

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The Chi Chi was booked by a disbarred attorney for the Chicago outfit, so it featured big name entertainment – Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald, Peggy Lee. Sinatra would drop in with an entourage including Van Heusen and Cahn, trumpeter Ray Anthony and Jack Benny's bandleader, Phil Harris. If they wanted to party on after closing time, Police Chief Gus Kettman would give a nod and house bandleader Bill Alexander would play as long as they wanted.

Ruby's Dunes was owned by Irwin Rubinstein, who took over the Dunes when Detroit mobster Al Wertheimer was chased out of town. In Sinatra's down-and-out years, Ruby fed him, engendering a loyalty that lasted forever. When Sinatra was back on top, he'd bring in pals like actors Yul Brynner and David Jansen, and baseball manager Leo Durocher. When Desert Memorial Park wasn't staffed to bury Ruby within 24 hours of his death, Sinatra demanded to pay whatever it cost to get him into the ground by sunset in accordance with Jewish tradition.

When Sinatra got a Nevada gaming license and opened his Cal Neva Lodge in Lake Tahoe in the summer of 1962, Sinatra staffed it with pals from seasonal Palm Springs restaurants. Ruby was put in charge of the dining room. Andy Andrews, maître d' of the Howard Manor, assisted him. Eddie King, manager of Don the Beachcomber, became host of the showroom.

Drinking was Sinatra's way of coming down from concert performances that would drain most entertainers. On stage, he gave everything. He used his technical prowess to fuse the bel canto style of Italian opera with the conversational way of cabaret singers. He used his mastery of sense memories to relive the emotional moments of his life to make each individual audience member feel he was telling stories directly to them. "He did that every single night," says Pat Rizzo, who played saxophone in Sinatra's orchestra and then became a local nightclub singer. "I couldn't do that."

As Sinatra continued his late-night wind-downs, they became a way of life. He didn't give in to insomnia, he embraced it by seeking companions to drink with until dawn. Barbara earned kudos for being able to keep up with her husband. But, when she felt like going to bed, she went and didn't ask her husband to join her. "He's going to do what he wants to do and it didn't make any difference what I thought," she says.

Singer Steve Lawrence, who became a fringe member of Sinatra's entourage during the Sands years and ended up a Sinatra pallbearer, kept up with The Chairman on his 75th birthday world tour.

Cut to a hotel after a concert in Dublin, Ireland. A manager greets Sinatra and his entourage.

"Oh, Mr. Sinatra. My name is Jamie O'Brien. We're delighted to have your company. If there's anything we can do for you, please don't hesitate to ask."

"Thank you very much," Sinatra says. "Where's your bar?'

"Oh, I'm afraid we don't have one."

Sinatra's blood boils. Lawrence steps in.

"Excuse me," he says. "Don't you have a little place off the lobby, a little room where you could put a couple buckets and tables and chairs? Put some Jack Daniels or some vodkas in there?"

"Yes, we could do that," says the manager. In five minutes, the hotel has a bar. Sinatra walks in with a dozen people and they sit around a table, drinking as Sinatra holds court. He talks about the days he used to watch his old bandleader, Tommy Dorsey, play trombone and never seem to take a breath, and how he simulated circular breathing.

The entourage starts to peel off as the night wears on. Sinatra says to no one in particular, "Doesn't this bar have any music?"

Lawrence steps up again. "When we came in, there was a piano player in the lobby," he tells the manager. "Could you put him and the piano in the room? Mr. Sinatra would like to hear some music."

"Of course!" says the manager. In five minutes, the makeshift bar has a piano. The pianist asks Sinatra what he'd like to hear.

"I'd like to hear Oscar Peterson, but he's not here. Why don't you just play?"

So the pianist plays for four hours. The rest of the entourage leaves. Now it's just Lawrence and Sinatra with a bottle.

"I'm looking at those pretty blue eyes and we're talking about music and musicians and matters of the day," Lawrence says. "We were talking about (arrangers) Don Costa, Nelson Riddle – everything that was on his head. He says, 'It's unfortunate we can't make this a more beautiful place. The world is beautiful. Some of the people aren't too hot, but the world is gorgeous.'"

No one could maintain Sinatra's hours for long. Dean Martin, who wasn't the notorious drinker he pretended to be, never even tried. He bought a home in Palm Springs to go to bed early and rise early to golf. Dreesen recalled trying to avoid partying with Sinatra.

It's before midnight, early by Sinatra standards, they're on a tour stop in Florida and Dreesen has slipped away to his hotel room when there's a knock on the door.

"Mr. Sinatra would like you to join him at the bar," says the bellman.

Dreesen pulls out a $20 bill. "Can you tell Mr. Sinatra I wasn't in?"

"Mr. Sinatra gave me $100 to tell you he wants you to come down to the bar."

"Couldn't you just tell him no one answered the door?" Dreesen pleads.

"Mr. Sinatra said you'd resist. He said if I had to drag you down to the bar he'd give me an extra hundred."

Rita Vale of Palm Desert says her late husband, singer Jerry Vale, tried to avoid being part of Sinatra's all-night retinue. He was working the Sands lounge while Sinatra was in the showroom. Jerry liked to fly home to New Jersey after an engagement because he had a wife and kids. So, when Sinatra wanted to show Jerry and Rita his new DC3 jet, Jerry came up with an escape plan to avoid being invited to some bar in faraway Bombay.

He tells Rita, "If we go on the plane, stay near the door."

"Why?" Rita asks.

"I know how he operates. If he closes the door and we're still on the plane, we could have to go with him to Europe."

So they get on the jet and Sinatra is showing them around like the proud owner of a new toy. And the Vales start backing up toward the door. Finally, Jerry says to Rita, "Come on, let's go!" And they get on the airstairs and disembark like Keystone Kops.

"Hey, where are you going?" Sinatra asks.

"We gotta go," says Vale on the run. Otherwise, it could have been an all-weeker.

By the 1970s and '80s, Sinatra's two favorite Rancho Mirage restaurants are Dominick's and Lord Fletcher's. Dominick's (where the old Crab Pot is) is owned by Dominick Zangari, one of L.A.'s most popular bartenders of the '70s at the Windsor House. Jilly Rizzo hires him at Jilly's on Indian Avenue (now Wang's in the Desert). When that closes, Zangari opens Dominick's, which becomes Sinatra's favorite place to watch "Monday Night Football." When U2's Bono comes to town to shoot a video of "I've Got You Under My Skin" from Sinatra's smash 1993 album, "Duets," they shoot it at Dominick's.

Sinatra also likes the bartender, Mike Taylor, at Lord Fletcher's. The restaurant has a British heritage that Sinatra appreciates as an avid reader of history books. But Taylor lets him get a little crazy. When Sinatra comes in with Adm. Alan Shepherd, the first American in space, the two of them go behind the bar and sing "Fly Me To The Moon" to the delight of astonished customers.

Sinatra can be a regular guy at Lord Fletcher's because the customers are used to seeing celebrities and they don't bother him. There's a Coachella Valley pipeline that tells Sinatra worshipers where he'll be, but Lord Fletcher's family manager Michael Fletcher lies to them to protect Sinatra's privacy. The restaurant features a photo portrait of Sinatra, but only because he gave it to them.

Sinatra has known Michael since he was 13, when his father, restaurant founder Ron Fletcher, took him out of the kitchen to meet Sinatra as a busboy. Sinatra enjoys the restaurant's Royal Brandy Ice so much, he often sends a valet to bring some back to the compound.

After more than 20 years of service, Sinatra decides it's time to really get to know Michael.

It's the Friday before the Frank Sinatra Celebrity Invitational Gala in the days when Sinatra still sang at the benefit and Friday was a free night after the pairings party. To thank the celebrities for helping Desert Hospital and the Barbara Sinatra Children's Center, he takes them to Lord Fletcher's.

Sinatra is sitting with Shepherd, Lawrence, Sidney Poitier and other A-list celebrities. Fletcher checks their wine and something about him fascinates Sinatra.

"Michael, come and sit down," he says. "You and I have never really drank together."

"I can't sit down," Fletcher says, talking to Sinatra like he would the guy next door. "I'm too busy!"

Fletcher returns 15 minutes later to help a server prepare a salad. Again, Sinatra beckons him.

"Michael, come on. All the years I've been coming here, come on."

Fletcher acquiesces. Poitier moves over so Fletcher can fit a chair between them. Sinatra has a bottle of white burgundy to go with his salad and Michael gets a glass. Barbara announces, "I guess the two of them are going to be talking," and takes over hosting duties. Sinatra and Fletcher talk exclusively for 30 minutes.

"I saw you grow up," Sinatra says. "Now you're the manager of the restaurant and your father, I have nothing but the highest respect for him. I travel all around the world. I always feel good when I come back here."

Finally, Michael tells Sinatra, "I gotta get back to work!"

"We finished that bottle of wine," he says. "It was just wonderful because I dealt with him in many, many situations. But that was a special moment where, for one period of time, even with all the stuff happening around here, it was just the two of us talking."