Perhaps what's lost in your take is that Gambino looks like he wants to run for his life, and Sammy Davis Jr. looks like his smiling at his mother's behest while taking school pictures.
This is not a picture of a gangster and a celeb being chummy. It's a capture of a very awkward moment in Frank Sinatra's social circle.
"...the successful annihilation of organized crime's subculture in America would rock the 'legitimate' world's foundation, which would ultimately force fundamental social changes and redistributions of wealth and power in this country. Meyer Lansky's dream was to bond the two worlds together so that one could not survive without the other." - Dan E. Moldea
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