I've Got You Under My Skin

this weekend we're talking about fourth of July. Like I kind of intimated on yesterday's show, it just doesn't feel like Fourth of July when I'm out here, you know, I just think about the old days on Long Island, living in New York, and the fourth of July was always a huge holiday for my family. My father's bird days July fifth, so naturally the fourth of July that weekend was always a big party for him, and we had so many parties for him, and oh god, it

was just a different, different time. Before I continue, let me just say listen if you want, if you want to know what's going to happen in life in Hollywood, just fucking listen to me. Tell your friends to listen to me. I need more listeners. This is ridiculous. I told you guys months ago that Elon Musk and Donald Trump would eventually have a big falling out, and here

we are. Nobody believed it when he was up there with a chainsaw running doge, which I love those moments too, but I knew can't have these two men the way they are. There's going to be a clash of the titans. And I know Trump. He likes the spotlight. He doesn't one bringing you into the spotlight, but the minute you might get a little more light than he does, it's curtains. And Elon Musk was getting too much like did know how to play the part of the co pilot, the deputy,

You know what I mean. Donald Trump is the sheriff. Elon Musk was playing the part of the deputy that got too close. Maybe he held to Griff's keys too often. You can't do that. You always gotta gracially bow away, walk away, bow out. He's the man. It's the man. You can't act like you're there too. You weren't elected. Elon Musk. As much as I admire him and love the fact that he bought Twitter and then did what he did with Trump and the first one hundred days.

What have you. No, I have nothing bad to say about it, but I knew there was going to be a falling out and it's bad right now. I'll get into more of that on politics as a bitch this weekend. If you didn't hear last Sunday show, you're missing out. You just are. You gotta. Like I said, there's more crazy things, more dramatic things happening in politics than there are in Hollywood. Don't worry. I don't get mired down in the little fucking details of politics because I hate

that shit. I give you an overall view of everything, and from a from a from a regular guy's perspective. You know, I can't sit there and talk on these paddles on Fox or seeing that I could. That's not what I like to do. I'd like to give you my vantage point, which is regular guys. You'll get it anyhow, I was right. Let's continue with this story. Yeah, you know, fourth of July weekend to me like Moorial Day, like

Labor Day. Those are those are such seminal moments in my childhood and even my adulthood growing up on Long Island. When I was younger, my cousin Anthony CONIGLIONI not really a cousin. We lived in the same apartment building in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn. My grandmother was the landlord because she owned two brownstone in Brooklyn. I don't ask me how a woman comes from Italy, speaking very little English and ends up owning two beautiful brownstones in Brooklyn, but she did. And before

she died she stopped doing that. And you know, she didn't want to be a landlord anymore. So she turned it over, not to her sons, because my uncle Liar was too busy becoming a doctor. My uncle Philly was too busy. My father was a cop. He had no time to be So she appealed to the lawyer down the hole, Carline Kniglione, great guy, great family, and he took it over. Man, those fucking brownstones would be worth millions. Now. God bless grandmothers like that, right, They come over from

the old country and they just figure shit out. Oh my god, just doing menial things like making pasta for the mafia, you know, gardening, making rock walls. She was a great seamstress, as I've told you, but and then to do something so magnificent, owning buildings, owning real estate. Man, I wish I had that kind of business sense. I just don't. Anyhow, KENNIGLIONI had his son, two sons, Robert and Anthony, and his daughter Sally. It great friends of

ours lived down the hall. Anthony was my age, is my age. He went. As he got older, he went to work on Wall Street, made a ton of money. And after I left college and didn't want to jump to some other city to become a journalist in Alabama or Jersey or Baltimore. I was looking for money. He invited me up to where he worked. I think it was Merrill Lynch. I knew nothing about money, and stops. I still don't, can't be bothered. He goes, come in. You know, maybe I get your job here. So I

went there to meet them. I put a nice suit on. I went to meet the people I'm talking about. It might as well have been shiny arithmetic. The shit that was going on in that office, the screaming, be yelling to ticker tate, the numbers, the stock fry. You might as well have put me on Pluto, I said Anthony. I can't do this. Meanwhile, he's got one hundred thousand dollars bonuses for Christmas. This is thirty years ago. Anyhow, Anthony would come over every new every Fourth of July

holiday with a big box of fireworks from Brooklyn. There's always a guy in the neighborhood who walks, who drives around. Go hey, yo, how you doing. You want some fireworks for the holiday? Come here, come close. I got some great stuff for the trunk, you know, and you go over and look at it. You want match? I got black Jack, I got pirates, I got the silver jets,

I got the bottle rockets. And Anthony would come over with a big box of fireworks and he bring it over me him, my cousin, Philly Mittera, my neighbors, Richie Tissula, Peter Descoli, Perry Underhill, and we light fireworks all day while the grown ups frorem backyard, having food and going to the pool. Music was playing and it was just

a great time. And at night everybody would come outside and watch us through the beautiful rockets at night, and we looked across from the school, so everything we lit would fall into the school yard and we'd go pick it up. Our father's insisted, when you're done, you go pick it up. If it looks like it didn't explode, kick it with your foot, don't. I don't want to fucking lose a finger. Don't let you lose a finger. I'm not going to the yar tonight, you know. Kick

it away. Such a great time. Always fights on Fourth of July weekend. Always arguments with neighbors. One year, my brother in law, Frankie's father, Nick Mattera, was all a big white Cadillac, always the Cadillac with the pool queue in the back. His son Philly, a year older than me. He was a wrestler, high school state champ. Everything, toughest nails, Nikki PAULI, just tough brothers. We see this kid crouching

behind Nick's catalet. Looks like he was letting air out of the tire and he was, so we follow him down the street. It's this kid called George Schmidt. Looked about fifteen houses down on Marinerths Circle. We run back in the backyard, tell my father, Philly's father, this father, that father, Hey, George Schmidt was letting air out of the car at the attire. Yeah, where's he lived? Come? In and we take him down the street. George Smith's

father was six foot five, big coal fireman. I think it was a captain even not volunteer New York City firem A tough guy. My father and Philly's father. Nick goes over there, bang bang bang on the door. Can I help you? Yeah, gosh, this is how it bends down the street. Yeah, how are you doing now? This is my my friend Nick Mttera, our son. Say that your son was letting the out of the tires out of his cadillact. No, no, my son would never do that. Well,

you know he did it, George. So maybe we should talk to him together and figure out what we're gonna do. What do you mean by that? You don't have gonna do shit? Oh, forget about it. Nick says to him, how tall are you? Cock? Sucker? He says, I'm six foot five, you fucking runt. And Nick says, I didn't know shit piled that high, opened the door, was gonna run in the fucking the hallway this guy's house and beat the shit out of him. Of course he put

his hands. Hey, whoa, whoa, whoa Wait, contact, come and get myself, George, George, you commit did you do it? Yeah? I did. Guys. I'm sorry. I'm gonna discipline him right now. He shuts the door hard. A few years later, my father turned fifty years old. Big party in the backyard. I tell you the story. A couple of kids, kids, twenty one twenty two year old guys are blowing fireworks off. My nephew Jackie was a baby sleeping and the fireworks were loud, and I uh, as a kid, I said, hey,

get out, guys. Can you walk down the street and do little Maybe do it behind the school. Hey, go inside, kid, Just treat me like I was nobody. So I go to the back dad. You know, my uncle's my neighbor, Bill Rizida. All these tough guys. Listen these guys, they say, go fuck yourself. They're gonna blow fog. Oh yeah, really. My brother in law, Jack was brushing his teeth. He had the toothbrush in his mouth. Frankie was wearing big platform heels because that was the style back then. And

they run out to the front yard. Jack has bare feet with a toothbrush in his mouth in his hand. Frankie's got the platform shoes. My father's got a sandwich in his left hand, and they unload on these two guys and they and these guys were not small, ye, but they were tough kids. Twenty two, twenty one years old, beat the shit out of them. I climbed the tree in my house and looked down on it, and I was almost crying because it was I couldn't believe what

I was seeing this the cuffs. Frankie was throwing kung fu kiss because he was a black belt. He knocked his heel off, his shoe. Jack stepped on a broken bottle, ripped his heel up. We beat. They beat these guys so bad they left. They came back. The cops came toward door. My father let them in. They knew he was on the job at one point, so they were nice to my father. The kids come in with the black eyes, the swollen heads, and knots on their head.

I mean figure, they looked awful. My family had no mocks on their body and uh cops said, okay, you know, listen, you did what you have to do. These guys should they threw the first punch. That kind of shit. My family got away with it. Two years later, that guy blows his head off in his house around the corner of the shop. Crazy stuff always happened around four pagely in my family, this fight crazy stuff. People ask me Aki, why it's always talking about violent I don't know. I

was brought up around it. I was always around it. It was almost romantic. I hate to say that. But to see your father throw punches, your brothers throw punches and kicks, and then celebrate, I don't know, not for nothing, but those guys were the sweetest men you could find. And they'd rescue puppies. They'd treated my sisters like golden. But don't make them med, don't make them mad. It's over.

You've been warned. Speaking of fistes. I thought I was gonna talk about Jane Mansfield today, but I'll save that for tomorrow. This ELF is something else I want to talk about tomorrow. I'm very, very sad about this. I'll get into it tomorrow. But the hotel I used to stay at when I was first beginning to see Andrea was on the California Nevada border. There's those three hotels. If anybody knows, Whiskey Peats, Buffalo Bills, and prim Valley. They were all together. If you're drive them from LA

to Vegas. You always feel good because you see those casinos. You know you're close to the strip, maybe forty minutes away. And I would stay there for weeks and weeks and weeks at a time. I know all the people, the girls behind a desk, the bartenders, the guys who ran the crap table, your name, I knew everybody. It was cheap. It was like seventy five dollars a night, so it was great to stay there. There was a Denny's in there, you know. It was like they were shopping at the

Prim Valley casino. You can go downstairs with a big mall. Then it slowly began to get empty. COVID happened, and then all of a sudden, Prim Valley shut down. Just the mall was open downstairs, but it was like desserted. It was scary. It was a bath and body where it's I get candles down there. There was nothing else going on. Whiskey pets. You see a lot of old people gambling their social security. It's kind of sad, you know. I stayed there many times too. And there was this

black girl behind the window. Her name was Vantage, Hey Vantage, big old black girl, maybe twenty five, twenty six very nice. I started to be sweet to her, and every time she would check me in, I gave her a twenty dollars because I like to get the good room. I had a dog with me, I had toutsy with me. They technically didn't allow dogs, you know what I mean, only on the first floor. That kind of bullshit. But

Fantasia always found me a good room. Up above. There's a big roller coaster there that Andrea would take her son to many times. It's a roller coaster that goes through the goddamn casino and outside, no, I'm sorry, the roller coaster goes around casino, but inside there was a log flume ride that went through the casino. It was a big thing. Kids loved it. Shit it's closed that they closed with Keep Peach closed in December of last year, and yesterday I read that Buffalo Bill's no more. They're

gonna keep the casino no more room. She can't stay there. July seventh is the last day you could stay there. I almost wanted to go just for old time's sake, you know, I don't think they'd like to have me. Last time I was there, I went to the kitchen at Danny because they weren't getting my ice cream sandwich ice cream Sunday on time. And I took to see in the kitchen and I made my own Sunday. The guy goes, what are you doing? I said, I'm not

waiting twenty five minutes for a fucking vanilla Sunday. I'm making it myself. You can't be and here you gotta go. Of course security came. They liked me. Security was agu I said, I can't wait a half hour for fucking ice cream Sunday. They were laughing. But I don't. But the don't want to see me no more. But either way, it said. And then I saw a video somebody made. I wanted a copy and paste that had put it

on the page, but I couldn't do it. It was a video of that log flume that went through the casino. There was all these people that like dummies that were set up like with dynamite, and there were bushes. It was like a like an old gold rush kind of scene, you know what I mean. And all these dummies were around this casino floor where the ride was, and somebody made a video of all those images and they put the song. All around me are familiar faces one up place,

you know, mad world. It was so sad. Got me in the chess man anyhow. That's that. But let's stick with fistfights. And who better to talk about? Because I was thinking about Frank Sinatra, And you know Frank was you know, one hundred and thirty five pounds, soaking wet. He wasn't a big guy. Of course, he got older, he thickened out, but he was always his skinny bones got out and they called them bones when he first started singing. And there are people will tell you Frank,

it's a tough guy. He was a tough guy because he had goons all around him, but him on his own, not really. You know, you could throw a few punches. He had some fast hands, but you know, many other people strumming in Frank. The problem was do you want to hit him? Because he was so powerful that the next fight wasn't going to be against him. He was going to be against some goons or worst comes to work, some mobsters who were behind him. But I remember this

story back in like nineteen fifty seven, fifty eight. I want to say, Natalie Wood, who was so beautiful, she had walked by his table at a place in Beverly Hills called Romanovs, which was a huge spot for a while, and Frank apparently made this crude comment about the way she looked, the way she walked, whatever, And without a moment's hesitation, Natalie Wood turns around, walks straight back to Frank's table and smacks him across the face. Everybody saw,

and it's a completely a less crowd. You could hear the sound off her hand across his cheek. It stopped people from talking. It stopped everybody from talking. And suddenly Frank wasn't smiling anymore. And Natalie Wood didn't say a word. She just stared at him, and then she pivoted, turned away and walked like nothing happened. You're not gonna read about that in the newspapers, all right. No one wrote about it, but it became a big story around Hollywood.

Everybody in Hollywood do because Romanovs was not some little restaurant that no one knew about. It was a big playground for very powerful people, actors, producer's studio bosses, you name it. And at this point fifty eight, Frank was untouchable. He had a Grammy under his belt. From here to returnity with the Oscar. Forget about it. He commanded every room he walked into, as you can imagine, you know, if he wanted, his word could make or break people careers.

But in one moment, Natalie Wood threw her line in the sand. Bang and this is a kid who grew up in the studio system. Don't forget. By the age of ten years old, she was already working with usin walls on the movie Miracle on thirty four Streets. She started that she worked with arsin walls. Before that, Hollywood treated like this little delicate doll, you know. And by the time the late fifties came around, she'd been with James Dean and rebeled out a cause she really was

making her bones. And people knew this is a woman that's not going to be reckoned, but she's good. And people around that situation then they noticed a shift, so to speak. There's certain moments in time, whether it's Hollywood or what have you, where there's a shift. And when she smacked Frank in public, that was a noticeable shift. You know, people saw this and you know it wasn't just an outburst. It was her expressing herself that as a woman, I'm not gonna be treated that way, no

matter who you are. And everybody who was friends with Frank thought there'd be a big backlash, you know, because Frank was famous for holding grudges and using his power to shut people down in the industry. Anybody who crossed him got fucked up. But something really weird happened. Frank leaned back in his chair after being shocked that she did what she did, and he said to his friends around the table, she's got balls. That kid's gonna last.

And he never brought up the incident again, never showed any public resentment toward her. In fact, people think he had a very quiet respect for her moving forward. But within days, you know, that story made its way around town, as is often the case in Hollywood. I mean shit, when I got thrown out of a bar and made the rounds and Hollywood, I got dropped by my agency because I was having too many fights in bars. It with a different world back then, you can have these

dust ups and nothing happened. Hollywood got so soft anyhow, whatever, But makeup artists knew about this. People and the lot, all the different lots knew about it, and suddenly Natalie Wood's name had a different kind of weight to it. She was still a beautiful woman, still a marquee star, but now people are looking at her as, hey, this is someone who doesn't give a shit about Hollywood's unsmoking rules.

She'll do what she wants to do. People praised her because they all many women went through similar situations like that but didn't have the balls to do what she did. They dreamed of it, but they couldn't pull the trigger. Natalie pulled the trigger. That's why I never believed the story of Kirk Douglas raping her when her mother dropped her off for an addition or for a meeting with him at the Chateau Marmond, and her sister was in

the car and tells his fucking story. Every year, on the anniversary of Natalie's death, her sister tells the story and expects sympathitions on all the TV shows to get some money. It didn't happen. Kirk Douglas didn't rape Natalie would but you know, never spoke about it in a magazine interview, never spoke about it on a television interview,

just kept it very quiet. That was her style. And you got Sinatra, who's surrounded by power and fame, and this is little woman, younger, smaller, and actually lower on the industry's pecking order because that matters in Hollywood. And he didn't forget it. He didn't forget it. And you know, later on in life he told friends that I know

that slap she gave me. He wasn't about revenge. It was about her trying to reclaim control in this industry that pretty much always demanded stars to be obedient, especially women. You know, women had to be perfect. Natalie didn't yell, she didn't argue, she walked away. Everybody in the room was watching her. Nobody followed her, and that was more

powerful than any speech she might have given. So I don't know how many people know about that sort, but it's a great story because Frank was hit and beat up, well I beat up, but he was messed with several times that those stories were kind of hidden, But I tell you this, there's a few of them. I know. I know Lee Marvin punched Frank out one night at

a party because Frank was hitting on a woman. Lee Marvin was with Lee Marlin was on the balcony smuff and a cigarette comes back and Frank's leaning on his girl, and Lee s loved him, noted Frank down once. But there was one big story. Frank was punched in the face by a guy named Carl Cohen. Carl Cohen was a vice president at the Sands Hotel. This is in

the mid sixties, late sixties. Sinatra was into gambling, very much so, and he flipped over a table onto Carl Cohen, and Cohen punched the shad of him, just knocked him out. Noted two teeth out of Frank's mount, two caps out

of his mouth on the carpet. Because what happened was, you know, there was money that Sinatra had earned for, you know, for all these different casinos in Las Vegas, and he was always giving preferential treatment as soon as he showed up right and on top of being given the best gambling spots in the house, he also you know, would get free food, free liquor, which is a combustible situation. But you know, when he shut up, everybody picked their head up and got ready to Frank's in the house.

And when he came, he'd always show up and throw thousands of dollars to all these different people casino chips. He'd pay people just for opening the door fro him, bringing him an ashtray, whatever it was. You get fifty, you get one hundred. Matter of fact, it got to the point where he was so cool that he didn't even do the tipping. His buddy did it. He would say,

duke him, Jilly, Jilly Rizzo, dukem, Jilly, duke him. And I gotta be honest, it sounds ridiculous, but when I got to be not famous, but when I got to be a little high in the hog in my own life, I would run around with Chico and I make Chico to the tipping. I know it's so stupid, but you get out, you get older, you start thinking about your idols and you want to do what they did. You know,

Chico duke them, dukem. I know it's stupid, but so Frank was given like fifty thousand dollars worth of gambling chips, and they just would hand the money when he shut up, and he would play with that money. But as the years rolled on, the people in charge of these casinos didn't like it, because Frank wasn't as respected as he used to be. Paul Anka wrote in a book, he said in the late sixties when the billionaire Howard Used started buying up all the casinos, this this perk came

to an abrupt halt. Howard Used was jealous of Frank. They were after the same women, and Frank didn't like that, and he would complain to the biggest people he could find at these different casinos, but he was kind of waved away, so that one night he left the casino really pissed off about how he was treated. The next though, he comes back and he's thinking, this shit's not gonna happen again. Next night, Paul Ankor wrote, Frank is still steaming.

Suddenly he stands at the blackjack table in the middle of the Sands casino and he screamed at the top of his lungs to the casino goers, this place was Sam when they built it, and it'll be Sam when I'm fucking dumb with it. So the manager comes by to kind of calm Frank down him, and Frank accused that guy of beaing a mobster, which is kind of funny. Well, tempers flare, things got out of hand. It's not just arts throwing shit around his cards, chips, chairs, you name it.

He was in a full blown tantrum. In fact, he cracked a security guard over the head of a chair and he threw hot coffee on Carl Cohen. So Cohen shook that off, straightened up, and leveled. Frank would have punched to his mouth, knocked his teeth on the floor, and the entire town was thrilled that Cohen stepped up to the bully Sinatra could be when he was drunk, and which was oftened Frank Fort. I mean, look, there's

a lot of fights. I mean, Frank Fort. There was a night that was supposed to be a celebration for Dean Martin's forty ninth birthday, and these yet I mean, at this point in time, mid sixties, Frank and Dean or at top of the food chain. They couldn't him be more popular with the rat pack, very well paid, and that didn't ment. Curse words has thrown around, Fisticuffs eventually begin to happen. So Sinatra and Dean Martin some of their buddies were hanging out the Polo Lounge in

Beverly Hills. There's an art collector there, a former president of Hunt's Food's, a guy named Frederick rand Weissman. He was sitting near them, and he didn't like how loud they would get. And he's getting a little pissed off about how loud Frank and his friends were being, and he thoughts yelling at them. They got into a brief

exchange of foul language and a fistfight happens. So, you know, Dean tried to pull Sinatra away, but no one really knows who swung first, but it ended up with somebody Klabern Frederic Weisman over the head with one of those famous telephones they used to leave at the table, which I think they still have that, maybe not now, but maybe fifteen years ago at the Polo Lounge. I remember there were phones at the table, kind of a cool thing. There's no need for it nowadays, but they left it

for a while. But yeah, he picked up a phone, pink phone, smacked Weiseman over the head with it. The guy's unconscious on the floor. They revived him, but a day later he was more or less in a coma. It was in a hospital, underwent surgery, could have been mad,

he could have died. And that's when Franken Dean separately, you know, waited things out, waited for the police investigation to be concluded, and a lot of conflicting stories about what happened, who started, etc. But ultimately Weisman recovered and really didn't remember what exactly happened that night. I'm not sure if he was told not to remember or if he lost his memory, but either way didn't go much further. But see, you hear those stories, and you go, Sinatra,

what a piece of shit. I'm gonna have Alison Martino on. I keep saying that, but I'm gonna have her on the next week or two. Her father, the great singer Al Martino, came up the ranks when Frank was already a big shot, and Al Martino could sing the shit out of a song. Beautiful Go listen to Blue Spanish Eyes, beautiful song. And there's all these stories that Alison has.

And I sat with al Martino, had dinner with him a couple of times at his house, and he told me how Frank Sinatra and his goons tortured him to the point where he had to leave town, not just leave California, leave America. And Al Martino would go overseas and entertain people. But you know, it got to the point where his car was keyed and scratched every time he parked it somewhere the records of his songs and juke boxes around the country in different states were taken

out and smashed. Owners were tall, don't put a fucking Martina wreckord there because Frank's action school and said, dun't. It got to the point where one day Frank was in the studio recording whatever song he was recording. Al Martinos down the hall in a different room recording a song, and Frank liked the sound of that song, and he went to the guy who ran in the studio, who the fuck is uh? Who's this down? All? Well, that's

al Martino, a young kid, blah blah blah. Yeah. Well, Frank let out the word that I want that song. That's my song now, and that song was taken away from Al Martino and given the Sinatra to perform. That was Strangers in the Night. That was Al Martino's song first,

but Frank made sure it went to him. And the last time I saw Frank, well, last time he ever sang for a crowd on his eightieth birthday, the night we all went to the shrine of the Tournum and he performed for about fifteen people at the four Seasons Hotel. At one o'clock in the morning, he's at the piano with a drink in his hand, and he starts to sing for his friends, and somebody said, Frank sing Strangers of the Night, and he said, I hate that fucking song.

If you sang a million times, you'd hated too. What else you want? He hated the song, but he had to take it away from Martinez, So Alison, they'll give you more stories about that. But also, as bad as he was, as crazy as he was, as much as liquor and power and fame made him a bad guy, there was a wonderful Sarti Santra paying people's bills. You know. There was a time where the actor Lee J. Cobb, who wasn't a big name yet, but Frank had seen him do some films and thought his work was great.

And Lee J. Cobb is lying in the hospital bed with a heart attack and Lee J. Cobb says to the ambulance said, well are you taking me? And I can't afford to go to the hospital. And somebody said that that's right, don't worry about it's being taken care of. And Lee J. Cobb, I gotta pay no, no, it's taking care of They took him out to Palm Springs and put him at Frank Sinatra's compound, and Frank shut up and said, listen, don't worry about it. Lee J. Cars Well, why what do you? What are you? Why

are you doing this? I like the way you act. He kept them in his compound till he healed, and Lee J. Cobb went on to make some terrific movies. Go look at twelve. I re met my crisis. He could. This happened many times. Sammy Davis Junior couldn't pay his medical bills after a big car ancerent Frank took care of it. The famous drummer in Benny Goodman's band, Gene Krooper, my god. Go look at YouTube. Check out the song Sing Sing Sing. My father made sure I knew every

musician in that band. I knew every name of them, who was playing what instrument. He wouldn't let me listen to the Rolling Stones or anybody until I I knew everybody in Benny Goodman's band. And Geane Crooper on the drums, Dizzy Gillespie on trumpet, Benny Goodman clarinet, Harry James on the trumpet. I knew everybody. I forget it, but man, go look at sing Sing Sing, and watch Crooper take a ride on the drums. Frank Pitt all his bills, even during segregation. Frank pretended to be sick at one

point so somebody could subfer him at the Paramount. You know, he didn't want There was a black I think it was Billy. I think it was Bill Eckstein, Billy Eckstein. It was a great musician. He wasn't allowed to perform at the Paramount. So Frank, who was performing that made believe he was sick and suggested they get x Stein in there. And he did, and people saw what kind of a great musician he was, and his career flourished. There were people that will tell you that there was

a Vegas showgirl who broke her back. She fell off the stage, just like Anne Margaret did. Frank heard about the girl. She was in the hospital, laid up, her career was over. He paid her bills until she recovered, bought her a sports car, and was paying for all of college expenses. Obviously, we know he had the dark side, but if you were a friend of his, you basically had a friend for life. And he could do whatever he wanted to do to take care of you. Sam

could be said about his ex wives. Even after the varsit his ex wives, he still maintained a very good relationship with all them. Barbara, his last wife, hated that it says a lot when all your ex girlfriends and ex wives come to your funeral. Right to me, it does. Perfomer named Frank Fontaine passed away in nineteen seventy eight. Him and Frank began together in Hollywood back in the forties. Frank brought others to perform at a concert to help

benefit him, benefit his grandmother who had failing health. I mean all sorts of things like this over time. You know. Greg ree Peck knew about all these things about Frank's generosity, and he always called a mister soft touch because he'd always secretly help out people. He found that Nack King Cole was headlining at the Sands, but wasn't allowed to stay there or even eat in the restaurant. Frank went to see him and saw he was eating in the

dressing room. He got really pissed off. He goes to the manager of the owner and said, listen, I'll never perform here again. Unless Nack King Cole is treated the same as I'm treated. Then he and Nat had dinner and dining room, and Natt never had eat in his dressing room. Again, you talk about respect. I saw Sinatra times. The second time I was at my first wife at Radio City Music Hall. The next night I took my girlfriend. My marriage is kind of over. So I saw him

two nights in a row. The final time, like I said, eightieth birthday Shrine Auditorium, singing privately the Four Seasons piano bar. At one o'clock in the morning, Nancy calls me, where are you. I'm home. God, he's gonna sing, come to the Four Seasons. It was one of the most tippy top moments of my May it maybe it's gotta be top three. It has to be. I grew up with this guy, his music. I grew up with this picture above my sink. There were more pictures Sinatra the house

than my father. I still have the picture. I kept it. It's an old, ugly wooden frame. I can't get rid of it. His face is this colored because he was above the sink, and every time my mother made the steam would rise. All those sundays, a thousand Sundays and the picture got this colored. I can't get rid of that.

So to end up being friends with his daughter, going out with Nancy, becoming friends with her, staying at her house, cooking for me, I mean, meeting her father, It doesn't It just it's one of those things in my life that I don't think I love a top but what I always loved about him one of the things. I

gotta say something, Befre. I go forward. When me and my first wife were divorcing, I kept the house and she got an apartment about a mile away, and I'm saddled with the mortgage and the whole thing, and things were tough. I had my friend Johnny Diaz move in Chico. Moved in. Johnny had his son, Mikey. We called them Pops. He was like four or five years old. So we were three men in the baby living in my house.

The guys shipped in for rent, you know. And Saturday nights there was a radio show called Saturday Night with Sinatra, and the guy who hosted it was named Sid Marks. And sid Marks had interviewed Frank a multitude of times, and he would lay those interviews, those those conversations over some of the songs, and for four hours you heard nothing but Sinatra. I make a date for gold, but you could bet your life at rains. I want to

throw a party, but the guy upstairs complaints. I guess I'll go through life just catching coals and missing trains. Everything happens to me. I played these songs. I listened to these songs for hours because my marriage was coming to an end, and I was so sad, and I sat there on the floor in a newly carpeted dining room with a bottle of wine no glass, and just cried against the wall. But what I also loved about him, I started keeping me company Like he's done for many

many men. He always gave credit before or after a song. He always gave credit to the composer, the writer, the arranger. This next song is from the great Nelson Riddle. Yeah. Just He always told you who wrote the song, who composed it, who arranged it. No one does that. And I loved his asides. His sides were tremendous when you see him in person. I saw him my mother and father singing I got you under my skin. My mother saw him when she was in high school. She would

cut school to see him sing at the Paramount. In the forties, those girls would called the Bobby sockers. My mother was a Bobby socker because she would leave school with the little shoes and the short socks and go to the Paramount. Costs less than a dollar to go from Brooklyn to the Paramount. It cost a dollar to see him sing. Could you imagine a dollar? My mother would tell me, we take the subway to the city. We'd have chinks. They didn't say Chinese food. Back there,

we'd have chinks. See Frank sing, come back on the subway and still have a dime left over. I'm saying, what, how did you? How can anybody exist on that kind of little money? But they did well. Aj candies were twenty for twenty for a penny. What twenty piece of candy for a penny? Yeah? God, So I saw my parents. She's sitting in her seat. She can barely stand up with Frank camap that that that that that she gets hungry. My mother stood up and then fell down on the

seat for dinner. And they loved the theater. Killed but he sings, I got you one of my skin, And there's the ending, just to thought of you. Who makes me stop before bigod because I've got you on my skin. But he didn't finish the lyrics. He just said, because I got you, and he pointed with his thumb and he shook his wrist to his heart under my skin. He didn't even say under my skin. The women collapsed. What a fucking power like Elvis, like you just you can't,

you can't harness that unbelievable. And then in the middle of that song, there's a bridge, you know, oh gosh, a warning voice come to the nana. It repeats the repeats in my air, don't you know you fool? Just the crowd is going bananas. And at the end of the song he says, what does it hurts your baby? I mean, every woman was a puddle. I'm saying this. There's a lot of critics of Sadatra and you crossed the met your own peril, but his generosity was legendary.

There was a great television moment back in the eighties Richard Burton. I forget what it was for what they were doing. There were Burton steps out legendary drunk with

Sinatra another legendary drunk. But they were both square that night and Burton delivers this speech, and he said, in his immaculate Scottish accent, I've never sang a song with Frank Sinatra, never acted with him, share a stage, nor been a member of an officetra he performed with, Nor was I there when he was prevented with his Oscar,

his Emmy, or any of his nine Grammys. We all, however, old friends of some thirty years, and I've risen to my feet to applaud his braven artistry and numerous charity performances, raising millions of dollars for various causes for victims of the world, all over the world. But I am compelled to say out loud what a few of us have known for years, fully aware that this is what he

likes to hear the least. And what he was getting at was that there was a time when fact Sinatra couldn't work and had a real rough time of it, you know. And Richard Burton at this point asked Frank, can I do something for you? And Frank said, nah, you know he's taking care of me. Pal He pointed up with the sky to say God, and Burton continued, Frank is a giant among the givers of the world. He stands among the tallest, and he more than paid

rent for the space he occupies on this planet. Forged as he is from legendary loyalty and compassion, carefully hidden because he has so ordered it. Other than himself, there is no one who knows of the magnitude of his generosity. He has decided to be the sole keeper of that knowledge.

Mis triudonymous, you asked to be so mistridonymous. You shall be called, at the risk of further offending you, Frank I appear as the herald of grateful multitudes who have opened those unexpected envelopes, specially delivered answers to their prayers, Those awakened by late night phone called by which remedied their problems only on the condition they shared your coverage of secrecy. Those who were surprised by signed checks with

the amounts not filled in. Those performers down their luck who landed on a road they never expected and still don't know whom to thank, and for ountold other beneficiaries of the caring and the kindness of the splendid man who truly is his brother's keeper, And they are legion.

Those whose lives took a turn for the better, because this man who's fifty years ago tonight was a skinny, eighteen year old high school dropout, unloading Jersey cargo ships on the Jersey Water and singing at nights on a whole broken street corner, a street corner poet burned to the bone, was the fury of his own ambition, hoping desperately somebody would notice him. And they did. They did notice you, Maggio rat Siabane, blue eyes. God bless you,

mister Anonymous. Oh my fucking god. I didn't know where I was a kid, and I knew I just heard something that was just phenomenal. Frank was tearing up and they panted the crowd. They showed these people, you know, Rowan and Martin, Withdair Shelley for Braymember Her Joanne for Fluge, all these people that were famous around that time, different areas of showbiz. But to be around him, to just spell the same air and be in the same room where your molecules could move with his, is just something

I'll never get over. And I don't know why I decided to talk about him today. I don't know why. I think. I think because I get choked up thinking about July fourth weekend, and my father and my tough uncles and friends who had each other's backs, didn't take shit, tough and tender, all of them. That's it. I'm gonna fall apart. That's it. Love you guys. That was your podcast for July second, twenty twenty five. I guess I'm broken up because Roxy's twenty one too, you know, Christ Almighty,

what does the time go? Can we put in a box somewhere? No, we Can't's all right, Top Toast tomorrow