112–14 FS and black entertainers: (“Frank didn’t care”) M/G int. of Sonny King and see M/G int. of Freddie Bell; (Davis nurtured) Gerald Early, The Sammy Davis, Jr., Reader, New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2001, 25, Shaw, Sinatra, 118, Down Beat, Aug. 1956; (abuse in army) Sammy Davis Jr., Jane Boyar, and Burt Boyar, Yes, I Can, New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1965, 51–; (hotel) ibid., 89–, 92, 198; (drained the pool) ed. Early, 398, Rosemary Clooney with Joan Barthel, Girl Singer, New York: Random House, 1999, 190–; (“The roof blew”) Good Housekeeping, Jun. 1964; (“Billy Eckstine became”) int. Hal Webman; (Sy Oliver) Sinatra with Coplon, 95; ( Jo Thompson) Philadelphia Inquirer, May 17, 1998; (unions/Bernhart/Viola/Collette) Granata, 108–; (Cole) Look, May 14, 1957, ed. Yarwood, 79; (Ebony) Ebony, Jul. 1958; (“His public position”) Jet, Oct. 13, 1986; (doctorate) ibid.; (Kings Go Forth) O’Brien, 105–, Ebony, Jul. 1958, Sinatra, My Father, 331; (FS best man) Davis, Boyar, and Boyar, 558, 583; (King’s crusade) Taylor Branch, Parting the Waters, New York: Simon and Schuster, 1988, 574, Sinatra, Legend, 190, Hollywood Reporter, Nov. 1, 1963, Valley Times Today, Oct. 9, 1963, int. Mort Viner; (King listened) Frank Sinatra Jr., As I Remember It; (“suffered”) McCall’s, Jul. 1968.
114 racist jokes: (“We’ll dedicate”) ed. Yarwood, 52; (“Smokey”) Wilson, Sinatra, 5; (“jungle bunny”) Variety Clubs All Star Tribute to Skinny D’Amato, Nov. 20, 1983, videotape in authors’ collection; (“You’d better”) “Sinatra, Inc.,” CNN Impact, circa 1998, videotape in authors’ collection; (“Here’s a little”) Deutsch, 117; (“He’s just, excuse”) Taraborrelli, 214; (“The Polacks”) New York, Apr. 28, 1980.
114 Bophuthatswana: “Register of Entertainers, Actors, and Others Who Have Performed in Apartheid South Africa,” U.N. Centre Against Apartheid, Oct. 1983, UNST/PSCA (05) N911; Chicago Tribune, Oct. 27, 1983, People, Aug. 10, 1981, int. Lee Solters.
114 Jackson: Kelley, 488.
115 “If there’s any form”: Giuliano audiotape.
115 FS “primo non-conformist”/“I don’t know”: Jet, Oct. 13, 1986. Awards for charity activity aside, Sinatra won honors from civil rights organizations. They included, as early as 1946, the Thomas Jefferson Award from the Council Against Intolerance, and a Life Achievement award from the NAACP in 1987—well after the furor about the concert in Bophuthatswana. He received a commendation from the National Conference of Christians and Jews in 1946, and in 1980 became a fellow of the Simon Wiesenthal Center. In 1972 he received Israel’s Medallion of Valor in recognition of the millions of dollars he had raised. In 1980 Jerusalem mayor Teddy Kollek presented him with an award from the Jerusalem Foundation (awards—Sinatra, My Father, 300–; Jet, Mar. 23, Jun. 1, 1987, Philadelphia Daily News, Jan. 18, 1982; medallion—LAHE, Nov. 2, 1972; Kollek— New York Post, Jun. 16, 1980).
115 FS and Jews: (medallions/“If the war”) Sinatra, Legend, 48, Los Angeles Examiner,Sep. 30, 1945, Liberty, Feb. 12, 1944; (benefit for elderly) Sinatra, Legend, 59; (mezuzah) Look, May 28, 1957, and see p. 17.
115 Frank Jr. baptism: The authors have accepted daughter Nancy Sinatra’s account of the christening. Another account has it that Sinatra did storm out and Sacks was named godfather “elsewhere” (Sinatra, My Father, xviii, Bill Zehme, The Way You Wear Your Hat, New York: HarperCollins, 1997, 210); (golf clubs) Sinatra, Legend, 63—the club he did join was Hillcrest Country Club.
115 rally at Hollywood Bowl: People’s World, Sep. 27, 1947.
116 “I had an Irish”/Teddy Kollek: Sinatra’s role as money courier has been variously described in Kollek’s memoir For Jerusalem, Nancy Sinatra’s Legend, Michael Freedland’s All The Way, and most recently in the authors’ interview with Las Vegas Sun editor Brian Greenspun in 2002. The quotations used here are taken from all four sources. Kollek’s accounts, both in his memoir and as recalled by Greenspun, suggest Sinatra was performing at the Copacabana at the time of the Haganah contact. The record does not reflect such performances, but does show that he was in New York in March 1948 and at the club for an interview on the 24th (Hotel Fourteen—Clooney with Barthel, 87; FS visit—eds. Giuseppe Marcucci, Dick Schwarz, and Ed Vanhellemont, Where or When?, CD-ROM, privately published, Jan. 2002; carrying money—ints. Brian Greenspun, George Schlatter, Teddy Kollek with Amos Kollek, For Jerusalem, New York: Random House, 1978, 237, Freedland, 148–, Sinatra, Legend, 83; thanked—ibid., 247, Kollek, 237).
116 “It was the beginning”: Sinatra, Legend, 83.
116–18 FS and Israel: (established Youth Center) Hollywood Reporter, Apr. 11, 1962, (London) Daily Mail, May 8, 1962; (Arab League) Freedland, 297, LAHE, Sep. 25, 1962, Variety, Sep. 26, Oct. 15, 1962; (outburst) int. Rock Brynner; (“I don’t know”) int. Melville Shavelson, Melville Shavelson, How to Make a Jewish Movie, Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1971, 175–; (“He came to the realization”) int. Brad Dexter; (“We’re talking”) Bill Boggs int. of FS; (support 1967/wired LBJ) FS to LBJ, Jun. 4, 1967, White House Central Files, Name File, “Frank Sinatra,” Box 320, Lyndon Baines Johnson Library, SAC Los Angeles to Director, Jun. 21, 1967, FBI 105-53922-692, Sinatra, Legend, 202; (“I hope they catch”) Jewish Week, May 22, 1998; (performed/a “great man”) int. Frank Sinatra on ABC’s 20/20, 1979, videotape in authors’ collection, Ladies’ Home Journal, Oct. 1979; (Student Center) Jewish Week, May 22, 1998; Sinatra, My Father, 261; (bomb) AP, Jul. 31, Irish Times, Aug. 1, 2002; (Saddam) New York Post, Sep. 8, www.abcnews.com, Sep. 12, 2002, (London) Sunday Times, Jan. 4, 2004; (“curse the memory”) New York Post, Sep. 5, 2002.
Chapter 12: The Philanderer
119 FS work 1945/1946: (radio/recording/movies) Where or When? —ten of the recording sessions were for movies; (forty-five shows/one hundred songs) Shaw, Sinatra, 99; (Six made the top ten/10 million) Sayers and O’Brien, 264, Kahn, 7–; ($93,000) Shaw, Sinatra, 99, but see Friedwald, 160—the stage appearances were in Chicago; (album) Granata, 47–, Doctor, 33; (gospel/Cugat) Shaw, Sinatra, 94.
119–120 Alec Wilder episode: Granata, 49, New Yorker, Oct. 26, 1946, Billboard, Nov. 20, 1965, liner notes to Frank Sinatra Conducts Music of Alec Wilder, Columbia Records, ML 4271. The albums featuring Sinatra as conductor are Tone Poems of Color (1956), for Peggy Lee on The Man I Love (1957), for Dean Martin on Sleep Warm (1959), Sinatra Conducts Music from Pictures and Plays (1962), for Sylvia Syms on Syms by Sinatra (1982), and for the trumpeter Charles Turner on What’s New (1983).
120 FS overwork: (“Frank had great”) int. Jo-Carroll Dennison; (had to cancel) LAT, Jan. 7, 1946; (“Hard work”) Shaw, Sinatra, 100.
120–21 status of marriage: (“Boys will”) Photoplay, Sep. 1945; (“I can remember”) Billboard, Nov. 20, 1965; (“Don’t forget”) Hamill, 147.
121–22 FS womanizing: (“The relationship”) int. Phil Evans; (“He called”) int. Peggy Maley—later one of Ava Gardner’s closest friends; (“This was where”) int. Jo Carroll Dennison, Kelley, 112; (“They had parties”) int. Jo-Carroll Dennison; (“hideaway”) Bill Davidson, The Real and the Unreal, New York: Lancer, 1962; (prostitutes) Rosen to Tamm, Apr. 17, 1947, Belmont to Ladd, Sep. 29, 1950, FSFBI, 37; (“What blazing”/“Wonder if”) Parsons, 151.
121 “If I had”: The photographer Phil Stern responded by creating a gag picture of a specimen jar with Sinatra bottled up inside. A delighted Sinatra promptly requested a dozen copies (Newsweek, Apr. 19, 1965; int. Phil Stern on CNN Impact; May 1998).
121–22 “darling, adorable”/Ballard affair: int. Shirley Ballard.
122 Marilyn Maxwell: (background) Laura Wagner, “Marilyn Maxwell: The Other MM,” www.classicimages.com, Feb. 2000; (“sweater fillers”) Earl Wilson quote, Maxwell file, MHL, LAHE, Aug. 25, 1972; (Colleagues liked) undat. Photoplay, 1972; (met FS) unid. clip by Babs Carter, 1945, Maxwell Collection, Nodaway Valley (IA) Historical Society, (Clarinda, IA) Herald Journal, Apr. 17, 1939, Jack Holland, “What Is Frank Sinatra Really Like?” undat. MHL, LAT, Oct. 23, 1946—Maxwell was singing with Ted Weems’s band; (encouraged FS) unid. clip by Babs Carter; (bat girls) Sinatra, Legend
, 81–, Kelley, 91; (FS insisted) “Wake Up and Live,” Lux Radio Theater, Feb. 21, 1944, Frank Sinatra and Friends: 60 Great Radio Shows, Schiller Park, IL: Radio Spirits, 2000; (“I can even get”) Laura Wagner, “Marilyn Maxwell.”
122 Marilyn Maxwell affair: Four Sinatra relatives told the authors there was an affair: Sinatra’s cousin Rose Paldino; his cousin Sam’s widow, Rose Ellman Sinatra; and two second cousins, Marilyn Sinatra and Maryann Paldino Flannery. Maxwell’s niece and namesake, Marilyn Gaffen, and her longtime secretary Jean Greenberg also said as much.
122 Marilyn married: Maxwell married the actor John Conte in late 1944, and divorced him in June 1946 ([Clarinda, IA] Herald Journal, Jun. 27, 1946); (“crazy about”) Kelley, 116.
123 diamond bracelet: The bracelet incident has been described in books by both Sinatra daughters, and featured in the 1992 TV movie Sinatra: The Music Was Just the Beginning, which Tina produced. In their books, Tina dated it to New Year’s Eve 1945, Nancy to New Year’s Eve 1946. The authors have opted for the 1945 dating, in part because of a passage in the singer Mel Tormé’s autobiography. Tormé, who is rather specific about chronology, wrote that Maxwell was with him and the arranger Dean Elliott on New Year’s 1946 (Sinatra with Coplon, 16–, Sinatra, Legend, 73, Tormé, Velvet, 94–); (FS claimed) ibid., Jack Holland clip; (title fight) New York Journal-American, Feb. 29, 1956, Shaw, Sinatra, 99—the fight, on June 19, 1946, was between heavyweight champion Joe Louis and Billy Conn; (press had learned) ibid., Woman’s Home Companion, Jun. 1956, O’Brien, 25.
123 Dietrich: (background) Maria Riva, Marlene Dietrich, London: Bloomsbury, 1992, Charles Higham, Marlene, New York: Norton, 1977, Sheridan Morley, Marlene Dietrich, London: Sphere, 1978; (trophies) refs. in Riva, Higham, Marlene,11, and re Wayne, Wills, Wayne, 104–; (soldiers) Riva, 547, (London) Sunday Telegraph magazine, Oct. 28, 2001; (female lovers) ibid., Riva, 52, 165–; (husband)Riva, 53, 763; (knew FS in 1942) Riva, 659.
123–24 “I am eating”: ibid., 541. Many of Dietrich’s diary entries and letters were made public in Marlene Dietrich, a biography written by her daughter Maria Riva following the actress’s death at age ninety. Though not precisely dated in the book, the letter cited here was evidently written in early 1944. The diary entry mentioned is for February 2, 1955; (“Frankie’s country”) ibid., 547; (“Sinatra’s wife”) ibid., 552; (“swoon”) Higham, Marlene, 215; (“I know they had”) Freedland, 126; (“I was wrong”) Cahn, 144, Kelley, 112.
124 “The day after”: Dwiggins, 86.
124 “Keep Betty Grable”: In 1963, he updated the line to: “Keep Audrey Hepburn and keep Liz Taylor” (Frank Sinatra: The Complete Studio Recordings, Reprise, Master #2024, Apr. 29, 1963, and see Where or When? entry for V-Disc session, Jul. 8, 1944, Friedwald, 142–).
124–25 Lana Turner: (background) Cheryl Crane with Cliff Jahr, Detour, London: Sphere, 1989, 96–, Jeffrey Feinman, Hollywood Confidential, Chicago: Playboy Press, 1976, 143. Accounts of Turner’s discovery vary. According to the actress, she was first noticed at the Top Hat Café—not at Currie’s Ice Cream Parlor or Schwab’s Drug Store, as originally claimed by press agents (Turner, Lana, 26, Joe Morella and Edward Epstein, Lana, New York: Dell, 1982, 6, Crane with Jahr, 40–, Feinman, 7, 143–, Taylor Pero and Jeff Rovin, Always, Lana, New York: Bantam Books, 1982, 16–); (“Sweater Girl”) Crane with Jahr, 42; (attorney) ibid., 47, Turner, Lana, 44–; (Shaw/abortion) ibid., 49–; (other men) Morella and Epstein, 89–; (nonentity) Crane with Jahr, 50—the new husband was J. Stephen Crane III, real name Joe Crane; (“The only thing”) Turner, Lana, 42; (“The closest things”) Turner, Lana, 98, picture caption after 184; (original ms./“give him satisfaction”) Taraborrelli, 85fn; (Ava “good friend”) Turner, Lana, 165, Gardner, 49; (“had a very serious”) Gardner, 125; (met in 1940) int. Joe Bushkin, O’Brien, 204; (music) Turner, Lana, 41, 49, 75; (Holiday) Morella and Epstein, 66–; (Pearl Harbor) Turner, Lana, 75; (dated Dorsey/Sacks) Morella and Epstein, 65, 88; (Rich) Tormé, Traps, 45–, Tormé, Velvet, 86.
125 FS and Turner: (photographed together) Shaw, Sinatra, 73, Morella and Epstein, 91; (radio/FDR) “Where or When? entries for Jun. 14, Nov. 6, 1944; (Lana/Nancy close) Turner, Lana, 98; (“When [Nancy] came”) Kelley, 92; (“They used to smooch”) Morella and Epstein, 92, 97, and see Dwiggins, 87, Kelley, 114, Freedland, 134, Romero, 78.
125 began Lana Turner affair in New York: Sinatra was making It Happened in Brooklyn, an indifferent movie about a demobbed GI in search of romance. Shooting took him to New York in mid-June. The date and location of the start of the Turner affair is unclear in previous biographies of both stars, and unsubstantiated by contemporary clippings. Taking together the available information, the authors accept the version offered by Tina Sinatra in her book (Crane with Jahr, 105–, Where or When? entries for Apr. 3–10, 1946, O’Brien, 29, Sinatra with Coplon, 17; FS’s other daughter, Nancy, has dated the New York shooting wrongly—as 1947—in her book Legend, p. 80).
125–26 FS/Nancy separation: (Evans announced) NYT, Oct. 7, 1946, Kelley, 120; (“the freedom”) LAT, Oct. 7, 1946; (“about trivial”) American Weekly, Jul. 20, 1952; (“dancing many”) Los Angeles Examiner, Oct. 7, LAT, Oct. 11, 1946; (Palm Springs) Modern Screen, May 1947, LAT, Oct. 24, 1946, Shaw, Sinatra, 102; (Lana had a place) Turner, Lana, 103, Taraborrelli, 84; (Hollywood gossip columnists) Feinman, 157–; (“morals clause”) Gardner, 45–, 51, Morella and Epstein, 199; (Parsons/“to behave”) Crane with Jahr, 45; (bosses agonizing) ibid., 105–; (troubleshooters) Carpozi, 81, and see New York Journal-American, Oct. 26, 1946, Louella Parsons’s column—Lana probably spoke not at a press conference as author Carpozi wrote, but with Louella Parsons; (Hopper castigated)LAT, Oct. 7, 1946; (“refuses to attend”) ibid., Oct. 17, 1946; (“I warned him”) Modern Screen, May 1947.
126–27 FS/Nancy reconciliation: Carpozi, 82, LAT, Oct. 24, 25, 26, 1946, Modern Screen, May 1947, unid. clip by Jack Stone, Robert Chester Ruark Papers, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, int. Jo Carroll Dennison.
127 Lana Turner affair continued: (“I was Frank’s beard”) int. Phil Evans. According to author Richard Gehman, George Evans himself was on occasion recruited as beard, on the flimsy pretense—he, too, was a married man—that Lana was his date (Gehman, 198).
127 FS “shuttling”: Gardner, 125, 173. It seems that Lana Turner had persisted in her contacts with Sinatra even though she was already months into a passionate involvement with the actor Tyrone Power. This would not have been out of character, given her emotionally volatile history. Sinatra stayed in touch with Turner over the years. He was “Uncle Frank” to her daughter, Cheryl, and was supportive after the 1958 fatal stabbing of Lana’s mobster lover Johnny Stompanato, for which Cheryl was held responsible. Lana was invited to dinner at Sinatra’s home as late as 1972 (persisted—Fred Guiles, Tyrone Power, Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1979, 216–, Crane with Jahr, 112; “Uncle”/supportive—ibid., 160, 291, 362; 1972—Pero and Rovin, 139–).
127 “I haven’t much”: Hedda Hopper int. of FS, Chicago Tribune—NY News syndicate, undat. 1947 draft, MHL.
127 FS condition/conduct late 1946: (sick/impending breakdown) Shaw, Sinatra, 103–; (seventeen days) Where or When? entries for Oct. 9–23, 1946; (“desperatelytired”) Hedda Hopper int. of FS, Chicago Tribune–NY News syndicate, undat. 1947 draft, MHL; (MGM memos) Kelley, 116.
127–28 “a long series”: Kelley, 119. MGM had first had problems with Sinatra two years earlier, during the making of Anchors Aweigh. He had high-handedly insisted on seeing the daily rushes, contrary to studio policy, then broken a promise not to let others share the viewing. Sinatra also threatened to quit the production unless Sammy Cahn and Jule Styne wrote the music. The studio had caved in (O’Brien, 23–, Cahn, 134); (“Just continue”) (LA) Daily News, Nov. 5, 1946; (“least cooperative”) Los Angeles Daily News, Dec. 21, 1946.
128 No one “was going”: This remark is as reported on p. 101 of Arnold Shaw’s excellent 1968 biograp
hy Sinatra: Twentieth-Century Romantic.
Chapter 13: A Handshake in Havana
129 FS and gun: (license) LAT, Jan. 31, Apr. 25, 1947, fingerprint record 3794610, FBI 25-244122. Sinatra’s press spokesman said the gun was a Beretta, but the permit was issued for a Walther (unid. Robinson article); (“never left home”) Jacobs and Stadiem, 209. Jacobs aside, sources who have said Sinatra regularly carried a gun are Marilyn Sinatra, daughter of his first cousin—another Frank— Sinatra, who was raised with the singer and worked for him in the forties, the hostile columnist Lee Mortimer, and two future girlfriends (int. Marilyn Sinatra, American Weekly, Aug. 1951, int. Lois Nettleton, Marianna Case, Another Side of Blue, Running Springs, CA: self-published, 1997, 75–); (souvenir) unidentified article by Grace Robinson, probably New York News, Robert Ruark Papers, undat. article for Movieland, by David McClure, MHL; (“wanted Nancy”) Hedda Hopper int. of FS, Chicago Tribune–NY News syndicate, undat. 1947 draft, MHL; (“to protect”) Washington News, Apr. 10, 1947.
129 journey: (to NYC) LAT, Jan. 31, 1947, Sinatra, Legend, 76; (Miami) Where or When?, American Weekly, Jul. 27, 1952; (Wilson) New York Post, Apr. 10, 1947.
129 Fischetti: (host) ibid.; (mansion) Washington Times-Herald, Feb. 28, 1947.
129–30 “heirs to Al Capone”: Miami Herald, Apr. 12, 1951. The Fischettis have long been referred to in the press and elsewhere as cousins of Al Capone. Rocco and Joe, however, denied that to the FBI. A surviving relative told the authors the story arose because Capone sometimes introduced Charles Fischetti as a “cousin” from New York—an Italian-American way of referring to a close family friend (Rocco F., in Skokie, IL, memo, Feb. 12, 1963, FBI 92-HQ-2915, Joseph F., in Miami memo, Feb. 28, 1963, FBI 92-3024, int. David Fagen—Rocco F. nephew through marriage); (Capone’s funeral) “Rocco Fischetti” memo, Apr. 24, 1964, FBI 92-HQ-2915; (Charles background) Chicago Daily News, Chicago Sun-Times,Brooklyn Eagle, Apr. 11, Chicago Tribune, Apr. 12, 1951, Jack Lait and Lee Mortimer, Chicago Confidential, New York: Crown, 1950, 182–; (Rocco) Chicago Tribune, Jul. 7, 1964, White to Williams, Bureau of Narcotics, Jan. 9, 1946, Box 36, Pegler Papers, Giancana and Renner, 76–; (Joe) Miami Field Office Report, Sep. 27, 1960, and Oct. 29, 1962, Jul. 24, 1972, FBI 92-3024, “Re: Joseph Fischetti,” Jul. 16, 1957, FBI 62-96512-18, Lait and Mortimer, Chicago, 183, Chicago Tribune, Jul. 7, 1964; (“I’m the only”) Irv Kupcinet with Paul Neimark, Kup, Chicago: Bonus Books, 1988, 150; (Rocco/Luciano and Charlie Moretti) Peterson, Barbarians, 158–, and see Lait and Mortimer, Chicago, 115, SAC Newark to Director, Nov. 20, 1944, FBI 62-3312-13, “Miscellaneous Crime Survey,” Aug. 12, 1946, FBI 62-8861-122, Aug. 8, 1946, FBI 62-8861-152.
Sinatra Page 57