Modified On March 3, 2006
Chris King, writing in Las Vegas City Life, on the death of his old man, “lounge giant” Sonny King (so named by Frank Sinatra):
He went out the old-fashioned way– from hard living. He was penniless from financial irresponsibility; both ears were shot from years of high stage volume; his cancer-ridden throat was ravaged from belting out three shows a night, six nights a week; and his lungs collapsed from the smoke-infested cabarets. These battle wounds were the products of seven decades of saloon singing. For him, life was not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving in a pretty and well-preserved body, but rather, a party wagon skidding broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out.
Without naming names, there are a few people in this business who wouldn’t mind going out that way!
At one point, in this account of his father’s funeral, King recalls that “A little guy who looked like Santa Claus said, ‘I remember when your father and Shecky Greene got so drunk they ran a car into the Caesars Palace fountains.'” In all the times we’ve heard the story of Shecky driving into the fountains at Caesar’s, we had always heard it told that he was alone at the time. It puts the story in a different light.