It was the greatest shock I’d ever experienced when I found that my key to the Sinatra compound didn’t fit the lock. It had been changed. I rang and rang the bell. What was wrong? Finally one of the Filipino houseboys came to the gate, but refused to open it. “Mr. Sinatra very crazy,” he warned me. “No good to come in. You must go. Before it be too late.” Too late for what? I pressed him, but he wouldn’t elaborate. And what about all my stuff? “Movers pack up.”
And he disappeared into the house. I stood in a daze in the baking desert sun. In one split second, my life had been turned upside down, inside out, and I didn’t have a clue why. Then one of the black maids came out. She had been there for a year, and I knew her well, but she was clearly too terrified to show me any sympathy.
Instead, she handed me a letter, cut her eyes downward, and scurried away. It was from Mickey Rudin’s law office. I read it. It was short and anything but sweet. I had been dismissed, as of this instant, from Mr. Sinatra’s service. I was not to reenter the premises, nor telephone, nor in any way approach or try to contact Mr. Sinatra. My belongings would be delivered to me in three days.
There was no explanation, no apology, no severance pay. Do not pass go, do not collect $200, do not darken this door as long as you live.
Frank had done it to Peter Lawford, to his original manager Hank Sanicola, and to Jack Entratter, the Copa and Sands boss, who stood up for Frank when few others would. No one could bear a grudge like Frank Sinatra. He did it to these great friends, and he did it to others, but for all the tantrums I witnessed, all the fury, all the venom, I never imagined he would do it to me. It turned out that nothing traveled faster than gossip, and as much as Frank scorned and attacked the press, he believed the gossip before he would his best friend.
And so it went, the job of a lifetime destroyed by a spin on the dance floor. I was devastated. I had lost my best friend, my idol, my boss. I loved the guy, and I assumed he loved me, too. I had no idea what to do. I had the greatest life in the world. But now I realized that it was his life, and now I had to figure out how to get one of my own.
It was amazing how things changed, literally overnight. From being the toast of the town, or two towns, Beverly Hills and Palm Springs, I became the ghost of those towns. It was as if I didn’t exist.
Even Mia, whom I saw on Beverly Drive a few days later, crossed to the other side of the street to avoid me. She never spoke to me again, not to say she was sorry, not to share old times, not to offer to set the record straight. Not that Mr. S would have listened to her. Unlike Yogi Berra, who said it ain’t over till it’s over, when Mr. S said something was over, it was over.
Word had gotten out that Frank Sinatra had fired me, and people, even people I thought were friends, didn’t dare even to speak to me for fear of incurring the wrath of the Chairman. The folks in show business feared Sinatra the same way the folks in Communist Russia had feared Stalin.