I'm a fool to kill you

TWO

Dinner with Dean after a show was usually a raucous affair. Frank, Sammy, Joey, Peter, sometimes other friends like Buddy Hackett and Buddy Lester (a comic actor and friend who had appeared in Ocean’s 11), or Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh might show up. But on this particular night it was just Dino and me, and I gotta tell you, it was a thrill. I’d known Dean personally for a couple of years then, ever since the filming of Ocean’s 11. I was a huge fan long before that, but although I now considered us to be friends, it was still a kick having dinner with him and getting all his attention.

We were at the Bootlegger Bistro on the South Strip, a traditional Italian restaurant that both Dean and Frank often patronized. The owner and the waitresses all made a fuss over Dean until he asked them to go away so he and I could talk.

See? That’s what I mean. What a kick!

We talked about families — his, not mine — films he was going to make, and attempts to lure him to weekly television.

At one point he said, ‘We’ve talked about me enough, Eddie. What’s goin’ on with you?’

I told him I was still happy in the pit at the Sands, still had my little house away from the strip, and was still single with nobody regular in my life.

That was a mistake. He then went on about how important it was for me to find a woman, settle down and have a family. I told him none of that was really in my plans.

‘What happened to that pretty waitress you were seein’?’ he asked. ‘What was her name?’

‘That didn’t last, Dean, and she moved on. She doesn’t live in Vegas anymore.’ I was hoping he’d let it drop.

He did. Instead, we talked a bit about Marilyn Monroe, and how her recent death had affected us both. He said the movie he was supposed to be doing with her got scrubbed. He wouldn’t hear of them replacing her.

I had met Marilyn through Dean, helped her survive a crisis, and was one of the last people she called before her death, a supposed — and apparent — accidental overdose just the previous month.

Dean told me he was looking at some scripts, wanted to do another western, but was also looking at a series of spy novels written by someone named Donald Hamilton. The character’s name was Matt Helm, and he was some kind of super spy. Or, at least, that was the way Dean was thinking of playing him.

We finished dinner and had some coffee and cannoli for dessert.

‘Have you seen Frank yet?’ he asked me.

‘No, not yet. Why, is there something wrong? Does he have a problem?’

‘No, no, nothing like that,’ Dean said. ‘At least not that I know of. It’s just. .’

‘Just what?’

‘He’s kind of different when he’s around Nancy and his kids.’

‘Different how?’

‘Oh, sort of on his best behavior, you know? He doesn’t want to give Nancy any reason to not let him see the kids.’

‘Are they all here with him?’

‘Yep, Nancy, Frank Jr. and Tina.’

‘Aren’t they over eighteen?’ I asked.

‘Not Tina,’ Dean said. ‘She’s fourteen. Frank Jr. is eighteen, Nancy’s twenty-two and a beauty. Their mother could still keep him from seeing Tina if she wanted to.’

‘So Frank’s gonna behave, huh?’ I said, smiling. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever seen that side of him.’

‘Well, he’ll be the same on stage and in the steam room,’ Dean pointed out. ‘It’s just when he’s around his family, you know?’

We went back to talking about Dean’s kids after that, which was OK with me. He was proud of them. He was thinking that Dino Jr. was going to follow in his footsteps, but he was equally talented as a musician and a tennis player. He thought the kid would probably make a good pro tennis player.

Deanna, his daughter, was also talented, had a fine singing voice.

‘Well,’ I said, ‘if you end up going on television with a weekly show, you could always have them on.’

‘You know, you’re right,’ he said. ‘I could do that. I could also have Nancy and Frank Jr. on. They both sing very well.’

‘Not Tina?’

‘Tina’s the brainy one,’ he said. ‘I bet if the other two have a career in show business it’ll be with her behind the scenes. In fact, I’ll bet she’d be a great producer.’

It was nice to hear how proud Dean was not only of his own kids, but of Frank’s as well. To my way of thinking, this was the sign of a real friend.