Jerry Weintraub - When I Stop Talking You

I got quiet, looked out the windows.

"What is it, kid?" asked Sinatra.

I said, "Look, Mr. Sinatra, I don't want you to take this the wrong way…"

"Francis, please. My name is Francis Albert Sinatra."

"Okay, Francis, I don't want you to take this the wrong way, but I have heard, just being around, talking to people, that sometimes, now and then, and again, don't take this the wrong way, you don't show up-you make the date, but don't turn up for the show."

He put down his drink, turned, and looked at me-his eyes were not humorous anymore, but icy blue. We didn't know each other, and, looking back, I suppose I was accusing him of being unprofessional. He said, "Are you crazy, coming into my house, talking to me like that? What's wrong with you?"

I said, "Look, no disrespect, Francis, but that's what I heard. And my career is just getting started. And I'm doing great. I'm a millionaire already. And I don't want to get into something I can't handle."

And he pointed his finger at me, and I'll never forget this, and said, "Here's what we're going to do. You and I, the two of us here, we're going to shake hands. And we're going to promise. I'm never going to disappoint you. And you know what, kid? You're never going to disappoint me, are you?"

I said, "No, Francis, I will never disappoint you."

And we shook hands, had another drink, and that was it. Once Frank Sinatra, excuse me, Francis, made a decision, it stayed made. He was loyal, a great man. Being accepted by Sinatra, entering his circle, that fraternity of knock-around guys, Dino, Jilly, Sammy, was one of the honors of my life. It was also one of the best possible credentials. It was Old Blue Eyes telling the guy at the desk, "Take care of him-he's one of mine."

We opened at Carnegie Hall. I had ditched my cowboy hat and jeans for a tux. I had slipped out of Elvis Country into Sinatra Land. This is another part of the job: being able to cross frontiers, move from culture to culture, making everyone believe you are a fully committed citizen of each. The curtain was called for 8:00 P.M. This was a black tie deal. Celebrities up the wazoo. Everyone was there. I'm not going to give you a list, but close your eyes and think of who was big in the 1970s: Well, they were there. I was backstage at 7:59. The house was empty. The people were in the street or in the lobby, fashionably late. You call the show for 8:00, they arrive at 8:35. New York. I'm staring through the curtain, wondering what kind of delay we're looking at, when there's a tap on my shoulder. It's Frank-excuse me, Francis-in his tux, dapper as hell.

"Jerry," he said, "it's eight P.M. Let's go."

"Yeah, but, Frank, the house is empty-no one is sitting down."

"Believe me," he said, "it will be like magic: When I start singing, they will be in their seats."

He turned, walked on stage, hit the first note, and BAM, the house was full.

On that first tour, I learned something new almost every night. Watching Sinatra work an audience of twenty thousand, take them up, bring them down, leave them in a kind of ecstatic high helped me in the movie business later on. It taught me how to structure a story: act one, act two, act three. Where did I go to school? Not to Harvard, Princeton, Stanford. I went to the school of Sinatra. I sat in his class every night. And while I was sitting there learning, I was making millions of dollars.

But the best part of working with Sinatra was not the tours, or the concerts, or even the money. It was the friendship, the camaraderie, the sense of being in it with the boys, the Chairman and the rest of the Rat Pack. When Frank was in LA, we were at Chasen's three nights a week, lighting it up, drinking and laughing. It was always a party. You knew where it started, but not where it would end. One night, we met at Chasen's and the next thing I know we're at a poker table at Frank's house in Palm Springs, playing big stakes. The game went on and on. At some point, George Hamilton came in. He was a friend of mine. He said, "Jerry, the house across from me is being sold in foreclosure. Thirty thousand. You should buy it. You won't have to rent anymore. But you have to buy it today."

"George, can't you see I'm in the middle of a game?"

"Yeah, sure, but it's a hell of a deal."

"You've seen this house?"

"Yeah, it's a beauty."

"Okay, if it's so great, buy it."

I write a check for thirty thousand, at least that's what they told me, because I forgot all about it a minute after it happened.

A few months later, Jane went to the desert to look at houses. We rented every winter. She found something she liked, then called our accountant to get money for the deposit.

"Why are you renting?" he asked her. "Jerry owns a house in Palm Springs."

She called me in a rage: "What the hell is going on? The accountant tells me you own a house in Palm Springs. How dare you! You have a girl set up down there? How dare you do this to me!"

I said, "What? No, no. That's crazy, absolute bullshit, not true. I own nothing in the desert."

I called the accountant. "What is this craziness?" I asked him. "You're telling Jane I own a house in Palm Springs? What's wrong with you?"

"But you do, Jerry."

"Do what?"

"You do own a house in Palm Springs."

"I do not. You're out of your mind."

"Jerry, you do. You bought it last season."

And when he said this, I had a fuzzy recollection of the card game, George Hamilton, and the rest. So we got the keys, went down, and checked it out. And you know what? George Hamilton was right. It was terrific, a sweet little house with a pool and a view of the hills. We stayed there for twenty years.

Wherever you went with Sinatra, you were surrounded-by fans, by politicians, by celebrities, and yes, by mobsters. A lot has been made of this, but there was nothing much to it. If you were in show business, there really was no avoiding the Mafia. They were in the music industry, operated the nightclubs. They loved Frank, but they had no real place in his life. They came around for the same reason everyone else came around: because it was fun to be around Sinatra. The fact is, as much as these guys loved Sinatra, they loved Dino more. He was their guy, big and handsome and charming as hell. When it came to Dean, women would lie down and open their legs. It wasn't even a question of, "Should I?" "Maybe it's wrong?" They just did it. It was his manner, his way. He was Peck's bad boy. The gangsters swarmed around him. He worked as a blackjack dealer in the Beverly Hills Club in Cincinnati. Dean's whole philosophy was that everybody on the other side of the table is a sucker. Whoever he was dealing to was by definition a sucker. And when he got on stage, everybody in the audience was a sucker, too. That's why he sang the way he did, cocky and nonchalant-because he was singing to the suckers. He couldn't believe people actually paid to hear him.

Most of that mob stuff was just rumor or misunderstandings. I will tell you a story:

In the late seventies, I had a great idea for a show. Sinatra performing with Count Basie and Ella Fitzgerald. We would open on Broadway, then tour. We went through rehearsals, built sets, all the rest. Then, just before we were to open, word came down: The musicians are going to strike. The theater district will go dark. Did Sinatra care? Of course not. To him, it meant another night at 21. But for me, it was a disaster. I had a lot of my own money in the show. I would lose it all. I went around like a madman, meeting officials and union reps, trying to explain: Look, we're not a Broadway show. We're a concert that is opening in a theater on Broadway. There's a difference. We should get an exemption from the strike.

After twenty hours of this, I was sitting in a room outside the office of the union boss. I was spent, beat, wiped out, exhausted, undone, about to give it up. Just then, the door opens and out comes a woman, all done up, legs from here to here. She says, "Jerry? Jerry Weintraub?"