SLEDGEHAMMER in hand, an apoplectic Frank Sinatra swung
savagely around his newly renovated home in Palm Springs, California.
By PETER SHERIDAN
PUBLISHED: 16:26, Sun, Jul 24, 2016 | UPDATED: 17:43, Sun,
Jul 24, 2016
Ol’ Blue Eyes had rebuilt the house at vast expense to
welcome his good friend, President John F Kennedy.
He had remodeled it, adding rooms for White House staff and
Secret Service agents, and installed a bank of 25 phone lines.
He even built a helicopter pad in the garden. But days
before JFK’s planned visit in March, 1962, the president abruptly ended his
friendship with Sinatra – the bitter aftermath of a shared penchant for
dangerous women and Mafia connections.
Sinatra stormed through his house “smashing up everything in
his way before taking a sledgehammer to the concrete helipad outside,” reveals
Michael Sheridan, author of the gripping new book Sinatra And The Jack Pack,
detailing their remarkable friendship and its dramatic ending.“
He was deeply wounded by what he regarded as a huge personal
insult.”
Sinatra had his famed Rat Pack – Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr
and the president’s brother-in-law Peter Lawford – but he craved more.
“Sinatra desperately wanted to be part of John F Kennedy’s
gang,” says Sheridan.
“The guy Ol’ Blue Eyes really wanted to hang with was the
real chairman of the board, John F Kennedy.” He adds: “He and his father
[Senator Joe Kennedy] had covertly used the Mob, through Sinatra to get the
vote out and to, in some cases, fix entire electoral areas.
He had used Frank to encourage his Hollywood and
entertainment industry friends to support the Kennedy presidential election
campaign.” For hard-drinking, brawling, Mafia-connected womaniser Sinatra,
raised on the hardscrabble streets of New Jersey, the friendship offered an
entrée to Washington DC’s ultimate circle of power, and a veneer of
respectability.
Kennedy loved the singer’s Hollywood glamour, and access to
the world’s most beautiful women. Sinatra was even put in charge of JFK’s
inaugural gala ceremony and parade in Washington, DC, in January, 1961,
assembling a stellar cast including Gene Kelly, Bette Davis, Ella Fitzgerald,
Nat King Cole and Ethel Merman.
“Since the election Sinatra had sought access to, and
approval from, the president with a new intensity,” and “bombarded Kennedy with
letters, messages, gifts and suggestions,” says Sheridan.
Sinatra hosted lavish parties and fund-raisers for JFK, and
privately they womanised together.
Both bedded screen siren Marilyn Monroe, and FBI files
disclose that both were investigated for a fling with two New York prostitutes,
the book reveals.
Among the women Sinatra pimped for JFK was brunette beauty
Judith Campbell Exner, who Sinatra – in an appalling display of bad judgment –
also introduced to Chicago Mafia boss Sam Giancana.
Thanks to Ol’ Blue Eyes, the president of the United States
and the nation’s leading mobster shared the same lover for more than two years.
But while Kennedy kept his affair with mobster’s moll Exner under wraps,
Sinatra made no secret of his affection for Mafia hoodlums.
This posed a mounting problem for the president’s brother,
US Attorney General Robert Kennedy, who had vowed to crush the mob and viewed
Sinatra’s links to organized crime as a political time bomb.
An FBI probe into organized crime exposed Sinatra’s
extensive mob ties. His file would ultimately fill more than 2,000 pages. By
1962 Kennedy reluctantly acknowledged that it was political suicide to remain
friends with him. He ordered brother-in-law Peter Lawford to break the bad
news: his visit to Sinatra’s Palm Springs home was cancelled.
“I was scared, “ Lawford admitted.
“When Jack called me, he said that as president he just
couldn’t stay at Frank’s and sleep in the same bed that Giancana or any other
hood had slept in.”
Ol’ Blue Eyes phoned Robert Kennedy in a rage, “to be told
that the reason for the cancellation was the disreputable company he was
keeping and the need for the administration to distance itself from people such
as himself,” says the author.
“Sinatra called the attorney general every name in the book
before slamming the phone down. Cut off from the White House, Sinatra threw
himself back into Hollywood, filming Robin and the Seven Hoods with Rat Pack
pals Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr.
He deliberately omitted Peter Lawford from the movie, livid
that his friend had sided with the Kennedy clan. When Sinatra learned of
Kennedy’s assassination on November 22, 1963, he halted filming and phoned the
White House, only to discover that his privileges had been revoked.
“Sinatra, despite his celebrity, was just another caller
that afternoon,” says the author.
The president’s family and close friends went to Arlington
National Cemetery, Virginia, for the funeral but in a final indignity Sinatra
was snubbed.
Sinatra later turned his support to Republican Richard
Nixon, and then Ronald Reagan, despite having branded him “a bore” who
“couldn’t get into the pictures.”
After JFK’s slaying, Sinatra reportedly had an affair with
his widow, Jackie Kennedy – perhaps the ultimate revenge. But in death, Sinatra
finally spoke more kindly of the friend who had cruelly shunned him.
“For a brief moment, he was the brightest star in our
lives,” Sinatra said of JFK. “I loved him.”
Sinatra And The Jack Pack by Michael Sheridan with David
Harvey. £16.99 Skyhorse Publishing. Call the Express Bookshop on 01872 562310.
Or send a cheque or PO to Jack Pack Offer, PO Box 200, Falmouth, TR11 4WJ, or
visit expressbookshop.com