Sinatra, Kennedy & Tiki

I was watching a show about the Frank Sinatra Jr. Kidnapping.
They were talking about Frank Sr. and JFK and……….Blamo!, they show this picture. Look carefully……………..
Three legends in one snapshot!
Questions Tiki people:

1. Where the hell are they?
2. Is that fabric still around?
   If you got anything, bring it.
   Thanks.
   World B. Taboo

[ Edited by Humuhumu to fix image BBCode tags ]

[ Edited by: Humuhumu on 2004-07-05 10:16 ]

Well it looks to me like they are in a Bar that had tiki fabric curtains. Welcome ot TC gambaledj. Come on in and stay awhile.

[ Edited by: Benzart on 2004-07-05 11:47 ]

What is wrong with this picture..?

They are drinking WINE!

This looks more like some official banquet room, and not a Tiki bar. Cool find, never seen that fabric, it might be modern indian totem though...

Maybe Palm Springs?

The few occasions when Frankie and Kennedy actually met should be researchable...

Right you are BigBroTiki. After enlarging the photo, the fabric is definatelymodern Indian Totem Poles. kennedy and Sinatra are sitting at a Round table with white tablecloth which usually is found in Banquet rooms. It looks like the waiter behind Kennedy has a bottle of wine or champaign.
You catch everything.

In my opinon, this picture was taken during Kennedy's inaugural ball in Washington, D.C., Winter 1961.

Sinatra and Kennedy famously partied together, and often -- but in this photo both are in "white tie" -- the most formal of men's evening clothes at the time, and the only occasion on which I think both would have been wearing this would've been the inaugural ball.

If this had just been a "regular" party night they would've worn black tie, or for an even more informal occasion -- such as just raising hell in Vegas -- tuxedos or dinner jackets. Sinatra loved to dress up, but no one ever wore white tie just because one felt like it; it was always for some well-planned and very important occasion. State dinners and diplomatic functions are always in white tie, for example.

If it had been the inaguration itself, they would have been the most formal of men's clothes -- morning coats & trousers (black cutaway coats with dark pinstriped pants and even top hats -- which Kennedy certainly wore on that day).

If this is a photo from the ball, then it represents the height of the friendship between these two men. Sinatra and Kennedy became fast friends when Kennedy was a senator; Sinatra admired Kennedy's guts, class, wit and power, and Kennedy admired Sinatra's ring-a-ding lifestyle (which was at its peak during this time). They shared mistresses (both were fond of having more than one woman in bed at the same time), golf, party expeditions in Sinatra's private plane, boozing, and "romancing" every "starlet" they could get their hands on.

But shortly after Kennedy came to power his evil brother Bobby advised JFK to drop Sinatra lest Sinatra's connections to the underworld sully JFK's reputation. This JFK cruelly did, breaking Sinatra's heart. On top of what Ava Gardner had done to said heart, it wound up giving us the most absolutely pefect covers of "One For My Baby" and "Angel Eyes" -- among others -- that have ever been recorded, in my opinion.

I think it's a great picture. The pattern on the drapes connect to that 1961 styte, too. A good little picture to frame and have near one's bar.

Didnt Sinatra get pissed off too about his friend Sammy Davis Jr not being invited to the White House party because Davis was married to a white woman.

Did you see the Rat Pack Story too?

Yes, saw "The Rat Pack," lots of good stuff, but as is always (bizarrely!) the case, when I do research into an historical story that I've seen on movie or TV, the "real" story is invariably more outrageous/lively/scandalous/dramatic that the screen story.

Yes, Sinatra had to eat a lot of s*%$ in order to stay close to the Kennedys, mostly from Joe Sr. -- the "ambassador" -- in a perfect example of my opening para, Joe Sr. came to visit Sinatra at his Palm Springs hideaway on business, and after biz was done Joe demanded booze and a prostitute. Said prostitute was quickly provided but soon thereafter she screamed and ran from Joe's room, and after she quieted down she told Sinatra that Joe wanted her to hold still while he stubbed her with his lit cigar, but she just couldn't take it. Sinatra paid her off and she went on her way.

(above story is from "Mr. S," by Sinatra's former valet -- very interesting reading. You'll also find out some interesting details about Yul Brener, too.)

On Sammy Davis, Jr. -- it was Joe who demanded that Sammy stay away from the inaugural events, and yes, it was because he'd married a white woman.

Joe was a tyrant to his family, too, and during one tirade told his (almost) grown children that they were spending too much money and they had to cut back or they'd be ruined.

Afterwards, JFK comforted his weeping sister by saying "there, there -- it'll be all right -- we'll just ask dad to work harder."

Focus Tiki People.
We are trying to figure out where they are.
A Tiki Bar in a hotel perhaps? Circa 1961?
Also is this fabric still around?
If you go to Google images and type in Sinatra & Kennedy you will get a slightly larger image. I strongly disagree that the fabric is Indian totem. They are stylized Tiki designs totally consistent with the graphics of that era.

I believe that is an Inuit (Alaskan) design.

I agree. The drapes are NW Indian totems as filtered through a white man's 1961 eyes.

And I say, because of they way they're dressed, that this was taken during JFK's inaugural ball.

Focus Tiki People.
Give me a break.
Where do you think they are?…….The Rat Pack in Alaska?
You think they’re in an “Eskimo” theme place in Washington DC in the early sixties?
Stop with the Totem crap.
Come on geeks…..That is vintage 50’s 60’s TIKI fabric design.

I agree it it Inuit or Tlinkit carving based fabric.
I have studied and carved several Indian totem poles and those figures are DEFINATELY Indian Totems. Get some books about the Tlinkit indians and you will see those figures.
It does Not mean they have to be in Alaska. They could be in Las Vegas or Washington, No clues.

The symbols are neither Tiki nor Inuit, but, Aliens from Outer Space. Frank and Jon are clearly on another planet. Klatu Verada Nictu.
Mahalo,
Al

Thats right, we all know they both loved Orchids.

Okay, I've solved the mystery. The photo that started this thread plus its caption is at:

http://www.canoe.ca/JamMusicSinatra/sinatra10.html

But to save you the bother, here is the caption:

"President John F. Kennedy is shown with Frank Sinatra at the Inaugural Ball in Washington, D.C., in this Jan. 20, 1961 file photo. Sinatra, the dashing teen idol who matured into the premier romantic balladeer of American popular music and the "Chairman of the Board" to his millions of fans, died Thursday night, May 14, 1998, of a heart attack. He was 82. -- AP "

Gotta love that swingin' Internet, baby!

On 2004-07-07 16:09, Satan's Sin wrote:
And I say, because of they way they're dressed, that this was taken during JFK's inaugural ball.

Good job SS!!

So Gambaledj, did you win the bet with your geek friends?

[ Edited by: Unga Bunga on 2004-07-07 21:01 ]

Thank you, thank you very much. I'll have a much more elaborate post on this once I've sobered up. (don't wait up).

seem's kennedy inauguration was celebrated with five balls (insert joke here).

so the location of the photo may be lost in time...

one location was "The Armory" in dc.

apparently nelson riddle conducted for the balls too

Hey, Gambaledj-

No one's even thanked you for bringing such a cool image as your first post on Tiki Central! You got one welcome from Benzart, but you deserve a hearty thanks for showing up with food for the table, not coming with an empty stomach and waiting to be fed - muchas gracias!

Note to all hungry, tired, huddled masses: you will be not be turned away from the banquet that is TC if you show up on our shores empty-handed; there is planty for all at the Fount of Wisdom.

Maybe not at the bar, though.

I have found another interesting mid-century photo that speaks to our precious tiki heritage, and I think it is important to post it here because so few remember the “Tiki Gap” of the Cold War.

Some of the older TCers surely recall how Kruschev, enraged by the rapid increase in the number of Polynesian-themed restaurants in the U.S., instituted an all-out catch-up program that resulted in the massive slave-labor camp in the Urals that came to be known as “Tiki City.” Thousands of lives and billions of rubles were sacrificed to round-the-clock production of mugs, home bars, and Bolshoi interpretations of Polynesian dance. These products fell flat on the international market, however, although in fairness to the commies their ill-planned Iron Tiki Mug of the Red Star was retrofitted with a pulley-and-lever device that made its forty-pound weight feel more like thirty-five. (These mugs still did not sell, and were forced upon Polish and East German tikiphiles at bayonet point.)

But the true end of the Soviet tiki program came during the famous Nixon/Kruschev “Tiki Bar Debate” at Moscow’s Polynesian Tech Expo of 1959. It was at the American exhibit that the showdown came. There, in front of a gleaming, mass-produced tiki bar that was by then a common feature in every American rumpus room, Nixon told Kruschev that U.S. free enterprise had not only matched Soviet production of 10,000 barrels per day of cheap vodka, “but also 12,000 barrels of cheap rum and 15,000 barrels of even cheaper whiskey! With boxcars of mixers to boot!” And then Nixon intoned the immortal words: “Sir, vodka and cherry Hawaiian Punch does not a tiki drink make! Does not!”

Humiliated, Kruschev tried to bluster his way out of the debate by banging his shoe on the tiki bar and bellowing, “We will outdrink you! We will outdrink you!”

But Kruschev knew he was beaten, and when he returned to the Kremlin he quietly canceled the Tiki Five-Year Plan. Thus and the first round of the Cold War went to the U.S.

This is the best picture I could find, but perhaps some other TCer might be able to locate one that gives a better view of the famous bar.

The famous "Tiki Bar Debate" of 1959 -- to the victor goes the spoils!

[ Edited by: Satan's Sin on 2004-07-08 20:29 ]

Man...the things they don't teach you in school! That is an amazing piece of tiki history! :lol: