Excerpt From

 

 

Foreword

“The Riviera Nightclub in Fort Lee, New Jersey was a legendary part of the American scene from 1931 to January 1, 1954. Fort Lee native Tom Austin, a performer of note in his own right, tells the story as only one could who was there and saw this Emerald City of entertainment and night life. The Fort Lee Film Commission and Fort Lee Historical Society are proud to call Tom one of our own. His story is not only Fort Lee’s story but America’s story of a time when stars weren’t just in the skies but in a nightclub atop the Jersey Palisades.”

—Tom Meyer, Fort Lee Film Commission

 

Preface

One of New York’s favorite nightclubs from the 1930s through the early 1950s wasn’t in New York. The world famous Riviera opened on the craggy cliffs of the Palisades high above the Hudson River in Bergen County, New Jersey in 1931, where my Dad would become an integral part of its history.

 

I was born in 1939 into a family of hard working people who came to the Fort Lee area by horse and wagon in 1904, settling in Coytesville a rural enclave located at the north end of Fort Lee. I was named after my Grandfather Tom who had started a small trucking company on the Lower East side of New York after he arrived from England. Like so many others at the time, Fort Lee was beckoning all young entrepreneurs to take the ferry across the pond to seek their fortune in the burgeoning motion picture business, which originated in Fort Lee.

 

By 1920, however, the movie business, seeking better weather conditions, began its cross country trek to California and the Prohibition era was underway. Grandpa shifted his efforts from hauling movie scenery to hauling liquor and moving the contents of raided “Speakeasy” operations around New York. In 1929, my dad Alfred, who earned the family nickname of “Mott Street Al,” met my mother at a baseball game in Fort Lee. Mom was a small time singer and contest winning Charleston dancer who sang and danced with her brother George’s band called the Continentals. The trucking business went bust during the Great Depression and everyone was out of work. The only source of income was from “day work” as Dad called it where men would have to stand in a “shape up” line and hopefully be picked for hard labor to earn a day’s pay.

 

In October of 1931, when the George Washington Bridge was completed, entrepreneur Ben Marden opened a huge, lavish nightclub restaurant on the Jersey side of the Hudson in Fort Lee. Patrons crossed the bridge to enjoy the Riviera’s illegal gambling, illegal liquor, and fantastic performances with gorgeous showgirls, all under the watchful eye of the Mob. Fort Lee locals, including my family, once again found work, becoming the service force of the operation. Dad got a job at the Riviera as a stage door security officer. His duty was to see to it that everyone behaved and didn’t disrupt the operation or the flow of money pouring in.

 

Every morning around 6 a.m. when he came home from work, Dad would sit on the edge of my bed and tell me stories of the events, good and bad, that had taken place at the Riviera the night before. I would hear stories about Frank Sinatra or Eddie Fisher or maybe some famous Mob guys who showed up to meet the stars. At family gatherings, I would be fascinated as my uncles and Dad related stories and gossip of the events in our town concerning show business and the Mob. My eight-year-old mind was becoming a storehouse of information regarding the Riviera and its colorful characters. As the years passed, Dad’s fascinating stories stayed with me, and eventually I memorized them - for a reason that I was unaware of at the time.

 

It wasn’t until I reached my late 60s that a friend of mine named Ron Kase talked me into co-writing a nonfiction book about the events that took place at the Riviera. I wanted to record the factual events for people so that they could enjoy them as much as I did. I wanted the great memories of the Riviera to live on forever. Together, Ron and I wrote Bill Miller’s Riviera: America’s Showplace in Fort Lee, New Jersey which was published in 2011. The book includes dozens of the autographed photographs of stars and celebrities that Dad brought home to us.

 

That first book led the Fort Lee Film Commission, under the direction of Nelson Page and Tom Meyer, to come to me and say, “You’re holding back. You must write the real behind-the-scenes story that was handed down to you by your dad. The world needs to know that before Hollywood and Las Vegas, our town of Fort Lee was the Mecca of big-time show business and that most of the grandiose ideas used to bring those places to life originated in our town of Fort Lee, New Jersey.”

 

I accepted the challenge and began to dig deep in historic archives, researching my characters and events surrounding the origins of the Riviera. Through interviews with the owner’s family members, court records, FBI files, newspaper articles, books, local folk tales and Dad’s stories, I readied myself to render a tale that would both entertain the reader and stay true to the history of the Riviera.

 

What I realized immediately was that Bridge to the Riviera had to be written as a historic novel. It was necessary to communicate the conversations of the characters in a fictional manner, based on the author’s imagination, in a way that would lead the story on a credible timeline of events. The story is told through the eyes of the main character, the young half Jewish, half Italian Gio Arrigo. Although Gio is quiet and non-assuming he is a presence recognized by all.

 

I hope you enjoy this trip back to the time when the Riviera in Fort Lee was the unparalleled trendsetter in entertainment excitement.

 

Acknowledgements

I first want to thank Patrick Ertel and his wife Vicki for believing in this project and to all those people at Ertel Publishing for their tireless efforts in making it happen. In addition I owe a debt of gratitude to Tom Meyer and Nelson Page of the Fort Lee Film Commission for encouraging me to write this backstage, behind the scenes story of the Riviera and of the men who built it. A million thanks go out to Jim Waltzer for helping me put the polish on my manuscript and keeping me on track to make my book the best that it could be. To the Miller family, Susan, Judy, Denise, Mary, David Vine and Barney Miller, thank you for your support and good wishes. To Barbara, thank you for covering the bases for me at my day gig while I did the research for this book. Finally and most important, to my wife Lorraine and my sons Michael and Tom thank you for always standing in support of me and never complaining when I have my head in the clouds off on another artistic adventure.

 

Prologue

A hush came over the audience, as the Riviera showroom grew dark. Four spotlights danced around the room, pausing momentarily on the celebrities who came to see Frank Sinatra make his comeback. Waiter captain Lou Gallo was quick-stepping a contingent of New York Yankee late arrivals to their table, young players named Mantle, Berra, Martin, and Ford—World Series victors over the Dodgers the previous fall. They briefly shook outstretched hands, as they moved past the first-tier banquettes to be seated. Columnist Walter Winchell was all smiles, as he patted TV show host Ed Sullivan on the back, broke from conversation, and rushed back to his own table. Beautiful Ava Gardner chatted with composer Harold Arlen, as photogs bombarded her with attention. Chicago gangsters Rocco, Charlie and Joe Fischetti sat ringside, waiting for their favorite singer. Jersey counterparts Willie Moretti, Joe Adonis, Albert Anastsia, Gyp DeCarlo, and Longie Zwillman appeared startled, as the spotlights hit their tables. Politicians, gangsters, clergy, press, sports and show biz celebrities along with just plain people, all came out to welcome back the man who had defied the odds and regained his standing atop the entertainment world.

 

Through the tall windows, lights on the George Washington Bridge twinkled like a magical sequence of stars. A hush came over the 1200-seat showroom, as four spotlights that had been sparring with the audience focused on the stage and the drummer laid down a sustained single stroke roll on his timpani. A rich baritone voice leapt from the house speakers.

 

“Ladies and gentleman, Bill Miller’s Riviera proudly presents the one and only, Mister Frank Sinatra.”

 

The room exploded as if it were Yankee Stadium and Mantle had just sent one into orbit. The orchestra jumped on an up-tempo arrangement. After what seemed endless, heart-stopping moments, Sinatra—with spotlights converging—emerged from behind the black bandstand curtain, wearing a perfectly tailored, grey sharkskin suit glistening in the lights. Still skinny, still taut and electric. The crowd sent out a second explosion—greater than the first—that, without the sturdy nightclub walls deflecting it, might have reached skyscrapers of Manhattan, rising fortress-like across the bridge. Accepting the adulation, Sinatra shrugged his shoulders, as he turned to the bandleader, then faced the audience again, in full swagger. “Kick it, boys,” he said to the band behind him, and off they went into history.

 

Chapter 1

As I drove across the George Washington Bridge on my way back to New Jersey, I noticed that, off to the right near the edge of those 500-foot-high cliffs, where the most famous nightclub in the world once stood, the trees were much shorter than all of the other trees surrounding that spot. It was hard to believe that so many years had passed since the Riviera closed in 1953; what a shame I thought, a damn shame.

 

When I reached Fort Lee on the Jersey side of the river, I hung a quick right, headed down to Hudson Terrace, and parked my car on the shoulder of the road below the tollgates for the Palisades Interstate Parkway. Was I crazy? Was it ridiculous to feel such an urge to climb those steep stairs next to the bridge, walk the cliff trail just to see the ruins, and visit the place that I loved so much? Going there was like visiting a cemetery to pay my respects to an old friend. I had been planning to come to this place for the past month after getting out of the hospital, so why turn back now? This was my sacred place, a place I knew so much about, that special place of such importance in my life. I just had to come back to revisit and pay tribute.

 

I opened the trunk of my car and took out a small bag containing a few items I needed for searching the ruins of this grand old lady. Nothing fancy—just a pair of binoculars, a small garden shovel, a rake and, most importantly, a small box containing a creased photograph and a beautiful cameo pin framed in gold. This last item had its own special meaning to me. It needed to be buried here along with my memories.

 

Why am I doing this, I thought? I really shouldn’t be out here taking a chance on falling and hurting myself, climbing around this rubble at my age. The truth of the matter is that, if something happened, no one would ever find me up here on the cliffs and, anyway, who really gives a damn about me? No one would miss me if I checked out right now, and that’s for sure. “Look at those beautiful pieces of blue tile over there in the weeds,” I heard myself saying out loud.

 

This must have been the spot where all those chauffeur-driven Cadillacs and Lincolns would pull up to the main entrance and drop off their people. I can still see those flashy cars gleaming in the night.

 

It was all so wonderful, so glamorous, people coming from all over the world to see the lavish shows right here on this spot. And I was in the middle of it all.

 

Funny, I guess the beautiful showgirls who danced here are all grandmothers or even great-grandmothers by now, if they are still with us, I thought.

 

After the Riviera closed, I regularly took out my big photo album to show friends autographed pictures of Frank Sinatra, Peggy Lee, Tony Martin, Dean Martin, Jerry Lewis, and all the others who played the handsome club that overlooked the Hudson. It was always wonderful to reminisce. Everyone was impressed with those pictures of the stars. Friends, who never had been there, could not believe that the Riviera could seat 1,200 for dinner and 200 more in the lounge and bar, or that it had a revolving dance floor and even a revolving bandstand capable of featuring two bands at once. People were amazed that the roof could actually roll off the building and that, otherwise hidden by the roof, a gambling casino run by the most famous mobsters of the time drew high rollers. The Mob guys dubbed it the “Carpet Joint” because it was so luxurious. (They called their low-class, backroom casinos “dice barns.”)

 

The memories are indelible. When Frank Sinatra came here to make his comeback, the place was so packed that the waiters were throwing the plates out the window because the kitchen couldn’t handle the huge number of dirty dishes. Talk about star power. I spent that whole day with Sinatra and his lady, Ava Gardner, who was gorgeous.

 

As I stood among the ruins I willed myself to envision the famous couple pulling up in their new, baby blue, Caddy convertible in front of the stage door on that rainy day, Frank at the wheel. Ava wore a tan raincoat and her fantastic, mysterious smile that made you feel self-conscious. Most guys couldn’t even look her in the eyes when she was smiling. She mesmerized everybody, including Frank.

 

I climbed over a chunk of concrete and found the remains of the four, long, curving entrance steps that led to the shiny, brass doors. If these crumpled steps could only talk, they’d tell of the thousands of celebrities who trod or fell there, or of the night that Al the security guard tangled with that seven-foot-two guy. That was some fight. The big guy did not know how lucky he was that the boys with the broken noses missed the fight—he might have left the premises in a hearse instead of a police car.

 

I could see Tony Martin signing autographs on these steps, looking down on all the gorgeous women begging for his attention. Martin’s wife, the beautiful Cyd Charisse, would stand just off to the side and allow the women to fawn all over her husband. “Just business,” she would say.

 

It was chilly at cliff’s edge, about a 500-foot drop to the river. I had to watch my step and not slip on the overgrowth. I’d forgotten how cold it could get up here. Back then, we went outside only to shoot raccoons raiding the dumpsters. “Target practice, let’s have some target practice,” the guys would say, tough-looking characters in fedora hats, pistols in their hands. And they didn’t limit their shooting to raccoons. One time they dragged one of the collection guys out and took him on a one-way ride. The poor bastard probably had no idea what he was in for. It took the feds years before they found his body. Someone else was hired to take his collection route.

 

I spotted, on the ground, a giant arc with a radius of about 60 feet, indicating that the Riviera’s footprint measured about 120 feet across on the river side. The crumbling footings I now noticed had held the round walls whose huge windows rolled down to let in the breezes on summer nights. When the roof rolled off, and the windows rolled down, the party was on. That’s what owner Ben Marden always said.

 

I cocked my ear and could hear the music…dadala, dadala, dadala da, dadala, dadala, dadala da…Mambo Jambo, that was the song. Perez Prado had the hit, and Pupi Campo’s band played it at the Riviera all the time. When those young showgirls—all gorgeous and probably not one of them over nineteen years old (“ fresh calamari,” some of us would say)—strutted onto the revolving stage, the place was up and running, let me tell you.

 

Enough of those thoughts. No fool like an old fool.

 

I sat on a smooth rock and looked through my binoculars at the New York skyline. The George Washington Bridge superstructure was more than a football field away. I remembered this same view from the third tier of the showroom. Some view.

 

Thanks to me, they got this spot; I handled the negotiations for it. It was probably Meyer Lansky and his associates who put up the money we needed to buy it, but I was the one who made the deal. Marden always confirmed that I played a major role in it.

 

Everybody used to ask me how I got a job at the Riviera, but I would never tell them the truth. I had sworn to the guy who brought me here that I would never say anything that would connect him to this place, and I never did, at least while he was alive.

 

I took one last look at the picture in the little box before I buried it with the cameo pin, choosing for their final resting place the spot where the stage door used to be. For years I carried the photo of the two of us in my wallet. She and I had a great thing going. But now it’s gone.

 

Along with all the water gone under the George Washington Bridge since that stranger pointed me in this direction. It seems like about five minutes ago that all of this got started.

 

I met him in Atlantic City. This guy was some pack of trouble. I have to admit, there was never a dull moment from the time I first met him until the time he cut me loose to go on my own. He always felt that I just wasn’t cut out for his type of business and the rough stuff that went with it, but he always backed me up. He had a solution for everything; if there was a buck to be made, he was the first to grab it. The man was a genius…with a giant pair of balls.

 

Seems like everything that was illegal back then is legal now—what a joke. Booze, bookies, cardrooms, crap games, “numbers.” Now we have legit casinos everywhere, especially down the Jersey shore.

 

I remember it perfectly. The first time I went to Atlantic City was on a weekend pass from the Navy in the summer of 1919. I hitched a ride up from Norfolk, where my ship was docked. I was alone and headed straight for the boardwalk like any other sailor on a long weekend pass. It began to rain early that day, and the next thing I knew, I found myself playing Skee-Ball in an arcade. A tall guy who looked about my age—19—struck up a conversation with me about the Navy, while we each ran the Skee-Balls up the alley, killing time until the rain stopped. Out of nowhere, four tough-looking guys grabbed my new friend, threw him on the ground, and proceeded to kick the shit out of him.

 

As a crowd gathered to watch the beating, I couldn’t resist jumping in to help him. My South Philly (that’s where I grew up) mentality kicked in and, before I knew it, I was pulling guys off of him, giving him half a chance to get back on his feet and throw some punches. Together, we started to hold our own, when one of them pulled out an ice pick. Thank God, an arcade employee was nearby, holding a sack of pennies from the machine. Instinctively, I grabbed the sack and swung for the fences. Whammo! I connected with Icepick’s squawker, and he went down like a lump of lead, blood gushing from his nose, pennies flying everywhere.

 

 People scrambled all over him, trying to get to the pennies. Moments later, the police came running to see what the commotion was about, and that’s when this stranger and I jumped over the ramps and disappeared into the back, looking for a place to hide among the boxes of satin dolls and monkeys. When the cops tended to the guy on the floor, his pals bolted from the arcade.

 

Minutes later, we lucked out and found the door out the back. When we got a safe distance away, my new friend looked at me with curiosity.

 

“What’s the matter, you’re white as a ghost?”

 

 “I think I killed him.”

 

“Come on, pal, dead guys don’t bleed that much,” he said, like someone who knows all about such things. “But I see you got a soft spot, so you better watch that. If you have to kill somebody, never worry about killing a guy who is trying to kill you. Never forget that…Let’s shake, my name is Abe Zwillman—they call me ‘Longie.’”

 

 We shook hands.

 

“I’ll tell you what,” he continued, “I can probably use a guy like you. If you want, look me up when you get out of the Navy.” He handed me a card. “I’m not going to forget what you did for me today.”

 

Those were his exact words—“I’m not going to forget what you did for me today”—and he never did forget me. No one—least of all, me—would have predicted that Longie would turn out to be as big as Al Capone. Those in the know say nobody in Jersey was bigger than Longie Zwillman. Even at that tender age, he was looking to expand his bootleg liquor territory into the Atlantic City area, and he’d made the mistake of not bringing his “friends” to the negotiations. For one lucky instant, I had been his muscle.

 

 I kept his card and was tempted to call him many times after I got out of the Navy several months later. One day, when I reached for my wallet to pay for a haircut in Somerville, New Jersey, Longie’s card fell out. The barber stooped, picked it up, and saw the name.

 

“You know Longie Zwillman?”

 

“Yeah, he’s a friend of mine, why?”

 

“Okay, pal, this haircut is on the house.”

 

Right then and there, I knew Longie was a good guy to know.

 

A few days later, I mustered the courage to call him. I had been working as a caddie at the Raritan Valley Country Club, a beautiful spread that was less than a decade old. But I had ambition that went beyond toting a bag of golf clubs.

 

“Remember me?” I said, when Longie answered.

 

“How could I forget you? You saved my ass on the boardwalk.” Then, as if he could read my mind, he said, “Are you going to take me up on that job I offered you?”

 

“I just called to say hello,” I lied.

 

“Where are you working, Gio?”

 

That’s me, Joshua Giorgio Arigo, the Joshua courtesy of my Jewish mother, the Gio my preferred handle among my Italian school chums and neighborhood buddies in South Philly.

 

And now Gio was about to enter the world of Longie. I was a little ashamed to tell him that I was working at the Raritan Valley Country Club.

 

“Are you managing the place?”

 

Not quite.

 

But Longie wasn’t about to put down the guy who’d saved his ass. He spoke to me as if I were already a valued associate.

 

“I have a drop there [at the country club], Gio.” He went on to say that he’d be down with his driver to make a delivery when President Harding came to visit in a couple weeks’ time. Longie planned to meet the president. And he did.

 

That was some day.

 

* * * * *

 

I sat on the old, broken steps, and the past paraded before me.

 

 On July 2, 1921, the Raritan Valley Country Club was buzzing with excitement because Warren G. Harding, President of the United States, was due to arrive to sign papers that would officially end the Great War nearly three years after its battlefield action had ceased.

 

Senator Joseph S. Frelinghuysen, who had helped launch the club on land adjacent to his estate, was going nuts in trying to make sure that everything was just right on that day. We were all ducking for cover, trying to stay out of his way. But I think the senator liked me. He made a fuss over me when I won the caddy golf tournament that summer and received a Hamilton wristwatch as a prize.

 

 When the time came, the President arrived in a cavalcade of big, black Packards with four State Troopers on motorcycles. When the procession stopped, the 10-year-old McKenna triplets ran to the head of the pack, led by their ever-promotional mother. The girls were dressed in outfits that made them look like the American flag. The mother wore a god-awful headpiece that made her look like the statue of liberty.

 

They said the President’s favorite summer drink was ice tea with a sprig of mint, so the McKenna girls brought him a pitcher of the tea as soon as he stepped out of his limousine. When a crowd surrounded the vehicles, the girls broke rank and bolted toward the President.

 

The one with the pitcher tripped over her sister’s shoe, sending the pitcher flying until it splattered on the President’s guard riding on the running board. The sound of the stainless steel pitcher hitting the car was like a gunshot. The President jumped out of the car, triggering short-lived panic among his security detail, but applause from the crowd. Quickly composing himself, Harding looked at the McKennas with forgiveness and said, “I think these girls should take a mulligan on this one.” The crowd broke up with laughter.

 

Later that day, just as he’d told me, Longie and two of his guys showed up at the club in an Army surplus truck loaded with bootleg booze. He told me he planned on buying about forty of those trucks to make his “drops.”

 

When he spotted me, he got out of the truck and walked right over to me.

 

“You’re lookin’ good, pal, everything all right?” Some of the other caddies suddenly saw me in a new light.

 

“Get in the truck, Gio, and let’s drop this stuff off in the shack behind the caddie pen. This is the good stuff I keep in Reinfeld’s warehouse up in Newark. There is a lot more where this came from.”

 

And just like that, my life changed. As we drove toward the caddie pen, we stopped by the first tee, where a foursome was about to tee off. We sat there quietly, waiting for those guys to hit, the engine idling. One of them took endless practice swings, and Longie lost it.

 

“Will you hit the fucking ball already?”

 

As soon as I realized that the slowpoke was Judge Nelson, I prepared myself for a few nights in the slammer. The judge stopped swinging and looked up.

 

“Abner Zwillman, this club is going to pot if they let guys like you in here.”

 

“How you makin’ out, Judge, long time no see,” Longie said.

 

So much for the slammer. Everyone at the club seemed to either know Longie or know of him. He cast a big shadow everywhere he went.

 

When we reached the shack, and Longie’s men began unloading the truck, he and I went around back to the pen, where the wooden caddies bench was carved up with initials.

 

“Some work of art huh, Gio?”

 

“A lot of asses sat on this bench over the years.”

 

He looked at me. “Are you one of them?”

 

His message came through, loud and clear.

 

“Gio, you going to stick around here and be a pack mule for these rich guys, or do you want to throw in with me and my guys up in Newark, and make some real dough and have people look up to you? Your choice, pal; you’re a good guy and I owe you one.” I didn’t need to think about it very long. “What the hell, I guess I’m in.”

 

Longie’s face tightened. “You guess?”

 

“I’m in—no guesswork.”

 

“That’s better. Now call whoever you got to call to make your break, and later today we take you back with us to Newark.”

 

I grabbed a ride back to my grandmother’s house to pack my bag. She was sitting on the porch when I got there.

 

“I got an offer to move up to Newark and work in a restaurant,” I said.

 

“Are you sure you want to do that, Giorgio?” She always called me Giorgio.

 

I told her it was a good chance to make some real money, and she looked at me suspiciously.

 

“I hope so, for your sake.”

 

I packed my Navy sea bag with the few civvies I had, threw it over my shoulder, and headed back to the club.

 

When I got there, I was surprised to see a beautiful, young woman talking to Longie—not because she was a beautiful, young woman, but because she was the wife of Dr. Jansen, a club member. Her long, honey-blond hair looked natural—not some dye job. I had heard she was a dancer or something, and thought maybe she knew Longie. When I saw them, I just stood off to the side to stay out of their conversation until Longie saw me.

 

“Gio, I guess you know Nancy Jansen, right?”

 

“Not really, but I see Missus Jansen here at the club with her husband.”

 

“Nancy was a Ziegfeld dancer in New York; a big star.”

 

Nancy’s expression suggested that she was less impressed with herself than was Longie. “Come on, Gio,” she said. “You can talk to me; forget the formalities.” She spoke with unmistakably western inflections, adding to her charm. “I see you’re a friend of Longie’s, so it’s okay if you join our conversation.”

 

I could have fallen over. This was the first time I had even gotten a chance to stand near Nancy Jansen, much less speak to her. I had not as much as heard her voice before—this gal definitely wasn’t from Brooklyn. Make no mistake, everybody at the club noticed Nancy, especially the guys. We didn’t dare make any comments, but she was absolutely gorgeous, way out of anybody’s league—at least anybody I knew (except maybe Longie).

 

Later that day, the President and his entourage left the club and went down the road to Frelinghuysen’s mansion to sign the ratification papers. We were told that the President was going to stay at the senator’s house for four days, so he could get in several rounds of golf. I realized that I’d miss my chance to caddy for him, but I had other fish to fry. I was going to Newark with Longie Zwillman to start a new life.

 

The caddy master saw me throwing my sea bag into the back of the army truck, and asked me where the hell I was going. I told him it was none of his business.

 

“Go find yourself another donkey, pal,” I said, acting like a big shot. “I’m done.”

 

But for me, things were just beginning.