CHAPTER 3

THE RAT PACK

Shortly after John F. Kennedy’s inauguration, I received good news. I was being transferred to Rogers & Cowan’s personality department under the supervision of Guy McElwaine, a new senior publicist. I was ecstatic. Personalities were people whose substance I could promote; the shows I had been promoting in the television department were abstract and ghostlike, ever changing from week to week.

McElwaine’s major connection in 1961 was Frank Sinatra, no small link since Sinatra was the most influential and powerful star in the industry. Guy had been in charge of studio publicity for Some Came Running, the 1958 screen success starring Sinatra, Dean Martin and Shirley MacLaine, and now he brought Sinatra’s next movie project with him to Rogers & Cowan.

He summoned me to his office. “Have you ever been to Kanab, Utah?”

I hadn’t.

“Well, you’re going, and for several weeks.”

Frank Sinatra and Co. were producing a Western in the hinterlands of southern Utah. I was being assigned to Sergeants 3, a takeoff on Rudyard Kipling’s poem “Gunga Din,” now set in the 1880s West. My instructions were to stay with the company for the entire shoot, taking care of the needs of what the media were calling the “Rat Pack”—Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis, Jr., Peter Lawford and Joey Bishop—while coordinating publicity as an assistant to Chuck Moses, the unit publicist.

I was floored. This was a sign of amazing serendipity from up above. To me, the Rat Pack was the epitome of cool. Others could don sandals and chinos and shuffle about on the Venice boardwalk in search of Zen, karma and Kerouac, but not me. I dashed to pack my bags.

Naturally Diane would be upset. That night I took her to La Scala in Beverly Hills. We got a good table because of Diane, not me, but my time of recognition was on the horizon.

“Guess what?” I said. “I’ve been assigned to a Rat Pack movie.”

She stared into space. “How nice.”

“This is a big break for me,” I continued, “but there’s one problem. It’s a location picture. It’s going to be shot in Utah.”

She looked at me, feigning teenage innocence. She was so gorgeous—I thought she was pushing toward an eleven on a scale of one to ten—but her silence baffled me. I took a bite of pasta.

“I won’t be upset if you’ll marry me,” she finally said.

Chicken cacciatore hung in my throat. She was a teen, and for all my wheeling and dealing and acting like a big shot, I recognized that by Hollywood standards I was hardly out of short pants. Marriage? Was she out of her mind? My eyes watered. “Excuse me. I’ll be back.”

I went to the men’s room, cleared my eyes, cleared my throat and cleared my brain. When I returned to the table I was no longer Jay Bernstein; I was Rhett Butler.

“Are you okay?” asked Diane.

I nodded and said, “How much money do you make?”

She stared at me with a hopeful, wistful look in her eyes, and then, to my surprise, she told me, to the very penny.

I said, “Do you realize I hardly make a tenth of that?”

Diane nodded and smiled.

“Maybe we’re being premature,” I continued. “Don’t you think we should give marriage some serious thought before we jump into it?”

“Is that a no?” she asked.

“I’m just suggesting that we shouldn’t rush into something. Maybe we should take some time to think it over.” I lifted Diane’s left hand, pulled it gently across the table and kissed it. She smiled appreciatively.

“Will you think about me every minute you’re gone?” she asked.

“Every minute.”

“Will you call me every night?”

“Every night.”

We left and went to her apartment. I was out of cigarettes. I was always out because I puffed one after another; a pack lasted four hours. I needed to keep my cool, but I couldn’t do it without nicotine coursing through my veins. “I’m out of cigarettes,” I moaned.

“You’re not,” purred Diane. “I bought a carton for you. It’s on top of the refrigerator.”

That was Diane—an eleven!

I flew to Utah in a twin-engine charter with a half-dozen Sergeants 3 production big shots, led by Howard Koch, the executive producer, and John Sturges, the director. It was early morning. The crew and the secondary cast were already there or en route by car and truck, with filming scheduled to begin the next morning, absent most of the stars. At Guy’s suggestion I made an effort to meet and befriend Koch, whom he had described as a pleasant man.

“Hi, I’m Jay Bernstein, with Rogers & Cowan.”

“Just take care of Frank,” Koch answered, and waved me away.

Guy had said the same thing, with an addendum: “Frank’s the boss, Jay. Remember that.”

By the time the plane landed at Kanab I was sick—not stomach sick, but mind sick. Flying was my bête noire. It required me to place my life in somebody else’s hands. I was a control freak; flying meant I had no control. I sucked in some dry, high-desert air. Inside the shack of a terminal, Koch called me aside. “If you have any problems, son, come to me.”

“Thanks, Mr. Koch.” Maybe he was a pleasant man after all.

Compared to L.A., Kanab didn’t exist. It wasn’t a city; it wasn’t even a town—it was a hamlet. The surrounding countryside was breathtakingly beautiful: red rocks and sandstone bluffs, sand dunes and incongruent stands of Ponderosa pine trees. I could see why so many Westerns had been filmed in the area, dating back to the Tom Mix movies of the 1920s. I had done my homework.

The Parry Lodge didn’t belong to the Ritz-Carlton chain. It was a motel, quaint and rustic, nestled in a copse. It had about sixty rooms, most extending off the main building in two wings. It was small enough to give the production company a fraternal feeling, a closeness I thought might help me engineer my way into the Rat Pack. I was full of myself, with enough gumption to think the clan would welcome me into its fold with open arms. After all, I thought I was pretty cool, too.

The Pack members were arriving separately on a staggered schedule. Frank would fly in at noon on his private plane, from Los Angeles. Dean would arrive later in the afternoon, from Las Vegas. Peter was coming in that night, from wherever, and Sammy two days later, after wrapping a nightclub engagement at the Cocoanut Grove. Guy had instructed me to be waiting at the curb when Frank arrived.

The lobby was frenetic with energy. And I loved it. I likened a motion-picture company to a circus—transient workers with no home, unhampered by social rules. Fleeting romances were already burgeoning, and the producers of the film had now morphed into carnival-like barkers giving orders to everyone, from the head grip to the assistant cameraman, everyone moving in a different direction. Only the teamsters stood in a corner, not moving a muscle, most wearing cowboy boots and Western hats. The real cowboys, the wranglers, were already at work, corralling horses and livestock at a big barn out back, or taking inventory of tack and saddles. There were wardrobe people, makeup artists, set designers, carpenters and prop men. Their energy was palpable; it flowed like electricity. They were an army of bees working on behalf of the queen, except in this case the queen was a king. His name was Frank Sinatra.

Until Sergeants 3, my experience had been in television, and television and motion-picture people were as segregated as the races. A tacit rule was a fact of life: motion-picture people could step “down” into television production, but few television people could step “up” into motion-picture production. A motion picture was the cat’s meow; a television show was the cat’s paw—depending, of course, on whom you were talking with. What was true, as I perceived it in 1961, was this: movie actors were stars and television actors were personalities. Sinatra went from movie to movie, playing a different character each time; Danny Thomas was always Daddy, with his television kids making room for him. Sinatra was stuck in a role for eight weeks; Thomas was stuck in a role for life.

At noon I was standing at the driveway curb. I had Sinatra’s room key in my pocket. I was excited but doing my best to maintain a professional calm. I was good at that; it was an acting job. A station wagon pulled up and Sinatra hopped out, 150 pounds of energy, 100 percent dictator. I was struck by clairvoyance; I sensed immediately we would never be fast friends.

“Mr. Sinatra, I’m Jay Bernstein with Rogers & Cowan.”

He measured me with penetrating blue eyes. “So you’re McElwaine’s man,” he said. It wasn’t a question—it was a statement.

“Yes,” I answered, and then asked my first stupid question. “How was the ride from the airport?”

“Lousy,” said Sinatra. “Next time, I want a chopper.”

“A chopper?”

“A fucking helicopter.”

His rudeness was shocking, but I tried to mask my feelings by being authoritative. “I’ll talk to the production office.”

“Fuck the office. Just get me a helicopter.”

We stood watching for a few moments as a couple of country bellboys unloaded the wagon’s baggage compartment, their eyes glancing back and forth from Sinatra to the suitcases. A member of Frank’s entourage, a black man who turned out to be George Jacobs, Frank’s man Friday, supervised.

At last Frank said, “Take care of them, George.” He turned again to me. “Okay, Rogers & Cowan, let’s you and me go look at my suite.”

The Parry Lodge didn’t have suites. It had a half-dozen bedrooms, slightly larger than average, on the second floor. They were reserved for the stars—Sinatra and the rest of the pack. As we passed through the lobby, a path opened in the crowd. A man said, “Hi, Frank,” and another said, “Glad you could make it, Frank,” as if to be funny. Frank ignored them. It wasn’t that he was unfriendly, but he was in one of his moods, of which he had plenty.

Upstairs Sinatra and I stood in the center of a freshly carpeted room. Frank looked around, slowly turning on his heels until he clicked off a 360-degree pan shot. Then I asked my second stupid question. “Is this good enough for you, Mr. Sinatra?”

He fixed me with a glare. “No, it’s not good enough.” He pointed to his right. “I don’t like that wall. I want a door in it, and I want Dean in the adjacent room.” He pointed to the opposite wall. “And I want a door there, and I want Peter in that room.” He looked at me. “Got it?”

“I’ve got it,” I answered.

He barked off some more orders, primarily a dictate to stock his bar, notably with Jack Daniels, black label. Finished, he said, “What did you say your name was, kid?”

“Jay Bernstein.”

“Well, say hello to Guy McElwaine for me.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And when Dean arrives, I want you waiting out front for him, just as you were for me. You’re the only guy around here who seems to have any fucking class.”

My first meeting with Sinatra was a study of arrogance and power—all Frank’s. I found little to like about the man, but I gave him the benefit of the doubt. That’s how badly I wanted to be “in.” The saving grace was that he told me to be on hand for Dean Martin’s arrival. I went to Howard Koch and told him Sinatra wanted a chopper and two new doors in his room.

“Tell the production manager,” said Koch. “Tell him to get two choppers, in case one breaks down.”

The difference between a television production and a motion-picture production was spectacular. Money was the factor. Television watchdogs had their eyes on every penny; they shot fast and moved forward, always looking for ways to save money. A chopper for Nick Adams? Forget it. Two? Don’t be crazy! But this was Sinatra and Co., with each star pocketing more money up front than the entire cost of a weekly television episode.

In the afternoon I was back in front of the motel waiting for Dean Martin. I had dismissed Sinatra’s arrogance. I kept telling myself, “Just play it cool.” If I were to be accepted by the Pack, I would have to roll with the punches. Here I was, a kid from Oklahoma, having been in Hollywood for hardly more than a year, and already I was rubbing shoulders with the biggest stars in the business. It was breathtaking when I considered my luck, so it was easy to dismiss Frank’s superciliousness. I would shadowbox until I saw an opening. Then I would punch into the sunlight and let the Chairman see how really important and endearing I truly was. But now I had to deal with Dino.

Forty-five years later I still recall vividly my excitement as the motel station wagon pulled to a halt. In my galaxy of star celebrities, Dean was only a slight notch below Sinatra when it came to cool. He had stolen Frank’s thunder in Some Came Running, and onstage in Vegas the other Rat Packers seemed always a step behind him. It was exciting to meet a star in person, because they were never quite what you had gleaned of them from the screen. Look at my Sinatra experience. I was up close to him for the first time, and his flaws and idiosyncrasies were exposed without makeup or script. Dean, however, was precisely as he looked on the screen. The best adjective to describe him is “languorous.” To Dean, everyone and every action—Kanab, the movie, Sinatra, Koch—were just part of the day’s twenty-four hours. He took everything in stride with a maturity Sinatra lacked. Two men got out of the wagon with him.

I went through my ritual. “I’m Jay Bernstein, with Rogers & Cowan.”

Dean’s response was perfunctory, as if from a man who was tired of it all. “Hello, pally,” he said without expression. “This is Mack.”

Mack and I shook hands.

“And this is Jay, Jay.”

Dean smiled. He was the first person who had actually remembered my name. Mack was Mack “Killer” Gray, Dean’s primary factotum, whom he had inherited from George Raft after Mack’s twenty years of service to him, and the other Jay was Jay Gerardi, Dean’s movie double and wardrobe attendant. The two men served as buffers against the outside world for an ambiverted man who leaned heavily toward introversion. As I shook their hands, I realized they had separated me from Dean like a wall. I wasn’t so naïve as to miss what was happening. Martin wanted to be left alone, and after I gave my pitch—“If there’s anything you need, just give me a call”—I left Dean in his own private world.

That night I hung around the lobby introducing myself to people I had not met. I was really doing it in hopes of running into Sinatra or Martin again. I didn’t, and finally I went to my room to call Diane. I got her answering service. Rather than leave a message, I hung up. I waited an hour and called again. This time no one answered. I went to sleep, my imagination astir.

Sometime during the night my phone rang. It was the front desk. “Mr. Lawford is here,” whispered the clerk. “Could you come to the lobby?”

Peter Lawford was no longer the lithe actor I remembered from his movies. He had evolved into a tall, fleshy man—with a paunch—whom I hardly recognized. When the clerk saw me, he sighed and pointed. “That’s him, Mr. Lawford.”

Lawford turned, extended his hand and said with slightly inebriated civility, “Peter Lawford. Sorry to wake you, but they don’t seem to have a key to my room.”

I looked at the baffled clerk. “You don’t have a key to the room of Peter Lawford?”

“Mr. Koch took it.”

“Jesus, don’t you have a master key?”

Embarrassed, the clerk shook his head. He gave me Koch’s room number, and Peter and I took off.

“I’m sorry, old man,” said Peter, as if we were a couple of Brits leaving a pub. “I had to call somebody, and Rogers & Cowan was the only name I could come up with.”

I knocked on Koch’s door. No answer. I rapped again, harder. When I rapped a third time, a gruff voice said, “Who the hell is it?”

“It’s Jay Bernstein of Rogers & Cowan, with Peter Lawford.”

“Just a minute.”

We waited.

“I’m really sorry, old man,” repeated Peter.

Koch opened the door, sleepy-eyed. He was dressed in a robe. “Peter, good to see you,” he said amicably. “When did you get in? What’s up?”

“They don’t have a key to my room,” said Peter. “The kid at the desk said you have it.”

“Damn!” said Koch. “Just a minute.” He shut the door in our faces.

“I’m really sorry, old man,” said Peter. His breath wafted with the sour stench of alcohol.

The door opened again. Koch handed Lawford the key. “I’m sorry about the mess-up, Peter. Get a good night’s sleep. I’ll see you tomorrow.” He closed the door.

“Thanks, old man,” Peter said to me. “I’m truly sorry about this.”

I went back to my room, feeling good inside. Solving their problems was my entrée to the Pack. I wanted to be accepted by them so badly I could hardly hold it in.

It was after three o’clock. I called Los Angeles again. No one answered, neither Diane nor the service. I was bothered immensely.

My eyes popped open at the crack of dawn. It was the first day of filming. I went to the lobby. The crew were dashing helter-skelter. I saw Howard Koch. He wiggled a finger at me and I followed him into a corner, expecting a thank-you for taking care of Lawford.

“Listen, Bernstein, don’t ever wake me again in the middle of the goddamned night, especially for a fucking actor! Do you understand?”

Taken aback, I mumbled, “Well, uh . . . yes, sir.”

“Who the fuck does Peter think he is anyway?”

I protested meekly. “The clerk didn’t have a key, and he said you—”

“Next time, get a fucking locksmith,” growled Koch, “or you’ll be thumbing your way back to Hollywood.”

Shaken, I returned to my room. My telephone was ringing. I grabbed it, expecting Diane. It was one of Sinatra’s henchmen. “Frank wants you in his suite, kid.”

Carpenters were measuring the walls for the new doors. Peter Lawford was standing at a window, staring out over beautiful downtown Kanab. Dean Martin was lazing in a chair with his feet propped on the end of the bed. Hangers-on were stationed about like props. Sinatra was under his bedcovers, sitting up in his pajama top. They were all sipping from cups of coffee.

Peter was the only one who greeted me. “Thanks again for the help last night, old man.”

“Forget it,” I said. “That’s what I’m paid for.”

“Sit down,” said Sinatra.

Martin stood up. “I’ve gotta go,” he said.

“Go where?” asked Frank.

“Outside.”

“What are you gonna do outside?”

“Count the out-of-town license plates. What else?”

Frank and Peter laughed. The fixtures laughed like a soundtrack. Dean didn’t; he left. I sat down in his chair.

“I want you to send a wire to Sammy in L.A.,” said Frank. “It’s from me.” He waved a piece of paper in the air. Peter snatched it and handed it to me. “You can work it over, but that’s the gist of it.”

I looked at the paper. It was a couple of lines scribbled on Parry Lodge stationery. It read something to this effect: “Sources say Jerry Lewis onstage with you at Grove last night. Dean pissed. As punishment, you can’t speak first 24 hours in Utah.”

I looked at Sinatra. He was serious. I looked at Peter. He was the same. I thought they were nuts, like spoiled, mischievous children.

“Any questions?” asked Sinatra.

“Yes,” I said, trying to be equally serious. “When is Sammy gonna be here?”

“Tomorrow about two, and I want you to meet him at the airport. If he utters a word, I’m gonna send him home. It won’t be the first time I’ve fired him.”

I nodded. “Anything else?”

Sinatra thought for a moment. “Yeah, tell the desk I want Sammy’s room in the back of the building.” He paused, his brain clicking, drumming up punishment for Sammy Davis, Jr. “Tell Sammy he can’t come through the front door.” He looked at Peter, his face excited. “How about that, Peter?”

“I like it.”

Then, to me, Frank said, “I want him to have to walk to the back of the building to get in. I want his room to be as far away from here as they can get it. Got it?”

I got it.

“And listen,” said Sinatra. He looked at Peter and grinned. “Listen to this.” Having Peter’s rapt attention, he looked at me and escalated Sammy’s punishment with the assurance of a slave-master. “Get a watermelon, and get the kitchen to do up some fried chicken. Wings and gizzards. Put them in his room with a note from me. Not Sinatra—from Frank.”

He laughed. Peter laughed. The others laughed. I laughed too; it seemed fashionable. Peter laughed so hard he was embarrassed at his own lack of composure. “I’m sorry,” said Peter. “It’s just too damned funny.” He turned away and laughed into an empty corner of the room.

“Laugh, Peter,” said Sinatra, laughing. “Maybe you’ll laugh off some of that fat.”

Everybody laughed.

“Is that it?” I asked, laughing.

“No,” said Sinatra. “Cut the watermelon in half and leave the knife with it. Not a knife and fork, just a knife.”

Peter laughed anew. Sinatra laughed. I laughed. Everybody laughed.

“Is that it?” I repeated.

“Don’t you think that’s enough?”

Guffaws all around.

I stood and began my exit. Sinatra called after me. “I forgot, kid. What’s your name?”

“Jay Bernstein, Mr. Sinatra.”

Sinatra rolled the words on his tongue. “Jay . . . Bernstein. I’ll try to remember. And call me Frank.”

“Thanks, Frank.” As I shut the door, the entire room burst into new laughter.