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ELI WALLACH

IS WELCOMED BY

FRANK SINATRA

Caesars Palace, Las Vegas

February 1974

The most belligerent people are sometimes unexpectedly warm-hearted. Even Frank Sinatra can disappoint onlookers who have been spoiling for a fight. Or is this just another example of his cruelty?

Ten years after his unfortunate contretemps with George Brown, Eli Wallach flies into Las Vegas. As he comes down the steps of the plane, he sees a huge billboard featuring two blue eyes. The caption states simply, ‘HE’S HERE’.

Ol’ Blue Eyes is back in Las Vegas, even though he promised four years ago never to return following a very public fight with the casino manager of Caesars Palace.

At that time, Sinatra had been under surveillance by the IRS. Their agents had noticed that he was cashing in his winnings at blackjack without paying for the chips – an easy way to pocket money tax-free. Leaned on by the IRS, the casino manager, Sanford Waterman, had confronted Sinatra, telling him, ‘You don’t get chips until I see your cash.’

Sinatra had called Waterman a kike; in turn, Waterman had called Sinatra a bitch guinea. Things had gone from bad to worse: Sinatra grabbed Waterman by the throat; Waterman pulled out a pistol and placed it between Sinatra’s eyeballs; Sinatra laughed, called Waterman a crazy hebe and exited, declaring that he would never work at Caesars again. In the end, Waterman had been arrested for pulling a gun.

The next day, Waterman told the District Attorney he had heard Sinatra say, ‘The mob will take care of you.’ This caused the Sheriff to say, ‘I’m tired of Sinatra intimidating waiters, waitresses, and starting fires and throwing pies. He gets away with too much. He’s through picking on little people in this town. Why the owners of the hotels put up with this is what I plan to find out.’

The District Attorney’s report indicated Waterman still had the finger-marks on his throat where Sinatra had grabbed him. ‘There seems to be reasonable grounds for making the assumption that Sinatra was the aggressor all the way.’ The charges against Waterman were dropped: he was judged to have acted in self-defence. It was at this point that Sinatra, denying he ever laid a finger on Waterman, vowed never to set foot in Nevada again. ‘I’ve suffered enough indignities,’ he said.

But four years later, things have changed. The casino manager has been arrested for racketeering, the District Attorney has been voted out, and the new management of Caesars Palace has tempted Sinatra back with the promise of $400,000 a week, plus full-time bodyguards ‘to avoid any unpleasant incidents’.

The new Sheriff is delighted to welcome Sinatra back to Las Vegas. To celebrate his return, Caesars Palace is proud to present each member of the audience with a medallion inscribed, ‘Hail Sinatra. The Noblest Roman Has Returned’.

But what of Eli Wallach? Ever since the publication of The Godfather in 1969, and its film adaptation in 1972, Wallach and Sinatra have been linked in the public mind as bitter rivals. The scene in which a studio boss wakes up to find the severed head of his favourite racehorse lying next to him in his bed has been the inspiration of an urban myth. In the film, it is the mafia’s revenge for the studio boss’s refusal to award a starring role to one of their own singers, Johnny Fontane. The horse’s head helps him change his mind: he immediately drops the actor who has already been cast and replaces him with Fontane. Over time, word has got around that Johnny Fontane is really Frank Sinatra, and the dropped actor is really Eli Wallach. After all, twenty years ago, hadn’t Harry Cohn offered Wallach a leading role in From Here to Eternity – and hadn’t it unaccountably gone to the inexperienced Italian Frank Sinatra? Small wonder, then, that when Eli Wallach walks into the Frank Sinatra show at Caesars Palace, a frisson runs around the audience.

Halfway through his act, Sinatra stops singing, looks over to his wife in the audience and says, ‘Barbara, did Eli get here?’

‘He’s sitting right beside me!’ she replies.

‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ says Sinatra, ‘I’d like to introduce a friend. Our paths have often crossed, and he played a big part in my career …’

The audience stirs. They all know what he is talking about. They sense a drama about to unfurl, perhaps even a fight. Sinatra pauses, looks over towards Wallach and says, ‘… Ah, the hell with that! It’s an old story! I don’t feel like telling it!’

Perhaps the audience is disappointed by this anti-climax, but Eli Wallach finds it hilarious. ‘I fell out of my seat laughing. Every time Frank saw me after that, he’d say, “Hello, you crazy actor.” And every time he came to New York, he’d send a limo for Anne and me. We’d sit in a box at the theater. He’d look up, smile at us, and afterward we’d have a late supper at 21.’

On the other hand, it may be worth adding that the author of The Godfather, Mario Puzo, does not get off so lightly. By chance, one night in 1970, after the book has become a bestseller, but before the film has been shot, he enters Chasen’s restaurant in Beverly Hills and sees Sinatra dining there. ‘I’m going to ask Frank for his autograph,’ he tells his companion, the film’s producer Al Ruddy.

‘Forget it, Mario. He’s suing to stop the movie,’ replies Ruddy. But Puzo persists, and goes up to Sinatra’s table. Sinatra loses his temper. ‘I ought to break your legs,’ he grunts. ‘Did the FBI help you with your book?’

‘Frank is freaking out, screaming at Mario,’ Ruddy recalls thirty years later. As Puzo remembers it, Sinatra calls him ‘a pimp’, and threatens to ‘beat the hell out of me’.

‘I know what Frank was up to,’ explains Al Martino, who eventually plays the part of Johnny Fontane.^* ‘You know how much Johnny Fontane was in the book? He was trying to minimise the role.’