Music

Musicians were guests on many of the shows that aired over my last two weeks. Jon Bon Jovi brought along a pair of bright red suspenders for me to wear on my final show. Celine Dion sang John Lennon’s “Imagine.” Barbra Streisand opened up her home. Garth Brooks took the time to talk with people on our staff in a way that made them feel as special as he is. Stevie Wonder composed a song for me. It had a rhyme I wasn’t quite expecting.

Larry, I’m gonna miss ya.
If you were a woman, I’d kiss ya.


I’ve always had an affinity for musicians. I’ve never really thought of this until now, but in a way it was a musician who gave me my start—or at least a sense of what I was to become. The first celebrity I ever interviewed was a singer. I never even asked for the interview. Bobby Darin just showed up one morning out of the blue.
I’d just left my first job for another station. The new station worked out a deal for me to broadcast live from a deli in Miami Beach called Pumpernik’s. The hour after breakfast was slow at the restaurant, and the owner figured the show might bring some traffic. It was a very simple setup. After the early morning broadcast from the station, I walked over to the deli and picked the show up from there. The deli had an elevated platform with a table, a couple of chairs, and a microphone— that was it. Jerry Seinfeld said that when he watched Larry King Live he always felt like the show was coming from a deli. That’s probably because my style was formed at Pumpernik’s. I hadn’t done much interviewing before then. All of a sudden I was talking to anyone who came over—waiters, plumbers, conventioneers. An eight-year-old kid could venture over to the microphone. Anything could happen. There was no way to prepare. I never knew who was going to be in front of me. Fifty-three years later, my ideal guest would still be someone interesting who walks over and surprises me.

After about two weeks, Darin walked in. He had trouble sleeping at night, and he’d heard me promote the show from the studio early that morning. I loved “Mack the Knife” but I really didn’t know anything about him. We spoke for an hour on the air, then took a long walk along the beach. Darin started confiding in me. He was born with a rheumatic heart and he knew he wasn’t going to live a long life, so he tried to pack everything he could into every single day. The conversation was the kind you’d have with an old friend. It was as if, on that day, he showed me the music that was inside me.

Musicians are always giving us gifts. One of the best is that they can bring us back in time and make us feel young again. At breakfast the other day, I recalled a song that Bob Marley sang. It was called “Kaya.” I have a daughter whose name is pronounced the same—Chaia. As I was telling the story, I could see my daughter singing that song. I was back in the moment. I could hear Chaia’s eight-year-old voice. “Got to have ka-ya now . . .” She loved that song—and had no idea that it was about marijuana.

Then my mind flashed ahead and I could picture exactly where Bob Marley was sitting when I interviewed him. I could see him right down to the beads in his dreadlocks.

Then my mind fast-forwarded years later to a college kid who asked me in disbelief: You met Bob Marley? Well, of course I met Bob Marley. It was no big deal. He was doing a concert in Miami, we gave him a call and he came over to talk.

You met Bob Marley?

As if Bob Marley was from another century. Then it hit me. It was another century. Chaia is not eight years old anymore—she’s forty-three. Bob Marley has been dead for thirty years. And not only did I meet Bob Marley, I met Louie Armstrong! As soon as I snap away from the warmth of those moments, I feel old. And do you know what old feels like? Old is when you ask George Burns if he’s got arthritis and he replies:
“I was the first.”
It’s a strange sensation, to be swept back in time in one instant, then feel ancient the next. I don’t know if I can describe it. Maybe you have to be in my shoes—but maybe not. Maybe I can get the feeling across simply by telling stories about many of the musicians I’ve met and the music they’ve made. That way, you’ll be back in all those moments with me. And when you add them up, you’ll see what I mean.

America the Beautiful 

Songs come up randomly. This is a good one to begin with. I don’t think I ever heard a better rendition of “America the Beautiful” than Ray Charles’s. It’s more than a good singer singing a good song. Ray went beyond the song. Here’s what amazes me about it. The America that Ray Charles grew up in was not a beautiful place—not if you were black. There was nobody better than a blind man to show how ridiculous it is to discriminate because of skin color. He told me a story that’s so sad it’s funny. He remembered going to a school for the blind as a boy in Florida. At this school, the white kids were placed on one side of the room and the black kids on the other. They couldn’t see each other’s skin color. But they were separated. I’ve always wondered if he needed to be blind to sing “America the Beautiful” the way he did. He knew prejudice— but he didn’t see it. Maybe if he’d seen it, the song would have come out differently.

Day-O

Harry Belafonte’s voice reminds me of the day he changed everything on Miami Beach.

I went to set up an interview with him at a new hotel where he was going to perform. Jackie Gleason owned a piece of this hotel. Black entertainers worked in Miami Beach in the early sixties—but they never stayed in Miami Beach. They weren’t allowed. They stayed at the Sir John, a swank hotel in the black area of Miami.

Harry was going to open Friday. On Tuesday, he arrived for rehearsals and walked to the hotel counter to check in.
“Hello, Mr. Belafonte,” the clerk says. “So excited to have you here. We have a car to take you to the Sir John where you’ll be staying.”
Harry says, “Why am I staying at the Sir John?”
“That’s where our Negro entertainers stay.”
Harry says, “Not this one. I stay where I work. I’m not working at the Sir John, and I’m not staying at the Sir John.”
There’s a panic behind the desk. Calls are made. Finally, they get Gleason on the phone. “What kind of bullshit is this?” Jackie says. “Check him in.”
“OK.” The clerk turns to Harry and says, “We’ll make an exception for you.”

This was huge. I ran to the pay phone to call the Miami Herald. It was gigantic news—and Harry wouldn’t stop pushing it.
“I’m with twelve people,” he says. “Six men and six women. They sing and dance behind me. They stay where they play, too.”
It was like Jackie Robinson bringing in a whole team of black ballplayers to a ballfield that had never allowed blacks to play.

All the singers and dancers were checked in. Reporters started running in from all over. Everybody was going crazy. The feeling in the lobby that day is impossible for a young per- son today to imagine.

Malice in Wonderland

We taped an hour with the rapper Snoop Dogg last summer. I drove around in his car—a ’67 Pontiac. The paint job cost twenty-five grand. We had cornbread, chicken and waffles. It was a blast. Fog machines were going when he walked on the set.

When the taping was over, Snoop left just before the Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney came in to do the live show.

When Romney heard he’d just missed Snoop Dogg he couldn’t believe it. “Ohhhhh,” he said, “I really wanted to meet him.”

The two of them together—that’s a picture I’d like to have. I’d lived through Nat King Cole not being able to have his show televised in the South. I can remember when Joe Kennedy wouldn’t let Sammy Davis Jr. sing at President Kennedy’s inaugural. And I’ve seen Mitt Romney upset that he didn’t get to meet Snoop Dogg. Did all this really happen in a single lifetime? Hello, Dolly! I’m always amazed where music comes from. There are probably more melodies than there are grains of sand in the desert—each containing its own story. Many of those stories are too mysterious to be understood. It was useless to ask Louie Armstrong about his music. “I don’t know what I do,” he told me, “I just know that I do it.”

Ma Cherie Amour

It’s my favorite Stevie Wonder song. I never get tired of it. Ask him where his music comes from, and he’ll tell you he’s simply the vehicle for a higher power. But that higher power seems to delight in throwing down obstacles to make the music better. Stevie told me that when he first wrote the song, it was about his girlfriend. It was called “My Marsha—I Wish That You Were Mine.” But then he and Marsha broke up.

 I Walk the Line

Everything about this song came backward. Johnny Cash told me he decided to record a melody he’d been strumming on his guitar. He was using a Wilcox-Gay recorder—the kind popular in the Air Force back in the fifties. Somehow he inserted the tape backward and when he replayed the melody and the sound came through the speakers he couldn’t figure out how he’d done it. The sound kept haunting him—just wouldn’t leave his mind. Then he put words to it: “Because you’re mine,  I walk the line.” He didn’t think the song was any good. He was on tour the first time he heard it on the radio, and he immediately called Sun Records and begged them to stop making the record. “Please don’t send it out to any more radio stations,” he said. “I just don’t want to hear it anymore.”
“Well,” he was told, “you’ll have to keep your radio off because it’s playing everywhere.”
In another week it was number one.

 Best That You Can Do

Peter Allen told me how he was struck by the inspiration for the theme song to the movie Arthur. He was flying into New York one night—a beautiful night. He could see the moon. Bright stars. But he couldn’t see the city because of a very low layer of clouds below. The pilot said, “We’re going to have to circle a few times.” Peter took out a pencil and wrote: When you get caught between the moon and New York City.

God Bless America

Irving Berlin didn’t like it when he wrote it. He put it away in a drawer, and it stayed there for twenty years. Then one day, Kate Smith called him up. She had a July 4 show coming up. The conversation went something like this.
“Irving, you got something?”
“I wrote something a long time ago, but it’s no good—too sentimental.”
“Let me see it.”
“I don’t like it.”
“Let me see it . . .”

The Christmas Song (Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire)

It was ninety-five degrees in Chicago and the air conditioner was broken in the hotel. Mel Tormé told me he wrote that song just so he could think of something cold.

Ac-Cent-Tchu-Ate the Positive

Johnny Mercer never wrote a lyric before he got the tune. He had Harold Arlen’s tune in his head when he walked into an elevator. Then the elevator got stuck.

Misty

Erroll Garner played piano in a very distinctive style. Never took a lesson. He was in a car with a friend. They were driving along and Earl started singing this melody.
The friend said, “That’s pretty.”
Garner said, “I heard it somewhere on the radio.”
They drove a little further and Garner kept taking the melody forward.
“You sure you heard that song?” the friend said.
“I guess. It’s in my head.”
“Why don’t we write that down?”
Earl didn’t know he’d composed a song. Music just swirled through him.

Yesterday

Eric Clapton tells the story about going backstage to meet the Beatles for the first time. Paul McCartney was strumming a beautiful melody on the guitar. He didn’t have the lyrics yet. He was singing: Scrambled eggs . . . everybody calls me scrambled eggs.
“Stupid words,” he said. “But what do you think?”

I Write the Songs

Ever go to a Barry Manilow show? Every song has the emotion of a closing number.
An interesting thing about Manilow: He was famous for singing “I Write the Songs.” But he didn’t write that one. Bruce Johnston of the Beach Boys did.

Take the “A” Train

Not many people know it, but Duke Ellington also wrote a Catholic mass.

Oh, What a Beautiful Morning

This comes from the play Oklahoma! written by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein. Not much was expected from the show. The play was a remake of a western that opened up on Broadway in the thirties. The songs were beautiful, but one of the critics noted that the first one didn’t come until fifteen minutes into the show.

So Rodgers and Hammerstein went to their hotel room and wrote “Oh, What a Beautiful Morning.” They couldn’t restage the play. So they just had the male lead, Curly, open the show by walking out onstage and singing. When you see a musical now, with the music completely integrated into the plot, you know where it comes from.

I Will Always Love You

Whitney Houston made it famous. But it was Dolly Parton’s song. When I asked Dolly if she liked hearing other people sing her songs, she said it was thrilling. The first time she heard Whitney sing it she thought, “Is that my little song?” But that’s how you know a song is special. Like Stevie Wonder says, a song is great when it opens itself to various in- terpretations.

MacArthur Park

This was a Jimmy Webb song. Sinatra loved Jimmy Webb, and Sinatra was crazy about lyrics. He used to talk about lyrics all the time—dissected every lyric he sang. But he could never get “MacArthur Park.” Frank said, “‘Someone left the cake out in the rain . . .’ What the hell does that mean?”

Remember

Luciano Pavarotti told me that singing was much more than having a great voice. He said his father had a better voice than he did. But that was all his father had. It’s how you use the voice, Pavarotti explained. It’s the phrasing and the intonations that bring a personality to the voice so that it can’t be confused with any other. There are a lot of pretty voices that can’t sell a song.

They’re just pretty. But when you hear You got to win . . . a little. Lose . . . a little, you know it can’t be anybody else but Jimmy Durante. It’s not only the voice; his personality comes out in the pauses, too. Once, when he was having difficulty with a song, Sinatra called Pavarotti for advice. Pavarotti didn’t know the song. So Frank sang it for him. It was called “Remember” by Irving Berlin. Frank sang it smooth. “No,” Pavarotti, told him. “It’s an angry song. This-a guy is-a pissed. So hit the b in “remember.” Instead of remember, make it remem-ber. It’s those little things . . .

Bat out of Hell

This song reminds me of a good time I had with Bob Costas. This was when he was doing the Later with Bob Costas show. I told him how my dream interview is “Good evening . . . ,” then the door opens and I discover who the guest is. Bob and I decided to get surprise guests for each other— no prep. They just walk in. So I sent him Mario Cuomo. And Mario was great because he was one-wording Bob at the start.
“Yes . . . No.” Just to make it difficult.
Bob sent me a guy I’d never seen before. The guy walked on the set, and I had no idea who he was. So I asked him his name. He said, “Meatloaf.”
I said, “When you check into a hotel, do they call you Mr. Loaf?”

Silent Night

Talk about an entrance. I’ll never forget when I first met Barbra Streisand. She was relatively unknown and singing at the Eden Roc in Miami Beach. Her manager called me up and said, “Nobody’s coming. The waiters are standing on the tables applauding, but nobody else is here. Will you put her on the radio?”

The producers weren’t impressed: “Just another pretty face.” But they booked her. Barbra said something before that first interview that remains etched in my mind almost fifty years later. “I know you don’t know me. But you are going to know me, Larry King, you are going to know me.” “Silent Night” is Barbra at the top of her game. A Catholic priest once told me Barbra’s “Silent Night” was the best ever done.

A-Tisket, A-Tasket

Ella Fitzgerald was like a housewife, your neighbor down the street. What a nice lady. And boy could she sing. Streisand told me she wouldn’t have dared follow Ella in concert.

The Kid from Red Bank

I love this Count Basie story. It’s a big night—Sinatra opens at the Fontainebleau. Count Basie’s band is playing. As Sinatra starts singing, he notices that Basie has music in front of him at the piano.

What’s going on? Sinatra wonders. Basie never uses sheet music. The arrangements are in his head. Basie just plunked away in that very distinctive style. What the hell is Basie doing with sheet music? Frank works his way down the stage. He gets behind the piano and takes a closer look.

It’s not sheet music. Basie’s got the Racing Form opened up and he’s analyzing the next day’s races.
At the next break, Frank goes over to Basie and asks him about it. “What are you doing?”
And Basie says, “I can do more than one thing at once, you know.”

Now, that’s my definition of confidence. “When you sing with Basie, the band propels you,” Frank told me. “If you can’t sing with Basie, you can’t sing.”

This Land Is Your Land

Pete Seeger was called a Communist when he was with a group called the Weavers. When he was called to testify before the HUAC hearings, Seeger refused to answer and was convicted of contempt. I asked him, Who is the greatest American hero?
He said, “American?”
I said, “Yes, specifically American.”
“Geronimo.”
Seeger explained: Geronimo was a pure American hero. He fought against invaders. He was a genius tactician. Anybody who ever fought against him marveled at his techniques. Plus, he’s saluted every time a guy jumps out of an airplane.

Begin the Beguine

This was one of the greatest musical arrangements of all time. Artie Shaw was a genius. He married Lana Turner and dated Rita Hayworth. I think he married eight times. Artie stopped playing clarinet at age fifty-four. I asked him why, and he said, I have nothing more to say. He lived for another half century, taught students, did interviews, but he never played his instrument again. If there wasn’t anything new to say, he didn’t want to say anything.

The Way We Were 

I had Marvin Hamlisch on my radio show one night for five and a half hours. He answered questions, played songs, even wrote songs on the air.

Marvin was a prodigy. A lot of times prodigies don’t go very far because they know more than their teachers—so they aren’t pushed. Marvin kept getting better.
There was something special about him on the piano. Garth Brooks told me a story about being at an event where several piano players followed each other. When Marvin touched the keys, it was as if somebody had brought in a new piano. It felt to Garth like the piano was breathing and bending around Marvin’s fingers.

“That’s the difference between owning an instrument and mastering one,” Garth said. “When you heard Marvin play, you wanted to sob.”

Light My Fire

I had Jim Morrison on the show the night after he was arrested in Miami. What a handsome guy. His father was an admiral, and he was a rebellious poet. He died in a bathtub of a drug overdose.

You know what I think of when I hear “Light My Fire”? My childhood pal Asher Dann. Asher managed Jim at one point. They had fistfights. Knock down, drag out fights. Now Jim is buried in Paris. And there are days when you’ll find Asher wearing a neck brace having breakfast at Nate ’n Al’s.

Chances Are

Johnny Mathis had one of the most romantic voices of all time. When he did concerts, the women would crush up against the stage. Johnny would walk along the stage holding out his hotel key while the girls tried to grab it.

For some reason, the program director at WIOD in Miami did not share this passion for Johnny Mathis’s voice. Harry Ballows hated Johnny Mathis’s voice. Couldn’t stand it! A lot of radio stations are formatted these days. The music is predetermined. But back then, a lot of disc jockeys could play whatever they wanted. So whenever we saw Harry Ballows walking down the hall, we’d put on a Johnny Mathis tune. As soon as he heard, “Chances are . . .” he’d cup his hands over his ears, press down as hard as he could, and run for it.
We played Johnny every time we saw him.

I Left My Heart in San Francisco

Tony Bennett is the most amazing of all. He perpetually stays on top. He’s eighty-four, and he sings every day. Many of his concerts have a unique close. He puts the mike down and sings a cappella. You really feel the power of his voice.

This song always reminds me of my recovery following heart surgery. A brain surgeon came over to wish me well while I was still in the hospital. Then he started to complain. He said, “These heart surgeons. Everyone sees them as heroes, but they’re really all plumbers. They move things around. That’s it. But brain surgery, that’s different. We have to act with infinite skill. One slight movement with our hand can affect your memory. We have to be delicate. We are the definition of precision. And nobody knows!”
I said, “Hey, the song ain’t ‘I Left My Brain in San Francisco.’”

Rhythm Is Gonna Get You

There are certain voices that remind you of places. The Miami Dolphins brought me back to a game last year to honor me. They let me announce a quarter of the game over the radio. Gloria Estefan was there. She gave me a big hug. It was like going home again.

New York State of Mind

If you’re away from New York and want to feel like you’re back home, this is the song you play.

Honey in the Horn

They used to call Al Hirt the Round Mound of Sound. He used to tell me stories about leaving his club in the French Quarter of New Orleans at two in the morning and walking down the street with his band. At the same time, Pete Fountain would leave his club with his band. All the musicians would meet and walk down the streets playing music.

Way Down Yonder in New Orleans

Years ago, I was king of the Mardi Gras in New Orleans. They make a special outfit for you with a crown. They make special doubloons with your face on it and you toss them to the crowds. At the end of the motorcade is breakfast at 3 a.m. I can remember walking with Brad Pitt through areas still devastated by Hurricane Katrina. Brad and Angelina Jolie had moved there and were helping to restore the city. When I think of those moments, I can hear Harry Con- nick Jr.’s voice.

Graceland

I don’t know why this South African rhythm resonated with me so much. That’s one of the great things about Paul Simon. He’s always looking for a new place to take you.

Blue Skies

The last time Willie Nelson came on my show, I asked him if he’d smoked pot that day. He said, “Right before the show.”

Birth of the Blues

When Sammy Davis Jr. was at the height of his career, he had a sign on his dressing room in Vegas that said  PLEASE SMOKE .
I interviewed him after he found out he had cancer. “It’s been a blessing,” he told me, “a miracle. I know I can’t drink now. I know I can’t smoke. I’m going to lead a clean life. I’ve got to live, man.” He was crying, thanking all the people who were supporting him.

Afterward, he went back to the green room where my friend George Schlatter was waiting for him. George said as soon as he got there, Sammy drank a water glass full of booze and lit up a Pall Mall. “Sammy,” George said, “you just told Larry you had a miracle.” “I know,” Sammy said. “I’ll quit tomorrow.”

School’s Out for Summer

Alice Cooper is not what you see onstage. His wild dress in concert belies what he is: a good golfer.

The Lawrence Welk Show Theme 

Lawrence Welk was such a bad host that you couldn’t stop watching the show. He was so bad that he was good. In all the years, he never learned how to host. But the great clarinet player Pete Fountain always gave Lawrence Welk a lot of credit. He said what Welk taught him was discipline. When you played in Welk’s band, you rehearsed at a precise time. You played the tune exactly the way it was designed. For a Dixieland player like Fountain, that was very important.

Escapade

Not only did I once dance with Janet Jackson, but she gave me suspenders with the nipples cut out.

On the Street Where You Live

This is a song from My Fair Lady. I love it when it’s sung by Vic Damone. Sinatra always said, “I wish I had Vic Damone’s voice.” He was envious—that a guy could just go out and sing like that. And Vic would rather play golf. I sat at Vic’s desk at Lafayette High School a few years af- ter him. It was art class. I know it was Vic’s desk because he carved his name into it: Vito Farinola.

Unforgettable

Natalie Cole came on the show a couple of years ago and told the world that she was alive only because of dialysis. She had difficulty breathing. Her kidney functions were at 8 percent. She needed a transplant. Now get this: A nurse was watching the show with her niece, who was in the hospital dying from complications of childbirth. The nurse and the niece both agreed that it would be great to give Natalie a kidney. When the niece died, her kidney was donated to Natalie.

Natalie came back on the show months later with the aunt and the sister of the donor. It all came about because of the show. That’s hard to top.

My Heart Will Go On

On a special we once did, celebrities talked about their favorite moments on the show. Celine Dion said her favorite memory was doing the show for the first time. She said her husband had told her, “The day you do Larry King is the day you’re going to be a star.” So she was really nervous.
I had no idea. It reminded me that something had happened to me along the way. I used to be so proud when people in Miami told Miles Davis: “You gotta go on with the kid”—meaning me. It was a symbol to me of how far I’d come. Then it sort of flipped around. I’d become a symbol of how far they’d come. Michael Bublé got his break on my show. His grandmother was a huge fan of the show. Michael said she wasn’t going to believe it when she saw him on Larry King Live. So my producer, Greg Christensen, said: “Hey, why don’t we call her?” I phoned her from the makeup room. Michael was in the hallway holding his chest as if he were having a heart attack.

La Vida Loca

Ricky Martin played at my cardiac foundation gala right after “La Vida Loca” came out. You couldn’t have been bigger than Ricky Martin at the time. We were in the elevator at the Ritz- Carlton, and when the door opened, we were mobbed by a sea of girls. We couldn’t get out of the elevator. It was like a wave of energy crashing in on us.

I thought about that when he came on my show last year to discuss his decision to tell the world that he’s gay. That took a lot of courage. He could have kept it to himself. But his decision made sense. He said his lowest moments were when he saw gays being put down. It pained him to not do anything about it when he knew he had the power to help make a change.

Born in the USA

I’ve interviewed everybody once. How did I miss Bruce Springsteen?

Hero

I didn’t know what to expect when I heard Mariah Carey was coming on the show. At the time, Mariah had the most number-one-selling singles of any solo artist—and that included Elvis. But she also had an image as a pampered diva. AT&T even played off that image in a commercial.

Let me tell you something: Mariah Carey is a good time. Do you know how you can get a feeling for people by the way they react with your friends? I got a feeling for Mariah by the way she hit it off with one of my oldest pals, Sid Young.

We were doing the show at the studio in New York and Sid happened to be outside the elevator when she stepped out. Of course, Sid knew she was going to be the guest. But he’s always up for a little fun. He’d be perfect on Ashton Kutcher’s show Punk’d. Sid said in dumbfounded innocence, “Gee, you look like Mariah Carey.”
She said, “I am Mariah Carey.”
“C’mon . . .”
“Really, I am.”
Sid waved his hand in her face. “Don’t mess around with me.” He always does this, and the way he does it is perfect. He once had Oprah Winfrey believing he had no idea who she was for five minutes and trying to explain to him how Oprah really was her first name.
“Honest!” Mariah said. She was almost about to take out her driver’s license to prove it—which is as far from a diva as she could possibly get. “I’m here to be interviewed by Larry King.”

Finally, Sid started cracking up and they hugged each other. You get an idea why Sid is one of the great friends in the history of the world. There isn’t anybody who Sid isn’t friends with. In fact, there’s a slightly embellished story about Sid that explains just how popular he is. Many years back, he was playing golf with a man he’d recently met. After making a beautiful shot, Sid says: “That’s very similar to the shot I hit with Eisenhower last week.” The guy felt he was getting put on. So he says: “Sid, I’ll bet you $10,000 you don’t know Dwight Eisenhower.” So they flew to Pennsylvania and rang the bell at Eisen- hower’s house. The door opens. Eisenhower comes out. “Sid!” Ike hugs him. “You gotta stay! You gotta stay!” The other golfer is deflated. They leave Eisenhower’s house a few hours later. Once they get out the door, the other guy feels he’s been taken. He says, “I can’t believe it. The one guy you knew. Eisenhower. It’s a good thing you hadn’t hit that shot and said you’d played with de Gaulle.” Sid says, “Chuck? An old buddy of mine.” The other golfer was having none of it. They bet double or nothing. They flew to France. Sid took him to de Gaulle’s house. They ring the bell. From the top of the stairs, de Gaulle slides down the banister. “Sidney, my old friend!” Now the golf partner is totally whipped. He says, “There’s gotta be somebody you don’t know. I’ll bet you don’t know the pope.”
Sid says, “One of my best friends.”
They go to the Vatican. Ring the bell. They tell one of the cardinals that Sid Young was there to see the pope. The cardinal comes back and says, “Only Sid. No one else.” So the golfing partner says, “Wait a minute, Sid! You could have set all this up with the cardinal in advance. How can I be sure?” So Sid says, “Tell you what. I’ll go on the veranda with the pope and we’ll wave down to you.” The friend goes outside. Sid comes out on the veranda. There’s a guy with him. The guy’s dressed in a robe and that tall white peaked hat. They have their arms around each other.

The other golfer’s wondering: Could this be fake? A group of nuns is walking by, and he asks if any of them speaks English.
One says, “I do.”
“Can you do me a favor?” the golfer says.
“Sure.”
“Can you tell me, is that the pope?”
The nun squints. “The sun is right in my eyes,” she says.
“I can’t tell. But the guy with him is Sid Young.”
The moral of the story is, don’t ever bet Mariah Carey that she doesn’t know Sid Young.

Poker Face

Lady Gaga reminds you that there’s always going to be something new. Gaga told me she’s constantly thinking of unique ways to shock and annoy people. I wonder what she thought when she heard Ryan Seacrest and me doing a duet of “Poker Face.”

Coca-Cola Cowboy

Mel Tillis is the only singer I know who stutters—except when he’s singing. Hearing Mel sing always reminds me of that old joke about the comic and the stuttering singer living together in a hotel room. The comic comes in, and the singer says: “W-w-w-w . . . w-w-w-w-w . . .” The comic says, “Sing!” The singer sings, “We’ve been robbed!”

Gone Too Soon

Anybody who was at Michael Jackson’s memorial service will never forget Usher singing “Gone Too Soon.” The thing most people don’t know about Usher is that this guy really knows his politics.

Melancholy Baby

Bing Crosby’s at the racetrack. He runs into Joe Frisco. Joe was a comedian who used a violin and his stutter as part of his act.

Joe tells Bing, “I g-g-g-got no money. C-c-can you loan me a hundred?”
Bing loans him a hundred.
Later that day, Bing is on his way to the restroom and he sees Joe Frisco sitting at a table with four women and a tub of champagne. They’re eating a lavish meal and Joe Frisco is having the time of his life.
Bing can’t believe it. A guy notices the look of incredulity on Bing’s face and tells Bing what happened: “Joe Frisco hit the big daily double. Made a fortune.”
Crosby says, “I’m going to embarrass him. I’m going to go over and ask for my money.” Bing approaches the table and says, “You got my hundred?” Frisco pulls a hundred out of his pocket and says, “S-s-s-s-sing ‘Melancholy Baby.’”

Candle in the Wind

Elton John sang it at Princess Diana’s funeral service. He told me it was the hardest thing he ever had to do in music. He’d sung the song about Marilyn Monroe many times, and had just rewritten the lyric for Di. He was terrified that he’d forget the new words and sing “Goodbye Norma Jean,” in front of billions of people, so he had a teleprompter set in front of him to remind him.

Long Day’s Journey

Nobody could play like Buddy Rich. Mel Tormé told me he wanted to play the drums until he heard Buddy. Then he threw away the sticks. Sinatra loved Buddy too. There is a wonderful story about Buddy and Frank that Al Pacino likes to tell.

Al goes to a Sinatra concert. Buddy Rich is the opening act. Al knows Buddy is a good drummer, but Buddy’s in his sixties at that point and Al’s thinking: I’ll listen for a little while, twiddle my thumbs, and wait for Frank.
Buddy comes on, gets going and keeps going . . . and going . . . and going. He goes way beyond anything Al thought he was going to do and he keeps going after that. And it be- comes this experience. Al can feel it, and everyone else can, too. Because the entire audience jumps to its feet simultaneously and starts screaming. And Buddy just keeps on going. It was as if he was saying, I went this far, lemme see if I can take it further. And then suddenly it takes itself.
When it was over, Sinatra came out and said, “You see this guy drumming? You know, sometimes it’s a good idea to stay at a thing.”

Don’t Be Cruel

I never met Elvis. Never saw him in concert. But there are at least three times I wish I could have been around him.
The first is when he came to Miami Beach to do a concert at the convention center. He was helicoptered in and then driven over in a limo. At the end of his stay, he asked the driver,
“Is this your car?”
The driver says, “No, I just drive it.”
Elvis says, “It is now. It’s your tip.”
I’d have loved to see that driver’s face.
Then there’s the great story that’s just as much about Jerry Weintraub as it is about Elvis. Jerry is a guy who can talk as well as Elvis could sing. Business is a creative art to Jerry. He takes huge risks—which always makes for the best stories.
One night back in the midsixties, Jerry wakes up with an idea to take Elvis on tour.

Problem is, Elvis isn’t touring at that point. He’s making movies. But that doesn’t deter Jerry. Jerry calls up Elvis’s manager, Colonel Tom Parker. Jerry tells the Colonel his idea. Parker tells him no. But the word no doesn’t mean no to Jerry. He keeps calling the Colonel every day—for a year. Still no dice. Then Jerry gets a call from the Colonel. The Colonel tells him if he wants to do the tour he should show up at the Hilton hotel in Las Vegas the next day with a check for a million bucks.

Of course, Jerry doesn’t have the money. But he has twenty-four hours to get it. He tries everyone he knows with that kind of bankroll. No dice. Finally, at the last minute, he convinces a radio station owner in Seattle who loves Elvis to pony up. Then he goes to the nearest bank and tells the teller that he’s going to need a cashier’s check. It’ll be for a million dollars. I wish I could have seen the teller’s face.

The radio station owner from Seattle wires the money, and in a couple of hours Jerry’s got this cashier’s check made out to Elvis Presley. He goes to meet the Colonel. The Colonel takes the check, looks at it for a moment and then puts it in the hotel safe. That’s it. The deal’s done. Who needs paper- work? The Colonel takes Jerry into Elvis’s suite. Elvis is easy. He’s only got one request. One request. Please make sure that every seat is filled.

So Jerry has Elvis open up on the Fourth of July at the convention center. Jerry arrives in Miami Beach to find the show all sold out—all ten thousand seats. Beautiful. That gives him a better idea. How about a matinee? The box office guy eggs him on: You’ll sell 20,000 seats in a single day. The day before the show, Jerry goes back to the box office. The box office guy has a chunk of tickets in his hand. The matinee hasn’t sold out. There’s still five thousand empty seats in the back. Now Jerry’s going crazy. What was the one thingElvis told him? No empty seats.

Now Jerry’s dream has turned into a nightmare. There’s no time to sell five thousand tickets. What’s he going to do? He goes to the arena. Looks at the seats. They’re bolted to the floor. Then he walks over to the jailhouse. He asks to see the sheriff. He makes a contribution to local law enforcement in the form of a wad of cash and asks if a gang of prisoners is available to unscrew five thousand seats from the back of the arena in the morning, take them out of the building, and then screw them back in before evening.

The sheriff brings dozens of prisoners in orange jumpsuits to the convention center. The prisoners unscrew the seats, take them away to the parking lot, and cover them with a blue tarp. Elvis does the matinee. Not an empty seat in the house. Afterward, the prisoners take all the seats back inside. They screw them in just before the evening show. It goes great. Elvis is on fire. Women are going crazy. Elvis throws his scarf into the crowd. The women are fighting for it. They’re passing out. Elvis is a smash. I wish I’d been there when Jerry took Elvis back to the hotel. I wish I’d seen the look on Jerry’s face when Elvis told him, “The afternoon show went well. But it’s always so much better at night.”

The third moment I’d like to have seen Elvis was when he met the Beatles. It was at Elvis’s hotel suite. For twenty minutes, nobody said anything. Everybody was too shy. Finally, Elvis got out his guitar. It was the Beatles doing the worshipping.

Imagine

I was doing my all-night radio show on the Mutual Broadcasting network when John Lennon was shot and killed. He was pronounced dead around 11 p.m. I wasn’t a Beatles fan at the time. I knew the Beatles were popular. But I had no idea how popular until that night. We went on the air at midnight. The phone lines were jammed with people talking about what John meant to them. People were crying. The calls came in from everywhere. From John’s neighbors in New York to people on army bases all over the world. It was an extraordinary night. I remember driving home that morning, wondering how I could have had no idea how much Lennon and the Beatles meant.

Hey Jude

I came to understand the Beatles’ music through the conductor of the Boston Pops. Arthur Fiedler said that the Beatles had produced the greatest pop music in centuries. He predicted that their songs would still be listened to in five hundred years. People had no idea of the amazing things they did with chords and arrangements, he said, and to prove it, he’d made an album of their music with the Boston Pops. “You mean,” I said, “they’re gonna be Beethoven?” “Yes,” he said. Then he did a bit of “Hey Jude”: Dum, dum, dum, da-ta-da-dum. Da-ta-da-dummm. Hey Jude. He made it classical.

She’s So Fine 

The first time I heard the song “My Sweet Lord,” I knew. The melody had been taken from “She’s So Fine.” George Harrison had no idea he’d taken it. All you need to do is hit the same four notes and you’ve copied a song.

Something in the Way She Moves

Paul McCartney came over to my house to listen to Shawn’s album. He gave her a nice critique. He played the piano. He also did a surprise performance for my producer, Wendy, at her birthday party.

When we were at the Mirage for the “Love” show, he stayed in the next suite and Ringo stayed in the suite across the way. So I ran into them in the hall a lot. We became very friendly over time.

When I was interviewing Garth Brooks, he talked about being surprised when the Beatles decided to go digital on iTunes. They’d held out for a long time, as had Garth. Garth liked the warmth of tape—and he refused to go digital. It seemed to him that the Beatles had his back. But when they went to iTunes, he felt like the only guy out there standing for what he believed. But he wasn’t critical of the Beatles. He said he’d really love to talk to Paul McCartney about it.
I said, “Why not give him a call?”
Garth said he didn’t feel comfortable picking up the phone to call a musical god just like that. “Hey,” I said, “I can. He played the piano in my living room.” On days like that, I go home and say to myself, Did that really happen?

Thriller

I met Michael Jackson a few times. But he was a very hard guy to know.
There’s a story Celine Dion told me about him that painted a picture of who he was: two people.
He was in the audience one night to watch her perform. She pointed out at him and told the crowd, “Michael Jackson’s here!”
He wouldn’t stand up. “Michael,” she said, “C’mon up onstage and take a bow.” He walked onstage all meek. The music started to play and—wow!—he starts to sing with her and he’s phenomenal.
The music ends and he sits down, shy again.
The first time I met him he was about twelve years old. I interviewed the Jackson 5 in Miami on the radio. I don’t remember much—just that he was a shy, cute kid. I didn’t know it at the time, but he was already reading everything he could about Walt Disney and telling his brothers that one day he was going to have a Disneyland in his backyard.

We didn’t have any idea what was going on behind the scenes, how much pressure his father put on all the kids. Janet Jackson later told me how her breasts were bound when she was ten years old so she would still look like a child. From the outside looking in, it’s hard to understand what Michael was going through. We only see what we see. I was once honored at a banquet by the Reverend Jesse Jackson. Michael was seated at my table. He was very nice, said that he watched my show. I wanted him to come on the show, so a meeting was set up to talk about it.

My friend Sid and I went to the hotel where he said he’d meet us. We waited and waited. Finally, we went into his suite and walked into a huge Batman statue. We looked around, and Michael was hiding behind the door. The same guy who was hiding behind the door was also a brilliant businessman who bought the Beatles library, cowrote “We Are the World,” gave millions to charity and was charged with sexually molesting children.

I was at his memorial service. I’ve been to his home. I’ve met many members of his family. I don’t think I’ll ever under- stand all there was to Michael Jackson.

Satisfaction

I liked talking about fame with Mick Jagger. Mick told me something I never knew. He’d had some trouble over a marijuana charge about forty years before, and because of it, every time he arrives at an airport in the United States he has to go to a special room at customs in order to enter the country. Mick said it didn’t take him long to learn that drugs didn’t help him as a performer. Being onstage was not a place where he wanted to feel out of control. So many great artists have had tragic endings because of drugs: Janis Joplin. Jimmy Hendrix. Jim Morrison. Others, like Eric Clapton, managed to beat their addiction and help others through it. One thing I’ve never found out, in all my years of asking questions, is Why did you start when you knew what could happen?

Nobody has an answer. They were lonely. They were on the road. They were living a crazy lifestyle. The truth is, nobody knows.

Lenny Bruce used to say: There’s got to be something good about drugs. Your life is going to be ruined and you’re going to die. Let’s get in line. I was addicted to cigarettes, so I understand addiction. Even when I learned how bad it was, I didn’t stop. I always felt: It isn’t going to be me. I was like the guy who says he’ll never get cancer from smoking because he only buys packs that say May affect pregnancy. I told Mick something that Sinatra once told me: There’s a lot to be said for longevity. Mick said, Well, you’ve got no options really. Either you have longevity or you’re dead.

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer

I can see my son Chance when he was younger singing it with Sting. It doesn’t get better than that. Well, maybe it’s a tie with seeing Chance dance with James Brown at my cardiac foundation gala.

Respect

You’re talking about a legend beyond a legend when you talk about Aretha Franklin. She’s won thirty-two Grammys. When she came to sing at our cardiac foundation gala, she confirmed something I’ve always heard about performers. When they’re doing a charity, they work harder than when they’re getting paid. But she remained the diva. She won’t stay above the ninth floor in any hotel.

Cardiac Foundation Gala

Michael Bolton, Celine Dion, Rod Stewart, James Brown, Stevie Wonder, Tim McGraw, Colbie Caillat, and all the other performers who’ve come to my cardiac foundation gala to help raise money have given me some of the greatest moments of my life. That is, they’ve given me the ability to call up people who don’t have the money for heart surgery and tell them that they’re going to get it.

Shameless

Garth Brooks is the most genuine man I’ve ever met. He tells people when his T-shirts are available cheaper across the street than they are at the hotel.
When my wife was putting out an album and looking for a duet partner, I asked Garth if he would like to do a tune with Shawn. Garth said, “I would do anything for you, but I will never, ever sing a love song with anyone but my wife.”

I Dreamed a Dream

When Susan Boyle walked out on the stage of Britain’s Got Talent, nobody expected her to sing the way she did. We never had Susan Boyles when I was young. I’ve never seen someone with that kind of talent come out of nowhere. It was one of the most surprising moments in television.

Volare

When I was a disc jockey I used to introduce this song as Vo-Larry. They finally wrote a song about me. It was a huge hit for Dean Martin. I always wanted to interview Dean. But by the time the show moved out to L.A., he was really down. He’d lost his son, his firstborn. His son was a great-looking guy and an Air Force captain. On a clear day, he crashed into the same mountain near Palm Springs where Sinatra’s mother’s plane crashed. Dean never got over his son’s death.

He used to sit alone at a restaurant on Little Santa Monica Boulevard every night. He’d order an extra plate of food and have it set at the place across from him so people wouldn’t take the empty seat. He’d want to be around people, but he didn’t want to talk. He’d have a bite. People would pass by, say hello, and he’d nod. Then he’d go home. Sinatra got the idea to re-create the old days, bring the old Rat Pack out on tour. He convinced Dean to come along. They opened in Oakland and sold out. Dean was the first one onstage. He had a great line. He walked out kind of boozy with a glass in his hand and said, “How’d I do?”

But his heart wasn’t in it. Two days later, he said, “Frank, I don’t want to go onstage. I don’t want to sing. I don’t want to make people laugh.”
Frank got mad at him, and Dean took Frank’s private plane home. They had to bring Liza Minnelli in on short notice. I wish I could have met Dean during the “Volare” days.

Put Your Dreams Away (For Another Day)

I don’t like funerals, but Frank Sinatra had a great funeral. I sat next to Vic Damone and Nancy Reagan. There must have been about four hundred people in the Catholic church on Bedford Drive in Beverly Hills, the Church of the Good Shepherd.
George Schlatter told funny stories. The casket was set in the middle of the aisle—not up in front of the altar. Anybody who walked in, walked by the casket. Frank’s piano player was behind the curtain playing all Frank’s favorites. Then, at the end, they dimmed the lights a little, put a spotlight on the casket, and played “Put Your Dreams Away (For Another Day).”

That’s Life

Which brings me to the story about how I met Frank. I’ve told it before, but it makes me feel young, so I’m going to tell it again. One of my mentors was Jackie Gleason. Jackie helped me out by doing promotional spots for my shows. Once he came in for my all-night television show and rearranged the set to make it more pleasing to the viewers. But one of the greatest things he did for me came from a simple question he posed. Jackie liked to make games out of questions. The game one night was, What in your profession is impossible?

There was a doctor with us that night. The doctor said, “In my profession, they will never make blood in a laboratory. It’s impossible. You can go ten million years into the future and you’ll see that blood will never be made in a lab.” Jackie looked at me and asked, “What’s impossible in your profession?”
“Well,” I said, “I do a local radio show every night between nine and twelve. Frank Sinatra doing my radio show for three hours on one night—that’s impossible.” This was 1964. There was nobody bigger in the world than Frank Sinatra and he never did interviews. Sinatra was the only person I knew of at the time who would not return a call from the New York Times. Jackie knew that Frank was performing at the Fon tainebleau the next week. He asked me what night Sinatra was dark. “Monday,” I said. “He doesn’t work Monday.”
Jackie said, “You got him.”
I said, “What are you telling me?”
He said, “You got Frank Sinatra on Monday night.”
I said, “Look, if I’ve got Frank Sinatra on my radio show next Monday night, I’ve got to tell people. I’ve got to promote it.”
“Promote it!” Jackie said.
So I went on my radio show that night and said, “Ladies and gentlemen, next Monday night we’ll have Frank Sinatra for three hours.”
A station exec called me up the next day and said, “Are you kidding?”
I understood exactly where the exec was coming from. Frank had a publicity guy to make sure interviews didn’t happen. I said to the exec, “Jackie Gleason told me we’d have him.”
“OK . . . ,” he said, but I could tell he didn’t believe it. Friday came along. The exec called. He said the station was taking out a big ad in the Miami Herald on Monday. A full-page ad that was going to cost a lot of money. The problem was, the business department had been calling the Fontainebleau and leaving messages to confirm that Frank would be on the show. But Frank wasn’t returning the calls. The exec was more than a little nervous.
So I said, “OK, I’ll call Jackie.” I dialed up Jackie. “Jackie, they’re nervous at the station.” Jackie said, “Are you questioning me, pal? I told you he’ll be there, and he’ll be there!”
“OK, Jackie,” I said, “I’m sorry.” So the station runs the ad. Monday night comes. Nobody goes home. The secretaries, who worked nine to five that day, all waited. Everybody at the station stayed. It’s five minutes to nine. No Frank. No car. Nothing. It’s four minutes to nine. Three minutes. Nothing. I’m supposed to go on at five after the hour. At nine o’clock sharp, a limo pulls up. Out of the car steps Frank’s PR guy, Jim Mahoney. Then comes Frank. He gets up the stairs and says, “Which one’s Larry King?” Timidly, I raise my hand. “Me.”
“OK,” he says, “let’s do it!” As we were going into the booth, the PR guy pulls me aside. He says, “I don’t know how you got him. But I’ll tell you one thing. He pays me big money not to do this!” I step toward the booth and the PR guy pulls me back. “Just one thing,” he says. “Don’t ask about the kidnapping of his son.”
So I’m thinking, better not ask about the kidnapping or Frank will walk off.
“OK,” I told the PR guy. “It’s none of my business.” So Frank and I go into the booth. We sit down. The light goes on. We’re on the air. Now a lot of talk-show hosts would have said, “My guest tonight is an old friend—Frank Sinatra. Great to see you again, pal.” That’s bullshit. I learned a long time ago never to lie to my audience. But I just couldn’t start out like this was just any other night. There was something in the air. The whole audience was wondering. Larry. Frank. Larry? Frank? It didn’t make sense. Frank’s on top of the world. Larry’s a local radio guy making $120 a week. How does he know Frank? I’m not going to pretend that I know him. So I’m honest.

As soon as I introduce him, my first question is, “Why are you here?” It’s a good question, right? He has to tell me something. Frank appreciated the honesty. He says, “I’ll tell ya. About a month ago, just before a closing night, I got laryngitis. Couldn’t sing. Couldn’t speak. I didn’t know what to do. We had a packed house.
“So I called up Jackie Gleason. I said, ‘Jackie, will you come and do the show?’
“He said, ‘OK.’ So he came and did the show. It was wonderful. After the show, I walked him out to his limo, leaned in, and whispered, ‘Jackie, I owe you one.’ “When I checked into the Fontainebleau Hotel there was a message to call up Jackie. So I did. I said, ‘Jackie, it’s Frank.’
He said, ‘Frank, this is the one.’”
Well, Frank and I really hit it off. Frank’s a great interview. He has all the characteristics that make up a great guest: Passion. A sense of humor. Anger. And an ability to explain what you do very well. The interview was going great, and Frank became really comfortable. I said to him, “Frank, the thing between you and the press. Has it been overplayed? Or have you been bum-rapped?”
He said, “Well, it’s probably been overplayed. But I’ve been bum-rapped, too. Take my son’s kidnapping . . .”
I look over at the PR guy and I’m thinking he’s going to faint. Frank goes on to tell the whole story of the kidnapping and how the press treated him! Why? Because he felt comfortable. Years later—after we’d done many other radio and television interviews—he wrote me a letter that included a sentence that would have made Jackie Gleason smile. It said, “What you do is you make the camera disappear.” I became very friendly with Frank as a result of that first interview. After it was over, after three hours, he said, “Hey, kid, you wanna come see the show?” “YEAH!” I said. “Come tomorrow night. You’re sitting ringside. Bring a guest.” Now I could choose any woman in town to go see Sinatra with me, and I knew I was going to get laid. You wanna come see Frank Sinatra sing? We’re sitting ringside! Does it get any better than that? I asked this pretty girl I liked, and we went to the show. We were sitting right in front of the stage having a wonderful din- ner and listening to Frank Sinatra. It was great. But here’s the thing. In the middle of every show, Sinatra always had a cup of tea and talked to the audience. I had no idea what was coming. All of a sudden, as he’s drinking his cup of tea, he says, “By the way, I don’t do interviews. But I want to tell you about a young man in the audience tonight. I owed a favor to Jackie Gleason, and Jackie introduced me to this guy, and I did an interview with him, and he was terrific. It was a great interview. I want him to take a bow. You’re going to be hearing a lot about him. Larry King, stand up.”

Now, the girl and I are in the middle of dessert. I’m eating cherries jubilee. I have no idea that Frank is going to introduce me. In my haste to stand, I bump the table, the cherries jubilee goes flying and lands all over my white shirt and pants. There’s nowhere to hide. Cherries jubilee is very red. Sinatra starts to laugh. The band is laughing. The audience is laughing. The girl is laughing. It’s really embarrassing. But what can I do? I wipe myself off, and we enjoy the second half of the show. The performance ends and it’s time to drive the girl home. I know it’s going to be a good night. But after paying the bill, I have, like, eighteen dollars left in my pocket. I know I need three dollars for the car. So I leave fifteen dollars as a tip for the waiter. When I give the valet three dollars for the car, I have absolutely nothing left. But that’s OK. The girl has already invited me home.

On the way, she says, “Oh, I don’t have any coffee. Why don’t we stop and bring home a couple of containers?” What am I going to do with this dilemma? I’m a big shot who just took her to see Frank Sinatra and I don’t have a cent in my pocket. So I pull into a Royal Castle. I tell her to wait in the car, that I’ll be right back. A few minutes later I come back to the car without anything.
She says, “Where’s the coffee?”
I say, “They can’t change a hundred dollar bill.”

Baby

My wife is always telling me to stop talking about Sinatra when I’m asked about music. I get her point. Stay current. Hey, I met Justin Bieber at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. I’ve had dinner with Justin Timberlake. I met the Jonas Brothers when we did a show at the new stadium in Dallas.
The thing is, when I met the Jonas Brothers, my name was running across the stadium’s scoreboard in letters fifty feet high. So it was different from when I had no money and wished I could get in to see Sinatra at the Paramount. Plus, I don’t have any stories about Justin Bieber and a pie fight. So I’m going to tell one more about Frank.

The Way You Look Tonight

Frank was a complicated guy. Complicated because he was not the brightest guy in the world, but in some areas, was extraordinarily intelligent. His lyrical interpretations were genius, but he was also right out of the streets of Hoboken. He took every- thing personally. He was a big-deal Democrat, but when Kennedy crossed him, he became a Republican. Sometimes you could cross him and not even know it. This story is a good example.

Frank had finished a show in Miami Beach. This was back in the early sixties. He didn’t like to sleep and he headed over to the coffee shop at the Fontainebleau at four in the morning. Three pals were with him. They talked over coffee for a while, and then Frank decided he wanted a piece of cherry pie. He looked around for the waitress. No waitress. She wain the bathroom. So Frank walked over to the counter. There was a cherry pie in one of those clear pie displays—the kind that has a tray and a removable top to keep the pie fresh. Right in front of the pie holder was a guy sitting at the counter. Frank leaned across the guy, took the top off, and got the cherry pie. Realizing he’d brushed into the guy, he said, “I’m sorry.”
“Get your hands off my shoulder,” the guy said.
This was not the wisest response. The word was out that Frank was connected to the highest levels of the Mob. I once asked Don Rickles, “Supposing Frank asked me to do something and I didn’t want to do it?” Don said, “You got relatives still living?”
The guy couldn’t have mistaken Frank for anybody else.
There was no bigger entertainer in the world at the time. Frank looked him up and down. “What did you say?”
“There’s nobody else at the counter,” the guy said. You didn’t have to lean over my shoulder to get to the pie. Keep your hands off me.”

Sinatra picked up the cherry pie and hit the guy in the face with it.
The guy slowly wiped it off. Then he reached for an apple pie and hit Frank in the face with it. The three guys at Frank’s table see this and very swiftly begin to make their way over. Only it doesn’t turn out like you’d think. Frank gets mad that his guys are interfering. Why is this any of your business? And he turns on his buddies. He and the guy at the counter team up and start smashing pies into the faces of Frank’s friends.

 The six of them got to every pie in the place and destroyed the entire coffee shop. Front-page pictures of the wreckage ended up all over the Miami Herald. They couldn’t reopen until late the next morning. With Frank you never knew. As long as we can remember the music, we will always be able to be young again. And if it seems like this chapter is going on and on, you’re right. That’s because I don’t want it to end.