Everything started to go wrong when we arrived at the hotel to discover that a group of Arabs had been booked into our suite before us and ruined it. The manager, who was Swiss, claimed they’d had live animals in there, so it needed to be cleaned and redecorated. The work was almost complete, but the rooms smelled of fresh paint and we couldn’t possibly move in. The manager offered Frank an alternative suite and then compounded the problem by explaining that we couldn’t have the entire wing as planned because another guest was booked into an adjacent room and refused to move.
Frank hadn’t slept for almost twenty-four hours and had been drinking all the way from Japan. That wasn’t the time to be telling him bad news. His devoted assistant, Dorothy, always had the next room to ours for convenience, and he wasn’t prepared to accept anything less. At Frank’s request, Jilly knocked on the guest’s door and politely asked him to move to another room at our expense, but the man refused.
“You can’t stay in there!” Jilly told him, banging on the locked door. “You have to get out.”
The guy yelled back, “Go away! I like my room just fine. I’m staying put.”
Frank wasn’t in the mood for compromise and told Jilly to get a crowbar. Not surprisingly, as soon as the guest heard that, he called the manager and complained. By this time, Frank was cussing and going crazy at everyone. When the manager called up to the suite about the complaint, Frank pulled the telephone out of the wall and threw it at the window. It bounced off the plate glass and almost hit him in the face. “What kind of a joint is this?” he cried. “I can’t even throw a goddam phone through the window!”
In due course, the manager arrived reinforced by members of the Hong Kong police. Frank didn’t take to the manager on the grounds that he “sounded like a German.” While he launched into a tirade about the war, everybody scattered to hide. George Schlatter, dressed in a kimono, locked himself in his bedroom. I stayed on the periphery waiting for the storm to pass. I knew that if I could just take one step back and view the scene without tension and emotion, it was usually pretty funny. There had always been a sense of danger around Frank. By this time I knew that he wasn’t really dangerous, but I also appreciated that not everybody else knew that. As a consequence, I usually ended up the peacemaker, but I was no pussycat either; if I fought back then, boy, watch out.
Mostly, Frank was just acting out, and there was nothing anyone could do until he was spent. The passionate, Italian side to his character that made him such a terrific entertainer also left him prone to mood swings and meant that he had a good cop–bad cop routine. I just had to wait for the good cop to come back. I sometimes think Frank got a kick out of teasing people anyway. What else was left to him? He’d been everywhere, done everything, met every world leader, and bought everything he wanted. What was left but to wind people up sometimes, mess with their minds, and see what happened?
Unaware of the drama that was unfolding in our suite, Jolene came running in like Pollyanna in a kimono to announce that the food had arrived and her party was about to start. The corridor was lined with waiters bearing trays and trays of delicious Chinese food. Behind them were her guests, also dressed in kimonos. The minute “Injun” looked around the room and realized what she’d stumbled into, she turned right around, sent the food back to the kitchen and the guests to the bar. It was like something from a Broadway farce.
Almost as quickly as Frank’s tantrum had flared up, everything was calm. Jilly stopped yelling. The police and the manager left. The guy next door went quiet. Frank sat slumped in a chair in his suit and tie and looked at me in my kimono. “What the hell happened to Jolene’s party?” he asked. I called everyone up and assured them it was safe to come back. The waiters who’d been turned away took some persuading, but eventually we had our party—kind of—and ate the food that had now gone cold. Exhausted by the end of it all, I took myself off to bed.
After a while Frank came into the bedroom, pulled off his clothes, and sat on the other side of the bed, staring down at his feet. He looked like an exhausted little boy. Finally he said softly, “Well, there’s one thing you won’t have to worry about.”
“What’s that?” I asked, half-hidden under the covers.
“I’ll never have an ulcer.”
“No,” I told him, “but you’re a carrier.”
THIRTEEN
Making new friends in Africa with Father Rooney.
COURTESY OF THE AUTHOR
What Now My Love
In the spring of 1980, Frank was producing and starring in a thriller called The First Deadly Sin with Faye Dunaway and was going to be tied up in New York for weeks. Although he hadn’t made a film in three years, we both knew the routine, and it was deadly dull—which was the main reason he wasn’t crazy about the movie business.
Actors spend so much of their time sitting around and waiting, reading rewritten scripts, learning new lines, rehearsing, and then waiting some more. Known as One-Shot Sinatra, Frank had a reputation for being difficult or impatient on set, but I don’t think that was entirely fair. George Schlatter always said Frank’s favorite two words were Jack and Daniel’s and his least favorite were Take Two. If someone wanted him to do more than one take, they’d better give him a good reason. A lot of people improve as they repeat their lines, but he never did. He felt that it took the energy away from a scene to do it over and over again. He wanted and expected everyone else to be ready so that he could walk in, say his lines, and walk out again. If they called him to the set at 8:00 A.M. but didn’t use him for three hours, he’d threaten to abandon the whole project.
Even when he was being his most bullish about movies, though, Frank would still find a way to inject humor into a situation. Once, when a director told him they’d have to shoot over the weekend because they were five pages behind, Frank took the script, tore out five pages, and announced, “Now you’re on schedule.” On another occasion, when he did a commercial for Budweiser, the director filmed a full dress rehearsal and then handed out notes about how it should be done next time. When he went to Frank’s dressing room and found him slipping on his coat, he asked, “Where are you going?”
“I’m getting out of here.”
“But the show!”
“I just did the show.”
“No! That was the dress rehearsal! We’re doing it all again.”
“Not me, buster. I can’t do it any better than I just did. That’s your show.”
George always said that what Frank really demanded was only the respect that artists like him should be accorded. He believed that was the way it ought to work, and his attitude was learn your words, know your mark, and be professional. Then we can all go home. Unfortunately, that made him a hard act to book, and in the end I think he may have toughed himself out of the business. He’d always wanted to play something that really stretched him, as he had in The Man with the Golden Arm (the film of which he was most proud) as well as with his Oscar-winning performance in From Here to Eternity, but the scripts stopped coming and he was never again offered those kinds of roles.
One part he would have really liked was that taken by Dustin Hoffman in the movie Rain Man with Tom Cruise. Frank had been talking about playing that sort of character for years, and when he heard of that movie he longed to be the autistic genius that Dustin made his own. If a great part like that had come along—especially if Scorsese had offered it—Frank would have dropped everything to do it. Now Scorsese is said to be making a film of Frank’s life, which is kind of ironic. I like Marty, and I trust him to do the right thing.
Even though Frank was busy making his movie in New York, he still needed to know that I was safe and being taken good care of at all times. Ever since his son had been kidnapped, he was paranoid about the security of those he loved. What he didn’t want was for me to put myself in any kind of risky situation, but what Frank wanted and what I wanted weren’t always the same thing.
The World Mercy charity for the poor in West Africa was something
we both supported enthusiastically. Frank had narrated a documentary about its work, and I had organized a benefit in New York at which Julio Iglesias performed. I’d always liked Julio’s voice and had never met him, but I made contact and asked him if he would help us out. Fortunately, he jumped at the chance, hoping to meet his hero Frank, and I think he must have been very disappointed when he discovered that Frank wasn’t in town. Still, we became friends and I was able to return his favor years later when he wanted to perform on one of Frank’s Duets albums but his agent said he couldn’t make it happen. Julio called and asked me to help, and through pillow talk, I persuaded Frank that it was a good idea—and it was. A few years later, when Julio left his agent for another, the original agent reportedly protested, “But I got you on that Sinatra record!” to which Julio told me he’d replied, “No, you did not. That was Barbara Sinatra!”
The head of the World Mercy charity in America was Father Rooney. He’d been a friend to us both for a long time, ever since we’d met him at one of our parties in New York. A charismatic missionary, he was a very easy man to like. When he asked me if I would like to go to Africa with him to see where our money was being spent, I agreed immediately. Frank thought I was crazy. He didn’t want me gallivanting off at all, but I was determined to go. Hoping there might be safety in numbers, I asked Bee Korshak and my friend Suzy Johnson if they’d go with me, and they both said yes. I knew Suzy from my modeling days, and when she moved to Palm Springs and her marriage broke up, I helped set her up in the best resale shop I know. So the three of us got our shots for yellow fever and a whole host of other unpalatable diseases and set off.
I packed a few clothes, some peanut butter, some cans of pork and beans, and a large bottle of vodka. Then we flew to Dakar in Senegal. On our first night we stayed in a nunnery where we were offered a meager dinner and then went to bed. The next morning my vodka was gone, so I guess the nuns were planning on having a good time. I went to my girlfriends’ rooms to see if they were ready for our first day in the bush, and they had me in hysterics. They were rifling through their designer outfits for what they’d imagined would be some sort of elegant safari. “Forget your Chanel and Gucci!” I told them. “All you need is a cotton shirt, comfortable pants, and good walking shoes.” When they were finally ready, we set out in a battered old Jeep to travel more than two hundred miles to Mauritania.
Over the next few days, Father Rooney took us on a whistle-stop tour of clinics built by World Mercy, and we also opened a new one. He took us to several other places that had been funded by the Vatican. He carried money from World Mercy in one pocket and cash from the Pope in the other. Needless to say, Father Rooney was extremely popular, so at every camp the villagers pressed forward, crying, singing, and reaching out, desperate to touch him and us. The children were adorable and enthralled by the strange white women in their midst and by the bubble gum I took along. I unwrapped some and showed them what to do with it; they’d clearly never seen anything like it. Several followed us around blowing enormous pink bubbles, although I must confess that some swallowed the gum whole.
That trip to Africa was such a culture shock in every way. The villages were drought ravaged; they had no pure drinking water and little food. Sickness and malnutrition were endemic. Most of the rivers were contaminated with parasites that caused disease and blindness. I watched worms a foot long being taken out of screaming babies as their mothers held them down. It was so warm, yet the people wrapped themselves up in layer upon layer of brightly colored clothes. Women with babes in arms walked for miles with pots on their head just to get a bucket of water. World Mercy’s new, clean wells were transforming lives.
At night, the villagers put on elaborate displays of dancing, and our funny little Irish host with his pale, bald head would leap into the midst of these statuesque people and jump up and down energetically. They’d always prepare some sort of feast for us and offer the “best” parts to Father Rooney. In one village they’d saved an elephant heart for him for two months, without refrigeration. I cried, “You can’t eat that, Father!” but he told me he couldn’t possibly disappoint them, and then he got sick.
In another village deep in the bush, we were entertained in a grass hut by a chief and his many wives. Sitting cross-legged on a dirt floor, I watched as the number one wife washed some cups in dirty water and then poured hot tea into them from on high. The stream of brown liquid hit each little cup perfectly. I didn’t dare risk even tasting it for fear of infection, but I took my cup with a smile, placed it on the floor next to a nun who lived in the village, and whispered, “Will you please drink this for me?” Fortunately, she did.
Just as we were leaving Mauritania, there was a coup d’état. Father Rooney explained that these were quite common in that part of the world and suggested we get to the airport as soon as possible. Despite his apparent calmness, I never saw anyone drive so fast. We managed to get on the last flight out of the country. God only knows what Frank would have said if I’d ended up trapped there. I could just imagine it: “She’s stuck where?” I’m sure he had people following us wherever we went, but I don’t think even Jilly and his friends could have done anything about the complex politics of Africa.
For our last two nights in Senegal we stayed with some priests and a monsignor and were surprised to find that they lived life to the full. They had plenty of vodka, loud music, and good food. They were a lot of fun and very different from the nuns we’d stayed with at the start of our journey. What an experience. Leaving Africa behind, Father Rooney and I traveled on to Rome, where I was presented with the prestigious Dames of Malta decoration in a Vatican ceremony dating back centuries. Then I was granted a brief audience with Pope John Paul II. Frank had met Pope Pius XII in the 1940s (as had Dolly) and told me how special that was, but I don’t think I fully appreciated how much it would mean to me. When I saw John Paul walking down some steps into the chapel where we were waiting alongside dozens of sick and handicapped people, devout Catholics and invited guests, I swear he was bathed in a holy light, the kind I’d been urged to see as a young evangelist in Wichita. It was an incredible experience and one I wish I could have shared with Frank, and with Dolly, for they had been jointly responsible for my becoming a Catholic in the first place.
One by one, His Holiness approached everyone in the room, and when he came over to us I was surprised to see that he had a twinkle in his eye that was verging on flirtatiousness. I bent to kiss the ring on his finger, but he smiled and said, “No, please, you don’t have to do that.” He held my hands in his instead, and we chatted away as Father Rooney spoke of our recent trip. The Pope was so light in his personality and not at all heavy, as I’d expected him to be. It was such a thrill to meet him. Dear Father Rooney, who’d started as a missionary in Nigeria and was sent to America by his bishop to raise money, befriended politicians and movie stars, singers and priests. He was an incredible man who raised millions for the needy, and I feel blessed to have known him.
Returning home from my audience with the Pope, I was honored with a special award for my fund-raising efforts for a multiple sclerosis charity I’d become involved with. It was presented to me by President Jimmy Carter in the White House. My friends in New York had all been in favor of Carter when he first ran for president and told me he would win, but I’d said to them, “Are you crazy? No one’s ever heard of Jimmy Carter!” There was such a machine behind him, though, that he got in. At the presentation in the Oval Office, he kissed me on the cheek, and a photograph of that kiss subsequently appeared in all the newspapers. One of my New York friends called me up and said, “Now you know who Carter is!”
Around the same time Frank was presented with the Variety International Humanitarian Award by our friend Henry Kissinger for his philanthropy over the years. In a televised all-star party for the man they called Mr. Anonymous, Richard Burton described Frank as a “giant.” He added, “Among the givers of the world, he stands tallest. He has more than paid rent for the spa
ce he occupies on this planet, forged as he is from legendary loyalty and compassion carefully hidden … hidden because he has ordered it.” Frank was, Richard said, “truly … his brother’s keeper.” The club announced that the money Frank had raised had led to the creation of the Sinatra Family Children’s Unit for the Chronically Ill at the Seattle Children’s Orthopedic Hospital. What a legacy. There was more to come. The same year Frank was one of five recipients (including his friend James Stewart) of a prestigious Kennedy Center Honor for his lifetime contributions to American culture, given to him at a televised presentation. During a reception afterward at the White House, President Reagan told him, “You have spent your life casting a magnificent and powerful shadow.” Two years later, Reagan also awarded Frank the Presidential Medal of Freedom for his humanitarian work.
One of the organizations that had benefited most from Frank’s support was the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in Manhattan, where many friends had been treated. In the early 1980s, he organized a series of benefits for the hospital at New York’s Radio City Music Hall featuring stars like Diana Ross and the opera singer Montserrat Caballé. Because of its extraordinary finale, Frank called one show “The Italian Hour.” At the top of the bill was a double act starring him and the opera singer Luciano Pavarotti.
Thanks to his heritage perhaps, Frank loved opera and often listened to it very loud when he was painting in his studio. Opera depressed me because it was so solemn and almost always about death and tragedy. I like to smile and I like things that make me smile, but that’s not most opera. Frank felt very differently, and Pavarotti was one of his favorite singers. He’d wanted to meet him for a long time, and the feeling was mutual; on several occasions, the Maestro stated that he considered Frank the best singer in the world. When Frank was in New York performing at Carnegie Hall once, Pavarotti called Frank’s secretary, Dorothy, to ask a favor. In his broken English, he told her that he desperately wanted to go to the concert but had called the box office to discover the show had sold out. He asked if there was any way she could get him in. Dorothy said, “I think Barbara has a spare seat in her box, Maestro. I’m sure she wouldn’t mind if you sat there.” I didn’t mind one little bit, so Pavarotti came alone and sat next to me, and we smiled and exchanged a kiss, but we couldn’t converse because we didn’t speak the same language.
Lady Blue Eyes Page 25