Jake Brennan (3:03)
o.com that's o d o o.com Disgraceland is a production of Double Elvis. This is about the Voice, the Weasel, about the Boot and guys named Lucky Momo and Handsome Johnny. This is a story about the Mafia and about one musician's position in the Mafia. This is not a story you've likely heard before. This is not just a story about a singer who needed the Mob's help. It's about a pop star who was expected to deliver for the Mob a over and over again and in a way that only made Mafia members were expected to deliver. This story is based on recent research from a newish book that pulls from a trove of previously unreleased secret files from Los Angeles police intelligence and FBI documents. This is a story, of course, about Frank Sinatra, a story that puts him not just up close and personal with the Mafia, but but in the Mafia, running illegal errands, entering into illegal businesses, and relying on illegal favors, one of which resulted in not one, but three murders. And this being a story about Frank the Voice Sinatra means that it's also a story about great music. Unlike that music I played for you at the top of the show, that wasn't great music. That was a preset loop for my melotron called Cowboy gonna bleed MK1. I played you that loop because I can't afford the rights to Dominique by the Singing Nun. And why would I play you that specific slice of convent cheese could I afford it? Because that was the number one song in America on December 8, 1963, and that was the day Frank Sinatra's son was kidnapped and a phone call was made that resulted in the torture and death of three men at the hands of a Mafia enforcer. On this episode, new research, secret files, illegal favors, torture, murder, and Frank Sinatra. I'm Jake Brennan, and this is disgrace. Once upon a time, back during the earlier part of the 20th century. Just after Prohibition and throughout the 1940s and 50s, the American mafia consolidated its immense power. And your Mafia bosses, your Lucky Lucianos, your Vito Genovese types, created empires. These gangsters, the bosses, picture Don Corleone from the Godfather. They gave orders and stayed above the fray. Below them, there were the captains, the guys who ran the crews. Guys like Ruggerio, Richie the Boot, Boiardo from New Jersey, who wasn't afraid to get his hands dirty. He was said to bury his enemies in his backyard. And then there was Angelo Gyp De Carlo, who ran the Jersey labor unions and controlled the nightclub business and who was also known to make enemies disappear. These were more your Tessio, your fat Clemenza types. Below these guys, you had your soldiers, men like Willie Moretti, a New Jersey member of the Genovese family. Moretti once invited a man who owed him money to dinner to work out his debt. The deadbeat, of course, didn't have the money, and Moretti shot the man in the leg in front of a restaurant full of witnesses and then finished his meal as if nothing had happened. Moretti himself was shot in the face in 1951, ironically, in a Jersey restaurant while eating a bowl of spaghetti. If you want a comparable character from the Godfather for Willie Moretti to continue our analogy, look no further than Vito's muscle, Luca Brasi, or better yet, Michael's bodyguard, Al Neri. These mafiosi were so called made members of the Italian Mafia in America, which meant they took blood oaths, swearing allegiance to their mob families, swearing to live by the code of omerta, or silence. Made members of the Mafia are protected as long as they play by the rules. Their bosses and their families are there for them to keep other gangsters out of their territories, to bail them out of jail, to provide for their families when they get sent to jail, and, generally speaking, to help made men sort out whatever problems they might encounter so that they can continue to earn money for their families and for themselves. Being made was and still is one of the highest honors a gangster can receive in the Mafia. And only Italians can be made. But being made doesn't make you a boss or even a captain. Mixed in among the made soldiers were gangsters who never became made men, but who were nevertheless indispensable to their crime families. Men like Frank Cheech Livorcy from the Genovese family, who ran New Jersey's gambling and numbers operation, and Ben Bugsy Siegel, who wasn't even Italian and who literally built Las Vegas for the American Mafia. The Godfathers unmade. Men of influence are of course, Tom Hagen and Mo Green. Lots of mafiosi are not made men. They're simply connected guys. But that doesn't mean they're not gangsters. They are. And their fortunes rise and fall with the fortunes of their families. And, and this is the point, not only their fortunes, but their lives depend on their own ability to earn earn money for their bosses. With that, gangsters win and lose at life accordingly. Nobody likes a loser. Frank Sinatra especially did not like losers. Mafia bosses liked losers even less. Frank Sinatra was a winner, a winning bet. The Mafia bet big on Frank at the beginning of his career. The mob was in early on. Sinatra grooming him for stardom before anyone would give the poor son of a broken down boxer and illegal abortionist a chance when it mattered most. The Mafia used violence to clear the way for Frank and to cash in for themselves. There is a popular myth in our culture because Frank Sinatra's parents owned a bar in Hoboken, New Jersey where known members of the Jersey and New York mob hung out, that Frank made friends with some unsavory characters back in the day. And that this experience rubbed off on young Frank. And that's where Frank got his wannabe tough guy attitude. It's an attitude that many in Hollywood would joke about. An attitude that those who knew Frank best excused because of his immense fame. An attitude that has been reported to be nothing more than that. Just an attitude. Frank flew off the handle sometimes, sure, but that's just Frank. Oh yeah, Frank's got some tough guy friends. But hey, the nightclub business is a tough business. What do you expect? The entertainment world was run by the mob. Most entertainers came in contact with gangsters. Frank's okay. Frank fancies himself a tough guy like the tough guys he grew up with. Sure, but Frank's just a wannabe. However, the reality was Frank Sinatra wasn't just a wannabe. Frank Sinatra, without being an official made man, was not just friends with some tough guys from back in the neighborhood. Frank Sinatra was himself very much a gangster. Frank Sinatra held the woman by the neck, up against the wall. He was so angry he didn't realize he had her feet off the floor. His rage was blinding. At this moment he didn't even remember what she had done. But all that Jack Daniels. Frank couldn't not get what he wanted. He was Frank the Voice Sinatra, Charlie Lucky Luciano never had a weight. And they never said no to Richie the Boot Boyardo. Why did this half assed showgirl think she could disrespect him through the plate glass window she went. And Frank didn't care who saw it, didn't care even if the President of the United States, brother in law, the actor Peter Lawford, husband of Patricia Kennedy, saw it. Peter later went on record with this story about Frank and the working girl in the plate glass window. And fuck Peter and fuck his wife too, which Frank figured he would likely do again at some point, sleeping with the President's sister only further embedded Frank inside Camelot, which was a relationship Frank Sinatra cared about almost as much as his relationship with the mob, or the boys, as he called them. Peter Lawford wasn't the only one flapping his gums. Sammy Davis Jr. Talked to a Chicago radio station in the 60s and had the nerve to tell a DJ that, quote, I love Frank, but talent is not an excuse for bad manners. I don't care if you are the most talented person in the world. It does not give you the right to step on people and treat them rotten. This is what he does occasionally, end quote, in Chicago. Sammy said this on a Chicago radio station in Sam Momo, Giancana's town. Frank couldn't have this. Frank was just as indebted to Giancana now in the early 1960s as he'd been indebted back in 1946 to Giancana's then boss, Tony Accardo, the former bodyguard for Al Capone. But back in 1946, Al Capone was dying of syphilis in Miami, just 200 miles away from Cuba, where Capone, Chicago was being represented by his cousins Rocco and Charles Fietti. At this moment in 1946, those two gentlemen were on a plane seated next to Frank Sinatra, who had a bag at his feet that was stuffed with cash and a.32 revolver. All the boys knew the Faschetti cousins and everyone knew Frank Sinatra, big star that he was back in 46. And that was the genius of using Frank as the bag man. No one was going to search Frank Sinatra. Upon landing at Rancho Boyero's airport that December weekend among a flood of American mobs, soldiers and bosses. Vito Genovese, Frank Costello, Albert Anastasia, Joe Bonanno, Santo Trafficante Sr. And Carlos Marcello among them. The so called Havana Conference was set up in part to pay tribute to Charlie Luciano. Thus the bag of money and the Havana Conference was set up so Luciano and his partner Meyer Lansky could entice other crime bosses to invest in Havana's casinos. Cuban leadership, particularly the former president and military dictator Fludencio Batista, was beyond corrupt. And they had sold the country out to American mob interests. Havana was 100% owned by Luciano and Lansky, and now Luciano and Lansky were opening it up for business. That weekend there would be all manner of entertainment for the US Gangsters, showgirls, prostitutes, floor shows, depraved acts of bestiality, whatever they desired. And of course, a private performance by the biggest star on the planet at the time, their own Frank Sinatra. After his performance, the very much married Frank Sinatra settled into his suite at the Hotel Nacional with his girlfriend for the weekend, Alora Gooding. When Alora awoke after they had sex, she heard a loud banging outside, out the window. From beyond the terrace, she saw two guards sprinting straight for their room. What were they carrying? Frank? Get up. They have guns. They're coming to kill us. Frank sprung out of bed and went for his.32. The guards were now at the door, yelling in Spanish, and Alora grabbed the rifle they had in the room for extra protection. And there was more yelling and in a language Allora didn't not understand. Allura pointed the rifle and fired. One guard fell dead on the spot. Then another shot, this one from behind the guards, this one from the pistol of a hotel security man sprinting toward the clusterfuck in Frank Sinatra's suite. A clusterfuck just made worse due to the fact that the second shot killed the other guard at the door. It all happened before Frank's eyes had time to focus. He turned to his date. You killed that guy, alora protested. They were coming to kill us. They had guns. Frank looked down at the bloody mess in the doorway. Those weren't guns. Those were walkie talkies. The event was not sorted out by local lawmen, attorneys or judges. Justice was not sought or served. Frank never called the cops or his lawyer back in New York. Instead, Frank's gangster buddy sent Alora Gooding home quietly to the States while Mafia controlled Cuban soldiers cleaned up the mess. Frank Sinatra went about his business that weekend, reveling in the festivities, secure in the fact that the Mafia wasn't going to let anything as insignificant as a couple of dead Cubans submarine their investment in Havana or in their investment in one of their top earners, Him, Frank the Voice Sinatra. Foreign
