Dangerous Rhythms, page 35
With the Sands, investors Lansky, Stacher, and others felt they had learned from their mistakes. Out on the gambling floor was where the money was made, but entertainment was the lure that brought locals, tourists, business conventions, and, most notably, high-roller gamblers from around the world.
Situated in the middle of the Mojave Desert, with summer temperatures well over one hundred degrees, amidst arid, dusty conditions, Las Vegas was barely suitable for human habitation. Unlike previous citadels of jazz like New Orleans, Chicago, or New York, there was no local culture to speak of, unless you consider rodeos, cowboys, and steer rustling a form of culture. This was both a curse and a blessing for men like Entratter. Las Vegas was a blank slate; it could be anything you wanted it to be. Thus the city’s forefathers and entertainment directors set about to create an ersatz city that was pure fantasy. Lots of neon flashing late into the night and early morning with the promise of sex, entertainment, and sudden riches (not to mention quickie divorces) became the central motifs to a municipality that, in a matter of three decades or so, saw its population boom like that of no other American city.
Las Vegas may have been a wasteland compared to the great jazz cities of the past, but the type of entertainment showcased there was designed to be “classic.” Even in the 1960s, when the entertainment scene in Vegas hit its stride, rarely was rock and roll on the bill. Jimmy Durante, with his links to vaudeville and the jazz clubs of the 1920s, remained a staple in Las Vegas throughout the decade. At the Sands, Entratter looked to establish a reputation for the kind of entertainment that would soon be considered “vintage.” Certain jazz musicians, if they were of sufficient celebrity stature, were always welcome: Louis Armstrong, Nat King Cole, Lena Horne, Count Basie, Billy Eckstine, Sammy Davis Jr., and, of course, Frank Sinatra were booked regularly at the Copa Room.
Entratter’s old-school sensibility as a booker had an influence on other venues on the Strip. Joe E. Lewis was a regular at El Rancho Vegas. Louis Prima and his wife, singer Keely Smith, became a sensation in the Casbar Lounge at the Sahara, where, along with saxman Sam Butera, they created what was billed as the “Wildest Act in Vegas.” Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman, Stan Kenton, Buddy Rich, Gene Krupa, Peggy Lee, Sarah Vaughan, Ella Fitzgerald, Carmen McRae, Buddy Greco, Quincy Jones, and Johnny Mathis were just a few of the jazz musicians who played either the Strip or at one of the smaller clubs in downtown Las Vegas.
For most musicians, the benefits were obvious. The casino showrooms and lounges paid better than most anywhere else in the country, and they booked an act for two weeks or even a month at a time. With seemingly unlimited budgets, the casinos were able to book large orchestras like Ellington and Basie at a time when those types of band configurations were no longer affordable for nightclubs in most any other city in the United States.
It may have been a mob-run town, but only on rare occasions would you see an actual mob boss in Vegas. Those who owned a piece of the casinos—Lansky, Dalitz, and the rest—did not live in Vegas. Mobsters might come to the casinos to gamble or attend a floor show by one of their favorite entertainers (Bobby Darin at the Flamingo was not to be missed), but they blended in with the hordes of gamblers and tourists, some of whom were indistinguishable from the hoodlums.
To say that the mob made a killing in Las Vegas would be an understatement. The profits were driven by volume: The more gamblers out on the floor of the casino, the better. Music and entertainment played a big role in drawing patrons to the gaming tables and slot machines. In the beginning, admission was free to see the likes of Satchmo and Sinatra. This seemed almost too good to be true, but it was worth it to the casino bosses as a way of attracting gamblers. Eventually, a nominal admission fee was charged, $3 to $6, which was still a bargain.
The floor shows had little to do with profits; that was not where mobsters made their money. Profits were generated out on the gambling floor, where the majority of players lost. Even those who seemed to be winning ultimately lost; it was the law of averages. What goes up, must come down. If properly managed, a casino was a license to print money.
The counting room of the casino was where the rubber hit the road. “The skim,” as it was known, was money pilfered in the counting rooms to be paid directly to organized crime. Any casino that was financed in part by mobsters knew that this was the routine. The process was not subtle. Cash was bound into neat little packets and loaded up in gym bags, duffel bags, or suitcases. The money was shipped out to places like Miami (Lansky and Alo), Cleveland (remnants of the old Mayfield Road mob), and Los Angeles (Stacher and Mickey Cohen). Notably, money was also shipped to Chicago, Kansas City, and Milwaukee, three localities that played a pivotal role in the development of the Strip. Mobsters in these cities were crucial in securing casino financing via the Teamsters Central Pension Fund, which was invested in the construction and management of nearly all the initial casino/hotels.
By the early 1960s, the Las Vegas Strip had become the central banking mechanism of the American underworld. The sideshow that facilitated the process and made it all so profitable was, in large part, music and entertainment.
The Mississippi of the West
For Black jazz musicians, Las Vegas was a different story altogether. Founded as a western outpost by Mormons and fundamentalist Protestants, the city and surrounding Clark County did not hide its racism. Long after Jim Crow had been struck down by federal law in 1954, the hotels and casinos were still racially segregated. Blacks referred to Las Vegas as “the Mississippi of the West” due to its entrenched attitude of racial subservience. Black entertainers were not allowed to stay in the very hotels where they were performing, including big-name performers like Louis Armstrong, Sammy Davis Jr., and Nat King Cole, who were booked at some of the best venues in town.
Most of these performers had experienced American racism and knew what it was all about; in April 1956, Cole was attacked by KKK members while onstage during a performance in Birmingham, Alabama. “Man, I love show business, but I don’t want to die for it,” said Cole backstage after the incident. Davis had experienced vile racism while serving as a soldier in the U.S. Army and throughout his entertainment career. These men had been raised with racism all around them and had, to an extent, sought out careers in entertainment as a refuge from the storm. It was especially galling to travel to the Nevada desert to perform at a prestigious showroom on the Strip and then be told they would have to stay in the colored section on the other side of town.
The city’s Westside, where Black entertainers were housed, was a desert ghetto. Sammy Davis Jr. recalled his first gig in Vegas as part of the Will Mastin Trio, a group that included his father and uncle. The boardinghouse where they stayed looked like something out of “Tobacco Road . . . A three- or four-year-old baby, naked, was standing in front of a shack made of wooden crates and cardboard that was unfit for human life . . . A woman was standing in the doorway. ‘Come right in, folks. You boys with one of the shows? Well, I got three nice rooms for you.’ When she told us the price, Will almost choked. ‘But that’s probably twice what it would cost us at El Rancho Vegas.’
“‘Then why don’t you go live at El Rancho Vegas?’” The woman knew they were prohibited from staying there.
Eventually, famous Black entertainers were allowed to stay at the hotels on the Strip, but they were prohibited from betting in the casinos or eating in the hotel restaurant. It was an indignity that outraged even some of the white entertainers. When Sinatra saw Nat King Cole eating his dinner in the kitchen of the restaurant at the Sands, he was infuriated. He approached Jack Entratter, demanding that Cole and other Black entertainers be extended the same courtesies as white performers.
“What do you want me to do, Frank? It’s company policy.”
“Then change the policy,” said Sinatra.
Bit by bit, Vegas opened up, but progress was slow. Managers like Entratter, who professed his sympathy for Black entertainers, were quick to cite the fact that many of the casinos’ most esteemed high rollers came from the South, especially the state of Texas. It was believed that white gamblers from Texas would not patronize places like the Sands if they allowed Blacks to circulate openly. In truth, Entratter was up against the same mentality that he had encountered when he worked at the Stork Club and the Copacabana in New York. Establishments that were identified as having mob connections were not normally arbiters of integration and civil rights.
By 1960, with the civil rights movement building steam in the South, activities in Las Vegas were approaching critical mass. Harry Belafonte, Lena Horne, Sammy Davis Jr., and Nat King Cole, along with some major white entertainers like Sinatra, were among those to advocate for full integration in the hotels and casinos. Leaders of the local chapter of the NAACP approached the bosses of the various resorts and let it be known that unless they changed their policies of racial apartheid, their establishments would be picketed by a consortium of activists and entertainers.
Sinatra, Davis, and Cole, in particular, carried significant weight with management at the Sands. They were the three top-drawing acts playing regularly at the Copa Room. For them to take part in a march or protest against the Sands on racial bias grounds could be devastating, if not among the patrons who routinely gambled away their life savings in the casino, then certainly among top-line entertainers who were instrumental in luring those patrons to the card tables and slot machines.
While other casino bosses were resisting the demands made by the NAACP, those musicians were able to convince the Sands to do away with its segregationist policies.
It was a significant decision. Here was perhaps the most identifiably mob-connected hotel/casino on the Strip giving in to the demands of the NAACP. It was bound to have an effect on the other establishments.
Almost immediately, it led to the governor of the state creating an entity known as the Nevada Equal Rights Investigatory Commission. At first, it looked as though this governmental body might take action, but as it engaged in endless meetings and stall tactics, civil rights leaders announced a date for their March Against Racism, to take place that summer. This lit a fire under the Caucasian asses of the casino bosses. In a meeting between Las Vegas gambling interests and civil rights leaders in March, a pact was signed known as “the Westside agreement,” in which the hotel/casinos agreed to do away with their Jim Crow policies and also to integrate their staffs by employing Blacks as doormen, dealers, pit bosses, security personnel, and other positions.
It was a landmark agreement, and the Sands had played a significant role in bringing it about.
Still, signing an agreement and then implementing its terms were different matters. Racist attitudes were deeply ingrained at the Vegas casinos, and mob rule had played a role in undergirding those attitudes.
Not long after the signing of the agreement, Nat King Cole was headlining a two-week engagement at the Copa Room. As he was preparing for a show one night, a flustered stage manager came into Cole’s dressing room. “Nat,” he said nervously, “Charlie is in the dining room.” Charlie Harris was a member of Cole’s band.
“Oh?” said the crooner. “Is he climbing any poles? Throwing food? Doing anything unusual?”
“He’s eating, Nat.” The stage manager explained that he had been sent by the maître d’ at the restaurant to see if Cole couldn’t help rectify “the problem.”
Cole was seated, putting on his bow tie, looking in the mirror. “Get Jack Entratter on the phone,” he told the stage manager, who continued trying to explain the gravity of the situation.
“If you don’t get Jack Entratter in five minutes, I’m packing up and getting the hell out of here,” said Cole.
Five minutes later, Entratter arrived and asked, “What’s the problem, Nat?”
Said Cole, standing up from the mirror: “What about my fellows eating downstairs in the restaurant?”
“Of course, they are allowed to do that.”
Cole put a finger in Entratter’s chest. “Then call those bastards down there and tell them.”
Nat King Cole had not started out as anyone’s idea of a civil rights activist. Years earlier, when asked by DownBeat whether or not he would be taking part in the burgeoning movement, he said, “I’m a singer of songs. I’m not a public speaker.” That likely changed the night he was attacked by KKK hooligans on a stage in Birmingham. Now he had his finger in the chest of Jack Entratter, creator of the Copa Room, partner of high-ranking mobsters from Las Vegas to New York, making demands. Times were changing.
Hoodlum Complex
In the years since Frank Sinatra had emerged as likely the most well-compensated entertainer in America, there was much about his offstage life that he could point to with pride. His role in speaking out against racial bias and bigotry was undoubtedly sincere. In 1945, he had produced and appeared in a short film titled The House I Live In, which addressed the subject of racial intolerance (it was awarded an Academy Award). He was loyal and generous with his friends and others in need. He gave to charities and humanitarian causes. He was on the right side of the civil rights movement, both in words and deed.
This was the Frank Sinatra that the singer wanted the public to acknowledge. Then there was the other Frank Sinatra, the friend of mobsters. He lied about these entanglements in public, but he did not hide it from friends and others in the entertainment business.
In 1960, Sinatra gathered $1 million in cash donations from his mob friends to be delivered to the Kennedy campaign. It was no secret. At a campaign party at the Sands, after the candidate had attended a show by the Rat Pack, Peter Lawford (Kennedy’s brother-in-law) said to Sammy Davis Jr., “If you want to see what a million dollars in cash looks like, go into the next room; there’s a brown leather satchel in the closet; open it. It’s a gift from the hotel owners for Jack’s campaign.”
Sinatra wanted his friends to know about the money, and he wanted them to know where it came from.
The singer didn’t just hang out with gangsters or solicit cash donations from mobsters; he sometimes acted like one.
In 1967, after stand-up comic Jackie Mason started incorporating Sinatra jokes into his act, he received a mysterious phone call threatening his life if he didn’t stop telling jokes about the singer. Mason thought it might be a prank. He hired a bodyguard and kept making the jokes. A few days later, three shots were fired through the glass patio door of his hotel room at the Aladdin Hotel and Casino, where he had been appearing all week. The bullets struck Mason’s bed, where he had been sitting just moments before the shots were fired. The Clark County Sheriff’s Department launched an investigation but was unable to determine who had fired the shots.
Mason was pretty sure it was someone acting on behalf of the Chairman of the Board. He trimmed back the Sinatra jokes in his act, but a few weeks later, while doing his set at the Saxony Hotel in Miami, he said to the audience, “I have no idea who it was who tried to shoot me . . . After the shots were fired, all I heard was someone singing, ‘Doobie, doobie, doo.’”
Recalled Mason, “I was warned by anonymous threats all week, on the telephone and by people I didn’t know in the hotel lobby, to shut up about Sinatra.” Later, while Mason was sitting in his car with a lady friend a few blocks from the Saxony, “All of a sudden, the door opens and a fist comes in, right in my nose and busted me—a fist with some kind of ring on it that’s supposed to bust your face open.” As the comic sat stunned with a broken nose and lacerations to the face, the assailant said, “This is not the worst that can happen to you if you don’t shut up your mouth about Frank Sinatra.”
Comic Shecky Greene had a similar experience. Like Mason, Greene was a Jewish comic who performed on the nightclub circuit and at casino showrooms that were owned by the mob. Often these comics performed as warmup acts for the jazz musicians and singers who were headlining at the venue. It was a tradition that could be traced back to the halcyon days of vaudeville.
Greene had become a friend of Sinatra’s. He was a burly, proletarian type from Chicago, an authentic street character whose act was especially popular with Windy City mobsters like Sam Giancana. Sinatra and Greene caroused together, especially when they were performing in Miami Beach at the La Ronde Room inside the Fontainebleau Hotel (the hotel’s entertainment director was Chicagoan Joe Fischetti, youngest of the three Fischetti brothers). Greene became Sinatra’s opening act at the Fontainebleau and part of his entourage, which was notorious for its raucous, after-hours parties in a series of private suites reserved for Sinatra and his gang on the fourteenth floor.
Greene was drinking heavily during this period; by his own admission, he was a “wild man,” which he thinks is the main reason Sinatra liked him and enjoyed his company. Over time, in his sober moments, Greene felt that he began to see the true Sinatra. “The man was a great singer, and I appreciated his talent. But his talent didn’t have anything to do with who he was.”
One thing Greene noticed was how quick Sinatra was to vent his mania and anger on little people—his valet, stagehands, waiters, and kitchen employees:
I saw him throw food on the floor. I saw him have Jilly kick people. [Jilly Rizzo was a saloon owner from New York who acted as Sinatra’s bodyguard and gofer.] Once we went downstairs to the Fontainebleau coffee shop. It was four or five o’clock in the morning. Sinatra liked these hot brown rolls they had, so we went down there to see if they were done yet, and they weren’t done. And Frank got mad, and he said something to Jilly, and Jilly kicked the baker and broke his ankle. I said, “Are you fuckin’ guys sick? What are you doing?” I used to see these things, and I didn’t want to be with him. I wanted to quit every two minutes.
The relationship soured. As Greene was getting ready to go onstage at the La Ronde Room one night, Sinatra said to him, “Shecky, stick with me and I’ll make you the biggest star in the business.”
