Frank Sinatra’s headlong and headstrong cruise along life’s fast lane paused for a moment last weekend in Aurora, the first town in Illinois to light its streets with electricity in 1881 and the latest to make room for the blazing temptations of gambling’s neon.
The little corner of the world that Sinatra called home for three days beckons, for those driving conventional vehicles, when one takes the Aurora exit off Interstate Highway 88 and hits Illinois Highway 31.
The signpost says much about the country’s current enchantment with games of chance: One arrow points left, for “Off-track betting”; the other points right, for “Casino boats.”
Off-track betting parlors are no longer novelties. But the way the boats of the Hollywood Casino-Aurora promote themselves-“The glitz of Las Vegas . . . the glamour of Hollywood”-is alluringly fresh.
To get there, you drive past a commercial row typical of Anyplace, USA-Jiffy Lube, Wendys, Pizza Hut and used-car lots-until arriving on New York Street where the Hollywood Casino handsomely looms.
It opened in mid-June, the most opulent and ambitious of the various floating crap games in the state. It is two boats actually, sitting on each side of a four-story, 65,000-square-foot pavilion, a rather stunning structure that houses bars, lounges, a huge buffet restaurant and three fine dining rooms. The look is Art Deco throughout, and there are striking views of the Fox River and the town.
But is was not until last weekend that this place was symbolically christened; bestowed the imprimatur that cannot be purchased with its fancy TV ads, catchy radio songs-“Aurora, Aurora,” to the tune of hicago”-or even the $75 million it cost to construct the facility.
“The glitz of Las Vegas . . . the glamour of Hollywood” is delivered in one way and by one man.
Frank Sinatra “puts us on the map,” says M.W. “Bud” Meyer, chairman of the Civic Center Authority of Aurora.
He may have been the third act to perform as part of the casino’s new relationship with the nearby Paramount Arts Centre-Tom Jones and Howie Mandel were first up-but it is only Sinatra who can provide what Vic Kastil, the casino’s vice president, calls “an endorsement of this kind of place.”
And an excitement.
“You can feel it. The air changes. It crackles,” says William Weidner, president and chief operating officer of the company that developed and operates the Hollywood Casino and other ventures. “It has to do with the expectations of seeing the man, the attitude that you are seeing the best, watching greatness.”
It is something else, too.
It is that Sinatra has been a part of our lives for decades. That was his voice in the darkness as a generation wooed and wondered. Add to that his ability, in this world gone increasingly stiff, to remain a symbol of reckless independence. If there is a high roller-a bit of freewheeling frolic-locked in the heart of everyone, Sinatra’s got the key.
Drawing the players
“The Sinatra crowd is a crowd that likes to have fun, have a few drinks, enjoy life,” Kastil says.
Elvis may have been the most popular act in the history of Las Vegas, but it was Frank who brought in the players.
“Oh, yes. The players come out for Frank,” Kastil says.
The prelude to the action is the show, and the first limo, a white stretch, pulls up in front of the Paramount Arts Centre at precisely 7:07, almost an hour before the concert. Its occupants linger inside a few minutes. Wouldn’t you?
There’s something about a Sinatra crowd. In appearance, it doesn’t differ vastly from the crowds that attend performances by other entertainers. But things are slightly magnified. There is more jewelry, more limos, more suits, more attitude. Men seem to strut, women slink.
Almost involuntarily, this gathering gives Sinatra a standing ovation as he walks onstage. At 77, his gait is stiff, his hair an awkward shade of silver, his voice but a whisper of what it once was, and his memory shaky.
But his performance stuns.
It lasts barely an hour and includes such old gems as “Come Rain or Come Shine,” “I’ve Got You Under My Skin,” “Luck Be a Lady” and “My Funny Valentine,” before culminating with “New York, New York” and “Chicago.”
Of course he sings “My Way.” He sings “Mack the Knife.” He smokes. He sips a drink; his favorite is Jack Daniel’s. He introduces his bandleader, who is also his son, Frank Jr. And when he slowly walks offstage, he leaves an audience wild in his wake.
“Goosebumps,” says financial services executive Kurt Rittenburg, a frequent visitor to Las Vegas but one seeing Sinatra for the first time. “Absolute goosebumps.”
After the show
The theater holds 1,900 people, which means most of them will not be on the casino’s 10 p.m. cruise, given its 600-person capacity. Many will go home. Others will linger in the pavilion’s restaurants and bars.
The casino’s only a block away, a short and pretty walk along the Fox River.
“Gambling and Frank seem to go together like, like scotch and soda,” says Nick Raykim, a 50-ish salesman, walking with his wife. “Scotch and soda. That’s pretty good, eh? Just like the song.”
The mind gets woozy imagining what sort of crowd might be following this theater-to-casino path after performances by upcoming Paramount acts such as Stand Rock Indian Ceremony (Nov. 17), “A Christmas Carol” (Dec. 18) and, next year, “The Great Dinosaur Mystery,” the Vermeer Quartet and Hubbard Street Dance Chicago. And what about Mummenschanz next April? That’s a mime troupe.
Inside the casino, the noise is typical, familiar and loud.
“Card?” says a 60-ish man in a silk suit, staring at two cards in front of him totaling 13. “Sure I want a card, whattaya think?”
He sits behind a pile of seven $100 chips.
“Nuts,” he says, busting his hand with a 9. His name is Bill Grover and he owns a Downstate auto repair business. “The deal with Frank is that he’s lived such a go-for-it lifestyle. What’s losing a few bucks?”
Serious gamblers
Like many of the state’s other gaming boats, Hollywood Casino attracts serious players.
In their worst hours, these places-whether in Joliet or Galena-distill gambling to its most unattractive essence, where it is no longer gaming but a business and rooms are filled with desperate eyes.
They lack, and any casino executive will tell you this, the gentler and freer atmosphere of Vegas, where most people are on vacation and thus more relaxed. As well, they are not-unshackled by the cruises’ time constraints-tied to the tables.
But on the boat this Sinatra night, the concertgoers-nice suits, new hairdos, flashy jewelry, smiling faces-pepper the crowd liberally enough to make the boat more playful than usual. It’s a carefree conspiracy.
The minimum stakes are steep-there are no $2 blackjack tables here and more $50 minimum seats than $5 ones. But people elbow their way into packed craps tables. Roulette wheels, generally deserted in Vegas, are jammed. Blackjack? Good luck finding an empty chair.
On the deck, one can see and hear the Fox River. On the shore are buildings in various stages of renovation. One can see the quick, if often superficial, face lift that gambling can give a town.
And look at some of the ads sprinkled throughout “Showcase,” a visitors guide published by the Aurora Beacon-News. “The best deal in Naperville,” from a motel. “We’ve taken the gamble out of interest rates!” from a bank. “You’ll always go home a winner!” from a radio station.
“What a deal” shouts another ad, which features a picture of four people playing cards. It’s an ad for a retirement home.
`If I could just see him’
Inside the pavilion, people are wandering, staring at some of the movie memorabilia in glass cases: Charlton Heston’s toga from “Ben Hur,” a Fred Astaire tuxedo, Joan Crawford’s bustier, and a John Wayne cowboy hat. Sinatra’s represented, of course, with the hat he wore in “Pal Joey.”
Frank had dinner and drinks-veal and fries and cheesecake; Jack and sambuca-Thursday at Cafe Harlow’s in the pavilion with an entourage of nearly a dozen. Later he went to the Director’s Lounge to hear one of his (and Chicago’s) favorite saloon singers, Frank D’Rone, who tried unsuccessfully to coax the Man into a couple of songs.
“He was here yesterday and maybe he’ll be back,” says Sam Goldman, a white-haired insurance broker who was sitting in the lounge.
“If I could just see him. That’s all,” says his wife, Julie.
In a politically correct world, Sinatra stands as an icon of individualism: “My Way,” “All the Way” and “All or Nothing at All.” People who have never sipped hard liquor, who shoo away cigarette smoke in disgust and turn moralistic on the topic of infidelity, can still get a pleasant tingle from Sinatra.
Gay Talese, in a famous Esquire magazine profile in the 1960s, put it this way: “Sinatra brings out the best and worst in people-some men will become aggressive, some women will become seductive, others will stand around skeptically appraising him, the scene will be somehow intoxicated by his presence.”
A vanishing world
There are not many performing years left in Sinatra. When he quits, with him will go that tuxedoed, show-biz world of hard liquor and hard living whose first team, captained by Sinatra, was that boozy band of bon vivants known as the Rat Pack.
Indeed, that world has largely vanished. Sammy is dead. Dean is morosely homebound. One gropes to remember the others’ names (Joey? Peter? Jilly?). And Las Vegas has voluntarily given up its lascivious luster, turning from its traditional naughty image and embracing a prim, family-driven ambiance. It’s contagious. There are more than a few no-smoking tables on the boats of Aurora.
Sinatra did not visit the Hollywood Casino on Friday, when he returned to his hotel in Oak Brook, or Saturday, when he flew home to California. His late-night roisterings are just about over. Having the world on a string, as Sinatra has had for most of his nearly 78 years, can be an exhausting business.
