B009HOTHPE EBOK (23 page)

There are all kinds of lessons you can pick up—and that would include
not
imitating everything they do, too. Not drinking too much, not smoking too much, not gambling every single cent you own. Sammy Davis Jr. was too much, and it was that too-muchness of everything that ultimately killed him.

As I began working Las Vegas, I got to know those guys better. They taught me. I said to myself,
I can do this, I can stay for a lot of years and do the casinos, I can make it. Here I know what I’m doing. I may not always have a hit record, but I can make my way.
And then, as soon as The Beatles hit, all the old-school American teen idols were wiped out, wiped off the radio. I was the only one that wasn’t obliterated by it—I still had hits, “Love Me Warm and Tender” and “A Steel Guitar and a Glass of Wine” and I was thrilled to find a new place to dwell. I still had a momentum going for me. I had the foundation that Irv had built for me. I still had the international ace in the hole working for me.

But, for the longest time, Vegas has had a bad rap. An entertainer too closely connected to Vegas tends to get pigeonholed, dismissed as a glorified cabaret crooner. This didn’t apply to Sinatra, Dean Martin, and Sammy Davis Jr. because they
were
Vegas. For a generation prone to write me off as just another Vegas performer, I found this annoying, but I didn’t take it too seriously and then after “My Way,” everything changed for me again anyway. I’ve always known when to slide into the next groove. That’s why I did covers of Nirvana, Oasis, Van Halen, and Bon Jovi on
Rock Swings
in 2005—to shake people up a bit, to remind them that after fifty years in the business I’m not only still around, I’m still stirring it up. I’m constantly thinking of what other songs I could interpret. Maybe I’ll do Prince’s “When Doves Cry” and Anka-size that.

*   *   *

There are really only two enduring myths in American culture: the cowboy and the gangster. The cowboy got tired of sagebrush and beans, rode into town, tied up his horse, lost the chaps and spurs, bought himself a fancy suit from back East, and opened the Dry Gulch Saloon. After a few shots of white lightning and watching Lillie Langtry, the naughty petite Jersey nightingale, crooning at the player piano, he said, “Boys, I think I’ll stay.”

Around 1946, the mob arrived in Dodge and the Dry Gulch Saloon turned into the bar at the Flamingo Hotel. Actually this originally had been the dream of Billy Wilkerson, owner of the
Hollywood Reporter
—to turn the sawdust-on-the-floor joints on Fremont Street in a Euro-style resort, that would attract celebrities to come out to the desert
,
but he couldn’t lure enough movie stars out there. The mob, however, saw an opportunity—a virtually tax-free cash cow in the gambling industry. That’s where the first great American gangster Bugsy Siegel comes into the Vegas story, opening the Flamingo at a cost of six million bucks in 1946. And you needed entertainment, right? So no sooner had the first casino began rolling the bones that another great American type showed up: the boogie-woogie man, the crooner, the pop singer, the entertainer, the guy you go to hear who’ll take you away from everything, put you in some kind of trance, and let your mind float downstream. That place was a state of mind: in the 1950s and 1960s it was Las Vegas.

Even though it wasn’t a media-driven society back then, you still heard everything that was going on. We all knew what the wild and horny senator John Kennedy was doing; we knew what was going on behind closed doors, but nobody talked about it. People left you alone. It was controlled. They didn’t run out with every piece of gossip, but it was out there.

When you hear the words, “the mob in Vegas,” your average person gets an image of this bunch of violent guys in suits, black shirts, and pink ties. That’s straight out of the movies; it was nothing like that. In the movies you’ve got mob guys cutting people up and planting them in cornfields, vicious fights, shootouts. You can’t take these stereotyped guys from the movies literally, that’s bullshit—well, maybe not the burying mobsters in cornfields part … and it wasn’t even a cornfield, actually. Still,
Casino
is probably the closest to the facts with Joe Pesci as Nicky Santoro from the infamous Hole in the Wall Gang, and Robert De Niro as Sam “Ace” Rothstein, but even there, even when they retold actual stories, it was blown up out of proportion—naturally.

When the mob ruled Vegas, that’s when all the serious skimming went on. All the money, whenever it came in they would send it around the country. If you went back to one of the counting rooms in those days, the private rooms in back, you’d see these wooden boxes. Everything except the hundred-dollar bills went in those boxes. They didn’t bother with the twenties or the fifties. They’d divvy up C notes, $100 bills, to the various Outfit guys around the country. They’d go, “This one’s for you, this one’s for you, this one’s for you.” The mob guys never bothered with the small bills.

I knew Johnny Roselli from when he used to spend a lot of time at the Sands—he was a dapper, stylish guy. He was an essential character because of his looks and his knowledge about what went on at every level. The Mormons were clueless about casinos, gaming, or whatever else went on in the sin-filled dens of Vegas. As one of then said, “None of us knew snake eyes from box cars.” So they relied on Roselli to guide them through the Vegas underworld.

Johnny Roselli was an even-tempered guy. He had the demeanor of a diplomat, and could deal at any level of society. He was a fixer and that is how he eventually landed in Vegas. He was connected to Chicago and to the Dragna mob family in L.A. The guys that I knew at the Sands—Carl Cohen, Charles “Tooley” Kandel, Jack Entratter, and Roselli—essentially corralled Howard Hughes via Bob Maheu into purchasing the Desert Inn, the Sands, and a group of other mob casinos—the mob naturally still running and robbing the places even after he had purchased them.

Roselli had been part of the Hollywood scene in California, and that’s why the mob eventually moved him out to Vegas. He would sit at the bar and talk to me in the early ’60s. He was very close to Moe Dalitz, a racketeer who ran the violent Cleveland Syndicate before moving to Vegas.

Moe was known as “the toughest Jewish mobster in Vegas,” notorious for savage beatings, unsolved murders, and shakedowns. He’d once killed a Cleveland city councilman just because he’d thwarted one of his plans.

Moe Dalitz owned the Desert Inn, the hotel Howard Hughes eventually took over. When Hughes slipped into Vegas Thanksgiving of ’66 they took him right to the Desert Inn; his right-hand guy Bob Maheu made all the deals, he was the guy behind the scenes. Hughes came in on a train, his own personal train. I’d met Hughes a couple of times at the Beverly Hills Hotel with Ben Silverstein, who owned it. I think Hughes was coaxed to come up to Vegas by Hank Greenspun who owned the
Las Vegas Sun,
and the idea appealed to Hughes on account of the tax situation. He arrived and settled into the Desert Inn Hotel. At some point Moe Dalitz sent word to the Hughes people that he wanted Hughes out of the penthouse because he needed it for gamblers, some high rollers were coming in. And that’s when Hughes decided that rather than move, he’d buy the place. Dalitz was receptive because the government was looking into him for tax evasion even though he was in tight with a lot of local political people. Whatever transpired, Dalitz was later acquitted on those tax evasion charges but he could see which way the wind was blowing. Who knows what goes on? Hughes got his license to operate, no problem. The word went around that Hughes got taken but he either didn’t know or care, and, in any case, he still needed the mob to operate the casinos.

Moe Dalitz, however much a vicious thug he was, was well liked around town and did a lot for the city. He built the hospital in Vegas. I’d see him driving around in his yellow Studebaker. He was dapper, tallish, soft spoken—in appearance, a gentleman. His real name was Morris but everybody called him Moe. Moe was a very important casino developer/operator, and had the endorsement of senators and governors, key to a guy like him is that they could never nail him for anything. He was connected to the mob in Chicago, but was a member of the Las Vegas country club, fitting right in with the Vegas gentry, if there is such a thing. It was not unusual to see him eating alone at his regular table. He spoke very softly, and loved to tell jokes.They tried to pin him to the Detroit mob, but he seemed to be a mild-mannered business guy. There was a very soft side to him—he didn’t come on strong, like a movie mobster. He was responsible for a lot of the growth in Vegas from the 1960s right up into the ’80s, and made a lot of people very wealthy through shopping centers, the development of supermarkets, and hotels. He made millionaires of a lot of people. Everybody around town loved him. He was an important figure in the transition of the old to the new Vegas. He was close to Jimmy Hoffa and in that way was linked to the Teamsters, in connection with money coming into Vegas. As suave as he was, though, there was a real scary side to him as seen in the infamous confrontation between him and Sonny Liston at the Beverly Hills Hotel. Liston gets into an argument with Dalitz and threatens him. Dalitz tells him, “Whatever you do, you better kill me now because I’ll make a few phone calls tonight and you’re gonna die
very slowly
.”

By 1960, the strip in Vegas with its flashing neon had become lit up like a pinball machine. From 1960 and on, when I was in my full stride there the who’s who in show business converged on Vegas. But, if you look through the press archives of the 1950s through the 1970s you’ll find that no other celebrity has been written about like Frank Sinatra. The public even loved him for his outbursts—his temper tantrums only illuminated his image and gave more sizzle to his celebrity. He took no shit from anyone. He was a people’s star. We all wanted to emulate him but knew we couldn’t. He was the boss.

When Sinatra heard Don Rickles had been rapping him on stage, saying rude things about him—which is Don’s style, of course—he decided to play a trick on him. Now, Don was the guy of the hour, see; we all heard about this outrageous act where he insulted people and went to a midnight show in the lounge at the Sahara after one of the Rat Pack shows. Frank wanted to teach Don a lesson in a semifriendly way—but, nevertheless, send him a message. We all sat ringside in this lounge before Rickles came out. There were about twelve of us, including Sinatra, Dean Martin, Joey Bishop, Jilly Rizzo, his bodyguard, Sammy, and me. Frank sent Jilly to the newsstand to buy newspapers and we hid them under the table. Announcer comes out, “Ladies and gentlemen, Don Rickles.” Don walks on; Frank says, “Now!” and we all picked up the newspapers and opened them and started reading them at the table ringside while he was trying to do his act. Don sweats a lot, but that night he really sweated. Imagine a tight room of three hundred people and here’s Sinatra and all his pals down front reading newspapers. He had good reason to sweat. Sinatra had previously had some wannabe mobsters beat up two comedians who had made fun of him. Don’s trying to be professional but the scene is unnerving him. Finally he makes a joke that hits home, we all laugh and everyone relaxes and we can enjoy the show. I’ve known and loved Don and his wife, Barbara, for years and, forget the stage persona, he’s a loveable Teddy Bear.

Sinatra ruled supreme. Even with rock ’n’ roll and with the British music scene just off shore, Frank was the most popular and controversial figure around. Whenever he was there, he submerged himself in Las Vegas like it was his own private hot tub. Keep in mind, he had been singing in Vegas as far back as 1951 at the Desert Inn when there were only four hotels on the strip at that time.

There was a certain kind of electricity that prevailed when Frank, the Rat Pack, and their famous celebrity audience were in town. The showgirls, the call girls, and all the hot women were put on hold, especially when they heard Jack Kennedy was coming. There was a pungent sexual frisson in a town that small in size when those guys hit Vegas, and they would hit town often, and all of us benefited from it in one way or another. And then just put all of those mob figures in the mix, especially Sam Giancana, who brought Judith Campbell Exner into the scene, a 10-out-of-10 beauty, who Sinatra got involved with. Ultimately Frank introduced her to Kennedy and that had a lot to do with JFK getting elected. Keep in mind that Giancana delivered the state of Illinois to Kennedy. Everybody knew the Mafia boss from Chicago was someone not to be messed with. He was a small, short guy, my height, was always smoking cigars in beautiful suits, and had a violent MO. He had interests all over town. He was seen around town with one of the MaGuire sisters, Phyllis, a beautiful all-American looker with a lot of hit records. I covered one of her records, “Sincerely,” in the late ’60s, a single originally covered by The Moonglows.

But the bottom line is, Sam was a murderer. Frank had worked for him many times in his nightclubs. I guess he felt indebted to him because there was a time when he couldn’t get work and Sam hired him.

The clan, the Rat Pack—call them what you will—were in full stride. Oddly enough Sinatra constantly verbalized to all of us that he was not happy with the way the media depicted him as the leader of the so-called Rat Pack. Be that as it may, it was always a great fun event to sit and watch all of them together on stage. There was nothing like it. They all loved getting up on stage at night just to have a lot of fun. It was as loose as a goose. But from the all-night drinking sessions to the steam-room scenes, I realized how punishing it was on their bodies to keep up such a routine. The drinking, the smoking, staying up till three, four, or five in the morning. It wreaked havoc on their voices and their lives.

The big moment of change for all of us in Vegas—and it tied into a specific event actually—was when Howard Hughes came in Thanksgiving of 1966. It all changed. All the old mobster world courtesies went out the window. Even though the mob guys out of Cleveland and Chicago still ran the casinos on a day-to-day basis, you could see a big change coming. For whatever reason, or whatever Hughes’s alliances were, overnight he made it into a corporate atmosphere. Bob Maheu, who was Hughes’s right-hand guy, came in and bought up everything and that changed the atmosphere forever afterward.