“Bob, if they have a special session in the present political climate, I assure you the state will emerge with the shirt stripped from its back and without five cents to buy a cup of coffee.”
These vultures who were out to bankrupt his kingdom were, of course, the very same public servants who had sold their souls to Hughes at the Silver Slipper.
“In all fairness, Howard,” Maheu reminded him, “the officials in Nevada have been most cooperative with us—at all levels.
“I do not claim one iota of credit for the foresight you had when you instructed me to make political contributions to ‘worthy’ public servants. I can assure you that it is paying dividends, and when I mentioned that Bell had been successful in killing the fair housing bill, please believe me that I had no intent to delete any of the credit which is due to your foresight. Without ‘our friends’ we would not have had a prayer.”
Indeed, Hughes was doing quite well. He had blocked the zoo and defeated dog racing and killed fair housing. But he was not happy.
“I am not complaining about our treatment here,” he explained. “I just say that, because of certain people’s failure to keep accurately informed as to our desires, a large quantity of legislation which I consider highly undesirable is on the verge of being passed.
“So, I am proposing that you meet with the governor in Carson and try to reach an understanding under which he would assist in an all-out campaign to scuttle most of the remaining legislation that I consider undesirable.
“Assume the very strongest motivation for Gov. Laxalt, my question is: How much could he do?”
If Hughes was never quite content with his one-man rule of Nevada, others were impressed. And mystified. Even frightened. His unprecedented buying spree was by now a staple of nightclub acts, but the jokes tended to elicit only nervous laughter.
Johnny Carson greeted showroom audiences by saying: “Welcome to Las Vegas, Howard Hughes’ Monopoly set. You ever get the feeling he’s going to buy the whole damned place and shut it down?”
Even Frank Sinatra, himself a Las Vegas institution, picked up the theme.
“You’re wondering why I don’t have a drink in my hand,” the singer joked with his audience one night at the Sands. “Howard Hughes bought it.” Not long after, the billionaire also bought the Sands, and soon after that Sinatra stopped joking.
“For two successive nights into the wee hours of the morning Sinatra has made a damn fool of himself in the casino at the Sands,” Maheu informed Hughes when the trouble began. “He moved around insulting people with vile language. Last night he drove a golf cart through a plate glass window and was disgustingly drunk. In an effort to protect him from himself Carl Cohen stopped his credit after he had obtained $30,000 plus in cash and had lost approximately $50,000. Sinatra blew his top and late this afternoon called me to tell me that he was walking away from the Sands and would not finish his engagement.
“One of the reasons that Cohen cut off his credit is that this SOB was running around the casino stating in a loud voice that you had plenty of money and that there was no reason why you should not share it with him since he had made the Sands the profitable institution it is.”
The Sands had long been Sinatra’s playground, the place he gathered with his “Rat Pack,” where he and Dean Martin and Joey Bishop and Peter Lawford and Sammy Davis, Jr., put on legendary shows. Indeed, Sinatra had once owned a piece of the hotel but had been forced to give it up several years earlier when he was caught consorting with Chicago Mob boss Sam Giancana. But the singer still considered the Sands his domain, and a few days later he came back to confront casino manager Cohen.
Maheu sent Hughes a blow-by-blow description:
“At six A.M. today, Sinatra appeared at the Sands, made one hell of a scene and insisted on seeing Carl Cohen. He threatened to kill anyone who got in his way, used vile language, and said he would beat up the telephone operators if they did not connect him with Cohen, etc.
“In an effort to calm the situation, Carl agreed to meet him. Sinatra called Cohen every dirty name in the book, said he was going to kill him, pushed a table over on Carl, picked up a chair and attempted to hit Carl over the head. Carl ducked, took a pass at Sinatra and floored him. I understand Frank has a broken tooth.”
Actually, it was two teeth. And Sinatra announced that he was quitting the Sands to sign with Caesar’s Palace.
Hughes was upset. Not about losing Sinatra but about losing him to a rival hotel. He saw the entire brouhaha as a plot by the Caesar’s crowd to steal his property.
“It seems to me that if they (Caesar’s Palace) want what we have (Sinatra), they ought to deal with us in a decent and honorable way and buy it,” he fumed. “Not try to take it for nothing.
“I dont intend to take this lying down. Sinatra made three pictures for me at RKO. I know him backward and frontward. All actors are a little crazy. But I dont intend the Caesar’s group making us look weak and stupid.”
Hughes of course had a plan.
“My script is something like this,” he told Maheu. “Contact Sinatra now—before he gets too loaded. If he is asleep, give reasonable time only for recuperation. I urge you to tell him:
“‘Howard doesn’t know if you remember the time when you were friends. But he remembers—it was back in the days when you were flying a Bonanza, one of the first ones on the coast. Anyway, he remembers, and when he heard of the recent events, he was distressed beyond measure. However, he was hesitant to inject himself between you and Cohen, since you had been close friends for such a very long time. He even remembers (or thinks he remembers) you introducing Sammy Davis Jr. to the public for the first time from the stage of the Sands.
“‘Anyway, returning to recent events, the story that was related to him was so fantastic it seemed as if it could only have occurred in a nightmare, not reality.’
“Please tell Frank that the only way I know to show that the recent events do not in any way reflect my feelings or wishes is to suggest that he visit the Sands or the Desert Inn and ask for $500,000 or $1,000,000 in chips and see what results he gets. I think he will find that he is not even asked to sign the marker.”
Old Black and Blue Eyes disdained the offer. But the press treated the whole affair as if Sinatra had literally been kicked out of the Sands and suggested that he had been booted on Hughes’s orders. There was some talk that it all had to do with lingering jealousies over Lana Turner, or perhaps Ava Gardner, but the favorite rumor had it that when Hughes was told of the fracas he just asked, “Frank who?”
In any event, it seemed symbolic of a revolution in Las Vegas. Sinatra and the old gang were out. Howard Hughes was in. Not only nightclub comedians noticed the change. Far from Las Vegas, others without a sense of humor also paid heed.
On June 28, 1968, just as Hughes was about to take control of the Stardust, U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark brought his Monopoly game to a sudden halt. Clark threatened that if Hughes closed the 30.5 million-dollar deal, he would haul him into court for violating antitrust laws.
Hughes was furious. He would not be intimidated. He would go right ahead with the Stardust deal. At first, he would not even consider a delay. He was certain that the entire country was as focused on the big showdown as he was. How would it look if he backed down?
“Why must we delay the closing?” he demanded.
“I am positive it is a mistake. It will focus the attention of the whole U.S. on this deal. The press, T.V., and Life Magazine will make an Irish Sweepstakes out of this. (They will even be booking bets on whether we will be able to take over or not.)