Get Mahoney! (eBook)

A Hollywood Insider's Memoir

Jim Mahoney (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2022 | 1. Auflage
384 Seiten
Bookbaby (Verlag)
978-1-6678-7931-4 (ISBN)

Infos

It's not easy being in the public eye. There's always someone watching, waiting for you to mess up. That's where Jim Mahoney was called. For over 40 years, he was the go-to guy for Hollywood's elite when they needed to clean up a scandal or avoid one altogether. He learned the tricks of the trade fast and he's finally sharing some of his best stories in his new book, Get Mahoney!.

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It's not easy being in the public eye. There's always someone watching, waiting for you to mess up. That's where Jim Mahoney comes in. For over 40 years, he's been the go-to guy for Hollywood's elite when they need to clean up a scandal or avoid one altogether. He knows all the tricks of the trade and he's finally spilling the beans in his new book, Get Mahoney!. From Gable to Garland, Sinatra to The Stones, Jim has helped some of the biggest names in Hollywood keep their image squeaky clean. He's seen it all and he's not afraid to share the juiciest details. Get Mahoney! is a tell-all book like no other, packed with insider knowledge and hilarious stories that will keep you entertained from beginning to end. If you want to know what really goes on behind the scenes in Hollywood, this is the book for you. Order your copy today!

Textauszug

Chapter One

Taken

IT WAS DECEMBER 8, 1963, and by the time I arrived in Reno it was twelve hours after I got the call. This was not going to be an average day at the office. Nothing was average in those days. It was just a few weeks since JFK was gunned down in Dallas and the world was already turned upside down.

It was near midnight when Frank Sinatra’s lawyer, Mickey Rudin, called me in Beverly Hills.

“Jim,” he said. “You gotta get up to Reno.” “What’s wrong,” I asked.

“It’s Junior,” he said, speaking about Sinatra’s son, Frank Jr. “Get a flight up there as fast as you can.”

“What about Junior?”

“He’s been kidnapped from his hotel room at the Harrah’s Club in South Lake Tahoe.”

As Frank Sinatra’s publicist, I had to swing into action. Fast.

It turned out nineteen-year old Frank Jr. was sitting in his underwear, eating a chicken dinner before a show, when men masquerading as room service waiters broke into his hotel room and took him.

“There’s a terrible blizzard in Tahoe right now, all planes are being diverted to Reno. Frank’s just left from Palm Springs,” Rudin said. “He wants you to join him there as quickly as you can.”

I wouldn’t say the news kicked me in the gut in terms of the crisis factor. I had a celebrity crisis or two, but this was different. First, there was a human’s life at stake here, and second, he was the son of Frank Sinatra!

I was part of Frank’s “inner circle,” and I had been in plenty of outrageous situations.

My job was always to advise and guide a client so they’d be put in the best possible light.

I listened to Rudin and understood why he called and why I was needed. This was going to be a major news story and it needed to be handled correctly, on multiple levels. This wasn’t some scripted film. I had to brace myself for a father’s frustrated torment and the explosion of worldwide media coverage. The relationship between Frank and Frank Jr. had never been an easy one.

Living in the shadow of a supernova star could not have been easy for Frank Jr., who at every turn was compared to his father. Similarly, Frank Sr. had high expectations for his son, which only pressurized the two. Much has been written about this father-son combo, and about their distance after his split with their mother, Nancy Sr. But above all else they were father and son, and the kidnapping hit Frank hard.

This highly personal criminal act was a vulnerability no one considered. It created a serious chink in Frank’s iconoclastic armor, which had been hardened and reinforced by Hollywood. Sinatra always had a sense of being, and if not invincible, certainly untouchable. So, this kind of crime against his family hit him at his core. He was an Italian street fighter, but he was now helpless.

“Where’s Frank going to be?” I asked Rudin.

“I have no idea.”

I hung up and immediately called the airline and booked the first flight to Reno in the morning. Early the next day I got a call from Sinatra’s secretary saying that I was to meet Frank in Reno at the Mapes Hotel. By the time I arrived in Reno twelve hours after that call, Frank was ensconced in the Presidential suite at the art deco Mapes Hotel in downtown Reno. The Mapes was as luxurious as Reno had to offer. It boasted the dubious distinction of being the first post- WWII skyscraper built in the United States. It was a high-rise built to accommodate both a hotel and casino, what everyone was calling the prototype casino of the future.

Frank knew the Mapes well, having performed there in the legendary Sky Room.

But this was hardly the place he wanted to be. He tried in vain to get up to Lake Tahoe the night before, but the same blizzard that nearly downed my flight had made the highway to the lake impassable, even for Frank Sinatra. And as sumptuous as a Presidential suite can be, the Mapes was nothing more than a bunker at this point, a waiting room. The good news was, if we couldn’t get up to Tahoe, Frank Jr. and his captures surely could not get out either. In addition, the police and FBI had instituted roadblocks around Tahoe to ensure there’d be no escape.

The hours passed in the suite, and Frank, restless, growing impatient and chain smoking, seemed oddly composed and cool. His composure set the standard for the room, as usual.

“God help the bastards if we find them first,” he said, and kept smoking. “God help them.”

Eventually, word got out and the media began to circle. They found out where we were staying.

“How did they find out?” Frank asked, looking at me.

“Listening to any police band radio, anyone can put two and two together,” I said. Frank agreed and went back to smoking.

“We’re going to need the media at some point,” I said.

Frank: “Can’t we keep this quiet?”

“Not something like this, Frank,” I said. “This is worldwide news.”

I explained we should provide initial statements, explaining how Frank was understandably nervous and concerned for his son. The media would also act as a delivery vehicle for our messages to the kidnappers. “Who knows,” I said, “they might talk with the media before they talk to us.”

As word spread, the phone lines lit up. Everyone from the media to well-wishers to sympathizers started calling. People never seem to realize that in times of crisis their well- intentioned wishes and concerns are a pain in the ass, of little comfort, and at worst they are potentially huge obstacles in the process of solving the problem.

I took over handling the phones and as I fielded calls, being careful not to tie up the lines in case the kidnappers called. One of the first calls was from the FBI. It was J. Edgar Hoover himself. A voice on the other end simply said, “The Director would like to speak to Mr. Sinatra.”

I asked if he could hold the line. Frank was in the other room. As I put the phone on hold, the second line rang. I asked who was calling.

“Just tell him it’s Momo… he’ll know who it is.”

It was the mob boss Sam Giancana, from Chicago. Giancana was probably the only other person in the country with the kind of resources to rival Hoover and track down the kidnappers.

“Sam,” I said. “It’s Jim Mahoney, I was at the party with Dean Martin and Frank in Chicago. I need to put you on hold.”

I went into the bedroom and told Frank about the calls.

“One is J. Edgar Hoover and the other is Giancana,” I said. “Who do you want first?” “I’ll talk to Momo,” he said. “Tell Hoover I’ll call him back.”

I paused briefly to take in the moment. Between the personal support of J. Edgar Hoover, who assured Frank of the full resources of the FBI, and Momo, whose resources could be downright lethal, these poor bastard kidnappers were now being chased by both the good guys and the bad, and Frank chose Momo first. Afterward, Frank took it all in stride, for the most part, and chuckled at my observation.

It was at this point the FBI arrived and set up shop in the suite. The FBI Special Agent in charge of Nevada, Dean Elson, took charge of things and helped calm Frank down. I was ready for Frank to explode, but he didn’t. Hours ticked by and Sinatra lit up cigarette after cigarette, enough so that by the time contact was made, some sixteen hours later, Frank’s voice from the smokes was raspy and an octave lower than normal. It was about then that the kidnappers called.

Frank started talking, but the smoking made his voice unrecognizable. “It’s fucking me,” Sinatra said. “Where’s my kid?”

The last thing anyone wanted to believe was that unfiltered cigarettes could be the very thing that might make kidnappers snap.

“You want me to sing?” he screamed. “You want me to sing a fucking song, you assholes?”

In fact, he calmed down enough to have the common sense to string the kidnappers along. He got them to talk and kept them talking with the hope of being able to trace the call.

During that first conversation there were no negotiations, no demands. The most that came out of this initial contact was to convince Frank that these goons did in fact have Frank Jr. and that, more importantly, Junior was still okay. The call ended with an odd gentleman-like question from the captors asking Frank if he would be available the next morning at nine, for the second phone call. Of course he...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 24.12.2022
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Biografien / Erfahrungsberichte
• ISBN-10: 1-6678-7931-6 / 1667879316
• ISBN-13: 978-1-6678-7931-4 / 9781667879314