Even though I'm a Dallas resident and business man now, most of my life was spent living in the Galveston-Houston area. My real estate company had two offices in
Galveston and one in the museum district of Houston.
And from the age of fourteen, my avocation has been performing on radio and television. I still do. I found this script of a piece I did on TV's News-24 Houston on June 21, 2003, and I thought you would find it interesting.
Bill Cherry's Memories -Sinatra Visits Galveston
People past 60 who lived or came to this island in the old days, love to tell the tales of when big-time stars headlined in Galveston.
Night clubs like the Sui Jin and the Hollywood Dinner Club and the Balinese Room and the Studio Lounge booked entertainers like Fred Astaire and big bands like Harry James.
Most of us refer to it as Galveston's Golden Days, but those golden days only had a span of thirty years. From the 1920s through most of the 1950s.
And that sure is a small piece of time...actually just 17%.... out of the 175 years the island's had civilized people living on it.
My favorite story from that era is when old Frank Sinatra was down on his luck. He was an almost has-been even though he was just 35-years old. We're talking about 1950. And wouldn't you know that's when he was married to glamorous movie star Ava Gardner. And she was making tons of money.
Desperate for a job, somehow he talked legendary oilman Glenn McCarthy into giving him a short gig at Houston's Cork Club, a plush private nightspot on top of McCarthy's legendary Shamrock Hotel.
Bill Roberts, a Houston gossip columnist, reported that Ava Gardner came to Houston with Sinatra, but nobody ever saw her ringside at his shows. The truth is, she wasn't there, and it was because their marriage was on the rocks.
Sinatra started driving to the island almost everyday. He came to pester Sam Maceo, owner of the Balinese Room, into letting him follow the Cork Club gig with one at the Balinese. If Maceo didn't hire him, Sinatra had no place to go after the Cork Club.
Finally. Maceo said OK, but only as a singer with the house band. So Sinatra came, and he stayed in one of the Island's flea bag hotels, and he ate his meals on credit at Biaggio DeAndrea's Speedway Café, right next to the famous Mountain Speedway roller coaster.
Within two years of his down and out Galveston gig, Sinatra moved back on top, but this time as a movie star in "From Here to Eternity." That's a story in itself.
But Sinatra never forgot his Galveston gig and the benevolence of Biaggio DeAndrea and his Speedway Café.
A few years later, Sinatra campaigned for the election of John F. Kennedy for president. When Kennedy won, he asked Sinatra if there might be a handful of people he'd like to have invited to his inauguration.
One Sinatra picked was his friend at the Speedway, Biaggio DeAndrea. And sure enough, a fancy embossed invitation was sent. DeAndrea didn't go, but that invitation was thumb tacked on the wall behind the lunch counter for all to see until the Speedway closed years later.
And Biaggio told me Sinatra settled up his tab at the café, too.
I'm Galvestonian Bill Cherry, and Frank Sinatra's visit to Galveston is one of my memories.
Copyright 2003 - William S. Cherry and Belo
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