I've had an ambition to be somebody since I was 13 years old because I wanted to help my family. I wanted to hurry and grow up so I could make enough money to buy my father a big car and my mother a beautiful home with an electric washing machine and all those things she used to see in the newspapers.
Las Vegas audiences are swingers. They're drinkers and swingers, and they like to have a good time and party. I never had a bad audience in my career. Sometimes it may take a little longer to get them, you know. But I would get them. I'd get standing ovations... Everything is attitude. It's very important to always like what you're doing.
I used to watch my father play the guitar and sing when I was a little boy. By the time I was 11, I knew what I wanted to do. My father really couldn't afford to spend $12 for a guitar for me, but he did. It was like an ordinary family spending $500 for a kid's gift.
Frank Sinatra discovered me at a nightclub called P.J.'s in Hollywood. It was 1962. He used to come in there a lot with all his big star friends. I was so nervous to see him. I've only had one idol in my life, and that was Frank Sinatra.
I was approached personally by the Gibson Corporation.
I worked with so many comedians who became big names - so many, I can't even remember some of their names. John Byner, Totie Fields, Joan Rivers. Shecky Green at the MGM. When I started my career, my first hotel in Las Vegas was at the old Flamingo. My opening act was Bill Cosby.
I've always wanted to do acting. The biggest thing I ever did was 'The Dirty Dozen.' My contract was for three months, but the picture was taking longer to make than they thought it would. I stayed for seven months, and Frank Sinatra told me to leave. He said the public is very fickle and that they'll forget you.
I knew Sinatra for 38 years. He was like my father. Frank Sinatra was my 'dad.' He treated me like his son. He gave me the best advice about singing, about this and that... He was a very sensitive man, very astute, one of the sharpest men that I ever met in my life.
