Alleged Organized Crime Links
Sinatra has been frequently linked to members of the Mafia, and it has long been rumored that his career was aided behind the scenes by organized crime.
A biography of Frank Sinatra titled Frank: The Voice by James Kaplan, alleged that one of his uncles, Babe Gavarante, was a member of a Bergen County armed gang connected to the organization of Willie Moretti. Gavarante was convicted of murder in 1921 in connection with an armed robbery in which he had driven the getaway car. Sinatra was personally linked to Moretti.
Also James Kaplan assumed that Frank Sinatra had links to Charles Fischetti, a notorious Chicago mobster, and with Charles's brother Joseph who ran the Fontainebleau Hotel complex in Miami and arranged work for Sinatra. Charles Fischetti introduced him to Charles Luciano in Havana. After Luciano's deportation to Italy, Sinatra visited him at least twice, singing at a 1946 Christmas Party and giving the famed mobster a gold cigarette case engraved "To my dear pal Charlie, from his friend Frank" the next year. Columnist Robert Ruark claimed that Sinatra was also in Havana during a "notorious Mafia conclave" at the Hotel Nacional in February 1947.
Sinatra had a relationship with mafia don Sam Giancana, who helped the Kennedys with the primary in West Virginia in 1960. In biography of Frank Sinatra titled The Rough Guide to Frank Sinatra Chris Ingham claimed that after the Cal-Neva incident in the summer of 1963, the relationship between Giancana and Sinatra cooled. According to Sinatra: the Untold Story by Michael Munn, Sinatra subsequently colluded with the government to help to bring Giancana down.
In a biography on her father entitled Frank Sinatra: An American Legend, Nancy Sinatra claimed that "the FBI files indicated that my father had been investigated endlessly for 30 years. (The early FBI files have him listed as a "Communist" because he appeared at a rally with Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt and because he sang "The House I Live In"). The files disclosed that there was no evidence of Mafia membership, Mafia affiliation or going business with the Mafia. The FBI files also showed that the stories about Sinatra and members of the Mafia had come out originally as rumors printed in newspaper articles – rumors that were reported as rumors but were subsequently reported over and over until they were accepted as "facts"."
The character Johnny Fontane from the book and film The Godfather is widely believed to be based on Frank Sinatra, portraying him as a man whose career was helped by links to organised crime, and Sinatra was furious with Mario Puzo for creating this character.
Read more about this topic: Personal Relationships Of Frank Sinatra
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