344–45 carried gun: The women who saw the gun were the actress Lois Nettleton and the dancer Marianna Case, whose relationships with Sinatra are described in chapter 32 (ints. Lois Nettleton, Case, 75–); (“He was not”) int. Peggy Connelly; (“All of us”) Coronet, Mar. 1971; (Streisand/tuxedo jacket) Life, Jun. 25, 1971; (“I’m tired”/Everybody laughed) ibid.
Chapter 32: “Let Me Try Again”
346 FS in retirement: (“I’m finished”) Giuliano audiotape; (“Maybe I’m going”/“read Plato”) Life, Jun. 25, 1971; (range of FS work) Sinatra, A Man and His Art, ix, Look, Jun. 11, 1957; (“I wouldn’t even hum”) Bill Boggs int.; (“I played”) “Sinatra in Egypt,” unedited interview for 20/20, ABC News, Oct. 4, 1979, videotape in authors’ collection; (galleries/Picasso) Peter Malatesta, Party Politics, Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1982, 45–, 117–; (golf/“absolutely zero”) Life, Dec. 31, 1971; (special Oscar) LAT, Mar. 1, WP, Apr. 16, 1971; (Senate tributes/“the greatest”) Congressional Record, Jun. 30, LAT, Jul. 1, 1971; (Sinatra Day) Hollywood Reporter, Jan. 18, 1971; (“Frank Sinatra Drive”) Variety, Aug. 19, 1971, LAT, Jan. 16, 2000; (loneliest man) Sinatra with Coplon, 150.
346–47 Marianna Case: Marianna Case, Another Side of Blue, Running Springs, CA: self-published, 1997, refs., int. Marianna Case.
347 Walters: Shaw, Entertainer, 102.
347 FS deplored: Hedda Hopper column, Jul. 20, 1965, MHL.
347–48 Nettleton: (background/affair) ints. & corr. Lois Nettleton and clippings 1971–72 in collection of Lois Nettleton. Sinatra and Nettleton had worked together in 1970 on the spoof western movie Dirty Dingus Magee, in which he played an outlaw and she an amorous schoolteacher (O’Brien, 196–); (use of “Francis”) e.g., Case, 24, ints. Marianna Case, Carole Lynley; (felt as though little boy) Case, 63; (painting clowns) Wilson, Sinatra, 79, Malatesta, 45–, Look, Jun. 11, 1957; (flour-white cheeks) Movie Show, Jul. 31, 1947; (over desk) Newsweek, Sep. 6, 1965; (dressed up) Carpozi, Sinatra, 199; (toothbrush glass) int. Peggy Connelly; (Emmett Kelly) Movie Show, Jul. 31, 1947; (“sad & ragged”) Emmett Kelly with F. Beverly Kelly, Clown, New York: Prentice-Hall, 1954, 125; (self-portraits) int. Tina Sinatra, A Man and His Art, ix.
350 FS politics: (“Long after”) JFK speech at inaugural gala, Jan. 19, 1961, videotape in authors’ collection; (“lifelong Democrat”) int. of Tina Sinatra, Larry King Live CNN, Nov. 1992, and see Sinatra, My Father, 219; (Agnew & Reagan at hospital) LAHE, Jan. 13, 1971; (Agnew at retirement) Hank Messick, J. Edgar Hoover, New York: David McKay, 1972, 253; (“Nixon!”) New York Journal-American, Jan. 16, 1961; (“hated Nixon”) MacLaine, Lucky Stars, 86.
350 Reagan/“friendly witness”: Wills, Reagan, 255; (“Bozo”/“Bonzo”) Jacobs and Stadiem, 238. Reagan played a college professor who befriended a chimpanzee, his test subject, in the 1951 movie Bedtime for Bonzo. (“stupid bore”/“a dumb broad”) MacLaine, Lucky Stars, 86, Kelley, 361; (met Nancy) Jacobs and Stadiem, 238, Sinatra, My Father, 60; (“leave the country”) MacRae, 171; (“She dislikes California”) FS lyric at Oakland concert, May 22, 1968 cited in corr. Ed O’Brien.
350–51 FS and 1970 Reagan campaign: LAT, Jul. 13, 14, Hollywood Citizen-News, Jul. 14, 1970—the reference to Sinatra having supported Reagan as early as 1966, in a recent book by Charles Pignone, is surely an error; (“I support”) Taraborrelli, 384, and see Giuliano audiotape, Hollywood Reporter, Mar. 18, 1976; (“the outstanding”/“believes”) LAT, Jul. 13, 14, 1970; (LBJ contempt/“It’ll make a big”) Oliver Pilat, Drew Pearson, New York: Harper’s, 1973, 282–; (supported Humphrey/“Bobby is just”) Variety, May 6, 1968, see McCall’s, Jul. 1968; (shed no tears) Jacobs and Stadiem, 3, 249, and see Sinatra, My Father, 212; (“that fuckin’ cop”) int. Michael Shore by PITV; (report re FS and Hoffa aides) Maxine Cheshire with John Greenya, Maxine Cheshire, Reporter, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1978, 106–, McCall’s, May 1973; (Wall Street Journal) Aug. 19, 1968; (Nellis warning) int. Joe Nellis, Kelley, 386; (FS faded) WP, LAT, Aug. 25, 1968.
351 FS and Nixon/Agnew: (“Nixon scares”) LAT, Jul. 14, 1970; (Colson on wooing)ed. Bruce Oudes, Richard Nixon’s Secret Files, London: André Deutsch, 1989, 174.
351–52 Agnew & FS met/hit it off: Agnew dated his meeting with Sinatra as having occurred during the 1970 Thanksgiving holiday. According to Nancy Sinatra, they had met at a political event in Palm Springs as early as the summer of 1969. Agnew wrote as though they met on the golf course by chance, while his aide Peter Malatesta described the meeting as having been the result of an Agnew initiative (Agnew, 204–, Sinatra, Legend, 210, Malatesta, 15–); (Agnew music/liked to sing) Wilson, Sinatra, 280; (houseguest) WP, Feb. 25, 1972; (eighteen visits) Newsweek, May 25, 1998; (Deep Throat ) (London) Observer, Apr. 28, 2002; (“Agnew House”) McCall’s, Oct. 1974, LAT, Jul. 11, 1980, Shaw, Entertainer, 118; (“Sinatra is ready”) ed. Oudes, 211; (FBI alerted) Director FBI to Ehrlichman, Apr. 25, 1969, FSFBI; (“While Sinatra”/RN congratulations) Moore to Hasek, Nov. 1, Nixon to Sinatra, Nov. 3, 1971, White House Central Files, Nixon Presidential Materials, NA; (Mrs. Mitchell on FS jet) Mohr to Tolson, Nov. 9, 1971, FSFBI; (Agnew attempt to delay) LAT, May 31, Variety, Jun. 1, 1972; (president phoned) Kelley, 410, but see Freedland, 361; (“He’s aboard”) H. R. Haldeman, The Haldeman Diaries, New York: Putnam, 1994, 491; (FS supported reelection) Mohr to Tolson, Nov. 9, 1971, FSFBI, LAHE, Feb. 4, 1973, Malatesta, 92; (rented house) Malatesta, 94–.
352 Cheshire: (“cunt”/whore) SA (deleted) to SAC Los Angeles, Feb. 2, 1973, FBI 92-1039-303, Newsweek, Feb. 5, 1973, Cheshire with Greenya, 124, Time, Feb. 5, 12, 1973, and see Malatesta, 99–; (“livid”) New York Post, Mar. 29, 1973.
352 “two bits”: RN conv., Jul. 9, 1973, cited in Stanley Kutler, Abuse of Power, New York: Free Press, 1997, 621. The “two bits” comment was made later in private, to his friend Bebe Rebozo. It came to light only in the late 1990s, with the release of a new batch of White House tapes.
352–53 asked FS to sing at the White House: LAHE, Feb. 4, 1973, M/G int. of Al Viola. It was reported that Sinatra had entertained once previously at the Nixon White House, at a February 1970 tribute to the late Senator Everett Dirksen. That event in fact took place at the Washington Hilton (tribute at W. House?— Hollywood Reporter, Feb. 25, 1970, Where or When?, corr. Ric Ross; Hilton—WP, Feb. 28, 1970; (ten songs/“The House”) Apr. 17, 1973, entry, Where or When? Vidal, 152; (“Washington Monument”) text from videotape of Nixon’s comments, Apr. 17, 1973; (switchboard) Sinatra with Coplon, 143; (“Napoleon”) George Rush, Confessions of an Ex–Secret Service Agent, New York: Donald Fine, 1988, 193; (FS gave refuge/urged to cling/legal costs) Spiro Agnew, Go Quietly . . . or Else, New York: Wm. Morrow, 1980, 148–, 177–, 203–, Freedland, 362–, WP, Sep. 29, 1973, New Times, Oct. 19, 1973, Melvin Small, The Presidency of Richard Nixon, Lawrence, KS: University of Kansas Press, 1999, 287; (one of the first) LAHE, Feb. 23, AP, UP, Feb. 24, 1975, Robert Sam Anson, Exile: The Unquiet Oblivion of Richard M. Nixon, New York: Simon and Schuster, 1984, 99.
353 “Nobody’s perfect”: Sinatra, My Father, 226. Watergate investigators stumbled early on upon the fact that Sinatra knew Kenneth Dahlberg, the Midwest finance chairman of Nixon’s reelection campaign, whose name was on a check that went to one of the Watergate burglars (Dahlberg—J. Anthony Lukas, Nightmare: The Underside of the Nixon Years, New York: Penguin, 1988, 142, Barry Sussman, The Great Cover-Up, Arlington, VA: Seven Locks Press, 1992, 74).
353 FS loyalties after RN: (state fund-raiser) Nov. 1, 1974, entry, Where or When? ed. Vare, 115–; (low profile Carter) LAHE, Dec. 13, 1979, Hollywood Reporter, Mar. 18, 1976, LAT, May 8, 1979, Sinatra, Legend, 262; (Tina on FS liberal/“to his own beat”) Sinatra with Coplon, 143.
353 “He worked”: eulogy for FS, St. Viator’s Church, Las Vegas, May 27, 1998, text provided by Sonny King. King made his remarks in a eulogy he gave at a service following the death of Sinatra, who had been godfather to one of his children. The authors have seen no published reports indicating that an ambassadorship was mooted du
ring the Kennedy administration. Dean Martin’s on-stage remark before the 1960 election, that if Kennedy got in, “You’ll be Ambassador to Italy,” came over as merely a joke. The mafioso John Rosselli, however, was overheard on an FBI wiretap grumbling that Sinatra had “big ideas . . . about being Ambassador, or something.” In 1971, during President Nixon’s first term, a long article headlined “Ambassadorship for Sinatra?” appeared in the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner.The same paper was to print a squib along the same lines early in Reagan’s first term—only to state later that it had been “strictly a gag” (eulogy— given in St. Viator’s Church, Las Vegas, text provided by Sonny King; Martin— Wilson, Show Business, 15; Rosselli—log of conv., Dec. 21, 1961, Misc. ELSUR Refs., vol. 1, HSCA Subject Files, Frank Sinatra, JFK; long article—LAHE, Jul. 2, 1971, Nov. 10, Dec. 9, 1980).
353 “a neutered creature”: (London) Observer, May 17, 1998; (“I think Sinatra”) NYT, undat. piece by Robert Lindsey, Feb. 1981; (pressure from mob?) int. Shirley MacLaine.
353–54 FS emerges from retirement: (“You must”) Shaw, Entertainer, 88; (“I didn’t think”) liner notes, The Complete Reprise Studio Recordings, 51—there was a rift in Sinatra’s relationship with Miller, lasting from 1978 to 1983, ibid., 37, Friedwald, 40; (“A great artist”) Time, Apr. 5, 1971; (merely wanted rest/“figment”/pressure from children) FS ints. by Arlene Francis, Oct. 1, 1977, and Sep. 25, 1981, WOR (NY), Larry King int. of FS, May 19, 1998 (rerun); (thirty thousand letters/“people who”) Shaw, Entertainer, 90; (FS “missed”) Saga, Nov. 1974, and see LAT, Nov. 18, 1973; (Russell re bored) People, May 3, 1976; (“He couldn’t stand”) Vern Yocum taped recollections, supplied to authors by his daughter Vernise Yocum Pelzel, and see Saga, Nov. 1974; (“private” appearances)multiple entries, 1972–73, Where or When?; (Palm Springs police show) Hollywood Reporter, Jan. 20, 1972; (Salute to Ted Agnew) WP, May 20, 1972, Malatesta, 75; (TV special announced) LAHE, Apr. 20, 1973; (return to Vegas) Shaw, Entertainer, 91; (Ol’ Blue Eyes) ed. Vare, 103—the art director was Ed Thrasher; (concert began/rapturous welcome) Shaw, Entertainer, 91–; (less encouraging ratings) ibid., Kelley, 421.
354–55 album: Sayers and O’Brien, 261. Though taping began on April 30, 1973, the recordings made that day were destroyed. Taping resumed in June (Sayers and O’Brien, 145, Granata, 191); (voice “cracked”/apologized) WP, May 20, 1972; (vocalized) Sinatra in Egypt, videotape; (“rusty”/lip trembled/blew lyric/“puffier”) TV Guide, Nov. 17, LAT, Nov. 18, 1973, Newsweek, Apr. 22, 1974; (“Let Me Try Again”) Rednour, 59—Sammy Cahn also had a hand in the lyrics; (Madison Square Garden 1974) Wilson, Sinatra, 1–, Oct. 13, 1974, entry, Where or When? (“Ah, Frankie,”) NYT, Oct. 13, 1974; (“oldsters’ Woodstock”) Newsweek, Apr. 22, 1974; (“That style”) Rolling Stone, Jun. 6, 1974.
355–56 Thompson catalogued/“Frank is back”: McCall’s, Oct. 1974. In Australia in 1974 Sinatra had called journalists “bums, and hookers and parasites.” Such was the furor that Australian trade unionists prevented his plane from leaving, and the deadlock was resolved only when Labour Party leader Bob Hawke intervened. Sinatra also aimed puerile insults at the journalist Rona Barrett. An example, from a Las Vegas appearance: “She’s so ugly that her mother had to put a pork chop around her neck just to get the dog to play with her. . . . I’m not going to mention her name. I’m also not going to mention Benedict Arnold, Aaron Burr, Adolf Hitler, Bruno Hauptmann, or Ilse Koch—she’s the other $2 broad— the one who made the lampshades.” In 1975 Frank was to call Barbara Walters “the ugliest broad in television,” abuse he would renew in years to come. Sinatra or his bodyguards were accused of roughing up journalists in 1971, 1974, and 1975. Sinatra said in Toronto that the only use he had for newspapers was “to cover the bottom of my parrot’s cage and to train my dog on” (Australia—LAT, Jul. 11, 1974, and Melbourne Age, Jul. 11, 12, 1974; Weinstock—as described in chapter 32; Barrett—New York, undat., 1974, Kelly, 423; Walters—Jerry Oppenheimer, Barbara Walters, New York: St. Martin’s, 1990, 243–; roughing up/“to cover”—LAHE, Nov. 19, 1971, LAT, Jul. 11, 1974, May 12, 1975).
356 “All your life”: Howlett, 152.
356 “Don’t worry”: Sinatra with Coplon, 213, 162.
Chapter 33: Barbara
357 Barbara Marx: (Case aware/“uncomfortable”) Case, 120–, 144–; (“She was trying”) int. Lois Nettleton.
357 FS would long date: Sinatra did dally with other women in this period. Depending on which version one reads, he either pursued or was pursued by Pamela Hayward, the British-born former wife of Randolph Churchill and the widow of producer Leland Hayward. For a while in the fall of 1971 he reportedly took up briefly with Natalie Wood, with whom he had been involved years earlier. He would also have relationships of one sort or another with the actresses Eva Gabor, Victoria Principal, and—continuing an on-off liaison—Carol Lynley. The Eva Gabor affair lasted for some time (Hayward —LAT, Jun. 14, 1971, Jacobs and Stadiem, 224, Kelly, 431, Christopher Ogden, Life of the Party, Boston: Little, Brown, 1994, 324–, Sally Bedell Smith, Reflected Glory, New York: Simon and Schuster, 1996, 252–; Wood—Gavin Lambert, Natalie Wood, New York: Knopf, 2004, 212, 254, Suzanne Finstad, Natasha, New York: Harmony, 2001, 121–, 205–, 256, 268, Jacobs and Stadiem, 8; Gabor —TV Guide, Oct. 30, 1993, Gabor with Leigh, 166, Wilson, Sinatra, 320–, Sinatra with Coplon, 146, 160; Principal—int. of Victoria Principal in National Examiner, Oct. 18, 1983, int. Leonora Hornblow; Lynley—int. Carol Lynley, Taraborrelli, 415–).
357–58 Marx background: (born 1927) Sinatra with Coplon, 147, 267—we have accepted the date for Barbara Marx’s birth given in her stepdaughter Tina’s book; (Missouri/father butcher) ibid., 147, LAT, Mar. 27, 1983; (hard times/settled Long Beach) LAT, Mar. 27, 1983, Feb. 28, 1988; (memoir) int. Beverly Murphy, New York Daily News, undat. clip, c. 1990, and Jun. 12, 1990, Chicago Tribune, Aug. 11, 1991, corr. Ric Ross; (fragment/“pursue a life”) Sinatra with Coplon, 147; (tall/“long-stemmed”) LAT, Jan. 9, 1975, Mr. Blackwell with Vernon Patterson, From Rags to Bitches, Los Angeles: General Publishing, 1995, 155; (beauty contests)Kelley, 432–; (modeling/work NYC/married singer) LAT, Feb. 28, 1988; (School of Modeling Arts) Long Beach Magazine, Winter 1983–84; (Vegas/marriage to Zeppo Marx/“secret yearning”) LAT, Feb. 28, 1988; (RivieraMafia-run) Turner, Gambler’s Money, 246–, Denton and Morris, 127, 132, 164, Messick, Mob in Show Business, 169–, 178, 252.
358 Riviera described: Fred Basten and Charles Phoenix, Fabulous Vegas in the Fifties, Las Vegas: Angel City Press, 1999, 41, 59, 65, 105. Authors Ed Reid and Ovid Demaris wrote in their seminal 1963 book on Las Vegas that “showgirls are required by the house to sit in the lounge for at least an hour after each performance and ‘dress up the room.’ ” In his 1980 memoir, Sammy Davis wrote that “mixing dates” were “a mandatory part of a showgirl’s life . . . when they come down after the show to mix with the gamblers” (Reid and Demaris, 111, Davis, Why Me, 80); (Becker entertainment director) Rappeleye and Becker, vii; (“beautiful objects”/“had to spend”/“with his tongue”) int. Ed Becker; (“meeting place”) Basten and Phoenix, 52; (Zeppo regular) ed. Miriam Marx Allen, Love, Groucho, New York: Da Capo, 1992, 191–, 214; (married 1959) Ladies’ Home Journal, Oct. 1976, Kelley, 433; (golf/lunches) LAT, Feb. 28, 1988.
358 “I called the Racquet”: Gardner indicated in a taped interview that the meeting occurred while she was making the movie The Angel Wore Red. Shooting began in November 1959, and the movie opened in September 1960. The Ava interview aside, the authors were told of the meeting by Gardner’s longtime companion Reenie Jordan and by her friend Spoli Mills (Gardner interview—Evans tapes, movie—Higham, Ava, 198, 254, www.imdb.com).
358 FS and Barbara affair: (“Zeppo was in”) Jacobs and Stadiem, 255, int. George Jacobs. The visits referred to by Jacobs must have occurred before the summer of 1968, when Jacobs left Sinatra’s employ.
359 “a stopgap”: Sinatra with Coplon, 146. What Tina Sinatra has said of her future stepmother must be treated with caution. The book she
wrote after her father’s death is in large part a chronicle of bitter strife with Barbara. Nevertheless, as the only published account of Sinatra’s later years, it deserves serious attention; (“a stopgap”) ibid., 153; (Barbara divorced from Marx) Variety, May 1, 1973; (not easy time) Sinatra with Coplon, 151, 153, Sciacca, 20, Kelley, 435; (liked a drink) int. Leonora Hornblow, Ladies’ Home Journal, Oct. 1976; (sat in silence/cronies) ibid. and int. Mel Haber; (“hang out”) int. Joey Villa.
359 Barbara objected: Ladies’ Home Journal, Oct. 1976. There is a story relating to this period that links Sinatra with Jackie Kennedy Onassis and centers on an occasion in September 1975 when he and Jackie dined at the “21” Club in New York. In a book largely lacking in specific sources, Sinatra biographer Randy Taraborrelli wrote—after both had died—that they later “spent the night together” at Sinatra’s Waldorf apartment. He cited a source he named only by a pseudonym, “Jim Whiting,” as having said “they absolutely were intimate.” The late Doris Lilly, who knew Onassis and wrote a book about Greek tycoons, has been quoted as saying Onassis “was convinced Jackie and Sinatra were having an affair. Onassis said he had caught them kissing.” Lilly is also quoted as saying she remembered “seeing them going into her apartment late at night.” The authors have seen nothing to substantiate such suggestions of a a sexual liaison. The bandleader Peter Duchin, who dined with Sinatra and Jackie Onassis in 1974, thought it improbable. “I got the impression,” he told the authors, “that she didn’t find him very attractive.” When she was an editor for the publisher Viking, Jackie reportedly tried and failed to get Sinatra to write an autobiography (Sinatra/Onassis in New York—LAHE, Sep. 18, 1975; Taraborrelli—Taraborrelli, 408–, 524; Lilly—Christopher Andersen, Jackie After Jack, New York: Wm. Morrow, 1998, 215, 259, 324–; Duchin—Bradford, 515–, int. Peter Duchin; tried re autobiography—Andersen, Jackie, 312).
Sinatra Page 72