Lunch at La Scala, with the Ghost of Sinatra

“You gotta love livin', baby, 'cause dyin' is a pain in the ass.”  --  Frank Sinatra
                                                          
Stepping into the place, I had to take a minute.
Coming from the bright afternoon sun beating down on Beverly Drive filled with the Ferraris, Feragamos and fakers to the darkened, shadows of La Scala -– it took a minute for my eyes to adjust.
Unbelievable. The second I looked around, I thought: Yeah, I know. This was Sinatra's place -- maybe Peter Lawford's, Jack Kennedy's and my dad, Kenny O'Donnell’s, kind of place, too.
The darkness, the heavy dark wood, the red-leather booths screamed another era. Small, crowded, but just private enough to keep some pissant reporter at bay.
Yeah, Frank would have liked it. Peter would have liked it. My dad would have liked it. Hell, Marilyn would have liked it.
As I looked around, I could almost picture them sitting at one the booths, drinking, smoking and holding court. Yeah, that would be them holding court.
Suddenly a voice bellowed my name. He was here. I shoulda known he would never have been late.
“Where the hell have you been?” He growled as I approached the table. “Hell,” he groused, “I hate when people are late.”
I was never late again.
Ron Joy was a genuine original, sometime producer, a real life tough guy, who knew everyone from mobsters to Sinatra to Monroe, and a gentleman, among gentleman, old school -- the real deal. “You gotta be on time kid. Two things – nobody likes -- somebody who is late. Makes it look like you think your time is more important than theirs. Second thing, nobody likes is a smart ass.”
I laughed, as slid into the booth. I wasn’t sure if he was pissed cause as I was late or calling me a smart-ass just to make the point that I was an outsider. Some “dame” as he, Frank and the boys would say, from Boston, some writer with some vague Kennedy connection, my dad having been a chief Kennedy aide.
Boston. Yeah, she’s probably a smart-ass is what he figured.
“You gotta understand kid,” RJ, as he was known to his real friends, told me, “there are no f---in' rules in Hollywood. So any f---in’ moron can call himself a producer, make up stories and your job is to weed through the crap without getting yourself so covered in it you can’t find your way out without stinking.”
I winced.
When RJ told a story, he had a gift for bringing it to life with great imagery and, shall we say, a gift with the English language. He could quote Shakespeare one minute and tell you to go screw yourself in ways that would have made Mae West blush the next.
He was in his mid 70s now, battling age with the same tenacity that had allowed him to fight like hell all his life.