PALM DESERT, Calif. -- Jilly Rizzo, longtime friend and security chief of Frank Sinatra, died in a fiery car crash with a suspected drunken driver, the singer's publicist said Thursday.
Riverside County Sheriff's deputies said a Jaguar that had been lent to Rizzo was traveling on Gerald Ford Drive Wednesday when it was hit broadside by a Mercedes-Benz and burst into flames.
The Coroner's Office said the identity of the lone body in the car would not be confirmed until Friday, saying it was burned so badly dental records would be needed to determine whether it was Rizzo.
However, Susan Reynolds, Sinatra's publicist, said, 'We've been advised that it was Jilly.'
The Jaguar was completely destroyed by flames when police found it, but the driver of the Mercedes that hit the car was not there.
A short time later, Michelle Churis, 32, and Jeffrey Perrotte, 29, arrived on the scene in another vehicle and the woman said she was the driver of the Mercedes.
However, that was contradicted by a witness and by unspecified physical evidence at the scene, Sheriff's Sgt. Keith Stinson said, and Perrotte was booked on suspicion of vehicular manslaughter, felony drunken driving, leaving the scene of a traffic collision and driving with a suspended license.
Churis also was booked on suspicion of being an accessory to a felony.
Wednesday was Rizzo's 75th birthday and many of his friends and family members had planned a party for him as they did each year, Reynolds said.
The crash was just a few miles from Rizzo's home in Rancho Mirage, a surburb of Palm Springs and the site of dozens of high-priced celebrity estates, including those of Sinatra, former President Gerald Ford and comedian Bob Hope.
The former New York restaurateur has lived in the desert town since closing his famed New York saloon, Jilly's, in 1979. He also owned another restaurant, Jilly's South, in Miami Beach, Fla.
He and Sinatra were friends to the end. Rizzo, who often coordinated Sinatra's security for his tours, was with the singer last week when he performed in Jacksonville, Fla.
Reynolds said Thursday that Sinatra was in seclusion at his desert home.
'They were more than brothers,' she said. 'They've known each other for more than 30 years. He was an integral part of Frank Sinatra's life.'
Rizzo grew up in the Greenwich Village section of New York. In the 1980s, he was listed as part owner of a resort area in Pennsylvania's Poconos Mountains that was tied to an $8 million loan scam. He was convicted in 1990 and sentenced to 1,000 hours of community service -- after Sinatra told a federal judge in a letter that Rizzo was 'a giver and never a taker.'
Rizzo is survived by two sons, a daughter and two grandchildren. A funeral was tentatively set for Monday in Southern California.
