Frank Sinatra at the Sands

I heard you ask for stories about trips no longer duplicable...such as going to see Frank Sinatra at the Sands. I am 60 now, but when I was in high school in the 50s, I took that driving trip with my parents and a school mate for company. I loved Frank Sinatra and we were crushed to hear his show was sold out. After my parents were asleep, my friend and I snuck out of our hotel and into the Sands where a kindly maitre d' let us stand by the door and watch the Sinatra show. He really looked surprised the next night because my parents managed to snag some tickets and the two high school girls walked in to see the show.

Because I respect the privacy of celebrities (and also feared Frank would have me dispatched by some "goons" if I approached him) I worshipped in silence from a discreet distance, watching him gamble in the casino until the wee small hours of the morning only snapping up his cocktail napkin after he left.

We also gawked discreetly at Debbie Reynolds and Eddie Fisher, who were courting at the Sands Hotel. Pretty heady stuff for two naïve school girls who, even though we were L.A. natives, were as distant from Hollywood celebrities as any kid in Ohio. (How could we know that our class mate, sweet, shrimpy Dusty Hoffman, would become a movie star more than a decade later?)

When I cried a the death of the singer who provided the background music for my life, I also was crying because I didn't live as fearlessly as he did. I wish I had taken the chance and talked to him. Watching the Sands demolished on T.V. put the final period on that unrepeatable life chapter.

Rochelle

 

 

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