In June 1966, a confrontation at the Polo Lounge in the Beverly Hills Hotel left businessman Fred Weisman with a serious head injury. Contemporary reporting said he underwent cranial surgery, but police did not know whether he had been struck or injured accidentally. Later accounts—including one attributed to Dean Martin—disagree about what happened, and the reported decision not to prosecute did not settle the sequence of events.
What happened at the Polo Lounge?
The incident occurred in the early hours of a Wednesday in June 1966, during a celebration for Dean Martin’s 49th birthday, which had continued past midnight. A Los Angeles Herald-Examiner clipping preserved in the FBI’s Frank Sinatra file reported that Sinatra had a black eye and that Fred Weisman, 54, former president of Hunt Foods, was seriously injured.
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According to that contemporaneous clipping, Weisman underwent two and a half hours of cranial surgery. He remained in a coma until morning and was then reported semi-conscious; a hospital spokesman said he recognized his doctor and grasped the doctor’s hand. The article quoted Beverly Hills Police Chief Clinton H. Anderson saying investigators did not know whether someone had hit Weisman or whether he had been injured in an accident.
Who was involved, and what do the accounts say?
Weisman was the injured man named in the contemporary report. Later recollections offer competing explanations of the confrontation rather than a single confirmed account. Scott Huver’s 2024 Yahoo Entertainment / PEOPLE account describes versions that differ over who initiated contact and how Weisman was hurt.
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| Account | What it says | What it establishes |
|---|---|---|
| Contemporary newspaper report, 1966 | Police did not know whether Weisman had been struck or injured accidentally. | It records the uncertainty reported by police at the time; it does not identify a cause. |
| Sinatra’s version, as recounted in Huver’s 2024 article | Weisman struck Sinatra and fell. | A later account attributed to Sinatra, not an independently established sequence. |
| Version attributed to Franklin Fox, as recounted by Huver | Sinatra returned to the lounge and attacked Weisman. | A conflicting later account; the excerpt does not resolve it against the other versions. |
| Other recollection discussed by Huver | A general melee took place, with a boothside telephone possibly used to hit Weisman. | The telephone detail is a reported possibility, not a proven fact. |
| Martin’s retrospective account in a 1969 magazine interview with Oriana Fallaci | Martin said an insult led him and Sinatra to hit two men. | Martin’s recollection as reproduced in the period publication; it does not independently corroborate the other details. |
What did Dean Martin later say?
A 1969 TV-Radio Album article reproduces Martin telling interviewer Oriana Fallaci: “Three years ago on my birthday, Frank and I were at the Polo Lounge over here.” The article also quotes him describing the confrontation: “Well, Frank got there one split second ahead of me, and he hit one guy, I hit the other, picked ’em up and threw ’em against the wall.”
In that account, Martin said two men insulted him and Sinatra with an ethnic slur, and that the pair told police they did not know who had hit whom. This is a retrospective account printed in a scanned magazine reproduction; it is not a transcript independently verified against an audio recording. It also differs from versions that focus on Weisman and from the uncertainty stated by police in the 1966 report.
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Was Weisman hit with a telephone?
One version discussed in Huver’s 2024 account raises the possibility that a telephone beside a booth was used to strike Weisman. The sources do not establish that this happened. The contemporary clipping preserves police uncertainty about whether Weisman was struck at all, while later recollections conflict about the sequence and details.
Was anyone charged?
A separate clipping in the FBI file reports that deputy district attorney William L. Ritzi said, after the chief deputy district attorney reviewed the records, “No prosecution is indicated and the case is closed.” That is the reported legal outcome. It does not amount to a finding about who caused Weisman’s injury or determine whether a telephone was involved.
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How to read the surviving record
The FBI archive contains newspaper clippings; its presence there is not an FBI finding about what happened in the lounge. The 1966 newspaper account is useful evidence of what was reported at the time, including statements attributed to police and hospital spokespeople. Martin’s remarks appeared in a 1969 periodical, and the later versions are presented by Huver in 2024. Taken together, these sources document a serious injury and a closed case, but they do not establish the exact sequence of the confrontation.
Quick Recap
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- Following his melancholy masterpiece In The Wee Small Hours, legendary vocalist Frank Sinatra brightened the mood with the exuberant Songs For Swingin' Lovers released on Capitol Records in 1956 and featuring uptempo numbers arranged by Nelson Riddle
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