Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin got into a barroom brawl in Beverly Hills that nearly left one person dead — and the details are still unclear decades later.
Author and longtime People magazine contributor Scott Heaver has written a new book, “Beverly Hills Noir: Crime, Sin, and Scandal in 90210,” Which explores some of the most outrageous incidents to happen in the star-studded city.
“Both of these guys were at the top of the entertainment food chain,” Heaver told Fox News Digital. “They couldn’t have been more popular; When this incident happened in 1966, he could not have got a better salary and more prestige than this.
“Throwing a monkey wrench into their lives for something like this… something as simple as a few crosswords and racial epithets thrown around at a bar [led] “If things take a really bad turn the assault will ultimately threaten his career,” Hoover said.
“This is a rarely explored aspect of both men’s careers. It’s based on a night in their lives that was supposed to be a celebration of Dean’s 49th birthday.”
On the night of June 8, 1966, Sinatra and Martin were at the Polo Lounge with Sinatra’s bodyguard/friend, Jilly Rizzo, actor Richard Conte, as well as several women.
Sitting next to him in a booth was Frederick Rand Weizman, a prominent art collector and former president of Hunts Food, accompanied by businessman Franklin H. Fox. They had barely been seated for 10 minutes when Weisman became increasingly disturbed by the “uproarious laughter” of the celebrity guests.
Then Weisman stood up and did something few would dare to do: told Sinatra and his friends to calm down.
Sinatra claimed that Weisman, before using “a certain D-word and a certain W-word to which Italian Americans generally object,” told Hoover, “You talk too loudly. , and you have a group of loud friends.” wrote.
Some claimed that Weisman also scolded Sinatra for using vulgar language in front of women.
Sinatra reportedly responded with anti-Semitic remarks. He later claimed that Weisman had blindfolded his right eye before slipping and falling, causing him to crash to the floor and break the base of a cocktail table.
Fox claimed to Sinatra biographer Kitty Kelley that when a fight broke out the singer left the room.
According to reports, Fox and a hotel security guard tried to keep the two men apart, while Martin pleaded, “Let’s get out of here, Frank!” Then Sinatra grabbed one of the telephones on the side of the booth and threw it at Weisman, knocking him unconscious.
According to Heuer’s book, It’s also possible that after everyone jumped on each other, Weisman slipped and fell. What is known for certain is that Weizmann “had fallen to the floor and lay on his back among an overturned ashtray, a fallen tablecloth, and a heap of broken crystal. He seemed to be snoring. And he wasn’t getting up.”
“What we know for sure was that… [Weisman] Frank and Dean objected to some of the language being used and it turned into a typical barroom confrontation,” Heaver explained to Fox News Digital.
“We don’t know exactly who swung first, who did what to whom in what order. But it ended when someone placed one of the famous pink telephones on the side of the booth during all the banquets at the Polo Lounge over Frederick Weizmann’s head. He passed out on the floor.”
“Now, he was revived, but within the day, he became unconscious again,” Heaver continued. “He was in the hospital and then he had surgery. And this could have been especially bad. He might have died. Then Frank and Dean… separately leave Los Angeles to wait for news while the police investigate. This is where we get all these conflicting stories where no one saw what actually happened.
“Nobody has given a similar story,” Heuer said.
According to the book, Weizmann endured a nearly three-hour operation to repair a skull fracture. Doctors could not guarantee that he would survive.
Heaver said that Sinatra fled to Los Angeles where he was “sweating out” with his much younger girlfriend, actress Mia Farrow. Martin went to Lake Tahoe to play golf. When the police interrogated him he had nothing to say.
“Frank was 50 at the time,” Heuer said. “He was struggling a little bit with how big he was, how iconic he had become, how the rumors got to him. And then he got involved with someone… half his age. So despite being on top of the world, there was a lot of stress on him. And I think this sometimes gets expressed in anger too. He was an emotional person.”
“Was he surrounded? I think there’s a lot of debate left on this,” Heaver shared. “Was he a violent character? I don’t even know if this is true or not. But there are certainly incidents that show that if he loses his temper, things could go wrong.
Over the years, rumors also persisted that it was Rizzo, not Sinatra, who dealt Weisman the near-fatal blow by striking him over the head with a telephone.
“Jilly Rizzo … was Frank Sinatra’s best and most loyal friend, more than any other famous person in the Rat Pack,” Heaver said. “Jilly was with him pretty much until the end of his days. There was a very special bond between them. They were like brothers. And Jilly came from the New York nightclub world.
“He had his own restaurant. It was built like a tractor-trailer. He sort of appointed himself Frank’s bodyguard. And so, if trouble started, it’s very easy to imagine that it was Geely who stepped in and took charge of it… There were incidents in the following years in which Geely did exactly the same thing.’
“Was it because he was a violent man? Everyone in Hollywood who knew Jilly absolutely loved her and was charmed by her,” Heaver shared. “But if he thought his best friend Frank Sinatra was in trouble or was being threatened, he wasn’t afraid to take a stand.”
Rizzo has repeatedly denied being Sinatra’s bodyguard in any official capacity.
“Sinatra doesn’t need any security,” Rizzo said, as quoted in Heover’s book. “He’s a man enough to stand up and defend himself in his own way, as any man should.”
Sinatra insisted to detectives that he did not start the fight.
“Sinatra doesn’t need any security,” Rizzo said, as quoted in Heover’s book. “He’s a man enough to stand up and defend himself in his own way, as any man should.”
Sinatra insisted to detectives that he did not start the fight.
Weizmann eventually regained consciousness but still suffered from confusion and memory loss. police, who Sinatra was listed as their prime suspect, Were eager to interview Weizmann.
Weisman told them that he remembered everything that happened before the fight, “but nothing else.” The entire incident was blank for him. Doctors called his condition “retrograde amnesia.”
According to the book, Weisman’s family “was furious” and wanted to press assault charges against Sinatra. However, he “thought better of it.” Kelly claimed that a family member told him that he was receiving anonymous telephone threats “from ominous-looking faces”.
Hollywood lawyer Grant Cooper announced that Weisman wanted to forget the incident and move on. Unable to do much, detectives closed the case.
For the book, Heover was able to track down Sinatra’s publicist, a surviving player in the saga.
“According to Frank’s publicist, money exchanged hands,” Heuer said. “He was supposed to be there with the group celebrating that night and he had made a habit of not attending. So, if anything went wrong, he was in a good position to clean things up. He said patrons, bartenders, waiters — all employees of the Polo Lounge — received some type of compensation for keeping their stories so vague.
Weizmann suffered from amnesia for several months. Nevertheless, he lived a long, prosperous life and died in 1994 at the age of 82.
Excited Sinatra, realizing that the whole ordeal would not derail his career, immediately purchased a nine-carat engagement ring worth $85,000. Sinatra and Farrow married in 1966.
According to Heuer’s book, “Dean Martin had the thankless task of informing Sinatra’s children – who were much closer in age to Mia than their father – of the marriage as the ceremony was taking place.”
What happened at the Polo Lounge is shrouded in mystery. Still, Heuer has his own theory.
“There are rumors that Frederick Weizmann… and his family may have received a payment because they never decided to press charges,” Heuer said. “It’s speculation, but it looks like it’s been covered with green paper.”
