Posted on 02/15/2006 11:04:31 AM PST by Fedora
That sounds right to me. One thing that strikes me is the contrast between his persona and the amount of power he wields, which makes more sense if he's wielding that power on someone else's behalf.
The issue of his gangland connections was discussed in the latest book on FS---written by his long time valet---a very perceptive man.
It seems that Frank's attraction to the mob was not b/c they rubbed people out---but b/c they were skilled businessman, and knew how to make money, especially in Las Vegas and Hollywood.
The valet wrote how people in the entertainment business gravitated to the mob for financing projects b/c they took the financial risks Wall St would not.
That was then. It's a lot different now.
Thanks, Howlin :-) I found this the most interesting of the four Reid articles to research.
LOL! I've been here, making mischief :-)
An FBI agent told the LA Times in its June, 1982 series on the Perainos that Hollywood doesn't care about dirty money. "If you find that, in general, the people who should be your witnesses are not willing to give you the sweat off their brow, then you realize that you are faced with a situation where there is a community acceptance of a set of standards that might be offensive in some areas, but not here. And we have to look at it that way, just like we look at pornography, based on community standards. Unfortunately, we have a set of standards about how to finance motion pictures in Hollywood that is incredibly lax. In the last ten years or so, we've made six or seven efforts to try to ferret our allegations of organized crime in the movie business. And we got zero support from the industry. They don't view it as a threat. It's good money to them. It's a way of life, condoned, even embraced. Nobody wants to expose it." (LA Times 6/15/82)
Fedora, thank you for your research and this excellent post! It seems to me we need to make the Mob Repulicans...then they could lean on Reid!!
All this needs is a connection to the Clintons, and we would have a unified theory of democrats!
You know, I may be showing my age, but we just don't have good scandalous stars anymore, do we?
I did notice the other day that Sinatra's FBI file mentioned Giancana vacationing in Hot Springs in the 1960s, which got me thinking along those lines.
These guys may have hung out with the mob, but they weren't weasels. We don't have stars like this today. Sean Penn? George Clooney? Pfui.
"The democratic party is a criminal enterprise."
I have yet to be dissuaded from the truth of that statement.
Frank's Kennedy connections is a corker of a story.
According to the valet, Frank went ballistic when JFK, as president, cancelled the visit planned to Frank's Palm Springs home which he had decked out lavishly for the JFK entourage.
Frank went in and tore the whole place apart, he was so angry. JFK ended up staying with Bing Crosby who was a card-carrying Republican.
Earlier, Frank had outdone himself campaigning for JFK, putting on a show, getting all the stars to the convention.....only Dean Martin refused to go. Dean was pissed that JFK didn't want Sammy Davis Jr around b/c he was black and marrying a white woman.
Also, some believe Dean was a closet Republican.
The valet claims Jackie Kennedy hated Frank and did not want JFK to associate with him b/c of the easy women Frank could make available to JFK. BTW, the nickname for the infamous Kennedy Compound was "Hyanusport."
The valet says JFK wanted him to tell all he knew of the Hwood sex gossip---who was sleeping with who, etc. But apparently JFK was all talk, and did not partake of the goodies.
Bobby screwed Sam Giancana royally after he had helped get Chicago to go for JFK. Bobby turned around as USAG and began harrassing Giancana. Talk about ungrateful.
Later, Frank became close friends with the Reagans.
You'd give your left arm to nail me wouldn't you? I could see the headlines now, 'Local Deputy Captures Johnny Rocco'. Your picture'd be in all the papers. You might even get to tell on the newsreels how you pulled if off, yeah. Listen hick, I was too much for any big city police force to handle. It took the United States Government to pin a rap on me. And they won't make it stick. You hick, I'll be back pulling strings to get guys elected mayor and governor before you get a ten buck raise.
Outside investors looking to invest in Hollywood is a story as old as the movie business itself. Over the years, money has poured in from Japan, Germany and Britain, as well as from U.S. billionaires like Philip F. Anschutz and Jeff Skoll, the co-founder of eBay Inc.
There have been a few success stories but lots of train wrecks for reasons ranging from Hollywood's exotic accounting ways to simply betting on the wrong star at the wrong time.
The latest slant has involved private equity funds that are flush with cash and looking for higher returns than are available on Wall Street. Over the past year, much of the action has involved outright acquisitions of property, such as Warner Music Group, Concord Records and DreamWorks Music Publishing.
Thanks for the summary. I'd heard the gist of that, though not some of the details you have there. I remember when Frank got mad at the Kennedys he smashed up a private landing pad he had built for them or something like that. . .Yes, the Kennedy connections get interesting. I didn't get into the full scope of that because of the focus on Reid but that whole area is intriguing.
I think that's a pretty accurate statement.
The part of a lifetime.
Academy award winners.
Was that the TV broadcast?
I saw that.
He did it his way!
Interesting. . .
BTW on old-fashioned Hollywood scandals and connections to the Clintons, I think that Pellicano thing might track back to some of this stuff from earlier eras--need to pull together my thoughts on that sometime, but that's been my impression.
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