Let’s play word association. If I said entertainers and Las Vegas, what combinations come to mind? A lot of them, I’m sure. Liberace, certainly. Siegfried and Roy, of course. Wayne Newton? Sure. You might think of other entertainers, or symbols like the showgirl, the production show, or the Cirque show. But you can’t talk about entertainment in Las Vegas without talking about the Rat Pack. And you can’t talk about the Rat Pack without talking about its leader, Frank Sinatra. December 12th marked the centennial of the birth of the chairman of the board.
He was born in Hoboken, New Jersey. As a little boy, he sang in a tavern for spare change; thus did a career begin. He first had success with a group called the Hoboken Four, which appeared on national radio. He got a job singing with a band led by trumpeter Harry James, later a Las Vegas performer and resident. Then, in 1940, Sinatra joined another big band led by Tommy Dorsey and began having hit records. When Sinatra decided to go solo, he and Dorsey had a big fight, culminating in a lawsuit. The rumor was that mobster Willie Moretti, who was said to be close to Sinatra, convinced Dorsey that he should let the singer go out on his own. The convincing allegedly involved a gun.
But Sinatra was rocketing to superstardom. His records sold big. He appeared in successful movies, mostly musicals. And then … disaster. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, he had vocal trouble. His movies stopped doing well. His records weren’t selling. And his image took a hit when he left his wife, the mother of his three children, for actress Ava Gardner.
But did his career ever come back. He revived his movie career in From Here to Eternity. He campaigned for the role of Maggio and won an Oscar as Best Supporting Actor. After that, he made several popular films, from the dramatic, like The Manchurian Candidate, to musicals like Guys and Dolls. Columbia Records no longer wanted him, but Capitol Records did. As for his first album, well, a story. The night Sinatra died, the great Dodger broadcaster, Vin Scully, said on the air, you young people may think you know romance. But you don’t know romance until you’ve heard Songs for Young Lovers by Frank Sinatra, with Nelson Riddle conducting. Scully was right, and the combination was a commercial and financial success. There would be many more recordings. By the time he died in 1998, he had recorded sixty-nine albums and had nearly 300 singles, including duets and collaborations with Count Basie and Duke Ellington, and several where he conducted the music. He appeared in more than fifty films.
He was a success, but he also was a complicated man. He was controversial. He got into public fights, verbal and physical. He had mood swings, and could also be generous to a fault. He was politically active, first as a Democrat and eventually as a Republican. He believed in civil rights and claimed on a live album to have helped desegregate Las Vegas by helping African American entertainers to stay at the hotels where they performed. Whether he was important on that issue is debatable. What is not debatable is this: he had important connections to Nevada, and played an important role in the state, especially in Las Vegas.
He made his film debut in Las Vegas Nights, an otherwise forgettable movie that came out in 1941. He was in it only briefly as a vocalist with Tommy Dorsey, singing “I’ll Never Smile Again.” And when his career was in the doldrums, he made his debut at the Desert Inn on September 4, 1951. He said, “For six bucks you got a filet mignon dinner and me.” He didn’t actually wow the crowd the way he would later. That came when he made the Sands his second home. The Sands had opened in December 1952. The boss, especially for entertainment, was Jack Entratter, a veteran of the Copacabana in New York City. The Copa connection led not just to the entertainment venue being the Copa Room. It also meant that a lot of big name entertainers immediately had a tie to the Sands. Sinatra debuted there in October 1953. Over the next decade and a half, he would appear there regularly, and even be licensed as a part-owner. He was close and loyal to Entratter, who had stood by him during the toughest times. And Mike Weatherford, the longtime Review-Journal entertainment writer, put it best: the Sands became his personal playground.
When he was in Hollywood, Sinatra would hang out with friends like Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall. The group became known as the Rat Pack. The origins of the name are murky. Supposedly Bacall pinned it on them after a long night of debauchery led to a long day of hangovers. They also were known as the Clan, as in a family, but the name had other meanings that didn’t exactly go over well.
Whatever happened, after Bogart died, Sinatra was the undisputed leader of the group. The five key members were Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Junior, Joey Bishop, and Peter Lawford. In 1960, they were coming to Las Vegas to film Oceans Eleven. This gave Sands publicist Al Freeman an idea. Since world leaders Dwight Eisenhower and Nikita Khruschev were supposed to hold a summit later that year, why not a summit of the world’s entertainment leaders? So it was advertised as the Summit at the Sands. During the filming of Oceans Eleven in January and February, the five entertainers would rotate in the Copa Room at the Sands. Instead, they wound up doing the shows together, and it became an unprecedented entertainment event. Hollywood stars visited—Lucille Ball, Jack Benny, Bob Hope. A politician showed up: Senator John Fitzgerald Kennedy of Massachusetts, a candidate for president. That’s when and where he appears to have met Judith Campbell, who became his lover. She also was close to Chicago mob boss Sam Giancana … in the same way.
The Summit at the Sands was supposed to last three weeks. It went on for five weeks. The shows continued afterward in the Sands lounge and in the private suites. Oceans Eleven came out later in the year. The Rat Pack would make a couple more films, but Sinatra and Lawford would have a falling-out, and the group would never be the same.
In 1960, Sinatra was riding high, and Las Vegas was part of the ride. The Rat Pack had just wowed the entertainment world. He had met John Kennedy, liked him, and supported his presidential campaign. It didn’t hurt that another member of the Pack, Peter Lawford, was married to the former Patricia Kennedy; Sinatra called him the brother-in-lawford. But there were some rocky times ahead. As president, JFK was supposed to stay at Sinatra’s Palm Springs estate. But the president changed his mind after a controversy involving Sinatra. This upset Sinatra, who blamed Lawford for not smoothing the waters. Their friendship was at an end.
Sinatra had a lot of other things going for him, obviously. These included part-ownership of the Sands and of the Cal-Neva Lodge in Lake Tahoe. But in 1960, Nevada gaming regulators had created the Black Book—officially, the List of Excluded Persons. They especially targeted mobsters, including Chicago’s Sam Giancana. The rumor was that Sinatra was actually the front man for Giancana. Whatever the merit of that, in 1963, Sinatra hosted Giancana at the Cal-Neva.
Well, that was a no-no, to put it mildly. For that offense, Sinatra could lose his license. State officials investigated. The media became aware of it. And Sinatra called Ed Olsen, the chairman of the Gaming Control Board. He accused Olsen of leaking the story and of being out to get him. Olsen denied both. Sinatra made a few additional comments. We won’t quote them; we like our FCC license, so we don’t use words like that. But in the end, Sinatra gave up his license.
Life at the Sands changed, too. Howard Hughes bought the hotel in 1967. Sinatra’s line of credit was cut. Sinatra got mad and wound up in a confrontation with Sands casino executive Carl Cohen. It ended with Cohen decking Sinatra. Ol’ Blue Eyes went across to Caesars Palace, and never returned to the Sands.
Sinatra announced his retirement in 1971, but he came back. He continued to perform in Las Vegas for another two decades, first at Caesars, and later at the Golden Nugget; he signed with Steve Wynn to perform at his properties in Las Vegas and Atlantic City. He kept performing, as time made his voice rougher and he needed some help remembering the words—and he remained an incredible draw. He didn’t live here, but he was part of the community. He did a concert with Dean Martin and Diana Ross to open the Thomas and Mack arena. He appeared on Jerry Lewis’s annual Labor Day telethon for the Muscular Dystrophy Association. He received an honorary doctorate from UNLV. He and Las Vegas remained inseparable.
Indeed, they remain inseparable seventeen years after his death, and at his centennial. His name adorns a Las Vegas street. There’s a restaurant in the Encore with his name. When he died, the Las Vegas Strip dimmed its lights. As it should have. Entertainment columnist James Bacon ran with Frank in their younger days. He said that Sinatra embodied the glamour of Las Vegas. Indeed he did. He will always be the chairman of the Las Vegas board.
