The Prince of Paradise (5 page)

S
IX

BENJI

After Bernice’s own difficult childhood, being a mother did not come naturally to her.
A live-in wet nurse was hired to feed Benji, to be followed by a succession of nannies to look after him.

Although Ben and Bernice Novack would always be there for birthday parties and other family photo opportunities, Benji (as everyone called him) received little warmth or affection from his parents.

“I don’t think [Bernice] even raised Benji,” said Estelle Fernandez, later to become Bernice’s confidante.
“She had nannies that took care of him, and I think that’s why their relationship was not a close one.”

*   *   *

The year of Benji’s birth, Ben Novack became obsessed with destroying the Eden Roc hotel, now rising fast across Collins Avenue.
In the fall of 1956, several months before the Eden Roc’s scheduled opening, he secretly purchased a ninety-nine-year lease on a parking lot dividing the two hotels.
He was planning a massive new Fontainebleau extension, with a new wing and hundreds of extra guest rooms.
There would be also a huge ballroom, to attract the lucrative convention business beginning to come to Miami Beach.

The Eden Roc officially opened just before Christmas 1956.
It was clearly visible from the Fontainebleau, and to make matters worse, it was an immediate hit with the critics, who said it surpassed the Fontainebleau.

That holiday season, the two Morris Lapidus–designed hotels were the talk of Miami Beach—to Ben Novack’s great annoyance.
In revenge, he set to work planning his extension, which would include a seventeen-story blank concrete wall that would cut off the sunlight to the Eden Roc swimming pool and put the hotel out of business.
The extension would be known as Fontainebleau Towers, and would double the size of his hotel.

The expansion was done under a veil of secrecy.
The construction began on the rectangular gray slab of concrete towering over the boundary of the adjacent Eden Roc.
Novack had deliberately positioned it to cast a shadow over his rival’s pool between noon and 2:00
P.M
., the most popular hours for sunbathing.
Novack even gave his former partner Harry Mufson the proverbial finger by ensuring that the only break in the gray concrete wall facing the Eden Roc would be a large window in the upper-left-hand corner—the dining room of his and Bernice’s new duplex.

Later, Ben Novack loved staring through his window as the noon shadow slowly crept over the Eden Roc pool, sending guests scurrying off in search of other places to sunbathe.
It was said that he would sometimes open his penthouse window and spit at the rival hotel.

The media nicknamed his extension the “spite wall,” as the bitter feud between the rival hoteliers made national headlines.

Forty-years-later, Ben Novack Jr.
would dismiss any suggestion that his father had built the wall out of vindictiveness.
“My father didn’t give a shit what was going on next door,” he maintained.
“My father didn’t even realize that the state of Florida is at a slight angle northeast and at 12:30 in the afternoon the wall would cast a shadow over the Eden Roc.
Meanwhile, the result was the most god-awful ugly wall.”

Mufson eventually sued Novack over the “spite wall”—unsuccessfully—and was forced to build a second swimming pool, giving Eden Roc’s guests full access to sunlight.

*   *   *

From the very beginning, aside from models and movie stars, the Fontainebleau hotel also attracted a motley collection of thieves and con men, who preyed on the wealthy guests.
Burglaries were common, and in the hotel’s first two years an estimated quarter of a million dollars in jewelry and other valuables disappeared from guest rooms.

After Ben Novack’s personal safe was robbed of $15,000 in cash, he hired retired New York City police lieutenant James Gillace to command a unit of twenty plainclothes security officers, who patrolled the hotel corridors around the clock.

Whenever Frank Sinatra or other A-list entertainers played the La Ronde Room, Novack hired additional off-duty Miami Beach police officers to work security in full uniform and ensure everything went smoothly.
With free meals and other generous hotel perks supplied, the normally poorly paid police officers vied for a chance to moonlight at “the Blue,” as they affectionately called it.

The FBI was also watching the hotel closely, as the Mafia were rumored to own a large stake in it, and had a strong presence there.

In March 1958, Frank Sinatra played a series of sold-out shows at La Ronde.
A subsequent FBI report observed that the singer was staying at the Fontainebleau with movie star Lauren Bacall.
It also noted that Sinatra had been seen with Joe Fischetti, a known Mafia boss and Al Capone’s former lieutenant.
Fischetti, it was said, had been ordered to look after Sinatra by mobsters “Lucky” Luciano and Frank Costello.

Ben Novack had known many of the Mafia families, going back to his time in New York in the 1930s.
It was rumored the Mob had invested heavily in the Fontainebleau for “mineral rights,” hoping to control Miami Beach gambling, if it were ever legalized.

“Basically, the [Fontainebleau] was mobbed up from top to bottom,” said Alan Lapidus.
“And that’s when the Rat Pack came in and the whole thing started getting very weird.”

Mafia chieftain Meyer Lansky used the Fontainebleau as his personal business headquarters.
He lived in an apartment a few blocks north, but every morning, he’d arrive at the hotel with Bruiser, his beloved Shih Tzu, and spend the day there.

“He was a perfect gentleman to everyone in the hotel,” recalled former desk attendant Robert Madiewski.
“He would play cards either in the card room or out by the pool at his cabana, and use the pay phones in the lobby because the FBI had his phones at home wiretapped.”

Chicago Mob boss Sam Giancana wintered at the Fontainebleau, and it was there that Sinatra introduced him to the beautiful actress Judith Campbell (later Exner), who became his mistress.
A few months earlier, Sinatra had also set her up with then-senator John F.
Kennedy, also reputed to have bedded Marilyn Monroe in a Fontainebleau guest room.

Giancana—who made millions of dollars a year from gambling in Cuba—is also reputed to have met CIA agents in his Fontainebleau cabana to discuss assassinating Fidel Castro.

On July 4, 1959, Sam Giancana threw a big wedding bash for his daughter Bonita at the Fontainebleau, which was duly noted by the FBI.
Bernice Novack later described the $10,000 wedding ($75,000 in today’s money) for two hundred guests, as one of the social highlights of her time there.
She and Ben were photographed with the bride and groom at the lavish reception.

“While the wedding was very elegant and elaborate,” Bernice told
Ocean Drive
magazine in 2001, “what I remember most was all the security … Sam and the hotel each had their own security, as the FBI and IRS agents and journalists were all swarming the lobby trying to get the names and photos of the guests going into the ballroom.”

Although the Fontainebleau already had the reputation as a Mob hangout, Bernice said her husband never worried about the bad publicity.

“It was a public hotel,” she explained, “and we couldn’t keep anyone out.”

*   *   *

For Christmas 1958, Ben Novack expanded his fabulously successful La Ronde Room supper club, where his headliners’ minimum weekly salary was $35,000.
Among the top stars already booked to perform for the holiday were Red Skelton, Jack Benny, Judy Garland, and Frank Sinatra.

In January 1959, Novack told
The New York Times
that La Ronde’s larger capacity meant he could showcase the most expensive stars without putting up the minimum price of drinks.

*   *   *

Benji Novack grew up among all this glamour, wealth, and paranoia, and knew nothing else.
As a baby, he was wheeled around the hotel in his stroller, to which was affixed a large sign reading, “Do Not Touch.”

He was raised by a strict German nurse named Bella, who left a lasting impression on the little boy.
When his aunt Maxine visited the Fontainebleau with his cousin Meredith, she was shocked at how the nurse treated him.

“Every time he would eat she’d wipe his mouth,” recalled Maxine.
“I said, ‘Bella, will you leave him alone.
He’s going to drip.
Wipe his mouth afterward.’”
And I got so mad, I said, ‘Benji, eat your hamburger.
Do not wipe your mouth unless you feel something dripping.’”

The nurse also forced the naturally left-handed boy to become right-handed.
His aunt believes this so traumatized him that he developed a terrible stutter, which remained with him for the rest of his life.

“I know why he stuttered,” said Maxine.
“He had that German nanny every minute.
He had nobody else.”

Meredith Fiel, a couple of years older than her cousin Benji, visited the Fontainebleau with her parents as a young child.
She recalls her uncle Ben as being very cold and distant.

“He was this older, big man in charge of this big hotel,” she recalled.
“He used to pat me on the head, and that was it.
I didn’t have a ‘sit on my lap’ relationship with Ben Novack.
We were never close.”

Meredith also remembers her cousin Benji remaining with his nannies, with no interest in meeting other children.

“Benji didn’t play with anybody,” she said.
“He didn’t connect with me or really want to.
When he had his tantrums, everybody would quake and shake at the thought of Ben Novack coming around.”

S
EVEN

“THE SUN AND FUN CAPITAL OF THE WORLD”

Ben Novack Jr.’s pampered Fontainebleau childhood was like a Hollywood movie.
When he was four, his nanny took him to see Frank Sinatra film scenes from
A Hole in the Head
, being shot at the hotel.
Then, a few months later, Jerry Lewis took over the entire hotel for several months to direct and star in
The Bellboy
(which he’d also written).
As a tip of the hat to the Fontainebleau’s chairman of the board, the comedian had named the hotel manager character Mr.
Novak.

“Benji was running around through it all,” said Jill Campion, who was later to become Ben Jr.’s first wife.
“All the stars came through there, and Benji knew them all.”

Ben Novack Sr.
was now the real-life star of the Fontainebleau.
Always impeccably dressed in his own unique style, he ruled his kingdom from his executive office.

In March 1960, Elvis Presley checked into a penthouse suite at the Fontainebleau to shoot a Frank Sinatra television special.
It was Presley’s first public performance after being discharged from the U.S.
Army, and would be filmed on the stage of the hotel’s Grand Ballroom.

Ben and Bernice Novack were in the front row to see the two superstars perform duets of each other’s songs: Sinatra’s “Witchcraft” and Presley’s “Love Me Tender.”

After filming his special, Frank Sinatra and Elvis Presley led the Rat Pack across the lobby in search of a drink.
The first open bar they came across was a bar mitzvah party.
The stars walked in and were mobbed, and had to leave after just ten minutes to get away from the fans.

The Sinatra TV special was broadcast on May 12, breaking viewing records and exposing the glamorous Fontainebleau to millions all over the world.

A few months later, Sinatra and the Rat Pack’s Sammy Davis Jr., Dean Martin, Joey Bishop, and Peter Lawford played the Fontainebleau.
Davis had just married the Swedish-born actress May Britt, and Ben Novack didn’t want the black entertainer staying at his hotel.
Miami was still segregated, and Novack was afraid of upsetting the other guests.
Frank Sinatra thought otherwise.

“To Frank’s credit,” said future Miami Beach mayor Alex Daoud, “he told Ben that if he had a problem with Sammy, he was going to have a problem with him.
And if Sammy couldn’t stay there, he was leaving.
Ben Sr.
said, ‘Oh shit!’
but there was nothing he could do.”

That same day, Davis pulled up to the Fontainebleau front entrance in his red Cadillac, with his blond wife and several black friends in tow.

“He waited until Ben Novack came out,” said Daoud, “and honked.
I thought that was very funny.”

From then on, Davis always sunbathed by the Fontainebleau pool with all his friends, and Novack was powerless to stop him.

*   *   *

On July, 10, 1960,
The New York Times
ran an article on Miami Beach, examining why some hotels flourished while others went bankrupt.
As the owner of the most successful hotel, Ben Novack was naturally interviewed.

“You can’t buy your son-in-law a hotel and tell him to run it,” Novack observed.
“You’ve got to have know-how.
And you can’t switch management every few months in a resort operation.
A tourist likes to see the same faces.
When he doesn’t, he thinks you’re in trouble.”

The
New York Times
article noted that Miami Beach now welcomed more than two million visitors a year, coming for “the sun, sand and surf.”
With 378 hotels now vying for tourist business, many were going out of business.
“The Fontainebleau is having its best year in its history,” the article stated.

Novack credited his success to maintaining exclusivity, and keeping prices high.
He criticized hotel owners who cut rates, and others who gave travel agents generous discounts to steer clients their way.

“That’s inviting disaster,” Novack explained.
“A hotel has the same fixed charges.
Fill it at reduced rates and you’re still going to lose money.”

Every day, Ben Novack worked long hours in his office, ensuring his hotel ran smoothly.
He micromanaged everything, but still made a point to listen to everyone’s advice, from his maître d’ to a lowly bellboy.

“He was some hotel man,” said his sister-in-law Maxine Fiel.
“They had this big chandelier with about a thousand bulbs.
One night he summoned his manager, Harold, and pointed up to it.
‘Harold,’ he said, ‘there’s a bulb up there that’s blown out.
I want it changed.’”

Novack was particularly obsessed with having clean ashtrays, constantly looking for used ones.
“If he saw a dirty ashtray he would raise hell,” said Richard Marx, who later did legal work for the hotel.
“He was very fastidious and he wanted that hotel to be gleaming and clean and just perfect.”

Even Morris Lapidus recognized his nemesis’s genius for running the Fontainebleau.
“Ben was a hotelier to his very fingertips,” he wrote.
“He knew hotel operations as few men do.
But it went deeper than that.
He knew what he liked [and] what his guests liked.”

*   *   *

One afternoon, Bernice Novack and a couple of friends were walking through the hotel basement when Frank Sinatra’s bodyguards ordered them to leave, as the great man was approaching.

“And naturally she didn’t,” said Guy Costaldo, who later became Bernice’s close friend.
“She said, ‘Well, you tell Mr.
Sinatra that Bernice Novack is walking through.’
And then they both passed by each other.”

When Sinatra heard what had happened, he sent her a pair of expensive diamond earrings as an apology.
Attached was a note reading, “If you don’t cotton to these mothers, you can always sell them to Swifty.”

The singer was referring to the legendary Swifty Morgan, whom Damon Runyon immortalized as “the Lemon Drop Kid.”
Morgan hung around the pool at the Fontainebleau, acting as a pawnbroker for down-on-their-luck guests, who would sell him their wives’ jewelry.

Over the years, Frank Sinatra gave Bernice many other presents, including a grand piano and his special recipe for spaghetti sauce.

“He liked her a lot,” said Maxine Fiel, “because she stood up to him.”

*   *   *

On January 9, 1961, Frank Sinatra checked into the Fontainebleau hotel to perform four nights at La Ronde.
He was being tailed by an FBI agent, who later reported to J.
Edgar Hoover that the singer had been seen at the hotel talking to Mafia boss Joseph Fischetti.
The FBI would later claim Sinatra had “insisted” Ben Novack place Fischetti on the Fontainebleau payroll as “a talent agent,” paying him thousands of dollars a year.

One night, Sinatra summoned Bernice Novack up to his penthouse to keep him company, as he couldn’t sleep.

“He didn’t like to sleep,” said Maxine Fiel, “and just couldn’t be alone.
Bernice told me that they were all sitting there at five in the morning, and he says, ‘Nobody leaves until I say so.’
Bernice says, ‘Oh, to hell with this, Frank, I’m leaving.
I’m falling asleep.’”

On January 19, five-year-old Benji Novack flew to Washington, D.C., with his parents and Frank Sinatra to attend President John F.
Kennedy’s inauguration.

The next day, a heavy snowstorm blanketed the capital, almost necessitating cancelation of the inauguration parade.
Nevertheless it went ahead, and the Novack family were in the Capitol Building to hear President Kennedy’s historic inauguration speech.
Later that night, they attended President Kennedy’s Inaugural Ball, at which Frank Sinatra performed.

A year later, Benji and his parents were all photographed with the new president when he visited the Fontainebleau.
A tuxedoed Ben Novack Sr.
posed alongside President Kennedy with a wide smile and his hand on his young son’s shoulder.
Bernice looked radiant in a couture dress with matching top, wearing the diamond earrings Sinatra had given her.
Little Benji wore a white tuxedo jacket and black bow tie.
His wavy dark hair was combed forward and his eyes were full of pride.

Bernice Novack would treasure this stunning black-and-white photograph for the rest of her life.
She carefully placed it in one of the many photo albums she compiled over the years showing her and her family with some of the most famous people of the twentieth century.

*   *   *

On February 12, 1961, the Fontainebleau made national headlines after a teenage guest went berserk in the hotel and gunned down a Miami Beach police detective and wounded another.
Nineteen-year-old John Charles Cross from New Jersey reportedly started shooting when Miami Beach detective William Allsopp, sixty-two, summoned him to the executive offices and questioned him about his massive hotel bill and suspicious credentials.

Ben Novack and his head of publicity, Hal Gardner, were talking next door when shots ran out.
They dove for cover.

After shooting the detective dead, Cross ran through the corridors of the Fontainebleau waving a .22-caliber pistol at scores of horrified hotel guests.
He then dashed downstairs to the lower level of stores, as a bellboy lunged at him but missed.

The
Miami News
reported that the crazed gunman then grabbed Fontainebleau house detective Louis Behrens and forced him at gunpoint out of the back entrance.

“You’re my way out of here!”
he screamed, pushing the detective into his car before taking off toward Collins Avenue, a gun to Behrens’s head.

A Miami Beach police squad car finally cut him off in front of the Montmartre hotel, and officers began shooting.
When Behrens tried to grab Cross’s gun it went off, shooting the detective in the knee.
Then police rushed in and arrested Cross.

The next morning the
Miami News
devoted its entire front page to the murder, with the screaming headline “Murder at the Fontainebleau.”

“[It was] the size of a war declaration,” recalled Gardner of the headline.
“Novack told me, ‘Murder at the Fontainebleau!
What are they trying to do to me?’
I said, ‘Don’t worry.
It’ll be good.’
And it was: The Poodle Lounge was jammed that night with people who wanted to see where the murder was.”

*   *   *

Three days later, FBI agents arrived at the Fontainebleau and questioned Ben Novack about Sam Giancana’s recent weeklong stay there.
An FBI report released years later under the Freedom of Information Act stated that Novack was evasive, saying the Chicago Mafia boss had probably “just dropped by.”

“[Ben Novack] volunteered no information,” the report read, “and answered all questions tersely with no elaboration.
He advised that it was not hotel policy to make records available to law enforcement agencies in the absence of a subpoena.”

A few months later, the Florida attorney general labeled the Fontainebleau a “hangout for hoodlums.”

Operating alongside Swifty Morgan’s pawnbroker business was an ex-con named Max Raymond, also known as “Little Maxie,” who had served a two-year sentence at Leavenworth for narcotics.
Ben Novack gave Raymond the linen and lingerie store concession in the lower lobby.
A subsequent investigation into the Mafia’s ties with Ben Novack Sr.
and the Fontainebleau would allege that Raymond was in fact the hotel’s “resident muscle,” and his real “concession” was running the Mob’s invitation-only high-stakes card games there.

During Raymond’s years at the Fontainebleau, he was arrested for gambling, burglary, and vehicular homicide, but never convicted.

“Maxie Raymond was always in the card room,” Steve Wynn told
Ocean Drive
magazine in 2001.
“His leverage was that he was buddies with the union guys at the hotel.”

Ben Novack’s personal security force, composed of off-duty Miami Beach Vice Squad officers, turned a blind eye to the high-class prostitution conducted in the Poodle Lounge, where the maître d’ took phone calls for the girls, even arranging assignations in return for a good tip.

“On a good night,” said the Fontainebleau’s former head of security Ronnie Mitervini, “you’d have six to ten different hookers working the Poodle Lounge.
They were very classy, dressed conservatively, and came down for the winter not just from New York, but from little towns in the Midwest.
They were the girls next door.”