Ray Liotta Discussed The Threatening Gift He Received From A Hollywood Icon’s Close Relatives

Liotta was shooting a movie when the “present” came, with a little note attached reading, “Oh yeah?” He was on set with his wife, Michelle Grace, when it turned up. The director was horrified, and she approached Liotta to tell him what had happened. But it didn’t take long to work out what it meant and why the actor had been sent it.

The “present” was from one of Frank Sinatra’s children. This was in 1998 and the famed entertainer himself was dying at this point, but his daughters were very much active. They weren’t about to take a perceived insult to the family lying down — and, famously, Frank had some ties to the Mafia.

Liotta knew exactly what kind of threat the Mafia posed. He had played a member of the organization in Martin Scorsese’s 1990 movie GoodFellas, and for the rest of his career he was typecast in roles playing intimidating gangsters and the like. If you got a message from a member of the Mafia, you had to pay attention or risk your very life.

Frank Sinatra always denied he was ever involved with the Mafia, but his links to Mob figures are well documented. He was most definitely friends with the Chicago boss Sam Giancana, and performed at his club at least once. Reportedly, he also introduced Giancana to none other than future President John F. Kennedy.

Sinatra definitely had a connection to Kennedy by all accounts. When JFK put his name into the race for President, he knew he needed someone who could represent his interests in the entertainment world, and Sinatra was that man. His influence over both celebrities and regular Americans could help win the politician large numbers of votes.

And apparently the Kennedy family knew all about Sinatra’s reputed ties to organized crime, but didn’t care. In fact, they thought it could be a boon to them. As noted by website Biography, allegedly JFK’s father Joseph wanted the singer to influence union votes via his Mafia connections, and in return he could have a place in the Kennedy administration.

Unsurprisingly the FBI had a big file on Sinatra. It wasn’t even just because of the apparent Mafia ties; there were also rumors he had paid a doctor to get him out of having to serve in World War II. The FBI dug and dug and found all sorts of stories about what Sinatra allegedly did for the Mafia.

There was a lot to unpick. Sinatra allegedly introduced the future President to Giancana’s girlfriend Judith Campbell Exner and she reportedly participated in a failed assassination plot against Fidel Castro. Apparently Sinatra also at least once used his Mafia connections to get out of a music contract he was finding too restrictive.

Sinatra also hung out with Anthony “Tony Jack” and Vito “Billy Jack” Giacalone, a pair of Detroit gangsters who sounded as though they could have come straight out of another Scorsese movie. The FBI tracked their movements relentlessly, but Sinatra never actually committed any crimes while palling around with his Mafia friends.

Retired Detroit FBI agent Sam Ruffino once remembered to author Scott M. Burnstein, via a 2018 History.com article, “[Sinatra] didn’t make any apologies for it. Those were his friends. The fact that they were known hoodlums and murderers didn’t matter to him. He didn’t care, he was going to hang around with who he wanted to hang around with.”

But there have long been rumors that it went much further than this — that Sinatra wanted to use the Mafia to take out people he didn’t like. Allegedly, one of those people was film director Woody Allen. A 2015 book by David Evanier, titled Woody: The Biography, contained details of this shocking claim.

Back in 1993 the story came out that Allen had cheated on his partner Mia Farrow. Sinatra was her ex-husband and good friend, and he was utterly incensed. According to Len Triola, a concert producer and friend of Sinatra who spoke to Evanier for the book, Sinatra was absolutely ready to have Allen killed.

But it came to nothing. Triola said in the book, “The guys Frank dealt with, the old-timers, reputable people who aren’t with us any more or [are] in jail, wouldn’t sanction that. It would set a bad precedent… They’re not ethical people to begin with, but they’re not just going to kill a movie director because he cheated on a guy’s ex-wife.”

And allegedly Allen wasn’t even the only person Sinatra wanted dead. Ol’ Blue Eyes also tried to arrange a hit on famous radio DJ Howard Stern, according to the shock jock’s biographer Ian Halperin. Why? Because on one of his shows Stern insulted Sinatra’s children, and the singer was livid at the disrespect.

Halperin told website Page Six in 2016 that though Sinatra was a “nice guy,” he also “had a big temper.” He declared, “Frank allegedly put a hit on [Stern]. I have extreme corroboration on this.” And then he chillingly added, “A guy very similar to Howard’s profile — same height, same look, was killed in that era.”

There is of course no cast-iron evidence of any of this. But the message is clear — don’t mess with the Sinatras. They have fame and wealth, but most importantly, they have connections. So Ray Liotta must have had his heart in his mouth on receiving the threatening gift on his movie set.

As it happens, the gift didn’t come from Sinatra himself. Don’t let that dull the menace behind it, though, because it came from none other than one of his formidable daughters. Tina and Nancy Sinatra were said to have fiercely guarded their father’s legacy for years. They even feuded with their stepmother, Sinatra’s fourth wife Barbara, after some perceived slights. And feud it was, as there’s even a rumor one or both had the word “Husband” removed from Sinatra’s tombstone. If that’s true, they’re not ladies to cross!

Liotta told the full story in a November 2021 episode of Jay Leno’s Garage, and unsurprisingly the exact nature of the “gift” struck horror. He explained, “We were doing the movie and I got delivered a horse’s head. Obviously it wasn’t a real one, but it was a horse’s head.” Gulp!

You’ll know all about the horse’s head if you’ve ever seen the famous gangster movie The Godfather — and probably even if you haven’t, because it’s an iconic piece of pop culture. In the movie, Jack Woltz refuses to cast Don Corleone’s godson Johnny Fontane in a film, and so the next morning finds the head of his favorite horse in bed with him.

The horse’s head incident was by all accounts a creation of Godfather author Mario Puzo, no members of the Mafia ever having actually done such a thing in recorded history. But the concept of putting a severed animal head in an enemy’s bed is now completely associated with organized crime, and there have been copycat incidents since.

And the character of Johnny Fontane was allegedly based on — wait for it — Frank Sinatra. In The Godfather Fontane is given the movie role after the horse incident and goes on to win an Oscar. And there’s an oft-repeated rumor that Sinatra threatened the producers of From Here to Eternity with his Mafia ties, thus getting himself in position to win an Academy Award.

Whatever the truth is, Sinatra absolutely hated the idea that Johnny Fontane was based on him. Puzo meant no harm — as per website Cheat Sheet, the writer was actually a big fan of Sinatra — but once The Godfather got big he became wary of actually meeting him. And, as it turned out, he was right to be cautious.

That’s because when Sinatra and Puzo did eventually meet, Sinatra screamed abuse at him and then started to outright threaten him. Puzo wrote in his 1972 book The Godfather Papers, “I remember… [him] saying if it wasn’t that I was so much older than he, he would beat the hell out of me.” Puzo noted he was younger than Sinatra, but graciously admitted he looked older than the singer!

Clearly the Sinatra family take strong exception to being depicted in ways they don’t like. And that brings us straight back to Liotta. In 1998 he took on the task of playing Sinatra in the HBO movie The Rat Pack — but it wasn’t his actual portrayal that incensed the sisters, it was something else.

Tina and Nancy were angry because Liotta was playing their father in a movie that wasn’t their production. They had been courting Liotta to take the role in their miniseries, but, as he told Jay Leno in 2021, he had felt “uncomfortable” doing that. So he opted to play Sinatra in the HBO movie instead.

Liotta told Leno, “It turned out that his daughters sent it and said, ‘Oh, you could do this [movie], but you couldn’t do the one that we wanted you to?’” And he knew upon seeing the thankfully fake severed head, “A horse’s head means you’re toast.” But no-one ever made an actual move on him. 

Sinatra’s family did heavily criticize the movie when it first came out though. Tina and Nancy both slammed it in the press, as did the children and families of many other members of the “Rat Pack” — Dean Martin, Peter Lawford and Sammy Davis Jr. And to their presumed glee, movie critics gave The Rat Pack very mixed reviews in the end.

All the same, Liotta had actually worked hard to portray Sinatra correctly. In a 1998 interview with The Washington Post newspaper, he said that he had read multiple books and spoken to people who had known the singer. He said, “Everybody had a different opinion. To some he was Uncle Frank. To others he was this mean guy.”

Liotta said that when he had first been offered the role of Sinatra, he turned it down because he “got a little snobbish.” But he went on, “When I finally relaxed into what acting is all about and the reason why I got into it, I decided to accept. At first it was like, ‘Do I look enough like Sinatra?’ Finally, I had to say, I’m from Jersey, I’ve got blue eyes, I’m close enough.”

The Rat Pack was all about Sinatra’s relationship with John F. Kennedy, and Liotta enjoyed getting to play that. He told the Washington Post, “I think people will get a sense of the size of Sinatra’s celebrity. What our movie does is deal with the human side, what it might have been like when he dealt with JFK.”

Liotta mused, “In Kennedy, he saw someone charismatic, somebody who wasn’t like him — he gravitated toward people who weren’t like him. He found in Kennedy someone he admired and who had the same political feelings he had.” But Liotta hadn’t known much about Sinatra before he started researching.

Asked about Sinatra, Liotta said, “His was my parents’ music. The only thing I knew of Sinatra of late was that he had a bad toupee and was forgetting his words.” Ouch. But then he added, “When I started reading books about him, I began to appreciate the enormous talent he had and the lifestyle he chose to live.”

Liotta had actually spoken about the horse’s head incident prior to appearing with Jay Leno. In 2012 he was asked by HuffPost if Sinatra had ever given any reaction to Liotta’s performance in the movie, and the actor said, “He died before it came out, but he was sick. I heard from the daughters, but it was more a joke. Tina Sinatra sends this horse’s head that she sends around to people as a joke.”

Or at least, it’s a joke now, but it didn’t feel like it back then. Liotta told the interviewer, “At first it scared me! I said, ‘What the heck is this about?’ And everybody is in on the joke but me. So, when it came, it’s a horse’s head and it obviously represents that scene from The Godfather.”

Liotta said, “But, you know, after a minute where I was just stunned and I couldn’t figure it out, then they let me in on the joke. And I signed it. If you turn over the head, on the base of it underneath it, there’s all these people that she had sent it to. Then I signed it.” He saw lots of signatures on there, he said, including Warren Beatty’s.

The interviewer asked Liotta, “That’s frightening, but is that also their seal of approval?” Liotta answered, “Well, they wanted me for a mini-series back when mini-series were big. And I turned it down — I just didn’t want to do it. I turned down The Rat Pack a few times. It was just too intimidating.”

Liotta went on, “I’m not an imitator. I’m not good at that sort of thing. You know, I was really glad that I did it, but, at first, it was really intimidating. Just because [Sinatra] was so out there. So well-known. I think you’d find… [that] with anybody who has played people that are in the public eye.”

Of course, everything turned out for the best in the end. Even though The Rat Pack didn’t get great reviews, it didn’t dim Liotta’s star any. And of course no Goodfellas or Godfather-like violence was ever actually visited upon him, although he could have been forgiven for sleeping with one eye open for a while after that.

In the years since The Rat Pack, there have been attempts to do another Sinatra biopic. Scorsese was earmarked to direct one for a while, but he told the Toronto Sun newspaper in 2017, “We can’t do it. I think it is finally over. [Sinatra’s family] won’t agree to it.” Maybe he, too, received an unsolicited equine gift? Either way, one thing’s almost a dead cert— Sinatra sure could hold a grudge. Liotta may have dodged his wrath, but not all of Hollywood has been so lucky. And heartthrob Marlon Brando learned the hard way how it feels to cross paths with the vengeful crooner. 

It’s fair to say that Frank Sinatra and Marlon Brando remain two of the most iconic entertainers in popular culture. And in the early ’50s the stars were both in their respective heydays, meaning Hollywood was abuzz when the duo signed up to share the screen for the first time in Guys and Dolls. After they met, however, fireworks ensued – on and off set.

Indeed, Sinatra and Brando appeared to become sworn enemies practically from the moment when they first clapped eyes on each other. And things didn’t get any better when the pair began working together, either, as Sinatra seemingly ended up making it his mission to upstage his co-star. Here’s a look at the grudge that ensured the action behind the scenes of Guys and Dolls was just as drama-packed as it was on camera.

As fans of the movie will likely know, the silver-screen adaptation of Guys and Dolls was based on the musical of the same name that had premiered on Broadway in 1950. This production in turn had been inspired by two short stories penned by Damon Runyon: Blood Pressure and The Idyll of Miss Sarah Brown. And during the stage extravaganza’s lengthy 1,200-show run, it managed to pick up a Tony Award for Best Musical.

When the time came to turn Guys and Dolls into a film, however, Joseph L. Mankiewicz both took the director’s chair and wrote the script. Michael Kidd, who had choreographed the theatrical production, also came on board, while original songwriter Frank Loesser contributed three new tunes to the flick. But it would be the cast announcement for the movie that may have made everyone in Hollywood truly sit up and take notice.

One of the actors due to appear in the production, of course, was Sinatra, who had been all but written off by the turn of the decade following a string of box-office and critical flops. However, his performance as Maggio in From Here to Eternity turned his career around and resulted in both an Oscar and a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actor. In turn, Sinatra credited co-star Montgomery Clift for improving his acting skills.

This career revival continued in 1954 when Sinatra appeared in romantic musical Young at Heart alongside Doris Day. That same year, he proved his versatility when he starred as a murderous psychopath who pretends to be a secret agent in Suddenly. And in 1955 he put himself in line for another shot at an Oscar with his turn as a heroin junkie in the gritty drama The Man with the Golden Arm.

Sinatra’s musical career received a significant boost during the same period, too. In 1954 his first LP for the Capitol label, Songs for Young Lovers, was hailed as a return to form by the music press. Its follow-up, Swing Easy!, was even crowned Billboard’s Album of the Year. And in 1955 Sinatra embraced the concept album to much acclaim with In the Wee Small Hours.

In contrast, Marlon Brando’s career was only just beginning at the start of the same decade. He achieved his big break in 1951 with an Oscar-nominated performance as Stanley Kowalski in A Streetcar Named Desire. Then, a year later, he picked up a second Academy Award nomination for his role in Viva Zapata!

And Brando’s winning streak continued with memorable turns in The Wild One and Julius Caesar. The actor even became a counterculture icon with his performance in the biker movie – in no small part down to the leather jacket and blue jeans he donned and the Triumph Thunderbird 6T that he rode throughout. After that, Brando finally won his first Oscar in 1954 for his role as Terry Malloy in crime drama On the Waterfront.

In Guys and Dolls, meanwhile, Sinatra was cast as Nathan Detroit – a gambler who makes his living organizing illegal craps games. And not only does Nathan have the local lieutenant on his case, but he also faces pressure from his nightclub singer fiancée Adelaide about walking down the aisle. Nathan’s life gets even more complicated, too, when he runs into old friend Sky Masterson.

Sky – who is portrayed by Brando in the 1955 movie – is challenged to take any girl of Nathan’s choosing to dinner in the Cuban capital of Havana. And with $1,000 at stake, Nathan decides that the woman in question should be a Save a Soul Mission sister named Sarah Brown. Sky initially introduces himself to her as a gambling addict who’s seeking to change his ways.

And Sarah agrees to go to dinner with Sky if he can bring in at least 12 different sinners to her Thursday evening gathering at the mission. Then, by the time they return home, the pair have fallen for each other. But the couple’s relationship is tested when Sky is accused of organizing an unlicensed craps game at the mission during their time away – much to Sarah’s dismay.

This particular game had in fact been the brainchild of Nathan, who by this point is now flat broke. Taking pity on his friend, Sky claims that he didn’t manage to persuade Sarah to go to dinner with him after all and pays Nathan the $1,000 they agreed on. He also makes an unusual bet with his old acquaintance and his fellow illegal gamblers.

In a bid to win Sarah back and come good on his initial promise, Sky offers to pay each gambler $1,000 if he rolls the dice and loses. If he wins, however, the others all need to show up at the next mission prayer meeting. Unsurprisingly, Sky proves to be victorious, and Sarah is subsequently greeted by a dozen largely unrepentant sinners.

The happy ending continues when Nathan speaks to Sarah about Sky losing his initial bet. Realizing that Sky isn’t the unscrupulous individual she thought he was, Sarah tracks him down, and the pair end up back together again. Alongside Nathan and Adelaide, Sarah and Sky are last seen in the middle of New York landmark Times Square having a double wedding.

But, of course, Brando and Sinatra aren’t the only stars in Guys and Dolls – although they are by far the biggest names. The musical also features Jean Simmons as Sarah and Vivian Blaine as Adelaide, while Johnny Silver appears as Benny Southstreet, Sheldon Leonard portrays Harry the Horse and Robert Keith is seen on screen as Lieutenant Brannigan.

Despite both being fairly prominent celebrities, though, Brando and Sinatra had never met before signing up to appear in Guys and Dolls. And it’s fair to say, too, that they didn’t exactly hit it off after finally being introduced to each other. Indeed, in a book penned by Brando’s best friend Carlo Fiore, it’s claimed that Sinatra had little interest in becoming chummy with his co-star.

In Bud: The Brando I Knew, Fiore describes the initial meeting between the pair that he witnessed. And he doesn’t paint a particularly flattering picture of the singer. Fiore wrote, “Sinatra appeared... blue eyes flashing [and] people jumping out of his way as he walked in a straight line. [He acted] as though he owned everything in sight and everybody was on his payroll.”

Then Sinatra and Brando were introduced to each other by Mankiewicz. And although they both smiled as they shook each other’s hands, Fiore believed that the Rat Pack legend’s grin was forced. “It was the kind of smile a professional fighter gives his opponent at the pre-fight weigh-in,” he wrote.

In stark contrast, Brando was apparently genuinely thrilled to come face to face with a film star of Sinatra’s magnitude. That initial enthusiasm may have soon faded, though, once the pair began working together in front of the cameras. In any case, both parties had very different ways of approaching the movie-making process.

Fiore wrote, “Marlon likes to ease into a scene, to roam about on the set and absorb the atmosphere. He wants to glance at the extras [and] give a nod and smile to a familiar face.” But whereas Brando seemed very much a team player, Fiore described Sinatra as an altogether different beast.

“The movie was only one of many important things he had to do that day,” Fiore explained in reference to Sinatra’s approach to life on set. “Business associates were waiting in his dressing room. There were calls to make to Las Vegas, New York and Florida. His entourage was gathered outside his dressing-room door, waiting to laugh at his jokes, light his cigarettes, hand him a drink or bring him a hot dog – do anything for him, anything.”

And things didn’t improve much when the two legends had to share the screen. Whereas Sinatra preferred to shoot his scenes in no more than two takes, a slightly more thorough Brando insisted on as many attempts as needed. Somewhat inevitably, this perfectionist streak soon incurred the wrath of the singer.

During one particular moment in the movie, Sinatra’s character Nathan has to tuck into some cheesecake while listening to Brando’s Sky. But after eight takes of dessert-eating, Sinatra decided enough was enough. According to Fiore, he yelled, “These f**king New York actors! How much cheesecake do you think I can eat?” before storming off the film set.

Rumor has it, though, that Brando didn’t actually need so many takes to get his performance just right. Rather, he allegedly fluffed his lines on purpose simply to get Sinatra both wound up and queasy as a result of so much cheesecake. When filming resumed, in any case, Brando delivered his lines immaculately.

But Brando’s multi-take approach wasn’t the only thing that rubbed Sinatra up the wrong way. In fact, Ol’ Blue Eyes had initially gone up for the juicier role of Sky in Guys and Dolls but had been overlooked in favor of Brando. It wasn’t the first time that he’d been pipped to a role by the brooding method actor, either.

Just a year earlier, Sinatra was very nearly offered the part of Terry Malloy in On the Waterfront. Producer Sam Spiegel believed, on the other hand, that Brando would be a better fit. And after Spiegel stumped up $100,000 to secure Brando’s signature, the star duly came on board – and later scooped the Best Actor Oscar to boot.

It may have seemed unlikely, then, that Sinatra would accept the lesser Guys and Dolls role of Nathan. But surprisingly, the Rat Pack legend agreed to take second billing and share the screen with a man with whom he was far from best buds. And Sinatra had a few tricks up his sleeve, too, to make sure that he still stole the limelight.

After all, Sinatra sure wasn’t a man to take things lying down. In fact, he was renowned across Tinseltown for his ability to hold a grudge for a ridiculously long time. And according to Fiore, Sinatra wanted to exact revenge on Brando on this occasion by singing him “right off the screen.”

Naturally, vocal talent was the one area in which Sinatra had an indisputable advantage over Brando, given that he had already appeared in numerous musicals and recorded a string of classic albums by the time he arrived on set. In contrast, Guys and Dolls would mark both the first and the last time that Brando would sing on screen.

So, while Nathan was initially written as possessing a very strong Jewish-Bronx accent, Ol’ Blue Eyes had other ideas. Although he attempted a vague accent while in conversation, he simply performed in his own romantic and smooth voice when singing. And Sinatra’s completely out-of-character approach soon enraged his co-star.

Indeed, in the memoir about his friend, Fiore wrote, “I was standing behind Marlon, peering at the scene over his shoulder, and he slowly turned around until we were standing face to face. He was a little pale and whispered harshly, ‘He’s playing my part. He’s not the romantic lead. I am.’”

Inevitably, Brando wasn’t going to keep this to himself. After wandering over to Mankiewicz, he reportedly told the director, “Joe, Frank’s playing his part all wrong. He’s supposed to sing with a Bronx accent. He’s supposed to clown it up. But he’s singing like a romantic lead. We can’t have two romantic leads.”

But although Mankiewicz agreed that Sinatra had gone off piste, he had little intention of doing anything about it. Indeed, according to Fiore, the director merely smiled when Brando suggested that the legendary crooner should be told how to sing a song. Mankiewicz then insisted, it’s said, that if anyone was going to be brave enough to advise Sinatra, it should be Brando.

Inevitably, this didn’t go down too well with an increasingly exasperated Brando. Fiore wrote, “Marlon was dumbstruck for a few seconds. When he recovered, he said, ‘It’s not my job to tell him. It’s the director’s job. I’m never going to work with Mankiewicz again.’” And Brando stuck to his word.

Yet despite the constant on-set tension, the pairing of Brando and Sinatra seemingly proved to be a significant draw for cinema-going audiences. Guys and Dolls took a fairly respectable $13 million at the box office, you see, on a budget of just $5.5 million. The critics weren’t quite so enamored, however.

And perhaps to Sinatra’s delight, reviewers directed some of their displeasure towards Brando. Time magazine certainly wasn’t impressed with the actor’s musical talents, commenting that he “sings in a faraway tenor that sometimes tends to be flat.” To Brando’s credit, though, he himself later admitted that he was way out of his depth.

In Meet Marlon Brando – a documentary released in 1965 – the Oscar winner readily revealed, “I couldn’t hit a note with a baseball bat. Some notes I missed by extraordinary margins.” In fact, it took some behind-the-scenes trickery to make Brando’s flat tones a little easier on the ear.

Brando went on, “They sewed my words together on one song so tightly that when I mouthed it in front of the camera, I nearly asphyxiated myself.” Sinatra’s attempt to sing Brando off the screen therefore undoubtedly worked a treat. And, unsurprisingly, there was little love lost between the pair even in the years after Guys and Dolls’ release.

Brando is quoted as having said, for example, “Frank is the kind of guy [who], when he dies, he’s going to heaven and give God a hard time for making him bald.” Sinatra apparently gave as good as he got, though, by directing various shots at his Guys and Dolls co-star. As well as nicknaming him “Mumbles,” he also reportedly described Brando as the “world’s most overrated actor.”