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This very interesting story about what started the rift between Frank Sinatra and JFK is from the Las Vegas Review-Journal. It sounds like Jackie Kennedy was going to accompany her husband to stay at Sinatra's home in Rancho Mirage, and based on the stories we've heard about John Kennedy partying with the Rat Pack and Marilyn Monroe, I can see where she might have influenced the choice to not stay at the Sinatra home.
Corinne Sidney, one of the few Las Vegans left from Frank Sinatra's inner circle, was on the telephone to offer some points of historical clarification.
She had read a recent account about the Rat Pack being featured on The History Channel's series "10 Things You Don't Know About."
No. 1 on the special episode's list: details about the blowup in 1962 between Sinatra and John F. Kennedy's administration.
Much has been written and portrayed in film about the 11th-hour cancellation of JFK's stay at Sinatra's golf course compound in Rancho Mirage, Calif.
First of all, it's been reported that the White House informed Sinatra about the cancellation a couple of days in advance.
Sidney begs to differ. "It was the same day JFK was supposed to arrive. I was there."
Twice married to Jack Entratter, the legendary president of the Sands Hotel (the Rat Pack's main hangout), Sidney, along with Entratter, was among a small group of guests who would be welcoming the Kennedys that evening at Sinatra's home.
The Entratters were regulars at Sinatra's. Jack Entratter and Sinatra went back to the days when Entratter hired him at New York City's famed Copacabana Club.
"When Frank went through his dark period," Sidney said, "he would stay at the Sands, and Jack would carry him. Ava (Gardner) was out chasing bullfighters in Spain."
She added, "When I came into the picture in the late 1950s, Jack and Frank were very close and business associates."
Back to JFK's visit. Movie stars Kirk Douglas and Yul Brynner also were invited, Sidney said. So was songwriter Sammy Cahn.
"Frank had gotten the great idea a couple months before the president's visit to build a guest house for him.
"It has been reported," she said, "that Frank built a helipad for JFK's visit. That was not built for the president. Frank loved helicopters and would ride a helicopter to his home until he got pressured by the golf course."
Sidney said she was in the living room of the house playing backgammon with actress Mia Farrow, Sinatra's wife, when the phone call came from the White House.
"He slammed the phone down and said, 'That (expletive) Bobby!' " No doubt a reference to U.S. Attorney General Bobby Kennedy, she said.
"He stormed out of the room. We were all disappointed and sad. He had gone to a lot of trouble to see JFK elected and had put together his inauguration party.
"He was doubly hurt that the president instead stayed with Bing Crosby," a good friend but a well-known Republican.
"Frank felt very betrayed," Sidney said.
The reason I know it all is because I was 26 and it was ALL (aside from what Corinne says) in the papers and movie magazines--we didn't have the Internet but we had the likes of Walter Winchell, Ed Sullivan, Dorothy (I forget her last name--she was on "What's My Line" and wrote for the Journal American and Sinatra called her a few 'choice' names)and a half a dozen other gossip columnists who knew everything-and reported it