In tribute to author, Harlan Ellison, who's birthday is today, I'd like to reprint an excerpt from Gay Talese's legendary profile of Frank Sinatra entitled, "Frank Sinatra Has A Cold". Keep in mind this is an earlier draft than the one that appeared in Esquire magazine in 1965...
The room cracked with the clack of billiard balls. There were about a dozen spectators in the room, most of them young men who were watching Leo Durocher shoot against two other aspiring hustlers who were not very good. This private drinking club has among its membership many actors, directors, writers, models, nearly all of them a good deal younger than Sinatra or Durocher and much more casual in the way they dress for the evening. Many of the young women, their long hair flowing loosely below their shoulders, wore tight, fanny-fitting Jax pants and very expensive sweaters; and a few of the young men wore blue or green velour shirts with high collars and narrow tight pants, and Italian loafers.
It was obvious from the way Sinatra looked at these people in the poolroom that they were not his style, but he leaned back against a high stool that was against the wall, holding his drink in his right hand, and said nothing, just watched Durocher slam the billiard balls back and forth. The younger men in the room, accustomed to seeing Sinatra at this club, treated him without deference, although they said nothing offensive. They were a cool young group, very California-cool and casual, and one of the coolest seemed to be a little guy, very quick of movement, who had a sharp profile, pale blue eyes, blondish hair, and squared eyeglasses. He wore a pair of brown corduroy slacks, a green shaggy-dog Shetland sweater, a tan suede jacket, and Game Warden boots, for which he had recently paid $60.
Frank Sinatra, leaning against the stool, sniffling a bit from his cold, could not take his eyes off the Game Warden boots. Once, after gazing at them for a few moments, he turned away; but now he was focused on them again. The owner of the boots, who was just standing in them watching the pool game, was named Harlan Ellison, a writer who had just completed work on a screenplay, The Oscar. Finally Sinatra could not contain himself.
"Hey," he yelled in his slightly harsh voice that still had a soft, sharp edge. "Those Italian boots?"
Without taking his eyes off the pool game in progress, Ellison muttered, "I dunno. Italian leather, maybe."
Sinatra, not to be thwarted, snarled back, "The hell you talkin' about, kid?"
Ellison slowly shifted his weight from one foot to the other, then coolly regarded Sinatra.
"By Italian leather, I mean that they were made with the left-over skin from yer ma's last labiaoplasty." The room temperature dropped by several degrees. Several mouths opened in disbelief. The music playing over the scene came to an abrupt, needle-scratching halt. Sinatra himself turned purple in rage, his clenching fist shattering the bourbon tumbler in it. Shards poked through his flesh, dripping blood and Jack Daniels onto the parquet.
"WHAT-DID-YOU-SAY?" choked out Sinatra, his eyes bulging from their sockets in disbelief.
"I got six more pairs like 'em at home, all made from your mother's meat curtains, you tone-deaf, dago wop guinea spaghetti-slurpin' gimlet-eyed, fat-titted embarrassing stereotype douchenozzle, that's what I said. Are you retarded as well as ugly and stupid?" Ellison then turned his back on Sinatra, putting a dime on the pool table to indicate that he was next in line to play pool.
Sinatra quivered with a fury so intense it looked like he was stuck in an industrial paint-mixer. He appeared to have bitten through his lower lip, spitting pinkish saliva like a rabid dog. Slowly, he turned to the pale and quiet crowd of sycophants and hangers-on around him. With a superhuman effort, he regained his composure and addressed them in a low, menacing voice.
"Let's blow this joint." With the air of a funeral procession, Sinatra and his cronies filed out the door. The room was as still as a museum. All eyes were on Ellison, nonchalantly picking through the pool cue rack, searching for a favorite. Finally the tension in the room started to deflate, when suddenly, Sinatra angrily strode back in, and spun Harlan around to face him.
"Just one thing, you sawed-off runt.", Sinatra menaced, an inch from Ellison's implacable face. "A douche-nozzle, that's that little rubber tip on the end of a hose connected to a douche-bag, right?"
Ellison nodded. "That would be correct, Mr. Sinatra."
"Just making sure, is all." Sinatra spun on his heels and walked out, not to be seen for a very long time.
For obvious reasons, this draft has not seen the light of day until now...
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