Episode 1446 - Tom Dreesen's Mob Stories

Episode 1446 • Released June 22, 2023 • Speakers detected

00:00:00Marc:All right, let's do this.

00:00:11Marc:How are you?

00:00:11Marc:What the fuckers?

00:00:12Marc:What the fuck buddies?

00:00:13Marc:What the fuckaroos?

00:00:16Marc:Yeah.

00:00:17Marc:What the fuckaroos?

00:00:19Marc:That's for Tim Heidecker.

00:00:22Marc:They kind of made fun of my intro.

00:00:25Marc:I did his show the other day, that Office Hours Live.

00:00:30Marc:And, you know, in the past, the Tim and Eric contingent always made me a little nervous because I didn't know whether or not I was going to enter into a situation where I was being part of the joke as the joke without knowing it.

00:00:48Marc:But Tim's grown up.

00:00:50Marc:He's a nice guy.

00:00:52Marc:I had a good time on the show.

00:00:54Marc:Anyway, what's going on with you people?

00:00:57Marc:What is happening?

00:00:58Marc:Where are we at?

00:01:01Marc:Today on the show, I talked to Tom Driesen again.

00:01:03Marc:Now, Tom, as some of you know, did a full WTF back in 2019.

00:01:09Marc:It was episode 1039.

00:01:13Marc:And we talked about his whole life and career from his comedy team with Tim Reed to being a labor organizer for comics to his friendship with David Letterman.

00:01:24Marc:And I wanted to have him back for a very specific reason.

00:01:29Marc:Now, Tom is of, I'd say, not the generation before me, but the generation before that.

00:01:36Marc:And he spent years opening for Frank Sinatra.

00:01:39Marc:And he's just been at the comedy store a lot.

00:01:42Marc:And we just start talking in the parking lot.

00:01:45Marc:And he tells these stories.

00:01:48Marc:The one that really got me, and he'll tell it here...

00:01:52Marc:It's just stories about the mob that he's had personal experience with in show business.

00:01:58Marc:Who doesn't have a mob fascination on some level?

00:02:01Marc:I mean, most Americans, whether it's through the Sopranos or the Godfathers or maybe members of your family, they have some kind of mob fascination.

00:02:15Marc:But these stories to me were just interesting.

00:02:17Marc:You know, when they come from somebody firsthand, it's kind of amazing.

00:02:21Marc:The humanization of mafia characters.

00:02:25Marc:Now, I have not come in contact with too many, but I have come in contact with a couple.

00:02:32Marc:And I'm wary to sort of go into it.

00:02:34Marc:There was a guy who ran a club who was in some way... He wasn't mobbed up, really, but he had connections.

00:02:45Marc:I remember meeting a guy at that club who was a made guy and just the sort of flat affectation of his eyes.

00:02:55Marc:The knowledge...

00:02:56Marc:To be in the presence of someone you know is a killer, you're going to project what you're going to project, but there is something there.

00:03:04Marc:You have to assume that killing a person, for whatever reason, changes your vibe.

00:03:11Marc:But it was cold and it was intense, and I knew I didn't want to be around it.

00:03:17Marc:And when you see characterizations of the mob in movies and television, there's something detached from that.

00:03:27Marc:The only time I've seen it really played correctly was by Rory Cochran in Black Mass.

00:03:37Marc:And I talked to him about that.

00:03:40Marc:You know, I talked to him about that, that movie.

00:03:44Marc:And I just felt that that weird kind of callous lack of conscience that

00:03:52Marc:or justification or whatever.

00:03:53Marc:I just, I felt it.

00:03:55Marc:It reminded me of that guy that I met at that comedy club, his performance in that.

00:04:00Marc:And I think that Joe Pesci in moments in Goodfellas has it, but it's, it's, it's a deep thing.

00:04:07Marc:And I don't think it can be faked really.

00:04:10Marc:And then there was another time I knew a guy who was, had done a contract job on somebody for the mob and,

00:04:22Marc:I met that guy at my drug dealer's house back in the day, and he was kind of a kid.

00:04:26Marc:But just knowing that this is what they do.

00:04:32Marc:But the fascination with Tom's stories is that the mafia was part of show business during the sort of dinner club era.

00:04:41Marc:that there were so many mob-owned clubs.

00:04:42Marc:And he touched on it a little bit in the first conversation we had.

00:04:46Marc:But these, I think we've got a few specific tales here about the mob.

00:04:53Marc:You know, the big one being, you know, Joey Gallo, who that's, you can't even, I can't even imagine this character.

00:05:01Marc:I mean, the way we sort of sense it in movies.

00:05:03Marc:I think Pacino did a good job with Donnie Brasco.

00:05:08Marc:There was definitely moments of that darkness that you can feel in somebody that you know has killed people for money or for honor or just as business.

00:05:25Marc:And I'm talking, you know, obviously I've probably met people who were in the military, but I find this to be a different thing, a different vibe.

00:05:34Marc:People in the military who have killed people in the line of duty.

00:05:39Marc:But that's sort of the reason why Tom's back.

00:05:43Marc:is to tell these stories because it's somehow endlessly fascinating.

00:05:48Marc:So, folks, if you're in L.A., I'll be at Dynasty Typewriter this Saturday, June 24th.

00:05:53Marc:And there are other tickets on sale there as well.

00:05:56Marc:The July dates are up.

00:05:57Marc:I'm going to be there three, I think, three nights in July as well.

00:06:01Marc:You can go to wtfpod.com slash tour for tickets.

00:06:05Marc:That's all sort of me working shop.

00:06:08Marc:Working shop?

00:06:09Marc:How about workshopping?

00:06:10Marc:uh, whatever I'm working on.

00:06:13Marc:I'll be at Largo on Sunday, July 1st for a music show with the band music and comedy.

00:06:19Marc:I think, uh, the other guests will be Ali Colbert and, uh, and Willie Simon, who I like.

00:06:26Marc:I don't know who's opening for me this Saturday.

00:06:28Marc:I got to find somebody.

00:06:30Marc:I got to get on it.

00:06:32Marc:Uh, but again, you can go to WTF pod.com slash tour for tickets and,

00:06:37Marc:In other news, there's hope in the world.

00:06:40Marc:I had this experience yesterday.

00:06:44Marc:In the moment, it felt like a major thing.

00:06:47Marc:A major thing.

00:06:48Marc:I was changing my cat's water, and one of my AirPods fell out into the cat water.

00:06:54Marc:And you know that moment where you just know it's over, where you drop your phone in a toilet or whatever.

00:06:59Marc:It's a very specific feeling.

00:07:01Marc:It's an immediate hopelessness.

00:07:02Marc:Like, fuck!

00:07:03Fuck!

00:07:04Marc:And I grab it out and I dry it off and I'm completely just ready to get online and buy a new set of pods.

00:07:11Marc:And I put it in my ear and it worked.

00:07:14Marc:And the feeling of elation that I got in that moment, the feeling of elation that came out like, oh my God, this is amazing.

00:07:23Marc:What kind of, this never happens.

00:07:25Marc:This is the best thing that's ever happened.

00:07:27Marc:It still works.

00:07:28Marc:I can hear, I can hear out of it.

00:07:31Marc:It was just an amazing, like, I felt like the luckiest guy in the world.

00:07:35Marc:Like, everything's turning around, man.

00:07:39Marc:Turns out that AirPod Pros are pretty waterproof.

00:07:42Marc:But nonetheless, you can't take that feeling away from me.

00:07:45Marc:It happened, man.

00:07:46Marc:It happened.

00:07:49Marc:Tom Dreesen, he put out a book since the last time he was on called Still Standing, My Journey from Streets and Saloons to the Stage and Sinatra.

00:08:00Marc:You can get it wherever you get books.

00:08:02Marc:I really enjoy talking to Tom.

00:08:04Marc:I'm glad he did this.

00:08:05Marc:So this is me and Dreesen talking about, I think, primarily mob stories, show business stuff.

00:08:13Marc:I'm listening to this podcast about Sammy Davis Jr.

00:08:23Marc:and Dean Martin.

00:08:26Marc:And Frank's in there a lot.

00:08:28Marc:It's like an eight-part series on them.

00:08:31Marc:It's a very great podcast called You Must Remember This about Hollywood.

00:08:37Marc:And it's really about the trajectories of Dean and Sammy revolving around

00:08:42Marc:You know, early on, Jerry Lewis and then Frank and then, you know, their relationship and the Rat Pack.

00:08:48Marc:But you worked with Sammy?

00:08:51Marc:I toured with Sammy for three years, yeah.

00:08:52Guest:For three years?

00:08:53Guest:He claimed he discovered me.

00:08:54Guest:He would say for years I discovered Tom Dreesen.

00:08:56Guest:Really?

00:08:57Guest:Yeah.

00:08:57Guest:Now, what years was this you worked with Sam?

00:08:59Guest:1977, 78, 79.

00:09:01Guest:And now when did he pass?

00:09:04Yeah.

00:09:04Guest:He passed away.

00:09:05Guest:He was the first of the pack to pass away.

00:09:07Guest:Yeah.

00:09:07Guest:Dean was second, of course, and Frank being third.

00:09:09Guest:But he passed away, gosh, about, what was it?

00:09:13Guest:Jeez, 20 years ago.

00:09:16Marc:But when you were touring with him, you do a lot of dates or were you just doing New Vegas?

00:09:20Guest:No, I toured all over the country with him.

00:09:23Guest:You know, theaters in the round.

00:09:24Guest:You know, all around the country.

00:09:25Guest:Uh-huh.

00:09:26Guest:Chicago, the Marin Theater, the Centrum Theater.

00:09:28Guest:Yeah.

00:09:29Guest:You know, Detroit, everywhere.

00:09:31Guest:And then, of course, Las Vegas, Caesars Palace all the time.

00:09:34Guest:Yeah.

00:09:34Guest:He was a joy to tour with.

00:09:36Guest:Yeah.

00:09:36Guest:First of all, to sit in the wings.

00:09:38Guest:Yeah.

00:09:38Guest:And watch this guy.

00:09:39Guest:This guy who, he could do it all.

00:09:42Guest:Yeah.

00:09:43Guest:He could do comedy as good as any comedian I met.

00:09:45Guest:He could do impressions to me better than any impressionist out there.

00:09:48Guest:He could sing.

00:09:49Guest:Frank Sinatra said he never heard Sammy hit a clinker.

00:09:51Guest:He could play drums.

00:09:52Guest:He could play the trumpet.

00:09:53Guest:He could play the piano.

00:09:55Guest:I mean, there was nothing he couldn't do on the stage.

00:09:57Guest:Yeah.

00:09:58Guest:It was great, huh, watching him?

00:10:00Guest:Oh, God.

00:10:00Guest:Do you know why I wanted to tour with him?

00:10:02Guest:When I did my first appearance on The Tonight Show, the whole new world opened up for me.

00:10:06Guest:But I wanted to do Sammy and company.

00:10:08Guest:Sammy had a TV show.

00:10:09Guest:And my agent at William Morris named Deborah Miller

00:10:11Guest:I kept bugging her.

00:10:12Guest:She said, Tommy, you're doing all these other shows.

00:10:15Guest:Why do you want to do that show?

00:10:16Guest:I said, because I saw him do something.

00:10:18Guest:Mark, it was the greatest thing that I've ever seen.

00:10:20Guest:To this day in my 50 years in showroom, Tim Reed and I were a comedy team, as you know, a black-white comedy team.

00:10:26Guest:America's first and only black and white comedy.

00:10:28Guest:We were doing a show in Chicago called the Black Expo, the Black Expedition.

00:10:33Guest:One week of nothing but black businesses interchanging ideas, and it culminated in a big show in an arena of 15,000 people.

00:10:42Guest:And all the black acts in the country came to, all the Motown acts, Smokey Robinson, Miracles, Gladys Knight and the Pips, the OJs, the Temptations.

00:10:49Guest:They all were coming to do three or four songs and leave.

00:10:51Guest:It was an all-day show.

00:10:53Guest:We comedians from Chicago came,

00:10:54Guest:were in the wings in case they needed to strike the stage.

00:10:57Guest:They'd say, get up and do five minutes.

00:10:59Guest:Sure.

00:11:00Guest:I was the only white guy there.

00:11:02Guest:Yeah.

00:11:02Guest:Now, Sammy Davis comes in, and everybody backstage... What year is this?

00:11:06Guest:This is 1971.

00:11:08Guest:Okay.

00:11:08Guest:Oh, so prime Sammy.

00:11:10Guest:72, yeah.

00:11:11Guest:And Sammy, at that time...

00:11:14Guest:Four months prior to that, had gone to the White House, received an award from President Nixon, and hugged him.

00:11:19Guest:Well, Sammy hugged stop signs.

00:11:21Guest:Sammy hugged everybody.

00:11:23Guest:So when he hugged him, that picture was taken, put on the cover of Jet, the cover of Ebony, all the black publications, and Sammy became persona non grata in the black community because they were very anti-Nixon.

00:11:33Guest:Now, this is the first time he's appearing in front of a black audience since that moment.

00:11:37Guest:This is when I was in the wings waiting.

00:11:39Guest:Everybody backstage, Sammy Davis here.

00:11:41Guest:He had come 3,500 miles, flew from overseas somewhere to be there.

00:11:45Guest:The emcee gets on stage, you know, ladies and gentlemen, all the entertainers got in the way.

00:11:49Guest:Ladies and gentlemen, welcome, please, Sammy Davis Jr.

00:11:52Guest:And the crowd began to boo and jeer and scream.

00:11:55Guest:Boo, get off the stage, get off the stage, you Uncle Tom.

00:11:58Guest:And all kinds of swear words.

00:12:00Guest:Booing so loud, Sammy couldn't get in.

00:12:02Guest:He tried to get George Rhodes, his conductor, into the countdown, you know, to drown out the boos.

00:12:07Guest:And George Rhodes had the headphones on and couldn't hear.

00:12:10Guest:So Sammy just stood there while they jeered and booed and screamed and booed.

00:12:14Guest:And Sammy wouldn't leave the stage.

00:12:16Guest:The emcee comes back out and he said, ladies and gentlemen, what is our struggle all about if it is about individual freedom, that if a man wants to be a Protestant, a Catholic, a Jew, a Democrat, a Republican, isn't that what we're fighting for, for the right to have that privilege?

00:12:29Guest:He said, the man came 3,500 miles to sing for you.

00:12:32Guest:Doesn't he at least deserve to be heard?

00:12:34Guest:Mumbo grumble.

00:12:34Guest:Everybody sat down.

00:12:35Guest:Sammy went over and changed the sheet music.

00:12:37Guest:He did one song and got a standing ovation.

00:12:40Guest:I've never seen anything like that in my life.

00:12:44Guest:All of us backstage had knots in our stomach because this great Sammy Davis Jr.

00:12:47Guest:being booed by his own folks.

00:12:50Guest:So he sang I Gotta Be Me from the Broadway play.

00:12:53Guest:Whether I'm right, whether I'm wrong, whether I find a place in this world or never belong, I got to be me.

00:12:59Guest:I'll go it alone if that's how it must be.

00:13:01Guest:I can't be right for somebody else if I'm not right for me.

00:13:05Guest:Now, halfway through the song, we're going, you could see he's getting them back.

00:13:08Guest:In the end, a standing ovation.

00:13:11Guest:It was like, we still don't believe your politics, but that was pretty damn special, pal.

00:13:15Guest:Well, yeah.

00:13:16Guest:To this day, I've never seen a greater performance.

00:13:19Guest:In my 52 years in showbiz, I've seen people take a tough crowd.

00:13:22Guest:and get them back by the end of the show.

00:13:24Guest:I've seen people, you know, on a bad night.

00:13:26Guest:I've never seen anybody take a hostile audience and in one song get a standing ovation.

00:13:31Guest:That's the greatest performance.

00:13:32Marc:Well, I think it's a good example of how, you know, people get up in their head.

00:13:35Marc:They don't really realize, you know, when you see a picture or you get a community meeting going, people start saying shit.

00:13:41Marc:But, like, when the talent's right in front of you, when you stand in front of the guy after talking all your shit and you got to reckon with that guy, it's different, right?

00:13:51Marc:Yeah, yeah.

00:13:51Marc:Because what they realize in that moment is how much they love Sammy Davis.

00:13:55Marc:Yeah.

00:13:55Marc:Not, you know, not what he did or what they heard or what they were told to do.

00:14:00Marc:Just like, holy shit.

00:14:01Marc:Yeah.

00:14:02Marc:This guy is Sammy Davis Jr.

00:14:03Guest:You know, he went on stage when he was two and a half years old.

00:14:06Guest:I know, he's like a vaudeville act, but he was stuck with his dad forever.

00:14:09Guest:Yeah.

00:14:09Guest:His dad told me the story.

00:14:11Guest:We called him Daddy Sam.

00:14:12Guest:He toured with us for a little while.

00:14:14Marc:Really?

00:14:14Marc:So he was back in the picture or he was just hanging around?

00:14:16Guest:He was hanging around.

00:14:18Marc:What was the name of that trio?

00:14:19Guest:The Will Maston Trio.

00:14:20Guest:Yeah.

00:14:21Guest:And Will Maston was supposedly Sammy's uncle, but he wasn't biologically, but he called him his Uncle Will.

00:14:27Guest:Sure.

00:14:27Guest:And they were a vaudeville act early on, him and his dad.

00:14:30Guest:Well, before Sammy, it was Sammy's dad and Will Maston, a dance act.

00:14:35Guest:Right.

00:14:36Guest:And they did all these great dance routines.

00:14:38Guest:Yeah.

00:14:38Guest:Sammy, when he was a little boy, his father got custody of him.

00:14:41Guest:Yeah.

00:14:42Guest:And Sammy would sit in the wings every night on an orange crate.

00:14:45Guest:He was like three years old.

00:14:47Guest:He'd sit in an orange crate and he would watch his dad and his uncle do their dance.

00:14:51Guest:And they would close with a big buck and wing.

00:14:54Guest:Pow.

00:14:54Guest:And so Sammy, one night, wandered out on stage on their closing number, and he was imitating his dad and his uncle doing the dance steps, and the crowd went wild.

00:15:04Guest:Uncle Will, he thought, ooh, we got something here.

00:15:06Guest:And there was child labor laws in those days, so Sammy could only do like one show evening.

00:15:11Guest:So each night, they would let Sammy wander out on stage and do this little closing thing with him.

00:15:16Guest:Finally, the stagehands built Sammy a rocking chair so he could sit.

00:15:19Guest:One night, his dad tells me a story.

00:15:21Guest:He said, one night, Sammy was in the rocking chair and fell asleep.

00:15:24Guest:And now they were closing with their big buck and wing.

00:15:26Guest:And Sammy was sleeping.

00:15:28Guest:And so his dad, they finished their routine.

00:15:29Guest:His dad scooped him up and was taking him back to the hotel.

00:15:32Guest:And they used to put him in a drawer.

00:15:34Guest:That's how small he was.

00:15:35Guest:He slept in a drawer.

00:15:36Guest:Sammy woke up in the car and realized what happened.

00:15:39Guest:And he looked at his father and he started pounding him in the chest with his fist.

00:15:42Guest:You didn't let me take my bow.

00:15:43Guest:He's pounding.

00:15:44Guest:You didn't let me take my bow.

00:15:45Guest:Sammy's father said, and from that day on, we never stopped Sammy from taking his bow.

00:15:49Guest:He was born to be in show business.

00:15:51Marc:Yeah.

00:15:51Marc:Well, I mean, by the time you're working with him, the interesting thing about hearing this this this some of this information about him was that he seemed to be a guy that was always into the mob for money.

00:16:02Marc:That's what that's what she says in the in telling the story is that he was never great with money.

00:16:07Marc:So he always owed guys money.

00:16:10Marc:Well, you know, that's true.

00:16:12Guest:He, by the way, Sammy owed, he, Harrah's Hotel adored him.

00:16:17Guest:Holmes Sandvickson, Bill Harrah, Holmes Sandvickson was the vice president of Harrah's Hotel and Doug Bushhausen.

00:16:22Guest:I worked with Sammy in those days.

00:16:24Guest:They adored him.

00:16:25Guest:And he packed the house when he went there.

00:16:27Guest:So he'd be in debt to them sometimes a couple hundred thousand because he, as fast as he got money, he spent it.

00:16:32Guest:Yeah.

00:16:32Guest:One day, we're working in the Mill Run Theater in Chicago, and we're going to Ebony Magazine for lunch.

00:16:38Guest:And I'm in the car with him in the limo, and we finish, and we're driving down Michigan Avenue, driving pretty fast, and Sammy yelled, stop the car!

00:16:44Guest:And the guy slammed on his brakes.

00:16:46Guest:We were in front of Gucci.

00:16:47Guest:He goes in the Gucci store.

00:16:48Guest:I went in.

00:16:48Guest:He was buying, shit, he's packing.

00:16:50Guest:He bought a $5,000 watch, and this is 1976, 77.

00:16:53Guest:He bought a $5,000 purse, I mean, for his wife, Alderbees.

00:16:58Guest:But he was always in debt.

00:16:59Guest:Which wife?

00:17:00Marc:that would be his third life, yeah, and his final life.

00:17:05Marc:But when we were talking in the, because we've talked before, but I'm just sort of fascinated with some of the stories you got about the boys, you know?

00:17:14Marc:And I have to assume that coming up in Chicago,

00:17:19Marc:See, I don't think people really realize just how much they ran the game, right?

00:17:24Marc:It was just the way it was.

00:17:25Marc:Where were you born and raised?

00:17:27Marc:63.

00:17:27Marc:I was born in 63, New Jersey.

00:17:29Marc:I was raised in New Mexico.

00:17:30Marc:So, you know, my proximity to the mob was very limited to one guy who owned a sandwich shop.

00:17:35Marc:and claimed that he knew.

00:17:39Marc:He had pictures of him and Dino and Frank, you know, on the wall.

00:17:45Marc:He said, I'm one of the guys, like, I don't know what he did for them, but all I know is he was in Albuquerque, and his name was Vinny, and he owned a sub shop.

00:17:53Guest:So I have to assume he wasn't active anymore.

00:17:57Guest:We call those guys wannabes.

00:17:58Guest:I mean, in my neighborhood, they're wannabes.

00:18:00Guest:How you tell the guys in the outfit or something, you'd say to them, hey, Tony, what do you do for a living?

00:18:08Guest:And he would put his finger to his mic and go, shh.

00:18:10Guest:Tony probably worked for a bakery or something, drove a bread truck.

00:18:16Guest:But here's a guy who was in the outfit.

00:18:17Guest:He's connected, what we call connected.

00:18:19Guest:You say, hey, Tony, what do you do for a living?

00:18:21Guest:Tommy, I swear to God, I swear in my mother's life I'm in real estate.

00:18:24Guest:This guy's connected.

00:18:28Marc:Didn't some of them say they were contractors?

00:18:31Marc:Yeah, that was what I learned.

00:18:32Marc:That guy, Vinny, had a guy come in there.

00:18:35Marc:He might have been running some racket in Albuquerque, a little one.

00:18:39Marc:But, you know, he introduced me to a guy that was at the sub shop.

00:18:42Marc:He's like, that's Benny the contractor.

00:18:44Marc:And I thought like, oh, he's in buildings.

00:18:46Marc:He's like, no, no.

00:18:47Marc:Contract killer.

00:18:48Marc:Yeah, he's a guy that puts the muscle, you know.

00:18:51Marc:Yeah.

00:18:52Marc:But like when you're, so as a kid, did you know the presence?

00:18:56Marc:Yeah.

00:18:57Guest:See, where I grew up at on the south side of Chicago, a suburb called Harvey, Illinois.

00:19:01Guest:Harvey was steel mills and factories and taverns, 36 taverns and all.

00:19:05Guest:So when you're growing up, who was in charge?

00:19:07Guest:Sam Giacana or Capone?

00:19:10Guest:And that was Tony Arcato in the city.

00:19:12Guest:But in the suburbs in Chicago Heights, next to us, the suburb, Chicago Heights.

00:19:17Guest:And there was another suburb called Blue Island.

00:19:18Guest:Blue Island was a guy named Tuffin Ali, Babe Tuffin Ali.

00:19:22Guest:And in Chicago Heights, there was a guy named Frankie Laporte.

00:19:25Guest:So when you grew up, where I grew up at, you know, they owned the jukeboxes.

00:19:29Guest:They owned every vending machine.

00:19:31Marc:But are they those guys captains?

00:19:32Marc:Who was running the whole thing, the whole Chicago mob at that time?

00:19:35Guest:Well, at that time it was Tony Arcato.

00:19:37Marc:Oh, really?

00:19:37Guest:From Chicago, Tony Arcato, yeah.

00:19:39Guest:And later became Sam Giancana.

00:19:41Guest:Okay.

00:19:42Guest:And, of course, after that, you know, Jackie Cerrone, who I knew I did shows for.

00:19:47Guest:Yeah.

00:19:48Guest:And Joey the Clown, Lombardo.

00:19:52Guest:Yeah.

00:19:53Guest:Is anyone around anymore?

00:19:54Guest:Yeah.

00:19:54Guest:No, you know, they're almost extinct anymore.

00:19:57Guest:I think the USA Today a while back did something about the mob in Cleveland.

00:20:02Guest:It was two guys.

00:20:04Guest:Now you have the Filipino mob.

00:20:08Guest:You have the black gangs in Chicago that run the drug trafficking.

00:20:13Guest:You have Russians.

00:20:14Guest:The Chinese in certain communities.

00:20:20Marc:Armenian here.

00:20:21Guest:Korean?

00:20:21Guest:Yeah.

00:20:23Guest:Armenian, yeah.

00:20:24Marc:So now it's just, it's like, it's like everything else.

00:20:28Marc:It's diversified and everyone's got their own little bubble.

00:20:31Guest:First of all, they legitimized a lot of the stuff the mob did, you know, other than illicit drugs now, you know what I mean?

00:20:37Guest:But I mean, the loan sharks and all that stuff, you know, the guys that would loan you money, you know, and a lot of times that's who you had to go to because the banks wouldn't loan you money.

00:20:46Guest:Right.

00:20:46Guest:And if you needed money, but it was always the VIG.

00:20:49Guest:Yeah.

00:20:49Guest:You know, they give you $100.

00:20:50Guest:That means you owe them, you know, $120 or $130.

00:20:52Guest:Yeah, sure.

00:20:53Guest:Now, and if you miss that payment, but you could pay the VIG.

00:20:56Guest:Yeah.

00:20:56Guest:You say, I don't have the whole $100, but here's the $20.

00:20:58Guest:And then it goes up again.

00:20:59Guest:And before you know it, somebody's coming at 3 o'clock in the morning.

00:21:02Marc:Yeah.

00:21:03Marc:So when you're a kid, you know, what, you just, you'd see them on the streets.

00:21:07Marc:Yeah.

00:21:07Guest:Here's the first time I ever became aware of mafia.

00:21:12Guest:And they didn't call them mafia in those days.

00:21:14Guest:They called them the syndicate.

00:21:15Guest:I was 10 years old, shining shoes in all the bars in my neighborhood.

00:21:18Guest:There was eight bars in my neighborhood.

00:21:19Guest:My mom was a bartender in the last bar.

00:21:22Guest:She tended bar for Frank Polizzi, who was my uncle, who I later found out was my biological father.

00:21:27Guest:That's how I'm Italian.

00:21:28Guest:But nonetheless, in the bar one day, I brought my shoe shine box and I was waiting, and Frank Polizzi was in the back, my uncle was in the back,

00:21:36Guest:having lunch and my mom and her sister, my aunt, were serving the customers and they had little sandwiches and everything.

00:21:42Guest:And out in front comes a truck.

00:21:43Guest:Now, let me digress.

00:21:45Guest:My uncle, Frank Polizzi, worked in a factory for years, came to this country when he was seven years old, worked in a factory for years and bought this bar.

00:21:53Guest:But he also bought a 78 record player, a Woolitzer old jukebox that he paid $100 for, and that was his jukebox.

00:22:00Guest:Well, the syndicate...

00:22:01Guest:They put jukeboxes and pinball machines and all that stuff in all the bars in that whole area on the south side.

00:22:07Guest:So he's got this jukebox.

00:22:08Guest:And he's open for a few weeks.

00:22:09Guest:Out in front, when he's in the back having lunch, a truck comes up and they have this beautiful jukebox.

00:22:13Guest:Two big guys wheel it down on a two-wheeler.

00:22:15Guest:They bring it inside.

00:22:16Guest:And they say, Mrs. Pelosi, sign here.

00:22:18Guest:She said, well, what is this?

00:22:19Guest:He said, for the jukebox.

00:22:20Guest:She said, we have a jukebox.

00:22:21Guest:She said, no, no.

00:22:22Guest:And we supplied the jukeboxes.

00:22:24Guest:She said, wait, you know, my aunt was real shy.

00:22:26Guest:She goes and gets Frank Polizzi, who was a tough, took no shit from nobody kind of guy.

00:22:31Guest:He wasn't much bigger than me.

00:22:34Guest:And he was a tough guy.

00:22:35Guest:I saw him throw teamsters out of that bar two at a time.

00:22:38Guest:You know, he just was a tough guy.

00:22:39Guest:So he comes out and he said, what is it, fellas?

00:22:41Guest:I remember he's wiping off his mouth with a nap.

00:22:43Guest:What is it, fellas?

00:22:43Guest:They said, Mr. Polizzi, sign here.

00:22:45Guest:He said, I got a jukebox over there.

00:22:47Guest:They said, no, no, no.

00:22:48Guest:Mr. Tuffinale sent the jukebox over.

00:22:50Guest:We supply all the bars with the jukebox, in restaurants with jukebox.

00:22:54Guest:He said, get it out of here.

00:22:55Guest:I already got a jukebox.

00:22:56Guest:They said, Mr. Polizzi, we're going to leave it here.

00:22:58Guest:We don't want any problem.

00:22:59Guest:He said, get it out of here.

00:23:01Guest:And he wouldn't.

00:23:01Guest:He put it on a two-wheeler.

00:23:03Guest:Mark, I'm not lying.

00:23:03Guest:He wheeled it outside and dumped it on the sidewalk.

00:23:06Guest:It broke.

00:23:06Guest:Now, they went, oh, boy.

00:23:08Guest:About a half an hour later, you hear out in front, out comes three guys, including this guy, Babe Tuff and Ollie.

00:23:14Guest:They come in the bar.

00:23:15Guest:My uncle comes around the bar, and they're getting this face, and they're going toe-to-toe.

00:23:19Guest:And you broke my jukebox.

00:23:21Guest:He said, I told your goons to get it out of here.

00:23:23Guest:I told them twice to get it.

00:23:24Guest:Now, they're going back and forth.

00:23:25Guest:And so...

00:23:26Guest:They're talking like half Sicilian and half, you know, and, but he's basically told them, you know, look, I'm Italian.

00:23:32Guest:Go, you know, go to the Merigans.

00:23:33Guest:You know, by the way, that's an expression Italian Jews, Merigans.

00:23:37Guest:It's not a derogatory term.

00:23:39Guest:They couldn't say Amerikan.

00:23:40Guest:Yeah.

00:23:41Guest:So the old Italians would accent, they'd say, Merigans, he's Merigans.

00:23:43Guest:Yeah.

00:23:43Guest:So he said, go to the Merigans, you know, and muscle them.

00:23:46Guest:Don't muscle me.

00:23:47Guest:And finally, tough and only said, I'll tell you what I'm going to do.

00:23:50Guest:You keep your jukebox in here.

00:23:52Uh,

00:23:52Guest:I ask you a favor.

00:23:53Guest:You ever leave this business and you want a job, I want you to come and work for me.

00:23:57Guest:And Frank Pelosi said, I'd never work for the likes of you.

00:24:00Guest:Whoa.

00:24:01Guest:Now, that's how tough this guy was.

00:24:03Guest:That was my first encounter with him.

00:24:05Guest:You know, that I knew that we were aware.

00:24:07Guest:And then, of course, in the neighborhood, you know, everybody's, he's connected, he's connected.

00:24:12Guest:But if you went to a funeral or a wedding, they were always at every funeral and every wedding.

00:24:15Guest:Why?

00:24:16Guest:Well, because it was part of the community.

00:24:17Guest:In Chicago Heights, if you went to an Italian wedding.

00:24:19Guest:Yeah, they're there.

00:24:20Guest:But,

00:24:21Guest:There isn't any Italian that grew up in my era that didn't have a cousin or know somebody.

00:24:26Guest:And some of them were wannabes and some of them were the real thing.

00:24:29Marc:It's weird because I've only encountered a couple of guys when I was in New York coming up that felt... I mean, when you watch movies and stuff, you know actors playing these guys.

00:24:43Marc:But when you meet them in person, they're scary.

00:24:45Marc:Yeah.

00:24:46Marc:You kind of, you know, they're not, they're scary.

00:24:49Marc:It's not, it's not, there's a feeling to it.

00:24:53Marc:Yeah.

00:24:53Marc:That you know you're in the presence of a killer.

00:24:56Marc:Yeah.

00:24:57Marc:And it's heavy, man.

00:24:58Guest:Well, I gotta tell you, I have, and I'm gonna get into this, I'm gonna tell you about some of the greatest scams ever pulled in Las Vegas.

00:25:04Guest:Yeah.

00:25:04Guest:great scams that the mob pulled.

00:25:06Marc:Well, let me ask before you do that, when you and Tim were coming up in Chicago, did they still own the clubs?

00:25:12Marc:Sure.

00:25:13Guest:Tim and I, the first club we ever worked was in Chicago Heights, Illinois.

00:25:16Guest:Yeah.

00:25:16Guest:But see, even if they didn't own a club, just like when Atlantic City started having gambling, the first thing they did was make sure there was going to be no mafia influence as Vegas had in all those years.

00:25:27Guest:Yeah.

00:25:27Guest:You know, they owned the casinos at one time.

00:25:30Guest:Yeah.

00:25:32Guest:Before I get to, let me get to Atlantic City, but

00:25:34Guest:To me, the dumbest people I've ever met in my life, they own those casinos.

00:25:38Guest:Those casinos make money.

00:25:39Guest:They could have went legitimate, but they had to skim.

00:25:42Guest:They had to do something crooked, and that's why they're no longer in existence.

00:25:46Guest:To me, they were dumb.

00:25:47Guest:I mean, you got all that money making.

00:25:48Guest:You own those casinos.

00:25:49Guest:You don't need to cheat.

00:25:51Guest:They're money makers.

00:25:52Marc:And Frank had a piece of that Cal Neva casino for a while, right?

00:25:56Guest:Yeah, with Sam Giancana, and that's why they brought him before a grand jury.

00:25:59Guest:He later owned a piece of the Golden Nugget when I started touring with him.

00:26:03Guest:Oh, yeah?

00:26:03Guest:Yeah.

00:26:04Guest:We'll get into that.

00:26:05Guest:But Atlantic City, when they first started Atlantic City, the first thing they were going to do is make sure there's no mafia influence.

00:26:12Guest:So they made sure everybody's record was clean.

00:26:14Guest:However, the unions, the culinary union, mobbed up.

00:26:19Guest:You bring toilet paper, mobbed up.

00:26:21Guest:So they had some little footprint in each.

00:26:27Guest:That was some bad-looking guys when I first started working in Atlantic City, too.

00:26:31Guest:But they were always an influence.

00:26:32Guest:And you're right.

00:26:33Guest:See, I met some of those guys, and I can tell you about some of those guys, that were really nice guys.

00:26:38Guest:I met some of those guys that were psychopathic.

00:26:41Guest:They were really psychopathic.

00:26:43Guest:You had to really be careful because they could go off on you in a heartbeat.

00:26:47Guest:What kind of guy is going to strangle 12 guys in his normal?

00:26:53Guest:Yeah, sure.

00:26:54Guest:Another thing, too.

00:26:55Guest:About tough guys.

00:26:56Guest:I grew up with a lot of tough guys.

00:26:58Guest:Where I grew up at, I never saw intellectual combat in my life.

00:27:02Guest:I never saw two guys debate an issue.

00:27:05Guest:They went outside.

00:27:06Guest:They fought.

00:27:06Guest:If you were arguing about the Cubs and the White Sox outside, they'd go out in the alley and the whole neighborhood would come out and watch these two guys.

00:27:11Marc:Did people get killed like that?

00:27:12Guest:Yeah.

00:27:14Guest:I had my nose broke twice.

00:27:15Guest:Over sports?

00:27:17Yeah.

00:27:17Guest:Street fights.

00:27:19Guest:I boxed when I was in the Navy, too.

00:27:21Guest:And again, that was an epiphany for me when I went in the service and I started reading books.

00:27:28Guest:I started realizing when I saw people in the service, we'd have a black guy from Detroit.

00:27:33Guest:We'd have a Jewish kid from New York.

00:27:35Guest:We'd have a redneck from Alabama.

00:27:37Guest:And they'd get in heated discussions aboard ship.

00:27:39Guest:And I thought, uh-oh, they're going to throw it down.

00:27:41Guest:But they didn't.

00:27:42Guest:When it was over, they'd say, you know something?

00:27:44Guest:I never thought of it that way.

00:27:44Guest:I had never seen that kind of combat, intellectual combat.

00:27:50Guest:So, you know, going back to my old neighborhood, there were certain guys that you really didn't want to, you know.

00:27:57Guest:Didn't want to look at them sideways.

00:27:59Guest:Well, there was a guy in my neighborhood that was cheating in poker when I first came out of service.

00:28:04Guest:And I caught him.

00:28:05Guest:But I wasn't about to.

00:28:06Guest:I saw what he was doing, but I wasn't about to accuse him because if I did, I better be able to prove that.

00:28:12Guest:And even if I proved it, he was the kind of guy that would not only want to kill you, he'd want to kill your mom and your sister.

00:28:18Guest:He was one of them psycho kind of guys.

00:28:21Guest:So what I did was I slowly told all the other guys in the game, if you say I said this, I'm going to call you a liar.

00:28:26Guest:But I'd get out of that game if I was you.

00:28:29Marc:So when you and Tim start working, these guys, they're just because I'm listening to this and I kind of knew it.

00:28:33Marc:Did you ever meet Dean?

00:28:34Guest:Sure.

00:28:35Guest:I played golf with Dean.

00:28:37Guest:Dean gave me the greatest advice at all about the wise guys.

00:28:40Guest:He said, Tommy, keep them at arm's length.

00:28:43Guest:Do not let them do a favor for you.

00:28:45Guest:If you do a show for them and they pay you, that's fine.

00:28:47Guest:But don't let them do a favor for you.

00:28:50Guest:He said, because they'll never get out of your life.

00:28:52Guest:Frank Sinopter told me the last 20 years of his life, he rued the day that he ever made friends with those guys.

00:28:57Guest:He said, because Tommy, they do a favor for you.

00:29:00Guest:You repay it.

00:29:01Guest:20 years later, their son, because, you know, my dad did a favor for you.

00:29:04Guest:20 more years, they had their grandsons.

00:29:06Guest:You know, my grandfather, you know.

00:29:07Guest:He said, Dean told me, and Dean was really strict about those guys.

00:29:13Guest:But they liked Dean.

00:29:16Guest:Who didn't like Dean?

00:29:17Guest:But Dean didn't take any crap from them.

00:29:20Guest:The Rat Pack, Frank, Sammy, and Dean did shows for the Villa Venise and for certain places that the Wise Guys owned.

00:29:29Guest:And Frank tells a funny story about it, that the Villa Venise in Chicago, they...

00:29:34Guest:flew in there, Frank, Sammy, and Dean to do a show and be like rehearsal.

00:29:39Guest:They were backstage and Dean was watching the fire marshal came and he was with the flashlight looking at everything.

00:29:45Guest:And Dean said to him, Hey Pally, you're here one week too early.

00:29:48Guest:The fire is next week.

00:29:49Guest:And sure enough, they burned that place down a week later.

00:29:51Guest:He knew they were pouring money into it, get money in the Latin and then, you know, but Dean, it's in a, it's in a book, a guy from the FBI named John Romer.

00:30:00Guest:Yeah.

00:30:01Guest:Anyway, his name is Romer, R-O-E-M-E-R.

00:30:04Guest:He was in the FBI for years.

00:30:05Guest:He was also a good friend of Tony Arcato.

00:30:08Guest:Even though he was head of the FBI, they had mutual respect for one another, and they would communicate.

00:30:13Guest:Romer wrote years later about a wiretap they had when John Kennedy got elected

00:30:21Guest:Sam Giancana, and this is in his book, Romer's book, Sam Giancana called Johnny Rosselli from Florida, the head mob down there.

00:30:30Guest:He said, we finally got to connect in the White House.

00:30:33Guest:And he said, you know, we can go there for favors.

00:30:35Guest:And Rosselli said that.

00:30:37Guest:And Giancana said, no, the canary is going to be, that was the code word for Frank.

00:30:41Guest:The canary is going to represent us.

00:30:44Guest:Yeah.

00:30:45Guest:Time goes by, and in the meantime, there's another show.

00:30:49Guest:Johnny Rosselli's in a place where Dean and Frank and Sam, they're all having something to eat afterwards, and Johnny Rosselli reached over Dean's shoulder to grab some of his shrimp, and Dean slapped his hand and said, I don't like people messing up with my food when I'm eating.

00:31:01Guest:Dean boxed when he was in the service, I mean, in childhood, in Steubenville, Ohio.

00:31:07Guest:He boxed under the name of Kid Crescetti.

00:31:09Guest:He had big hands.

00:31:11Guest:He could fight.

00:31:12Guest:Frank, Sam, those guys, they were... Not Sammy wasn't a fighter.

00:31:16Guest:Frank was a scrapper, but Dean was a fighter.

00:31:20Guest:And that's why Frank had such a respect for him.

00:31:22Guest:But Dean slapped Johnny Rosselli's hand.

00:31:25Guest:Now...

00:31:26Guest:Fast forward in this wiretap, four months go by, and Johnny Rosselli in the wiretap is talking to Sam Giancana.

00:31:33Guest:He said, what's going on?

00:31:33Guest:We aren't getting anything done.

00:31:35Guest:And Rosselli, I mean, Giancana said the Canary won't cooperate, meaning Frank won't.

00:31:40Guest:If he came to Frank, Frank said, I'm not going there.

00:31:42Guest:So he said the Canary won't cooperate.

00:31:45Guest:Yeah.

00:31:46Guest:Rosali said, then let's whack the motherfucker.

00:31:49Guest:Let's whack him.

00:31:50Guest:He said, and let's whack that son of a bitch, Martin, because I don't like him.

00:31:54Guest:He said, I'd like to break his fucking jaw.

00:31:56Guest:He said, he shows no respect to me.

00:31:59Guest:I would have loved to say, Rosali, if you go out in the alley with Dean alone, I'd love to see that fight.

00:32:04Marc:But isn't kind of interesting to me, though, because I realize just listening to it, is that, you know, they didn't really love showbiz guys.

00:32:12Marc:They just knew that they could make money off them.

00:32:15Marc:Tons of money.

00:32:16Marc:Yeah, but, like, you know, in terms of, like, as men, they didn't give a fuck about them.

00:32:20Guest:Yeah, I think—let me tell you, what Sam Giancana said when they said, let's whack Frank Sinatra, he said, you know—

00:32:29Guest:I love his music.

00:32:31Guest:Yeah.

00:32:31Guest:You know, they were fans of his music.

00:32:33Guest:Sure.

00:32:33Guest:But if they could use you.

00:32:35Guest:Here, I'll give you the greatest scam.

00:32:37Guest:Yeah.

00:32:37Guest:That the mob pulled off for years and years and years in Las Vegas.

00:32:41Guest:Yeah.

00:32:42Guest:This is almost genius.

00:32:43Guest:Here's what they do.

00:32:44Guest:Yeah.

00:32:45Guest:Say, no matter who the star was, you know, the singers.

00:32:48Guest:Mind you, in Las Vegas in those days, they're like a mile on one side of the strip and a mile back on the other side.

00:32:54Marc:Yeah.

00:32:54Guest:Every single hotel had a singer, comic, singer, comic, comic.

00:32:57Marc:Yeah, some big, some not so big.

00:32:59Marc:Yeah.

00:33:00Marc:It's what Cooper, Pat Cooper, he said, I was on a podcast once with him.

00:33:06Marc:He said, you know, Sinatra is a star.

00:33:08Marc:I'm a name.

00:33:10Marc:So the difference between stars and names are the two sides of the street.

00:33:14Guest:I'll tell you how big Sinatra was.

00:33:16Guest:He sold out Caesar's Palace two shows a night for 14 straight days in a row.

00:33:20Guest:And you know what the marquee said?

00:33:21Guest:What?

00:33:21Guest:He's here.

00:33:23Guest:Yeah.

00:33:23Guest:It didn't say Frank.

00:33:25Guest:If you get one name up there, you were a big deal.

00:33:28Guest:Sure.

00:33:28Guest:But there was a lot of guys doing the thing.

00:33:30Guest:But the reason was that why Frank was so popular there.

00:33:33Guest:The high rollers, the players, the Frank Sinatra, if you give me 500 Frank Sinatra fans, you can have 20,000 Tom Jones fans or Inglebert Humperdinck fans because Frank's people, they were gamblers.

00:33:45Guest:Yeah.

00:33:46Guest:Jewish, Italian, Irish, Chinese Sinatra fans all over the world.

00:33:51Guest:They had million dollar credit lines, two million dollar credit lines.

00:33:53Guest:Whenever Frank Sinatra was in Las Vegas, the drop in the pit was enormous.

00:33:57Guest:Yeah.

00:33:57Guest:In those days when the wise guys owned the hotels, the first thing they said in the morning, what was the drop last night?

00:34:03Guest:How much money was gambled with that terminology?

00:34:06Guest:What was the drop?

00:34:07Guest:You want to go see the show?

00:34:08Guest:Go see the show.

00:34:09Guest:What do you guys want?

00:34:09Guest:A room with you and your wife?

00:34:10Guest:You want something?

00:34:11Guest:Yeah.

00:34:11Guest:How much are you going to gamble?

00:34:12Guest:Yeah.

00:34:13Guest:The drop was always important.

00:34:14Guest:Frank drew...

00:34:15Guest:One night in Atlantic City, a real estate guy lost $750,000, a Sinatra fan, and the next night, $800,000.

00:34:23Guest:One fan lost $1.5 million.

00:34:25Guest:One Sinatra fan, and we were there for a week.

00:34:29Guest:That one man paid for everything for the hotel.

00:34:32Guest:At Las Vegas, at the Golden Nugget, Danny Schwartz, and I'm telling stories out of school.

00:34:38Guest:Danny's still alive.

00:34:39Guest:Danny Schwartz, a Frank Sinatra fan and friend, lost $5 million in one night.

00:34:43Guest:$5 million in one night.

00:34:45Guest:He was worth a couple hundred million, but he and Frank went to Steve Wynn and said, hey, friend, can we give him a break and give him for half?

00:34:52Guest:And Danny, to his credit, said, no, I lost it, and I'll pay.

00:34:55Guest:He paid half in stock and half in cash.

00:34:57Guest:This is how Sinatra was powerful to those guys.

00:35:01Guest:You know, the drop in the pit was an enormous one.

00:35:03Guest:Not only his hotel, where Frank sold out, the hotels around him sold out.

00:35:07Guest:You know, when Frank went to the Golden Nugget in Atlantic City, in Las Vegas, that's downtown.

00:35:14Guest:He stayed there two years.

00:35:15Guest:I was performing with him then.

00:35:16Guest:When he came back to the strip, all the other hotels put big signs up, he's back.

00:35:20Guest:Yeah.

00:35:21Guest:Oh, just even though he wasn't there.

00:35:22Guest:Because they got the overflow, you know.

00:35:25Guest:So that's how powerful he was.

00:35:27Guest:Holy shit.

00:35:27Guest:I forgot where I was going with that.

00:35:29Guest:Well, you're going to tell about the scam.

00:35:30Guest:Oh, yeah.

00:35:31Guest:Here's the greatest scam that the mob ever pulled.

00:35:34Guest:It's classy.

00:35:35Guest:They would go find a singer.

00:35:36Guest:It could be, you know, anybody.

00:35:38Guest:I shouldn't say names because I don't want to implicate people.

00:35:41Marc:But you know people.

00:35:42Marc:who did it?

00:35:43Guest:Well, yeah, they pulled this scam off on singers all the time.

00:35:46Guest:They would go to a singer, and they could do it on a comedian as well.

00:35:49Guest:Go backstage?

00:35:50Guest:What they would do, they would give the maitre d'e bill $500.

00:35:53Guest:I want to meet this big singer, right?

00:35:55Guest:Now, these are just low-level mobsters.

00:35:58Guest:They were mobsters from the head of the guy in Connecticut, the head of the guy in Boston, the head of the guy in Chicago, the head of the guy in all over the country.

00:36:07Guest:But they would duke the maitre d'e

00:36:09Guest:I got my mom here.

00:36:10Guest:Yeah.

00:36:10Guest:She's a big fan of his, the singer.

00:36:12Guest:Yeah.

00:36:12Guest:Major D would go backstage and say, Hey, big Tony from, from, uh, Hartford, Connecticut.

00:36:17Guest:Yeah.

00:36:17Guest:He's a pretty big guy.

00:36:18Guest:Yeah.

00:36:19Guest:He's a big fan.

00:36:20Guest:Mom is a big fan.

00:36:21Guest:Yeah.

00:36:21Guest:They just want to meet you.

00:36:22Guest:And you'd let them backstage.

00:36:23Guest:And sure enough, the guy was, you know, she'd bring his mother back there.

00:36:26Guest:A couple of guys with him.

00:36:27Guest:take pictures thank you very much and and they'd leave yeah thank you for being kind of my mother next day a dozen roses in a dressing room from big tony from hartford or wherever yeah okay now thank you very much for being kind of my mom you you worked in vegas every four months so four months later this singer is back in vegas and now big tony's there again yeah and he sends his note backstage to maitre d again gets another 500 goes back and tells him big tony's in town and yeah

00:36:52Guest:Oh, yeah, I remember him.

00:36:53Guest:He was a nice guy.

00:36:54Guest:He sent me the flowers.

00:36:55Guest:They come backstage and they got a couple guys with him and knocked down, take your breath away, gorgeous young girl named Carmela or whatever.

00:37:02Guest:She's smoking, smoking hot.

00:37:05Guest:So they meet the backstage.

00:37:07Guest:Everybody's feeling nice.

00:37:08Guest:Before they leave, the big guy says, hey, thanks for being kind to my people again.

00:37:12Guest:My mom still loves you.

00:37:12Guest:By the way, Carmela thinks you're pretty...

00:37:15Guest:You're pretty hot.

00:37:16Guest:Well, Carmella's with Vinny.

00:37:18Guest:No, no, she's a long day baby.

00:37:20Guest:Next thing you know, Carmella's with this singer.

00:37:22Guest:And they spend the weekend together and everything.

00:37:24Guest:And they go back and they exchange numbers and everything.

00:37:27Guest:Two months later, Carmella gets a hold of them.

00:37:29Guest:She said, I'm in terrible trouble.

00:37:31Guest:I lied to you.

00:37:31Guest:I'm not 22.

00:37:33Guest:I'm 17 and I'm pregnant.

00:37:35Guest:Wow, I'm married.

00:37:36Guest:I got kids.

00:37:38Guest:I know.

00:37:38Guest:I didn't know what to do.

00:37:39Guest:Now, he hangs up.

00:37:40Guest:Now, if luck is with the wise guys, he calls the wise guy.

00:37:44Guest:If he doesn't call the wise guy, the wise guy calls him.

00:37:46Guest:He said, hey, what's this I hear about Carmela and you?

00:37:49Guest:Oh, well, you know, I didn't know she was young.

00:37:53Guest:He said, hey, don't worry about it.

00:37:54Guest:You took care of my family.

00:37:55Guest:Now, Big Tony, you took care of my family.

00:37:57Guest:Don't you worry about it.

00:37:58Guest:I don't want anything to happen.

00:37:59Guest:Nothing's going to happen to her.

00:38:01Guest:You were nice to me.

00:38:02Guest:Believe me, don't worry about it.

00:38:06Guest:Now, about six months go by, and they get a hold of him.

00:38:10Guest:Hey, listen, you know where I told you I'm from Connecticut?

00:38:12Guest:The Catholic Church, we're doing a big charity, and we're trying to raise money for the orphans.

00:38:16Guest:If you'd come here and sing, are you kidding me?

00:38:18Guest:This guy saved your marriage.

00:38:20Guest:The singer goes there.

00:38:21Guest:and does the show, they make $250,000 for the charity.

00:38:25Guest:The mob takes $200,000.

00:38:26Guest:$50,000 goes to the orphanage.

00:38:28Guest:The wise guys cut up the money, and guess who gets $10,000?

00:38:31Guest:Carmela.

00:38:31Guest:She was in on it from Jump Street.

00:38:33Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:38:33Guest:They did that over and over and over and over for years and years.

00:38:37Marc:It's kind of a long con, isn't it?

00:38:39Marc:Yeah, but you know what?

00:38:41Marc:You're talking like between the first visit and then the payoff, it's like almost a year.

00:38:45Marc:Yeah, but that was just one of their hustles.

00:38:47Marc:Yeah.

00:38:47Guest:They had other hustles.

00:38:48Guest:Like what?

00:38:48Guest:Yeah.

00:38:49Guest:Oh, the other thing, too, when people talk to me about the fights, they fix the fight or something like that.

00:38:56Guest:I boxed when I was in the service.

00:38:58Guest:I'm not an expert, but I know a little... I can watch and tell you, you won that round or he won that round.

00:39:03Guest:It's hard to...

00:39:05Guest:In the old days, you could fix a fight, a fighter would go down.

00:39:08Guest:But when you're boxing sometimes, let's say you're supposed to go down in a fourth round, but a guy throws a punch at you and just by reaction, boom, you fire and you might knock this guy out.

00:39:17Guest:So the way they fixed the fight in Las Vegas, there's three judges.

00:39:22Guest:You pull one judge aside and you say, look, here's 50,000 cash or whatever number.

00:39:27Guest:I don't want you to cheat.

00:39:28Guest:If my boy loses the round, he loses the round.

00:39:30Guest:I don't want you to cheat.

00:39:32Guest:But if there's one round too close to call,

00:39:34Guest:I want you to shade my guy.

00:39:36Guest:That's all I'm asking.

00:39:37Guest:Now, I can watch fights and say, oh, he won that round or he won that round.

00:39:41Guest:But there's a couple of rounds I'll say, I don't know.

00:39:44Guest:That could go either way.

00:39:46Guest:How many fights have you seen Vegas?

00:39:47Guest:114 to 113.

00:39:48Guest:That was another way.

00:39:50Guest:You get to a judge.

00:39:51Guest:And if you reviewed the film, you'd say, well, yeah, it could have went that way.

00:39:56Guest:All they're saying is if there's one round that's too close to call, I want you to shade my guy.

00:40:00Guest:If my guy gets knocked out, he gets knocked out.

00:40:03Marc:So that's just a gamble on the mobster's part, too.

00:40:05Marc:Yeah, it is.

00:40:06Marc:I mean, because there's nothing that guy can do, and he can see when something's on the edge.

00:40:10Marc:But he might lose that money.

00:40:12Guest:But I have to tell you, in most cases, there's always one or two rounds that are too close to call.

00:40:19Guest:And I've been at those fights, you go, whoa.

00:40:20Marc:So you're not betting on the rounds, you're betting on the fight.

00:40:22Guest:You're betting on the fight, the total fight.

00:40:24Guest:I was with the King Brothers one night when they put Michael and Roger King, who owned King World.

00:40:28Guest:They put $250,000 on Tommy Hearns.

00:40:32Guest:And I swear to God, Tommy Hearns won that fight.

00:40:34Guest:And Sugar Ray Leonard is my friend.

00:40:35Guest:I love him to death.

00:40:36Guest:We play golf together.

00:40:37Guest:But Tommy won that fight.

00:40:40Guest:But Tommy didn't win that fight.

00:40:42Guest:He lost by one point.

00:40:44Marc:So in terms of when you were with Frank, did he talk about those guys?

00:40:49Guest:Sometimes.

00:40:51Guest:When I first started talking with Frank,

00:40:54Guest:he was the boss of this magnificent tour.

00:40:57Guest:Yeah.

00:40:57Guest:Later he became a buddy.

00:40:58Guest:He, I, you know, we'd hang around.

00:41:00Guest:Sure.

00:41:01Guest:I picked up, I used to be a bartender and I used to pick up on personality sometimes, but I picked up on him when I first started that he didn't want another fan.

00:41:07Guest:He had millions of fans.

00:41:08Guest:Sure.

00:41:08Guest:He didn't want you gushing over him.

00:41:10Guest:Yeah.

00:41:10Guest:You know, and, and there were times I wanted to say, damn, Frank, what you just did tonight, you know, cause he was great, you know, uh, and, and I loved his films.

00:41:17Guest:He won the Academy Awards, but I didn't do that.

00:41:20Guest:I, I always stayed away from, you know, uh,

00:41:23Guest:Yeah, being a fanboy.

00:41:25Guest:And then so we became friends.

00:41:27Guest:And toward the end of his life, he was more like a father to me.

00:41:28Guest:So when I'd go stay at his compound down in Rancho Mirage, we'd ride around in the desert till dawn.

00:41:34Guest:He never went to bed till the sun came up.

00:41:37Guest:He was nocturnal.

00:41:38Guest:whether we were on the road or off the road.

00:41:40Guest:Really?

00:41:40Guest:Yeah, and he wanted you to hang with him, too, because he stayed up till dawn.

00:41:44Guest:Yeah.

00:41:44Guest:The hardest I ever made him laugh one night in Vegas, we'd been doing one-nighters all over the country, and we went into the Desert Inn, and after the second show, it's 4.30 in the morning.

00:41:53Guest:Yeah.

00:41:53Guest:And he just, look, you can see he's going to go all night.

00:41:56Guest:I got up on the table, and it was like four guys at the table.

00:41:58Guest:I want to go to bed.

00:42:00Guest:I got up and he said, hey, where you going?

00:42:01Guest:I said, I'm going to bed.

00:42:02Guest:He said, what for?

00:42:03Guest:I said, I got to get up early in the morning, go to the cemetery and visit those guys.

00:42:06Guest:He said, what guys?

00:42:07Guest:I said, all those guys who die trying to stay with you every night.

00:42:10Guest:So we laughed.

00:42:11Guest:So we'd ride around the car till dawn.

00:42:12Guest:And those nights, toward the end of his life, when he didn't,

00:42:15Guest:He knew the end was near.

00:42:16Guest:He, as his song goes, he set opening up a little bit more about regrets and things like that.

00:42:24Guest:And one of them was when he said, I rude the day that I ever made friends with those guys.

00:42:27Guest:They won't get out of your life.

00:42:29Marc:20 years.

00:42:30Marc:That was with the deal he made with Giancana in the White House, what you talked about before.

00:42:36Marc:Because he knew those guys and they knew him, but then he wanted to be close to Kennedy and he realized the way to do that was to be the middleman.

00:42:43Guest:Well, they came to him.

00:42:45Guest:Joe Kennedy came to him when John Kennedy was running.

00:42:49Guest:Joe Kennedy was an astute, astute politician.

00:42:53Guest:And all he ever wanted was one of his sons to become president of the United States.

00:42:56Guest:He wanted his first son who got killed in World War II.

00:42:59Guest:And he came to Frank.

00:43:01Guest:He called Frank to a meeting.

00:43:02Guest:And he told Frank, he said, my boy can't win.

00:43:05Guest:My son can't win.

00:43:06Guest:He knew that they couldn't win West Virginia.

00:43:09Guest:It was 95% Protestant.

00:43:10Guest:They were never going to vote for a Catholic.

00:43:12Marc:But didn't they get those guys, those mobsters, to buy out the local politicians?

00:43:15Guest:That's what he said.

00:43:16Guest:And we can't win Illinois.

00:43:18Guest:He said, the downstate Republicans are going to beat us.

00:43:21Guest:He said, you know the guys who can go to them.

00:43:24Guest:He said, I know them too, but I can't go to them.

00:43:26Guest:What they don't know about the Kennedys, what most people do now, they were bootleggers in the early, earlier days.

00:43:30Guest:And what they did is they worked and went legitimate.

00:43:34Guest:And

00:43:34Guest:put everybody in legitimate businesses.

00:43:37Guest:So the Irish mob was a pretty tough mob at one time in the country before the Italian mob.

00:43:41Guest:In New York.

00:43:42Guest:In Chicago.

00:43:43Guest:Yeah.

00:43:44Guest:And everywhere.

00:43:44Guest:Yeah, Chicago.

00:43:45Guest:The Irish mob, they were the big guys.

00:43:47Guest:That's what the St.

00:43:47Guest:Valentine's Day Massacre was.

00:43:48Marc:Well, I didn't realize that Joe Kennedy's bootlegging business is what made Seagram's.

00:43:53Marc:All the money.

00:43:54Marc:Because it was legal in Canada.

00:43:56Marc:So he was running that shit down.

00:43:57Marc:And the old man, what was the guy's name?

00:44:01Marc:Bronfman?

00:44:02Marc:Was it Edgar Bronfman, the head of Seagram's?

00:44:04Marc:They're the ones that made that guy rich.

00:44:08Guest:So when he said, Frank, you know those.

00:44:11Guest:He said, I can't go to those guys, but you can.

00:44:13Guest:Yeah.

00:44:14Guest:So what happened was they convinced the unions in West Virginia to a lot of contacts that Kennedy was a guy to vote for, that he was going to be pro-Hoffa and pro-union, I think, and pro-union.

00:44:29Guest:And then they also went to Chicago where...

00:44:33Guest:The old joke is 10,000 dead people boated in Chicago.

00:44:38Guest:I used to say, if you want to campaign in Chicago and run for office, don't go to the corner taverns.

00:44:42Guest:Go to the cemeteries.

00:44:43Guest:That's where the boats are, all that stuff.

00:44:45Guest:But anyhow, so now Kennedy wins the election because that last state in Illinois swung that election.

00:44:53Guest:And so anyhow, the rumor always is that it was a rigged thing.

00:44:57Guest:Now, meantime, you know Frank then...

00:44:59Guest:John Kennedy is going to come and stay at his compound in Rancho Mirage, where I used to stay.

00:45:04Guest:So this is before my time, of course.

00:45:06Guest:Well, he doesn't go, right?

00:45:07Guest:He's at the last minute.

00:45:08Guest:Frank spent $1.3 million at that time setting up a heliport building.

00:45:14Guest:Because the president of the United States was coming.

00:45:17Guest:He told his mother.

00:45:17Guest:He said, Ma, you and dad came to this country from the old country.

00:45:22Guest:And in one generation, the president of the United States is going to stay with our home.

00:45:26Guest:Anyhow.

00:45:26Guest:A week before, Peter Lawford comes to him and says, Jack can't come here and be here.

00:45:33Guest:Bobby says he can't come here.

00:45:35Guest:Frank said, why?

00:45:36Guest:What are you talking about?

00:45:37Guest:Bobby said, because you know those people.

00:45:40Guest:Frank said, those people?

00:45:42Guest:Those people his dad sent me to?

00:45:44Guest:Because I know those people?

00:45:45Guest:He really got really mad.

00:45:49Guest:It was a real tough time.

00:45:51Guest:He loved Jack Kennedy, but he was a little bit...

00:45:53Marc:Different about Bobby.

00:45:54Marc:Sure.

00:45:55Marc:I mean, I mean, it was kind of I don't I mean, I'm sure there's plenty of stories and plenty of books about the dynamic between those two brothers and, you know, and the relationship, because I know that, you know, I guess it's pretty proven that Giancana and Kennedy, you know, were sharing mistresses.

00:46:14Marc:Yeah.

00:46:14Marc:And I think Frank, too.

00:46:15Marc:Her name was Judith Campbell.

00:46:17Marc:Yeah.

00:46:17Marc:Judith Exner Campbell.

00:46:19Guest:And it didn't end well for her.

00:46:20Guest:Well, she ended up going back to England and everything.

00:46:23Guest:But supposedly, there's rumor that Marilyn Monroe and Sam Jean Conner, and that I don't know.

00:46:30Guest:Before your time?

00:46:33Guest:Yeah, before my time.

00:46:33Guest:I heard people talk about it, but if I didn't see it, then I can only go what people tell me happened.

00:46:38Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:46:41Marc:People were there, eyewitnesses that were there.

00:46:43Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:46:44Marc:What was Frank's bodyguard name?

00:46:46Marc:Jilly Rizzo.

00:46:47Marc:Jilly, yeah.

00:46:48Marc:You knew that guy real well, right?

00:46:49Guest:Oh, yeah.

00:46:49Guest:Jilly had a glass eye.

00:46:51Guest:He had it knocked out, I think, in a fight.

00:46:52Guest:He was a tough guy from the Bronx.

00:46:54Marc:I heard that on this story that Sammy Davis Jr.

00:46:57Marc:premiered his glass eye at Cirrus.

00:47:00Guest:At the comedy store.

00:47:01Guest:Yeah.

00:47:02Guest:Yeah, that's right.

00:47:03Guest:Yeah, that's right.

00:47:04Guest:Well, you know, Frank Sinatra had a strange sense of humor.

00:47:07Guest:Julie had a glass eye and Sammy had a glass eye.

00:47:09Guest:So one Christmas, Frank bought a set of binoculars and saw them in half and sent one to Julie and one to Sammy.

00:47:14Marc:That's pretty funny.

00:47:15Marc:So I want to hear that story again about Johnny Carson.

00:47:19Marc:That thing is the best fucking story.

00:47:21Marc:That's the best Sinatra story.

00:47:23Guest:Well, you know, I mean, there's a lot of great Sinatra stories, but this is how all this happened.

00:47:28Guest:Do you tell that one in your show?

00:47:30Guest:No, not the one about Johnny Carson.

00:47:31Guest:I love it.

00:47:32Guest:Yeah, but I put it in my book only because, and the only reason I put it in the book, and I would not have done that,

00:47:36Guest:But because Henry Bushkin, Frank Sinatra, or Johnny Carson's lawyer, tried to take credit for saving Johnny's life from crazy Joey Gallo.

00:47:45Guest:Right.

00:47:46Guest:You know, and at that time, he was about a 26-year-old attorney.

00:47:49Guest:There was no way in hell crazy Joey Gallo would have listened to a young attorney like that.

00:47:54Guest:Yeah.

00:47:54Guest:He wanted to kill Johnny Carson.

00:47:56Guest:I really believe that Frank Sinatra, because Frank Sinatra told me the story and Jilly told me the story.

00:48:00Guest:Yeah.

00:48:00Guest:I was appearing on The Tonight Show.

00:48:02Guest:You know, I did 61 appearances on The Tonight Show, so I was always doing a spot.

00:48:06Guest:And one time I was on The Tonight Show on a weeknight, and I was going into Las Vegas to open for Frank at the MGM Grand.

00:48:13Guest:And when I got there, Jilly says to me, gee, I saw you on The Tonight Show.

00:48:17Guest:And you never even mentioned that you were coming here.

00:48:20Guest:I said, I put it in the credits.

00:48:22Guest:You know, Johnny introduces you.

00:48:23Guest:I said, but for some reason, about Frank Sinatra, Johnny jumps over the story sometimes.

00:48:27Guest:Sometimes they'd say, if you got to, you know, as a talent coordinator, say, when you sit down to talk to Johnny after you do your stand-up, give us some funny lead-ins.

00:48:35Guest:So I'd say, I got a funny story about Frank and I in a bar one night, and Johnny would jump over that story.

00:48:40Guest:What year is that?

00:48:42Guest:This is back in the 80s.

00:48:44Guest:Yeah.

00:48:45Guest:In the late 80s.

00:48:47Guest:86, 87.

00:48:48Guest:Anyhow, so now I tell Jilly, I said, geez, and I've seen Johnny at Frank's house in Malibu and everything, and Frank liked Johnny, and Johnny liked him.

00:48:57Guest:But Jilly, he said, Johnny's got a strange relationship.

00:49:01Guest:with Frank.

00:49:02Guest:He's a little nervous around Frank.

00:49:03Guest:And Julie proceeds to tell me this story.

00:49:06Guest:Yeah.

00:49:06Guest:And this is the story he told me and this is exactly the same story Frank told me three weeks later.

00:49:11Guest:Julie says that when Johnny Carson was a new talk show host in New York, he'd been on the air about two years.

00:49:18Guest:Yeah.

00:49:18Guest:He was a new young star, young kid.

00:49:20Guest:As you know, he went from a game show to being host of The Tonight Show in New York.

00:49:24Guest:Well, he'd go out and drink after the shows with Ed McMahon, who was a good drinker.

00:49:30Guest:Johnny, by his own admission his whole life, was a bad drinker.

00:49:33Guest:A couple of drinks, and he'd act like a high school sophomore sometimes.

00:49:35Guest:This is a naval officer, a college grad, a well-educated guy, but a couple of drinks, and he acted foolish.

00:49:43Guest:When I was a bartender,

00:49:45Guest:My buddies, I always said, I watch them, two drinks, they'd either become one of the three R's.

00:49:50Guest:They'd either become Rocky Marchand, or they want to fight everybody in the place.

00:49:54Guest:Or they become Rudolph Valentino, and they want to fuck everybody in the place.

00:49:56Guest:Or they become Rip Van Winkle, and they just don't.

00:49:59Guest:Alcoholics reacted to each one differently.

00:50:02Yeah.

00:50:02Guest:You know, anyhow, Johnny Carson was like that guy.

00:50:06Guest:You want to screw every round of a couple of drinks.

00:50:08Guest:So Julie tells a story that one night, you know, we've got to digress about crazy Joey Gallo.

00:50:14Guest:At those days, there were five dons in New York, you know, don of Queens, the don of Brooklyn, the don of Manhattan, different dons, and the five dons of New York.

00:50:22Guest:And you could not...

00:50:24Guest:hit anybody kill anybody or anything according to mafia legend until you got approval from the top you didn't do that on your own you had to go out and get approval you don't no one gets whacked unless they all get together and agree upon this yeah joey yellow didn't give a damn he did what he wanted to do you know they wanted only to see and he brought black guys in from harlem and to run numbers and he was a renegade i

00:50:47Guest:I think he killed the guy.

00:50:48Marc:Was this after he did jail time, right?

00:50:50Marc:And he was like, fuck it.

00:50:51Guest:Yeah.

00:50:52Guest:He was one of those kind of guys you don't want to mess with.

00:50:54Guest:He was really kind of crazy.

00:50:55Guest:That's why they call him crazy, Jimmy Gallo.

00:50:57Guest:Anyhow.

00:50:59Guest:What family was he in?

00:51:00Guest:Do you know?

00:51:00Guest:I think what they were saying, either with— Was it the Gambino?

00:51:07Guest:It was either with the Gambino.

00:51:08Guest:But whatever it was, he pulled out from them.

00:51:10Guest:I understand.

00:51:11Guest:And he went on his own, and he was doing everything on his own.

00:51:14Guest:It was only a matter of time.

00:51:16Guest:But again, he was a crazy guy, and he hung around with crazy guys.

00:51:19Guest:So Crazy Joey Gallo comes in Julie's bar.

00:51:22Guest:Julie had a bar on West 48th Street.

00:51:24Guest:And that bar, all the...

00:51:26Guest:cops and robbers hung out there.

00:51:28Marc:The FBI would come in there, you know, the heads of... That was like Switzerland?

00:51:33Marc:That was like, you know, that was where you go and, you know, and you left the work outside?

00:51:37Guest:Well, but there was a lot of, you know, peeking in on, you know, the FBI especially, you know.

00:51:42Guest:But anyhow, long story short, all the celebrities hung out there.

00:51:45Guest:It was the place to go.

00:51:46Guest:Okay.

00:51:46Guest:And Frank went there, of course, you know.

00:51:47Guest:And so anyhow, this particular night, crazy Joey Galli comes in with two girls.

00:51:51Guest:Yeah.

00:51:51Guest:What we Italians call gommades, you know, gommades.

00:51:54Guest:If you're married, if you're single and you have a girlfriend, she's your girlfriend.

00:51:58Guest:But if you're married and you have a girlfriend, she's your gommade.

00:52:01Guest:Yeah.

00:52:01Guest:And your gommade is really someone special.

00:52:03Guest:Uh-huh.

00:52:04Guest:You know, gommades.

00:52:05Guest:In Chicago, I used to joke the wise guys had three birthdays, three holidays.

00:52:08Guest:Yeah.

00:52:08Guest:Guys.

00:52:09Guest:St.

00:52:09Guest:Joseph's birthday, St.

00:52:10Guest:Rocco's birthday, and December 23rd, that was gommade Christmas Eve.

00:52:15Guest:Yeah.

00:52:16Guest:Later, I'll tell you the greatest gamadi joke.

00:52:18Guest:But anyhow, he's in... Joey Gallo comes in with these two gamads and two guys.

00:52:25Guest:And he says, Jilly, I need to use the back room to talk to the guys.

00:52:28Guest:And Jilly said, yeah, they go in the back room and the two girls are at the bar and they got mini skirts on.

00:52:33Guest:It's one in those years.

00:52:34Guest:Anyhow, moments later, Johnny Carson walks in with Ed McMahon and Johnny's had a lot to drink.

00:52:39Guest:So he...

00:52:40Guest:And this is the way Julie told me the story.

00:52:42Guest:He sees the girls and he's walking.

00:52:43Guest:People start to recognize John.

00:52:44Guest:He puts his fingers around, shh, shh.

00:52:46Guest:And he sneaks up behind the girl and he puts his hand up her dress and she lets out a scream.

00:52:50Guest:He puts his hand up her miniskirt.

00:52:52Guest:Screaming, hey, gotcha.

00:52:54Guest:She's screaming and screaming.

00:52:55Guest:And Julie turns around and he sees it and he goes, oh, gee.

00:52:57Guest:Julie jumps over the bar.

00:52:59Guest:And he comes up and he grabs Johnny Carson and he said to Ed McMahon, get him out of here.

00:53:03Guest:Get him the fuck out of here now.

00:53:06Guest:So Ed had the wherewithal to get Johnny out of there.

00:53:08Guest:Meanwhile, she can't stop screaming.

00:53:10Guest:The girl can't stop screaming.

00:53:11Guest:Crazy Joey comes out, funny comes out of the back, and she's hyperventilating now.

00:53:16Guest:And Joey's, what's wrong?

00:53:17Guest:What's wrong?

00:53:18Guest:What happened?

00:53:18Guest:And Joey said, she's going, and he smacks her.

00:53:21Guest:Joey smacks her, and she hits the ground.

00:53:23Guest:She goes, Johnny Carson, reach up under my dress and grab me.

00:53:26Guest:He went out the door, and Joey Gallo goes crazy.

00:53:29Guest:He looks at the two guys.

00:53:31Guest:Go find him.

00:53:32Guest:Go find him right now.

00:53:34Guest:Go find him.

00:53:35Guest:Beat his fucking brains in.

00:53:37Guest:Cut his cock off and stick in his mouth.

00:53:39Guest:Hear what I'm saying?

00:53:40Guest:Stick it in his mouth, that son of a bitch.

00:53:42Guest:And then they run out the door.

00:53:43Guest:He turns on Jilly.

00:53:44Guest:You son of a bitch.

00:53:45Guest:You let this matter go on.

00:53:47Guest:You know, you let this guy.

00:53:49Guest:And Jilly said, Joey, I didn't know.

00:53:51Guest:I mean, I'm behind the bar.

00:53:52Guest:I'm working.

00:53:52Guest:I mean, I didn't know.

00:53:53Guest:And he's pacing and he's going back and forth.

00:53:56Guest:And these guys come in.

00:53:58Guest:And they're all full of sweat.

00:54:00Guest:They couldn't find him.

00:54:00Guest:And Joey leaves with him.

00:54:01Guest:Now, the words all over Manhattan, Johnny's a dead man.

00:54:05Guest:Johnny's dead.

00:54:05Guest:The next day, Dave Tebbett from NBC was a big guy with NBC for years.

00:54:09Guest:Comes in and Jilly said, he talked to me.

00:54:11Guest:He said, Jilly, it's all over town what happened last night.

00:54:14Guest:Can you go talk to Joey Gallo for me?

00:54:16Guest:For Johnny.

00:54:17Guest:And Jilly said, me?

00:54:18Guest:Talk to Joey Gallo.

00:54:19Guest:The five dons of New York can't talk to him.

00:54:21Guest:I'm going to talk to him.

00:54:22Guest:He said, could you ask Frank?

00:54:23Yeah.

00:54:23Guest:Julia, of course, takes it to Frank.

00:54:25Guest:Frank had already heard about what was going on.

00:54:27Guest:And he said, Dave Tebert wants to know if you'll talk to crazy Joey Gullin.

00:54:31Guest:And Frank says what Julie said.

00:54:33Guest:He said, me?

00:54:34Guest:The Five Dons of New York can't talk to him.

00:54:36Guest:I'm going to talk to him.

00:54:36Guest:I'm a singer.

00:54:38Guest:Anyhow, long story short, Johnny's coming in with security and everything and hiding.

00:54:45Guest:And like a week goes by, Frank's appearing in New York.

00:54:48Guest:Crazy Joey Gallo, and now this is Jilly telling me the story, and then Frank telling me the same story.

00:54:53Guest:Crazy Joey brings his family there to see the show, and they had a couple tables, and after the show brought everybody backstage.

00:55:00Guest:And Jilly said, and they're all visiting and everything, and Frank signing autographs and taking pictures and everything.

00:55:05Guest:And they're leaving, and no one's left in the dressing room, but Jilly and Frank and Joey Gallo.

00:55:09Guest:And Joey says to Frank, thank you for what you did.

00:55:12Guest:Thank you for treating my mom so well, blah, blah, blah.

00:55:15Guest:And they said, and I love you, Cheech.

00:55:17Guest:You know, in Italian, the guy's name is Frank.

00:55:20Guest:It's Francesco, or they call him Cheech.

00:55:22Guest:He said, I love you, Cheech.

00:55:23Guest:And Frank said, he said, if you ever need anything, let me know.

00:55:26Guest:And Frank said, there is something.

00:55:28Guest:Now, you'd have to visually see this.

00:55:30Guest:Joey Gallo goes up and he's standing right next to Frank's face.

00:55:33Guest:He said, name it.

00:55:34Guest:And he opens his hands up like, name it, you know, open it.

00:55:37Guest:And Frank said, Johnny Carson and Joey Gallo's eyes got real.

00:55:40Guest:And he grabs Frank's mouth.

00:55:42Guest:He grabs his hand on his mouth, on Frank's mouth real hard.

00:55:45Guest:And he's holding Frank's mouth, you know, with his hand like this.

00:55:48Guest:And he said, you stick up for that piece of shit.

00:55:51Guest:That scumbag who put his hand up.

00:55:54Guest:Now he took his hand on Frank's face and Jilly said, you could see his fingerprints on Frank.

00:55:58Guest:He's holding the voice that hard.

00:56:00Guest:Yeah.

00:56:00Guest:And he said, you stick up for that piece.

00:56:02Guest:And Frank said, Joey, he didn't know that was your good mind.

00:56:05Guest:He said, I don't give a damn.

00:56:06Guest:I don't give a damn.

00:56:07Guest:Whatever woman.

00:56:08Guest:He thinks because he's got a talk show because he's a talk show host.

00:56:12Guest:He can do that to women.

00:56:13Guest:He said, he's dead.

00:56:14Guest:He's dead.

00:56:15Guest:And Frank said, you asked me if you could do something for me.

00:56:19Guest:He's so sorry.

00:56:21Guest:He would come right now on his hands and knees to you, but he knows you're a man of respect.

00:56:24Guest:He's terrified.

00:56:25Guest:He would come and apologize himself, but he's terrified.

00:56:28Guest:And he said, he's so sorry for what he did.

00:56:31Guest:Anyhow, so he said, I'm asking you, can you give the kid a break?

00:56:35Guest:Can you just give him a break?

00:56:36Guest:And Jilly told this story, and Frank told it the same way.

00:56:39Guest:He started pacing back and forth by the door.

00:56:42Guest:And every time he'd stop it, he'd look at Frank, and he'd start pacing again.

00:56:46Guest:And finally, he went to the door, he opened up the door to go out, and he turned around and he said to Frank and Jilly, he said, you tell Johnny Carson that he breathes, because he knows Frank Sinatra.

00:56:55Guest:And he slapped his hands like blackjack dealers when they're done with their shift.

00:56:59Guest:He said, tell him he breathes, because he knows Frank Sinatra.

00:57:02Guest:And that was it.

00:57:03Guest:Now, six months go by, and Frank told this story, too.

00:57:09Guest:In those days, those guys are crazy, Frank and those guys.

00:57:11Guest:Sometimes they'd have cherry bombs.

00:57:12Guest:They'd throw them out of the limo.

00:57:13Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:57:14Guest:Boom.

00:57:15Guest:Johnny comes in after six months.

00:57:16Guest:It's all clear.

00:57:17Guest:He's in a booth with a girl at Zilly's Bar.

00:57:20Guest:And Frank rolled a cherry bomb underneath his booth.

00:57:23Guest:And when it went off, ba-boom.

00:57:24Guest:Yeah.

00:57:25Guest:And there's an old, you've watched the reruns of the Tonight Show.

00:57:28Guest:There's one of them where Ed McMahon says to Johnny Carson, what did you do last night?

00:57:34Guest:He said, well, I went around the town, hit some of the places.

00:57:36Guest:He said, those guys at Jilly's have a very strange sense of humor.

00:57:40Guest:But it's from that night.

00:57:41Guest:The only reason I told this story is for Henry Buskin to say as a young lawyer, he went and resolved this.

00:57:48Guest:There was only Frank Sinatra could have saved Johnny Carson's life.

00:57:51Guest:I really believe that.

00:57:52Marc:And then you think like, but you know, Frank was on The Tonight Show a lot, but it was always a little weird because Johnny knew that.

00:57:58Guest:You know, if I did that for you, Mark, if you did some dumb thing when you were drinking one night, and somebody was gonna kill you, and I did a favor for you,

00:58:07Guest:As good as friends say we are, you would still feel uncomfortable around me, or I would anyhow.

00:58:13Guest:Every time I'd see you, I'd just feel uncomfortable.

00:58:15Marc:Well, you know what Johnny knows is that that guy's the real fucking deal, right?

00:58:20Marc:Is that Johnny knew that if he could save his life, he could end it.

00:58:26Marc:You put that very well.

00:58:27Marc:You know what I mean?

00:58:29Marc:A favor is a favor.

00:58:31Marc:But you never had any problem with them ever?

00:58:33Guest:With the wise guys?

00:58:34Guest:Yeah.

00:58:34Guest:You know, in Chicago, I knew those guys.

00:58:37Guest:I did shows for them.

00:58:38Guest:There was a charity called Unico.

00:58:40Guest:Yeah.

00:58:40Guest:And it was an Italian charity.

00:58:42Guest:And every year, they had a golf tournament.

00:58:43Guest:Yeah.

00:58:44Guest:And every year, they'd hire a comedian.

00:58:45Guest:Yeah.

00:58:46Guest:And they'd ask me to do it one year.

00:58:48Guest:And then the next three years, I would get other comedians.

00:58:50Guest:I got Jay Leno, the gig, Johnny Campanaro.

00:58:53Guest:Uh-huh.

00:58:54Guest:And they'd take care of you.

00:58:56Guest:But...

00:58:56Guest:And so, you know, Jackie Cerrone at that time was running the Chicago Mile.

00:59:01Guest:And so he was the head of that golf tournament.

00:59:05Guest:And they'd come and talk to me.

00:59:06Guest:And, you know, when I worked with Frank, they were always in the audience.

00:59:10Guest:Were they?

00:59:12Guest:Yeah.

00:59:13Guest:To a fault.

00:59:14Guest:At one point, Frank no longer wanted that...

00:59:18Guest:But Jilly kept the connection.

00:59:21Guest:To the point that even at one time, Frank... Jilly didn't work with us for almost two years.

00:59:25Guest:He went to work for Pia Zadora.

00:59:27Guest:Yeah.

00:59:27Guest:Because Barbara Sinatra took the heat.

00:59:30Guest:Frank would... They'd say, well, Barbara doesn't want these guys backstage.

00:59:34Guest:And it really was Frank, to be honest with you.

00:59:36Guest:Right.

00:59:37Guest:So these guys would come and hang around Caesars, wherever we worked at, and these wannabe guys, and they would, you know, they'd say to me, they'd say, hey, Tommy, what did you...

00:59:46Guest:would you and your old man have dinner?

00:59:48Guest:I said, yeah.

00:59:49Guest:What did he have?

00:59:49Guest:I said, well, he had linguine and clam sauce and he likes a little garlic roll.

00:59:53Guest:I said, oh, yeah.

00:59:53Guest:Then they would go tell everybody, yeah, I had dinner with Frank last night.

00:59:56Guest:He had linguine and clam sauce.

00:59:58Guest:I knew what they were doing.

01:00:00Marc:And, uh,

01:00:01Marc:So, but did you, how close were you with Dean, ultimately?

01:00:06Marc:Did you just play golf a couple times?

01:00:07Guest:Yeah, but I did the Dean Martin roast, you know, and then I did some shows with Dean, you know.

01:00:12Guest:He was so great to be around.

01:00:15Guest:Dean wouldn't say anything all day long, and then he'd say one line, and you'd fall off the chair.

01:00:19Guest:Yeah.

01:00:20Guest:He always had these clever lines.

01:00:22Guest:Dick Martin thought that Dean Martin was one of the greatest comedians of our time, even though he was not known as a comedian.

01:00:27Guest:He was a very clever guy.

01:00:29Guest:But Frank, he made Frank laugh all the time.

01:00:33Guest:I'll tell you a great story.

01:00:35Guest:Frank was using the teleprompters.

01:00:37Guest:As he got older in life, he was forgetting lyrics, so he would use the teleprompters.

01:00:41Guest:And then...

01:00:41Guest:And just knowing they were there, he would do the whole show sometimes and not even look at them.

01:00:46Guest:But sometimes if he felt it, he would look at the talent partners.

01:00:48Guest:But he's trying to get Dean to do that.

01:00:51Guest:Dean was doing half songs in Vegas and not finishing the whole song and getting a lot of letters.

01:00:56Guest:to the president of the hotel.

01:00:58Guest:Really?

01:00:59Guest:Bernie Rothkopf came to him and dumped 1,800 letters on Dean's dressing room and said, we're getting calls.

01:01:06Guest:Dean would forget the lyrics or something like that.

01:01:09Guest:Is it because he didn't give a fuck?

01:01:10Guest:Yeah, partially and partially because he'd have a couple of drinks or something.

01:01:13Guest:But he...

01:01:14Guest:So Frank's trying to get him to do the teleprompters.

01:01:17Guest:He said, they call each other Dag, short for Dag-o.

01:01:20Guest:Hey, Dag.

01:01:21Guest:And by the way, I'm on a show a while back, and the guy said, boy, they couldn't do that today.

01:01:24Guest:I said, they couldn't do what?

01:01:25Guest:Well, they couldn't call each other Dag.

01:01:27Guest:I said, why?

01:01:28Guest:He said, well, no, that's politically incorrect.

01:01:29Guest:I said, I'd like to be in a room.

01:01:31Guest:I'd hope he'd be on the 17th floor when you tell Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra, hey, you guys can't call each other that.

01:01:36Guest:Open up a window, you're going out the window.

01:01:38Guest:Anyhow, so Frank's on his ass, on Dean's ass to get the teleprompters.

01:01:43Guest:Yeah.

01:01:43Guest:So, and finally, you know, Frank and I work in Detroit at the Fox Theater.

01:01:47Guest:We did a matinee and we're in a suite and we're watching a football game and the phone rings and it's Dean Martin's manager, Mort Viner.

01:01:54Guest:And he says that Dean used the teleprompters last night in Las Vegas and he loves them.

01:01:58Guest:He came off stage and said, book me on a world tour.

01:02:01Guest:These things are great.

01:02:02Guest:Frank said, yeah.

01:02:03Guest:Get him on the phone.

01:02:04Guest:Get him on the phone.

01:02:05Guest:You know, he gets him on the phone.

01:02:07Guest:He said, hey, Dag, damn it, I'm telling you for years.

01:02:10Guest:These young kids, they use those plugs in their ears.

01:02:11Guest:They heard the lyrics in their ears.

01:02:13Guest:You know, we're not getting any younger, and I've been after you for years.

01:02:15Guest:Damn it, you're just such a hard head.

01:02:17Guest:And Dean's going, yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:02:18Guest:Dean says, where are you guys at?

01:02:20Guest:He said, hold on one second.

01:02:21Guest:He said, Tommy, where are we at?

01:02:23Guest:I said, we're in Detroit.

01:02:24Guest:He said, we're in Detroit.

01:02:25Guest:Dean said, did you have to look in the fucking teleprompter to find out where you're at?

01:02:29Guest:Yeah.

01:02:29Guest:And Frank threw the phone down on the floor and said he got me again.

01:02:36Marc:I love those stories.

01:02:38Marc:Well, it's good seeing you, man.

01:02:39Marc:I'm glad we did it.

01:02:41Marc:I'm glad we did a couple good mob stories and you're doing all right?

01:02:46Guest:Yeah, I'm doing real good.

01:02:47Guest:Yeah, life is really good.

01:02:48Guest:I want to point out that I grew up, the Italian people in my family were hardworking decent people and they hated mafia.

01:02:56Guest:They really hated the whole thing about it.

01:02:58Guest:The biggest problem was, and we can close with this, the movie The Godfather glorified what they did.

01:03:06Guest:The movie The Godfather glorified what they did.

01:03:10Guest:And after that, all of a sudden, everybody with an Italian name thought, hey, cool, I'll get more respect if I, because they saw the movie The Godfather.

01:03:18Guest:It glorified what they did.

01:03:21Guest:Godfather III was the biggest mistake of all.

01:03:24Guest:What it should have been was Godfather III should have been that now everybody is legitimate.

01:03:29Guest:When Michael Corleone, he got everybody in the family in the legitimate businesses.

01:03:34Guest:That should have been Godfather III.

01:03:35Guest:Now, they're all working for major corporations in America, and they're even in the FBI.

01:03:40Guest:The CIA, he got them all legitimate, and he backs off.

01:03:45Marc:But instead, it was about the pope, right?

01:03:47Guest:I can't remember.

01:03:48Marc:Yeah.

01:03:48Guest:But what the movie should have been was now what they find out is while they're in legitimate businesses, they're not much different from the mafia.

01:03:55Guest:They can kill you, but in a different way.

01:03:57Guest:They just kill your career, destroy everything about you.

01:03:59Guest:You know, and so what that would have been, then he would have said, just when I tried to get out, he comes back in.

01:04:06Guest:Because even though they're in legitimate power structure of our country, there's also... There's still morally compromised.

01:04:14Marc:Exactly.

01:04:16Marc:And...

01:04:16Marc:Did you ever know guys that got destroyed by the mob?

01:04:20Marc:Guys that got whacked by them?

01:04:21Marc:Not whacked or just, you know, ruined.

01:04:23Guest:Well, first of all, Tony Spolatro, the movie Joe Pesci did at Casino.

01:04:30Guest:He was from Chicago.

01:04:30Guest:I knew him.

01:04:31Guest:And his brother Michael used to come to my shows when I did charity shows.

01:04:34Marc:The guy that Joe Pesci played in Casino?

01:04:36Marc:Oh, my God.

01:04:36Guest:Joe Pesci came to me before he did it.

01:04:39Guest:And he said, Tommy, I know you knew him.

01:04:41Guest:Tell me some things about him because he was studying how we could play him.

01:04:45Guest:He was a mean little guy.

01:04:48Guest:But when I was in Vegas, if he'd seen me now, he was blackballed.

01:04:52Guest:He was on the blacklist in the black book.

01:04:54Guest:He was blackballed from all the casinos.

01:04:55Guest:You know where I saw him at?

01:04:56Guest:Where?

01:04:56Guest:In the casinos.

01:04:57Guest:Yeah.

01:04:58Guest:If I saw him, he'd see me and he'd be with some guys.

01:05:02Guest:He'd say, Tommy, come here.

01:05:03Guest:He'd introduce me to the guys and he'd say, Tommy, he's from Chicago.

01:05:06Guest:That's great.

01:05:07Marc:Did Joe Pesci do a good job with him?

01:05:09Guest:He did a great job.

01:05:11Guest:Jeez.

01:05:11Guest:Joe Pesci is one brilliant actor.

01:05:13Guest:Forget about winning the Academy Award, which he did win.

01:05:18Guest:What about comedy?

01:05:19Guest:Joe, he'll make your hair stand on him when he plays one of those guys, because he knew those guys, too.

01:05:25Guest:But he also did Cousin Vinny.

01:05:27Guest:I'm going to have you on the floor.

01:05:28Marc:No, he's very funny.

01:05:29Marc:So is Frank Vincent, I think.

01:05:30Guest:Oh, yeah.

01:05:31Guest:Can I tell you a quick, Joe Pesci, something?

01:05:33Guest:I'm in the locker room, and I'm shaving.

01:05:36Guest:Where?

01:05:37Guest:At Lakeside Country Club.

01:05:38Guest:I'm a member, and Joe's a member there.

01:05:40Marc:This is out here?

01:05:41Guest:Yeah, in Tuluka Lake.

01:05:43Guest:Yeah.

01:05:44Guest:So Joe and I remember the same country club, but I've known him even before that.

01:05:48Guest:He's been a friend for a lot of years.

01:05:49Guest:But he comes in the dressing room one day, and they were going to do Cousin Vinny, too.

01:05:53Guest:But they didn't do it because Melissa Torme did not want to do that.

01:05:57Guest:She didn't want to play that.

01:05:58Guest:She won the Academy Award for that character.

01:06:01Guest:So I'm shaving, and Joe comes in the men's room, and he says,

01:06:05Guest:He said, you know, they may do Cousin Vinny too.

01:06:07Guest:And if they do, I'd like to put some of my friends in the film.

01:06:12Guest:And I'm shaving.

01:06:13Guest:He said, Tommy, you can't act, can't you?

01:06:15Guest:And I put the razor down.

01:06:16Guest:I said, Joe, over 40 years at that time, I've been in the business.

01:06:20Guest:And you say something like that to me that makes me so fucking mad.

01:06:23Guest:that you would ask me a question like that that you can act.

01:06:26Guest:He said, Tommy, I'm asking.

01:06:28Guest:I said, Joe, I'm acting.

01:06:30Guest:Now, this is what he goes.

01:06:31Guest:He goes, oh.

01:06:33Guest:Now, he wasn't impressed at all.

01:06:34Guest:He said, anyhow, if I do get these things, I'll have you come and read for a part.

01:06:38Guest:I said, wait a minute, Joe.

01:06:39Guest:Cousin Vinny, you're the star of the show.

01:06:41Guest:I got to fucking read.

01:06:43Guest:I got to fucking read.

01:06:44Guest:And you're the star.

01:06:45Guest:You're the big guy and I got to read.

01:06:46Guest:He said, Tommy, actors read for parts.

01:06:49Guest:I said, Joe, I'm acting.

01:06:51Guest:He said, fuck you.

01:06:52Guest:You couldn't get a spot in this movie if you financed the movie.

01:06:55Guest:You understand that?

01:06:56Guest:Fuck you.

01:06:56Guest:And he turns around and he walks out and I go out and I said, Joe, I'm only kidding.

01:06:59Marc:He said, Tommy, I'm acting.

01:07:04Guest:He got you.

01:07:05Marc:He got me.

01:07:05Marc:Good talking to you again.

01:07:07Marc:You too.

01:07:12Marc:Okay, that was Tom.

01:07:14Marc:Good stories, right?

01:07:15Marc:The book is called Still Standing, My Journey from Streets and Saloons to the Stage and Sinatra.

01:07:21Marc:You know, Tom's very funny.

01:07:22Marc:He's always very complimentary.

01:07:23Marc:The first appearance on the show, he always comes up and he says, I get more feedback from that than when I did Carson.

01:07:29Marc:But anyway, it was nice to talk to Tom.

01:07:32Marc:Hang out for a minute, folks.

01:07:35Marc:For all you Full Marin listeners, I answered a lot of your questions for a new Ask Mark Anything bonus episode that went up this week.

01:07:43Marc:Do you have any phobias?

01:07:44Marc:Doesn't need to be clinically recognized.

01:07:46Marc:Just anything that particularly scares you or creeps you out.

01:07:51Marc:I don't like being scared by things in the moment, but there's very few things that I'm scared of in a way that is sort of ongoing.

01:08:00Marc:I don't like being startled by, you know, wild animals, insects, humans.

01:08:09Marc:But that's not really a phobia.

01:08:10Marc:I would say that my longest and sort of pronounced phobia is of water I cannot see the bottom of.

01:08:18Marc:large bodies of water or even smaller bodies of water that are too deep for me to assess.

01:08:24Marc:I think I have a fear of that.

01:08:27Marc:I don't love flying.

01:08:28Marc:I'm afraid of it, but I've had to accept and live with that one.

01:08:32Marc:I love the idea of plummeting out of the air.

01:08:36Marc:I have a terrible fear of being T-boned in my car.

01:08:40Marc:There was an accident that happened in Albuquerque where a drunk driver was barreling down a side street

01:08:47Marc:So fast, ran a stop sign and struck, broadsided another car, but drove right through it.

01:08:55Marc:It hit it and soared over it and decapitated four people in it.

01:09:00Marc:Being T-boned in a car is really my day-to-day most active fear because I'm not out on the ocean all the time.

01:09:11Marc:I don't like flying over water either.

01:09:13Marc:That's a double whammy.

01:09:15Marc:I'm so afraid the combination of flying and flying over large bodies of water is just horrifying to me.

01:09:22Marc:The idea of crashing into the water and just being strapped into a seat at the bottom of the ocean is probably metaphorically the loneliest image ever.

01:09:32Marc:I can possibly even think of, even though I'll be dead.

01:09:36Marc:But that one really gets me.

01:09:39Marc:I got to do a lot of fucking be in the moment kind of stuff.

01:09:44Marc:A lot of self-talk flying over those large bodies of water.

01:09:47Marc:You can get that episode along with all the bonus material we've been doing for the past year by signing up for the full Marin.

01:09:53Marc:Just click on the link in the episode description or go to WTFPod.com and click on WTF Plus.

01:10:01Marc:And now I'm working on this fairly unknown Velvet Underground song.

01:10:08Marc:Don't tell anybody that that's what I'm playing.

01:10:10Marc:Because it could be anything.

01:10:11Marc:Could be anything.

01:10:15.

01:10:39Thank you.

01:11:02guitar solo

01:11:29Guest:guitar solo

01:11:51guitar solo

01:12:22guitar solo

01:12:52guitar solo

01:13:22Marc:Boomer lives.

01:13:24Marc:Monkey LaFonda.

01:13:26Marc:Cat angels everywhere.