Gold Hill Lecture Series: Sinatra, Rat Pack, Mobsters and 1963 Cal-Neva Adventure
Guy W. Farmer, the Nevada Appeal’s award-winning political columnist, will speak on “Frank Sinatra, Mobsters and the Cal-Neva Adventure” on Thursday, May 17 from 7 to 8 p.m. at the Gold Hill Hotel in Storey County.
Cost is $5.
Learn all the sordid details firsthand of how Nevada’s gaming control agencies revoked Sinatra’s gambling license for hosting Chicago Godfather Sam “Momo” Giancana at North Lake Tahoe’s Cal-Neva Lodge and Casino.
Farmer grew up in Seattle and graduated from the University of Washington Journalism School, worked for daily newspapers in Washington and Oregon before coming to Carson City in January 1962 as Associated Press (AP) capital correspondent.
In 1963 Gov. Grant Sawyer hired him as public information officer for the Nevada Gaming Commission and State Gaming Control Board.
Farmer was the “bug” on the phone line when Frank Sinatra called Gaming Board Chairman Edward A. Olsen in a failed attempt to head-off revocation of the singer’s gambling license for hosting Giancana, who was listed in the state’s famous “Black Book” of unsavory characters — gangsters, that is.
After leaving the gaming agencies in late 1966, Farmer worked for the NBC-TV affiliate in Reno before joining the U.S. Information Agency (USIA) in Washington, D.C. for a 28-year diplomatic career that took him to seven foreign countries.
Since returning to Carson City in 1996 Farmer has written a popular Sunday political column for the Nevada Appeal.
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