When I heard the news of the passing of Frank Sinatra Jr., my first thought was of his little known theme music for the cult beach party meets monster flick The Beach Girls and The Monster. A totally crazy crossover teen exploitation film (which interestingly was edited by sexploitation and adult film groundbreaker Radley Metzger) that was made in 1964 before the Beatles and the British Invasion completely crushed US surf culture for good. Sinatra Jr.‘s bizarrely inept vocalizing over the great surf track by members of the Hustlers—known for their rare singles “Kopout,” “Inertia” and “Wailin’ Out”—reeks of a rush job, which, of course, makes the record all that much more special to crazy collectors like myself. I believe the record was a movie promo only and it is extremely rare and sought after. It took me 20 years to find my copy and it was not cheap. In fact it is the only record little Frankie S. ever made that has any kind of collectible value whatsoever.

To quote Brian Chidester and Domenic Priore from their book Pop Surf Culture the soundtrack of The Beach Girls and the Monster:

“has got to rank up there among the best … no fewer than 13 different sections of full-bore, deep-reverb tank surf instrumentals throb the soundtrack.

 

 

 
Here’s the song in all of its glory from the opening of the film:
 

 
The fact that Sinatra Jr. went anywhere near a beach or rock ‘n’ roll music in 1964 is pretty amazing considering what happened to him at the end of 1963, a scenario of near Mansonesque proportions: On December 8th, 1963 Frank Sinatra Jr. was kidnapped at gunpoint from a motel room at Harrah’s Club at Lake Tahoe, where he was performing a string of dates. You must remember this was only around a month after the assassination of President Kennedy, and the live TV murder of Lee Harvey Oswald by Jack Ruby. People were FREAKING. American was coming apart at the seams, ir seemed.
 

 
This was not a simple story as you are about to see. This gets so, well, Mansonesque! Not nearly as bloody, fatal or psychotic, sure, but it was certainly a trial run for all the weird 60s celebrity insanity that followed. To quote the Jan and Dean website:

By October 1963, Barry Keenan was only 23 years old, but was down and feeling sorry for himself. The University High School graduate was from a broken home, already divorced, a failed salesman, and had dabbled in the stock market without sustained success. Keenan also had a criminal record, with previous arrests for burglary and petty theft. On top of everything else, he was abusing prescription medication, and saw himself as facing financial ruin. He began to feel desperate, allowing his drug-addled mind to hatch a wild scheme to kidnap the son and namesake of Hollywood royalty — Frank Sinatra Jr.

When you have a problem, even if you’re delusional, you ask your friends for help. So Keenan approached his best friend and laid his cards on the table — calculated, efficient, with a detailed plan in writing, and a request for money to get things started. Barry was a clever fellow, and reveled in having friends (or at least a friend) in high places.

Barry Keenan’s best friend on earth was none other than Dean Torrence, “Dean” of Jan and Dean, who at that time was at the height of their superstardom with hits galore, riding the surf, skate and hot rodding fads all the way to the bank, just behind the Beach Boys in California dreamin’ popularity. Jan and Dean had a number one hit with “Surf City”, their “Honolulu Lulu” went top ten and “The Little Old Lady (From Pasadena)” was not far behind. Somehow Barry Keenan got his buddy Dean to bankroll the kidnapping!

It was carried out by Keenan with a couple of friends from Uni High, the infamous school attended by everyone from Nancy Sinatra, David Cassidy, Marilyn Monroe to Kim Fowley. Their squeaky clean surfer boy next door image makes it so hard to believe but then again, hey, the Manson family hung out with The Beach Boys and they even did one of Charlie’s songs! It’s the squeaky (not Fromme) clean ones you gotta watch out for.
 

 
After much confusion and bungling, Keenan seemed to have pulled off the perfect crime. That is until he bragged about it, which led to his arrest. (It’s a long and bizarre story with endless twists and turns which can be read here). Keenan and his other accomplices were caught. A great Don Rickles joke from this time goes:

Do you know why the kidnappers let Junior go? Because they heard him humming in the trunk.

This, it seems, would be indicative of the treatment Junior would get from the world for the rest of his life. Many of the reasons are due to what happened at the trial.
 

 
Everyone was there and things got ugly. Even before the trial started, rumor mongers started to report that they thought this was all a big publicity stunt. This really pissed Frank Sinatra Sr. off BADLY. Reporters like Dorothy Kilgallen, who had no love for Sinatra,  pushed this theory hard and often. (She was later found dead mysteriously after saying she was going to break the Kennedy case wide open).

The defense attorney was the beyond bizarre Gladys Towles Root, a sort of legal Phyllis Diller, who was described by The New York Times as follows:

Mrs. Root, who began to practice law in 1929, became known for her attire, including furs, feathers, outsize costume jewelry and towering hats that sometimes were festooned with flashing lights.

Flashing lights!?!
 

 
Up to this point Dean Torrence knew that there were so many lies going on that he also lied on the stand, stating that he knew nothing about his friend’s crime. Mrs Root kept chipping away about the mystery singer, and was the first to name him. She also rudely pushed her “publicity stunt” angle stating “This was a planned contractual agreement between Frank Sinatra and others connected with him… Was this the publicity he had been looking for to make ladies swoon over him like poppa?” This understandably blew Frank Senior’s cork. Not a good move. At this point Dean Torrence admitted to perjury and asked to be put on the stand again and retold his entire story. It rocked the courtroom and was the biggest bombshell of the whole case.

He literally said that he changed his story because, “I promised my parents I’d always tell the truth.” So there!

Mrs Root was taken to court for years, almost destroying her financially due to her outrageous actions during the court case. Jan and Dean shot a television pilot called Surf Scene in 1963 that wound up getting canned because of Dean’s involvement in the crime. Next they were cut from their roles in Ride the Wild Surf, though they still did the title song. Supposedly their record sales soared to unbelievable heights during and after the trial, so all was not lost. They still got signed for a feature film called Easy Come, Easy Go, but Jan got into a serious (and mysterious) accident the first day of shooting almost losing a leg, so the film was cancelled. They shot another TV pilot called On the Run—with Jan in a leg cast for the whole thing (which turned up on YouTube recently), directed by William Asher of Bewitched and Twilight Zone fame. 

To quote the Jan & Dean website again:

But dark clouds began to loom again. In early April 1966, a knockoff wheel broke loose from Jan’s new Stingray while he was driving. Scary stuff. He avoided a serious accident and injury, but it was an ominous sign.

The following week, he wasn’t so lucky. On April 12, Jan Berry suffered brain damage and partial paralysis when he lost control of his speeding Corvette and slammed into a parked truck on Whittier Dr. in Beverly Hills. He was in a coma for a month and suffered residual consequences for the rest of his life.

Had someone tampered with Jan’s car in early April? Is that why the knockoff wheel had loosened, or was that simply an accepted hazard with knockoff wheels in general? Did “they” finally succeed on April 12? Did the wrong people know that Dean was living with Jan just before the accident? Could someone have been expecting Dean to possibly drive that Corvette (owned by Jan)? Or was one guy just as good as the other? . . . breaking up the team no matter what? Let’s understand that Jan Berry was hell-for-leather and drove like a maniac. But these are questions that made the rounds among Jan’s family members, inner circle, and friends.

 
Frank Jr. went on to take his one and only rock ‘n’ roll side trip with those Beach Girls and that Monster but he never really walked in his father’s footsteps. Not like Nancy (ready boots?) He resembled a happy Alfred Hitchcock in recent years, but even in his passing, Junior couldn’t escape the infinite cosmic goof, as you will see here. South Bend, Indiana TV station WNDU 16 did what all TV stations do, they paid tribute to a passing star, but they actually accidentally used a photo of comic Joe Piscopo playing Sinatra’s father on SNL instead of a stock photo of Frank Jr.

He don’t get no respect, even on the day of his death. At least Frank Sinatra Jr. ate well: