Mark Winegardner - The Godfather returns

If people everywhere didn’t drink to forget, half the songs on the radio and three fourths of the world’s distilleries would disappear. Fredo stayed at the wedding and didn’t make a scene and didn’t go out anywhere afterward. He and Deanna started dancing together to every song, and she did seem happy, though they were both too drunk for any emotion to be above suspicion.

Back in the room, he gave it to her in the ass, something he’d have never done sober, and she didn’t complain, which was also the doing of all that booze.

When he woke up the next morning, Fredo had no memory of how he’d gotten to his room. He lifted Deanna’s limp arm to look at her Cartier watch. His head pounded. He struggled to get his bleary eyes to focus. It was almost eleven. In a panic, Fredo called Michael’s room. “I’m sorry, sir,” said the operator. “Mr. Corleone and his entire family checked out hours ago.”

(The Fred Corleone Show aired irregularly, usually on Monday nights on a UHF station in Las Vegas, from 1957 until its host’s disappearance in 1959. It was broadcast from the lounge at the Castle in the Sand on a minimal set: a low round table flanked by the host and a guest on leopard-print chairs. On a board behind them, white lights spelled out “ FRED ! ” Behind the board was a dark curtain. The following is from the show’s debut on September 30, 1957 [transcript courtesy of the Nevada Museum of Radio and Television].)

FRED CORLEONE: This first show, I expect it to be real mothery. If you don’t know what that means, I guess call it a gasser. I see these other shows with everything-girls, jokes, little skits, whatnot. Music. So on and so forth. Sometimes these guys got so many guest stars they need a traffic cop in the wings, y’know? The fellas who do those shows are good men, but, personally, I think maybe they’re not sure they can grab you, so they keep throwing acts at you. More guests than they got folks at home watching. Tonight we’re takin’ a different road, and I hope you’ll sit back and join us. One guest, that’s it, but he’s a major leaguer: a star of stage and screen and of course a singer like none other, not to mention being a fellow paesano. Ladies and gents, Mr. John Fontane.

(Corleone stands and applauds. Fontane nods toward the audience. The men sit, and both take their time lighting cigarettes and getting started.)

FRED CORLEONE: They tell me Groovesville could wind up being the biggest long-player in history. The rock-and-roll fad is dying, and you’re on top, number one across the land.

JOHNNY FONTANE: Thank you. My recording career had a bad case of pavement rash for a while there, but I picked myself up and caught a few breaks. In all modesty, the records I’ve been fortunate enough to make with the genius Cy Milner-not just Groovesville but also The Last Lonely Midnight, Johnny Sings Hoagy, and starting with Fontane Blue- those may very well be the best records I’ve ever done.

FRED CORLEONE: Those are maybe the best sides anyone ever did.

JOHNNY FONTANE: You should have Cy on your show. He’s doing my next record, too, which is sort of a dream project for me, a duets record with Miss Ella Fitzgerald.

FRED CORLEONE: I’ll do that. (Looks offstage.) Somebody write that down. Cy Milner, genius, and, um, y’know. Book him on the show I guess is the good word.

JOHNNY FONTANE: You should have Ella on, also. Like the song says, she’s the top.

FRED CORLEONE: Sure.

JOHNNY FONTANE: I don’t use the word genius lightly.

FRED CORLEONE: The way Hollywood phonies do. I know. You don’t.

JOHNNY FONTANE: Any singer who works with Milner will tell you he’s a genius, for the simple reason that during his years as a ’bone man with the Les Halley Band, he-

FRED CORLEONE: That would be the trombone, folks.

JOHNNY FONTANE: -played it so much like the human voice that he knows how to take a singer into the studio and make him or her feel better than the proverbial million bucks.

FRED CORLEONE: What’s better than a million bucks?

JOHNNY FONTANE: A million bucks and… ( Takes a long drag from his cigarette. Shrugs. )

FRED CORLEONE: Your records make millions, though. And not proverbial.

JOHNNY FONTANE: What I’ve learned, in all my years in this business we call show, is that whatever amount of success I’ve had-

FRED CORLEONE: Lots of success.

JOHNNY FONTANE: -I owe to the people. (Acknowledges applause.) Thank you. It’s true.

FRED CORLEONE: Am I right that this rock and roll has gone about as far as it can go? To me it ain’t… you know, it isn’t music. And also, if I may say so, it doesn’t have a lot of class.

JOHNNY FONTANE: That stuff all comes from a primitive side of people. It was dead artistically from the get-go, so all that’s really left is for it to get gone.

FRED CORLEONE: Good to hear. Your opinion, I mean. So let me-let’s really get into it, all right? Things the people want to know.

JOHNNY FONTANE: Let ’er rip.

FRED CORLEONE: In your experience, in all of show business and including all of the women, right? Out of them all. Rating them that way one to ten, ten being high-

JOHNNY FONTANE: ( pointing to the host’s coffee cup ): That ain’t the only thing that’s high.

FRED CORLEONE: -and in two categories, looks and then also talent. So one to twenty. Or else one to ten, then add the two and divide for the average. The scale’s not important.

JOHNNY FONTANE: You never told me I’d need a Ph.D. in mathematics to do this show.

FRED CORLEONE: For objectivity let’s say excepting your fiancée, Miss Annie McGowan, who can do it all, by the way-sing, dance, tell jokes, even act. Plus there’s the puppets, which I never saw but I heard good things about. Hold on, though. I need to stop right here.

JOHNNY FONTANE: I didn’t know you started.

FRED CORLEONE: So, Annie. You know what they say. About … them. Help me out, John. We got the family market to consider. People know what I’m talking about, believe me. How should I say it? Her what?

JOHNNY FONTANE ( grinning ): Her chest?

FRED CORLEONE: Chest! Right. It’s a very famous chest, no disrespect to you or her in any way.

JOHNNY FONTANE: None taken. What was the question?

FRED CORLEONE: Who’s the best combination of talent and looks in all of Hollywood?

JOHNNY FONTANE ( performing an exaggerated double-take ): Your interview style’s gonna give me whiplash.

FRED CORLEONE: Hoo boy! The razzing, giving folks the business, just like from your stage show. We need to get you back onstage here at the world-famous Castle in the Sand.

JOHNNY FONTANE: Thanks. Thank you. I haven’t been able to do shows in Vegas for a while. I do have some gigs locked up in L.A. and Chicago, if people want to come see me there.

FRED CORLEONE: Our show just goes to here in Vegas, and not even all of it, either. This channel doesn’t quite make it to my own house, can you believe that?

JOHNNY FONTANE: You got a tower or just the rabbit ears?

FRED CORLEONE: You kidding? Tower. Back to business matters, though, if you will. All kidding aside, you’re telling me you’re not singing here? Today? For us? I was told we had a little combo coming in to back you.

JOHNNY FONTANE: I’d love to, but I gotta rest the pipes. Those are big shows comin’ up. Sorry.

FRED CORLEONE: That’s disappointing. Really disappointing. You’re making me look bad.

JOHNNY FONTANE: That ship already sailed before I came on deck.

FRED CORLEONE ( cracking up ): Funny guy!

JOHNNY FONTANE: I try.

FRED CORLEONE ( to someone offstage ): Did anyone call that combo and… Right. You did? You did. Why am I the last to know these things? (Turns to Fontane.) So, all right, what? Let’s start. Any thoughts on the Dodgers and Giants moving to California?