Lady Blue Eyes

by Barbara Sinatra

  Two months later, on my seventieth birthday in March 1997, Frank was still not feeling great, so I wasn’t surprised when he announced that he didn’t feel like facing our planned dinner with a few close friends. “Won’t you even come out and say hello?” I asked, trying to hide my disappointment.

  “I don’t want to change out of my pajamas,” he complained.

  “Okay, then. You won’t have to,” I told him before calling our guests and informing them it was to be a pajama party. When Frank was wheeled into the room, he had to smile. Everyone was dressed just like him.

  Each new time he was hospitalized, the rumors would begin to fly. Tabloid newspapers made wild claims, and friends would call us from all over the world to ask tentatively, “Is Frank all right? We heard he’d died!”

  “Tell them not yet,” Frank would reply gruffly if he overheard.

  Sensing his slow demise, the newspapers began to prepare his obituaries and called several of our friends to ask for their tributes. The paparazzi became ever more determined to get “the final picture.” We were told that some editors had offered over a hundred thousand dollars for such a shot. I developed some cunning ways of getting Frank in and out of the hospital without being seen. If he was taken in by ambulance, I’d arrange for a sheet to be raised when he was carried out of the house to shield him from view. We had a long driveway at Foothill, but there were still angles to get a shot. My problems didn’t end there. Because Frank insisted that the ambulance siren be turned off, we’d have to stop at every red light. The photographers following us would jump off their motorbikes or run out of their cars whenever we stopped and press their cameras to the windows. So I worked out a system of fixing tinfoil to the glass. If we had time to get Frank to the hospital in one of our own vehicles, we’d use the SUV with blacked-out windows and arrive at Cedars-Sinai through a secret route to the basement. Accompanied by security guards, I’d drape a scarf over Frank’s face while he was carried upstairs on a stretcher.

  Even when he was within the relative sanctuary of a hospital, where he was checked in as Albert Francis or Charlie Neat, photographers would go to extraordinary lengths to snap Frank. They’d check in with some spurious ailment just so they could walk up and down outside his room in the hope that his door might be open. We played cat and mouse with the press for a long time, and of course I couldn’t always outwit the photographers, so sometimes they’d get a shot of Frank looking frail and publish it in the cheap rags, but I kept all such photos from him. He was fighting for his life. I was fighting for his privacy. The last thing he needed when he was barely able to catch his breath was a camera in his face. That would have killed him.

  Back at the beach house—the place he came to love best of all—I’d let him recover after each scare. He’d sit in the garden wrapped up in a blanket, listening to the ocean. We had a bench up on the dune under a shade, and we liked to sit there side by side and watch the pelicans flying majestically by or see the waves come crashing to the shore. It was a simple pleasure I’d never tired of since the first time I’d seen the Pacific as a starry-eyed teenager. Unfortunately, our fragile peace was increasingly shattered by helicopters buzzing overhead, with photographers hanging out the sides. Some of our neighbors, notably Dick Martin and Steve Lawrence, would drop their pants and moon the choppers. Not to be thwarted, reporters hired boats and dropped anchor a few yards off the beach, right opposite our backyard. One time we even found someone lying under our bench on the dune, his lens directed straight at our bedroom window. Others set up a permanent site on the hill opposite with trucks and camper vans, so if we stepped even one foot out the back door their cameras would click and whir away.

  Determined to outdupe them, I planted a row of ficus trees in pots across the front of the patio so that we could at least sit outside to eat and get some sun. I told Frank the trees were for shade, but I think he must have guessed their real purpose. In his growing confusion and with an onslaught of people trying to invade our privacy, he became vigilant about security and insisted that he carry a handgun. He’d even take it out onto the dunes and shield it under a sunhat on the bench next to him. Afraid he might actually shoot someone, I had a member of the staff take the pin out so the gun wouldn’t fire.

  Keeping my husband alive and his spirits up became my primary focus. So much so that when I broke my back, in January 1996, I decided not to tell Frank. It was six in the morning, and I’d been woken by the crying of our new puppy, a Weimaraner named Shadow. I got up and took her out onto the terrace, but on the way back, she ran between my legs and I tripped and fell down four steep steps, twisting as I crashed to the floor. The pain tore through me, and I could barely move. I cried out for help, but there was no one around. I could see the telephone ten feet away but didn’t know how to get to it. In the end, I crawled across the floor, reached the cord, and pulled the phone down on top of me.

  The doctors told me that I’d broken my T12 thoracic vertebra along with just about every bone in my right foot. Having had a cast put on my leg up to my knee, I was fitted into a steel brace that held me rigid all day and that I could take off only to sleep at night. It was extremely painful, and I got through each day only with the help of pills. I had to wear that darn thing, which dug into my chest and back, for three months, but Frank never even suspected. I wore loose clothing or a housecoat so that the brace couldn’t be seen, and I didn’t let on. He was being looked after by nurses around the clock by then, and although he was fully aware, he slept a lot and he couldn’t focus as well as he used to, which was a blessing in disguise for me at that time. Even when I went to board meetings for the children’s center, I wore high-necked blouses so that no one would spot the brace. I didn’t want the news getting out in case Frank saw it on the television or read about it in the newspaper.

  I wasn’t the only one struggling with the health problems of loved ones. One afternoon in 1996, Anne Douglas was at our house playing gin with me, Bee, and Quique Jourdan when she received a telephone call. Her face turned white; she didn’t speak, she just said, “I’ll be right there.” Kirk, who was eighty, had collapsed with a stroke. I offered to go with her or at least have someone drive her, but she refused and hurried to his side. Kirk was rushed to the hospital and they did the best they could for him, but the stroke was severe and—most cruelly for one so eloquent—it took away his ability to speak. Anne did such a great job taking care of him, though. To begin with, he was depressed and just lay in bed all day doing nothing. Then one day, Anne walked into his room and told him, “Kirk, you’re to stop feeling sorry for yourself. You’re not going to lie there for the rest of your life, so get off your ass. Your speech therapist will be here in an hour.” The treatment worked, and Kirk was soon much more understandable. Before we knew it he’d written a book about his experiences and was performing in a one-man show. That gorgeous young man whom I first met at the Racquet Club in Palm Springs all those years before never lost his drive or his incredible sparkle, largely because of the help and encouragement of his loving wife, who refused to let him go under. She was an inspiration.

  In May 1997, Frank was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal, the highest award given to an American civilian. The 105th Congress passed an act to award him the medal “in recognition of his outstanding and enduring contribution through his entertainment career and humanitarian activities and other purposes.” It stated that Frank had “touched the lives of millions throughout America and around the world” with more than fifty albums and appearances in more than sixty films, as well as his thousands of concert appearances. It authorized thirty thousand dollars for the striking and designing of a medal in gold with duplicates in bronze.

  Of all the awards Frank received, I think this one meant the most to him. Not only had it once been awarded to his friend John Wayne—the Duke—but it was vindication at last, as if he needed that. After all those years of vilification in the press, the fruitless FBI investigations and congressional hearings, the governi
ng body of the United States of America had finally announced publicly that here was a man of the highest character. Sadly, Frank had been rushed back to Cedars-Sinai just before the medal was awarded and wasn’t well enough to go to Washington, but we watched the House’s vote on the bill and he wept unashamedly at the honor.

  In a letter to President Clinton on Frank’s behalf, I wrote, “My husband has always been a staunch supporter of this country and is a proud American to his soul. Frank is fortunate to have known every President since his first visit to the White House when he met Franklin D. Roosevelt. He came to know and admire Mrs. Roosevelt to her passing … On concert tours he is a proud emissary of America.”

  Bill Clinton wrote back to me expressing his pleasure at authorizing the honor and sent us the pen used to sign the act. “You have touched the lives of so many people over the years, Frank,” he wrote. “Warmest congratulations and best wishes.” (The two men were fond of each other, and Bill had even asked Frank’s advice once about the laryngitis that kept making him lose his voice.) The medal went into the glass display case with all the others my husband had received over the years. In typical style, he never showed it off, but it had a prominent place, and once or twice I found him staring at it with faraway eyes, as if the skinny kid from Hoboken could hardly believe that it was really his.

  EIGHTEEN

  At home with a few of our babies.

  COURTESY OF THE AUTHOR

  Put Your Dreams Away

  It was an almost perfect day in Beverly Hills. On the sunny afternoon of Thursday, May 14, 1998, Frank and I sat out by the pool on the grounds of Foothill and had lunch together. He was in his wheelchair, and he didn’t finish his favorite food, a grilled cheese sandwich, but he was in good spirits and seemed fine.

  In the previous few days he’d accepted visits from a few people, including his former road manager Tony O. They had shared a pizza. I was glad Frank had had more of an appetite that night, as he’d lost weight recently and I didn’t want him to lose his strength.

  “Remember I’m going out tonight, darling,” I told him after our lunch together. “I’m having dinner with the Deutsches, but I won’t be late.”

  “Oh, you still live here, do you?” he said, using one of his favorite one-liners if I’d been out more than usual. Another was “This place ain’t doing so good for a hotel!” whenever there was nobody around. The truth was that Frank insisted I go out and have fun whenever I received an invitation. “You go ahead,” he’d tell me. “I don’t want you sitting here all the time looking at me.” Apart from when I had to go to Palm Springs each spring and organize the charity golf tournament, I really didn’t leave him very often and never alone. If I did have to go out or away, I made sure he had twenty-four-hour nursing and usually arranged for a friend or relative to keep him company as well. That night, Armand and Harriet had insisted I take a break from Frank’s constant care. My spirits had plummeted in recent weeks as Frank became ever frailer and spoke openly about being tired of life. He was eighty-two; his further decline seemed inevitable, but I couldn’t even bear to think about it.

  The Deutsches had invited me to dinner with some friends at Morton’s restaurant in Beverly Hills, which wasn’t far. But I still felt a little guilty about accepting their invitation. Later that day, Frank took his usual nap while I showered and changed for dinner. I remember I put on a white pantsuit and pink silk blouse. I went to his bedroom to say good night but found him sleepy and a little breathless. The doctors had recently changed the medication for his heart problems, but the new medicine only seemed to make him weaker. I made a mental note to call them the following morning to see if the dose could be altered. Frank’s television blared noisily in the corner, so I turned it down a notch. Kissing him gently on the forehead and squeezing his shoulder, I told him, “Good night, darling. Sleep warm.” I left him tucked up in his bed with a nurse close at hand and made sure Vine had all my numbers in case she needed to call me. Then I went out. Armand, or Ardie, as he was always known, picked me up, and as we drove down Sunset I couldn’t help but notice the moon that night, low and huge in the western sky like a peeled orange.

  Ardie was older than Frank, but he had all his faculties and spoke warmly to me about the King Charles spaniel we’d recently given them. When we got to the restaurant, I took a seat and ordered a drink. As we were chatting, a waiter tapped me on the shoulder and told me I had a call. Putting down my glass with a hand that was surprisingly steady, I went to the front desk and lifted the receiver. I heard Vine’s voice and flinched. “You’d better come right away. The paramedics are here. They’re going to take Mr. S to the hospital.”

  “What happened?” I asked, because less than an hour before he’d been fine.

  I heard her hesitate before she said, “They can’t find a pulse.”

  I don’t remember replacing the receiver or going back to where the others were eating dinner, but I do remember telling Ardie, “I have to go.”

  “Okay,” said the man who’d known my husband for more than fifty years. “I’ll take you right after dinner.”

  “No! I have to go now,” I told him. Ardie drove at about two miles an hour, so I said I’d take a cab, but he insisted, so I sat in the passenger seat willing him to go faster. By the time I got home, the ambulance had just left, and that’s when my fear began to kick in.

  “But I always go with Frank!” I cried. “I have to mask the windows with foil!” I imagined him lying in the back, looking and feeling dreadful as photographers took their fill of shots. The thought made me sick to my stomach.

  I asked one of our staff to drive me to the hospital immediately, and he must have broken every speed limit to get me there. Running in through the door of the ER, I hurried to the front desk and was directed to where Frank lay on a gurney in a cubicle behind a curtain. Three doctors were working on him. Feeling faint, I tried to blank out what they were doing and focus on my husband’s face instead. Gripping his hand, I told him, “Darling, you’ve beaten worse than this and you can beat this too. You’ve got to fight.” His lips were blue, but I saw them move, so leaning closer, I told him again, “You have to fight, Frank!”

  He really tried to. He did. He must have clung to life for twenty minutes or more, although it seemed like considerably longer. I didn’t leave him for a second, his hand like a bag of bones in mine. Briefly, his eyes flickered open. They were watery but still the same dazzling blue as when he’d first pulled me into his arms and kissed me all those years earlier, stealing my heart. He looked at me for just a moment and opened his mouth to speak. Leaning closer, turning my head to hear, I heard him whisper the words “I can’t.”

  Then his eyes closed forever, and that was it.

  That was the end.

  The doctors stepped back, and one placed a hand gently on my shoulder.

  I shrugged it off and remained by Frank’s side, talking to him and stroking his forehead. “Come on, Frank,” I told him, “you can do this, darling. You can.”

  I have no idea how long I stood there, willing him not to be dead, but finally the doctor pulled me away with the words “Barbara, he’s gone.”

  The rest of that night is a blur. There’d been no time. Not to call anyone. Not even to say good-bye. I can’t now remember how I got home or who called Bobby and Frank’s family for me. Vine probably. Maybe I did. Suddenly, our house was full of people. There was Bee Korshak, George and Jolene Schlatter, Steve and Eydie. Our road and driveway were floodlit as the media gathered. Someone told me that on the news of Frank’s passing, the lights had been dimmed in Vegas and at the Helmsley Hotel in New York. The Empire State Building was bathed in hues of blue, and the tower of Capitol Records was to be draped in a black shroud. Blue cocktails were served in bars around the world, and at every address from Hoboken to Palm Springs that held some significance to Sinatra, fans stood vigil with flickering candles.

  Everyone kept telling me that they didn’t want me to be alone. Well, it was too lat
e for that. With Frank gone from my life, a part of me would always be alone. People tried to reassure me that time would heal my wounds. Most were kind, although some arrived just to take what they could of his, but I didn’t care. It didn’t matter. Nothing was important to me. Nothing. All I could think about were Frank’s final words—“I can’t.” For the last year of his life, I’d been fighting to keep him alive, keep him with me. That’s all I could dwell on as the minutes crawled by that longest of nights.

  In the first twenty-four hours after he died, all I wanted to do was what Frank had done in times of grief—curl up somewhere in a corner and block out the rest of the world. But his was no ordinary passing. This was the death of an icon, of someone everyone felt they knew and deserved a piece of. The doorbell never stopped ringing as baskets, wreaths, sacks of mail, and other tributes cascaded into our home. We had so many bouquets we had to lay them on the floor, through the hall, up the stairs, out in the backyard. I sent half of them to the local children’s hospital and the rest to Cedars-Sinai, where they lined the corridors and little old ladies shuffled out of their bedrooms to admire the flowers that “Frank sent.”

  Our street was virtually closed because of the media vans and the vehicles of individuals who flocked into Beverly Hills. A huge crowd gathered outside the gates, many dressed in the kinds of suits and hats that Frank used to wear. Peering out of an upstairs window, I realized that if ever I’d hoped for a small, private ceremony for my husband in the desert church we both adored, I was being naïve. Frank was a megastar. I knew I’d be sharing him with his public from the day we’d started seeing each other. I’d never minded until now; he’d earned all that love, and he deserved it. His farewell could be nothing less than an event, his final performance watched by millions around the world. Akin to a state funeral, it would be televised and closely scrutinized. There would be no quiet corners in which to weep.