Sinatra 'Almost Got Caught Carrying $3.5m Mafia Cash'

The Telegraph (UK) ^ | 5-5-2005 | Catherine Elsworth

[blam]

Sinatra 'almost got caught carrying $3.5m Mafia cash'

By Catherine Elsworth
(Filed: 05/05/2005)

Frank Sinatra once served as a Mafia courier and narrowly escaped arrest with a briefcase containing $3.5 million in cash, according to a new biography of the legendary singer.

The entertainer Jerry Lewis is quoted as saying that Sinatra "volunteered to be a messenger for them... And he almost got caught once... in New York."

Frank Sinatra: mob links

Extracts of Sinatra: The Life, an unauthorised biography by Anthony Summers and Robbyn Swan, were published yesterday by Vanity Fair magazine.

Lewis said that Sinatra was going through customs with a briefcase containing "three and a half million in fifties" and that customs officials opened the case.

But due to crowds jostling for a glimpse of the star, officials aborted their search. Otherwise, Lewis said, "We would never have heard of him again."

According to Vanity Fair, the authors do not claim that Lewis witnessed the customs incident but related the account "as a fact of which he had knowledge".

Lewis, one of the singer's Rat Pack compatriots from the 1960s, claims that Sinatra's mob links "had to do with the morality that a handshake goes before God". The anecdote is one of many fleshing out Sinatra's reputed close ties to the Mafia.

The singer carried mob money several times, Lewis is quoted as saying. He knew the Mafia was expanding beyond its East Coast base and volunteered to be a "messenger".

"Frank, at a cocktail party, told Meyer [Lansky, a known mobster] in no uncertain terms, 'If there is going to be East Coast, West Coast, intercontinental and foreign - if all that's going to happen, I go all the time," Lewis says.

Sinatra, who died aged 82 in 1998, always denied any links to the mob, although FBI files released seven months after his death portrayed him as a close friend of Sam Giancana, the reputed Chicago mobster.

The federal documents also suggested that he had contact with Mafia boss Lucky Luciano during a 1947 trip to Cuba and alleged that his early singing career was backed by a New Jersey-based racketeer named Willie Moretti.

The book quotes Lewis as saying that the cash smuggling incident occurred shortly after Luciano was deported from the US to Italy in 1946.

According to Vanity Fair, the authors of the book describe Sinatra's "long-time, intimate relationship with Luciano", who in 1936 was declared New York's "public enemy Number One", progressing from "beatings to no fewer than 20 murders to pioneering drug trafficking".

Sinatra said he did not meet Luciano until a chance encounter in 1947, but the book suggests that he had contact with "top New York area mobsters as early as 1938 or 1939". It also describes how Sinatra's mob links helped his career.

It quotes Sonny King, a friend of the singer, as saying: "The Boys got on to Frank. In part because he was a saloon singer and they loved saloon songs, and they liked his cockiness... They liked to think of him as their kid, or son."

Sinatra was also allegedly helped by his "godfathers", who, at a gathering in Cuba, essentially "sentenced to death" the mobster Bugsy Siegel, who was blocking the singer's attempts to set himself up in Las Vegas. It was Luciano, the book says, who approved the killing of Siegel.

[2 Kool 2 Be 4-Gotten]

me too - low life mobster wannabe.

[fat city]

Yeah- I lived in NO many years ago but actually the name comes from the nickname of my old army unit even more years ago.

[ditto h]

I never cared for Sinatra...he couldn't sing very well.

[Reaganwuzthebest]

Thanks I heard that was good so I'll have to catch that one as well.

[Tribune7]

super cool

[itsahoot]

1. Young at Heart (1995) (TV) .... Guest Appearance
2. Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988) (voice) (archive sound) .... Singing Sword
3. Cannonball Run II (1984) .... Frank Sinatra
4. Sinatra: The Man and His Music (1981) (TV) .... Star
5. The First Deadly Sin (1980) .... Edward Delaney
6. Contract on Cherry Street (1977) (TV) .... Dep. Insp. Frank Hovannes, Organized Crime Unit (OCU) ... aka Stakeout on Cherry Street
7. Dirty Dingus Magee (1970) .... Dingus Billy Magee
8. Lady in Cement (1968) .... Tony Rome
9. The Detective (1968) .... Det. Joe Leland
10. Tony Rome (1967) .... Tony Rome
11. The Naked Runner (1967) .... Sam Laker
12. Assault on a Queen (1966) .... Mark Brittain
13. Cast a Giant Shadow (1966) .... Vince Talmadge
14. Marriage on the Rocks (1965) .... Dan Edwards
15. Von Ryan's Express (1965) .... Col. Joseph L. Ryan
16. None But the Brave (1965) .... Chief Pharmacist Mate ... aka Yusha nomi (Japan)
17. Robin and the 7 Hoods (1964) .... Robbo
18. 4 for Texas (1963) .... Zack Thomas
19. A New Kind of Love (1963) .... Singer behind opening credits
20. Come Blow Your Horn (1963) .... Alan Baker
21. The List of Adrian Messenger (1963) .... Cameo
22. The Manchurian Candidate (1962) .... Capt./Maj. Bennett Marco
23. Advise and Consent (1962) (voice) (uncredited) .... Club 602 Singer
24. The Road to Hong Kong (1962) (uncredited) .... The 'Twig' on plutomium
25. Sergeants 3 (1962) .... Mike Merry
26. The Devil at 4 O'Clock (1961) .... Harry
27. Pepe (1960) .... Cameo appearance
28. Ocean's Eleven (1960) .... Danny Ocean
29. Can-Can (1960) .... François Durnais
30. Never So Few (1959) .... Capt. Tom Reynolds ... aka Campaign Burma (USA: alternative title)
31. A Hole in the Head (1959) .... Tony Manetta
32. Some Came Running (1958) .... Dave Hirsh
33. Kings Go Forth (1958) .... 1st Lt. Sam Loggins
34. Pal Joey (1957) .... Joey Evans
35. The Joker Is Wild (1957) .... Joe E. Lewis
... aka All the Way (USA: reissue title)
... aka The Joker (USA)
36. The Pride and the Passion (1957) .... Miguel 37. Around the World in Eighty Days (1956) .... Saloon Pianist 38. Johnny Concho (1956) .... Johnny Concho aka Johnny Collins 39. High Society (1956) .... Mike Connor 40. Meet Me in Las Vegas (1956) (uncredited) .... Cameo appearance ... aka Viva Las Vegas! (UK) 41. The Man with the Golden Arm (1955) .... Frankie Machine 42. The Tender Trap (1955) .... Charlie Y. Reader 43. Guys and Dolls (1955) .... Nathan Detroit 44. Not as a Stranger (1955) .... Alfred Boone ... aka Morton Thompson's Not as a Stranger (USA: complete title) 45. Young at Heart (1954) .... Barney Sloan 46. Suddenly (1954) .... John Baron 47. From Here to Eternity (1953) .... Pvt. Angelo Maggio 48. Meet Danny Wilson (1952) .... Danny Wilson 49. Double Dynamite (1951) .... Johnny Dalton ... aka It's Only Money 50. "The Frank Sinatra Show" (1950) TV Series .... Host 51. On the Town (1949) .... Chip 52. Take Me Out to the Ball Game (1949) .... Dennis Ryan ... aka Everybody's Cheering (UK) 53. The Kissing Bandit (1948) .... Ricardo 54. The Miracle of the Bells (1948) .... Father Paul 55. It Happened in Brooklyn (1947) .... Danny Webson Miller 56. Till the Clouds Roll by (1946) .... Finale specialty 57. Anchors Aweigh (1945) .... Clarence Doolittle 58. Step Lively (1944) .... Glen Russell 59. Higher and Higher (1944) .... Frank Sinatra 60. Ship Ahoy (1942) (uncredited) .... Singer in Tommy Dorsey Orchestra 61. Las Vegas Nights (1941) (uncredited) .... Singer in Tommy Dorsey's Band ... aka The Gay City (UK)

[Muleteam1]

The African Queen was probably the best of Bogart's films but then I like Katharine Hepburn. They had the actual African Queen boat at the 1984 World's Fair at New Orleans. It was actually a pretty small boat.

I too like the old films. I'm even into the old blame-it-on-the atomic-bomb sci-films. Probably has to do with my life-long fascination with the southwestern deserts. I have quite a collection of these old B&W films. A middle-school-aged Spielberg could have easily done any of these old corny films.

Muleteam1

[Reaganwuzthebest]

There's a funny Abbott and Costello movie on right now :)

[ErnBatavia]

Never liked Sinatra myself and always thought of him as the biggest rat in the Pack.

Pretty much my thoughts also; a scumbag of a human being who was a minimally talented lounge singer who was in exactly the right time at the right place.

That criticism being dumped on him, he by all rights was an extremely generous man, charity-wise. His handlers assured him a better legacy by instituting this.

[cubreporter]

From Here to Eternity
Man with a Golden Arm

[Muleteam1]

Your screen name made me recall the times when Fat City traffic would back up across my driveway in Metairie every Mardi Gras.

Muleteam1

[cubreporter]

Amen.

[Reaganwuzthebest]

Sinatra did do some good movies. After watching "Suddenly" I got the feeling Lee Harvey Oswald saw it too.

[Muleteam1]

I really cannot offer any details as to why Sinatra was not appealing to me. To most people I think he was very well-liked. I just didn't click with his personality I guess.

Muleteam1

[Reaganwuzthebest]

I too like the old films.

To me the acting was a lot better in many of them and they were loaded with beautiful women. And quite a few of the comedy movies were actually funny.

[Dont_Tread_On_Me_888]

I thought it was Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis, and WhatsHisName... related to the Kennedys at one time....

"WhatsHisName" is Peter Lawford, and you can add Joey Bishop to the list. Many also forget that Shirley McClain was the lone female considered part of the Rat Pack.

Of course, the modern day Rat Pack is all members of the Democratic Party.

[ErnBatavia]

I really cannot offer any details as to why Sinatra was not appealing to me.

Well, for me, the fact that he couldn't begin to sing "on key" sorta soured me on his so-called 'talents'...

[Clemenza]

Let's not forget auxiliary members of the Summit (Frank would kick you a-s if you used the term rat pack), Angie Dickinson and Shirley Maclaine.

[Clemenza]

Francis Albert Sinatra is the GREATEST VOCALIST OF ALL TIME! His phrasing and control only got better as he entered middle age. Check out any of his work on Reprise in the early-mid 60s to see my point.

[Clemenza]

His album with Antonio Carlos Jobim is my fave.