Frank
Page 73
25 “degenerate”: Kelley, His Way, p. 136.
26 “I’ll kill you”: Ibid.
27 “For two years”: Ibid.
28 “Every time Frank”: Ibid., p. 135.
29 “Jeez, I think”: Ibid., p. 137.
30 “SINATRA ARRESTED”: Los Angeles Times, April 10, 1947.
31 “Frankie … was met”: Ibid., Jan. 31, 1947.
32 “Frank came in”: Wilson, Sinatra, p. 72.
33 “[giving] the story headlines”: “Words & Music,” Time, April 21, 1947.
34 “1. Mr. Mortimer said he had”: Kuntz and Kuntz, Sinatra Files, p. 26.
35 “arrest on a sex offense”: Ibid., p. 31.
36 “I talked this afternoon”: Ibid.
37 “It was a right-hand punch”: Wilson, Sinatra, p. 73.
38 “Frank taught me to swim”: Gloria Delson Franks, in discussion with the author, May 2006.
CHAPTER 21
1. She would name names to HUAC in 1952, and regret it the rest of her life.
2. Weirdly enough, considering Sinatra’s future history, Tarantino’s first brush with the law in California revolved around the apparently staged 1945 kidnapping of his son, James junior, and his wife. Tarantino charged that the kidnapping had been engineered by the right-wing demagogue Gerald L. K. Smith in retaliation for Tarantino’s bold editorial stands against anti-Semitism and Fascism in … Hollywood Nite Life. Sinatra telegraphed the district attorney on his behalf.
3. Mostly. A photograph from a late-1940s Los Angeles radio appearance shows Frank and Nat “King” Cole sitting and looking at each other: while Sinatra is grinning with undisguised pleasure at being in Cole’s presence, the latter’s expression is wary and haughty.
SOURCE NOTES
4 “I couldn’t stand kissing”: Kelley, His Way, p. 141.
5 “I wanna house”: Christopher Reed, “E. Stewart Williams: Architect Whose Design for Frank Sinatra’s House Launched a Style of Desert Modernism,” www.guardian.co.uk/news/2005/nov/01/.
6 “The show is alternately dull”: Havers, Sinatra, p. 126.
7 “A campaign of propaganda”: Westbrook Pegler, King Features Syndicate, Sept. 10, 1947.
8 “I insist the ‘Communist Party’ ”: Victor Riesel, “Plot—Not a Party,” Chester (Pa.) Times, Sept. 10, 1947.
9 “of many writers”: Westbrook Pegler, King Features Syndicate, Sept. 10, 1947.
10 “impugned the professional integrity”: Ibid.
11 “Sinatra has several”: Kahn, Voice, p. 23.
12 “Kahn writes also”: Westbrook Pegler, King Features Syndicate, Sept. 11, 1947.
13 “From time to time”: Westbrook Pegler, King Features Syndicate, Dec. 8, 1947.
14 “The crooner”: Shaw, Twentieth-Century Romantic, p. 116.
15 “Broadway whispers”: Ibid., p. 115.
16 “I hurried around”: Davis, Yes I Can, p. 82.
17 “I can speak”: Ibid., p. 86.
18 “always has a colored act”: Ibid., p. 106.
19 “There’s a kid”: Ibid., p. 110.
CHAPTER 22
1. In fact, this may have been the moment when, as a tribute to the great love of his life, Frank Albert became Francis Albert for all time.
2. He had rewritten the script for Gone With the Wind on the same condition.
3. Yes, the very tune with which Dean Martin would score a huge hit sixteen years later, toppling the Beatles from the number-1 spot on the Billboard charts.
SOURCE NOTES
4 “I don’t want her”: Lyrics from “Too Fat Polka,” words and music by Ross MacLean and Arthur Richardson (New York: Shapiro, Bernstein, 1947).
5 “If you looked down”: Cahn, I Should Care, p. 95.
6 “I looked at him”: Gardner, Ava, p. 219.
7 “one of the greatest”: Ibid.
8 “On this trip”: Nancy Sinatra, My Father, p. 59.
9 “We’d had a few other governesses”: Ibid.
10 “When the Crosby kids”: Gary Giddins, in discussion with the author, Oct. 2006.
11 “I remember her”: Crosby and Firestone, Going My Own Way, p. 76.
12 “When Bing realized”: Giddins, discussion.
13 “Right now”: Shaw, Twentieth-Century Romantic, p. 125.
14 “Pompous and funereal”: Bosley Crowther, “Miracle of the Bells,” New York Times, March 17, 1948.
15 “Frank Sinatra, looking”: “The New Pictures,” Time, March 29, 1948.
16 “a hunk of religious”: Santopietro, Sinatra in Hollywood, p. 100.
17 “the worst single”: “Last Year’s Movies,” Life, March 8, 1948.
18 “I just couldn’t”: 60 Greatest Old-Time Radio Shows Starring Frank Sinatra and Friends (Radio Spirits, 2000). Set of thirty compact discs.
19 “It’s been a long time”: Gardner, Ava, p. 220.
20 “A lot of silly stories”: Ibid., p. 221.
21 “We drank, we laughed”: Ibid.
22 “We met for dinner”: Ibid.
23 “How you feeling”: Spotlight Review 48 (Radio Spirits, 2000). Set of thirty compact discs.
24 “Mr. Sinatra’s performance”: Bosley Crowther, “Frank Sinatra, Kathryn Grayson Head Cast of Lavish ‘Kissing Bandit’ at the Capitol,” New York Times, Nov. 19, 1948.
25 “Frank and my father”: Arthur Marx, interview with Steve Glauber, CBS Sunday Morning, October 2007.
26 “It was nothing”: Jane Russell, in discussion with the author, Sept. 2009.
27 “IS SINATRA FINISHED?”: Modern Television & Radio, Dec. 1948.
28 “so many things”: Nancy Sinatra, American Legend, p. 87.
29 “not only can’t”: Shaw, Twentieth-Century Romantic, p. 124.
30 “to be nearer”: Nancy Sinatra, American Legend, p. 91.
31 “up in the world”: Tina Sinatra, My Father’s Daughter, p. 20.
32 “It seems my friends”: Lyrics from “Comme Ci Comme Ça,” words by Alex Charles Kramer and Joan Whitney, music by Bruno Coquatrix (New York: Paris Music, 1949).
33 “It wasn’t a very”: Nancy Sinatra, American Legend, p. 87.
CHAPTER 23
1. Yet another easy target. Frank may have convinced Buddy Rich that he could handle himself pretty well, but that was long before Rich—who was as diminutive as Sinatra—had earned his black belt in karate.
SOURCE NOTES
2 “One day while”: Nancy Sinatra, My Father, p. 75.
3 “The moment Candy”: Tormé, It Wasn’t All Velvet, p. 64.
4 “I found [him]”: Wilson, Sinatra, p. 83.
5 “Okay, kids, the part’s”: Gardner, Ava, p. 217.
6 “a car sped”: Ibid.
7 “I’m going to marry”: Kelley, His Way, p. 138.
8 “I’d say”: Jerry Lewis, in discussion with the author, March 2008.
9 “How can I be”: Ibid. 387 “Don’t be surprised”: Bosley Crowther, “Frank Sinatra and Gene Kelly in ‘Take Me Out to the Ball Game,’ at Loew’s State,” New York Times, March 10, 1949.
10 “He just didn’t”: Kelley, His Way, p. 131.
11 “He just can’t bear”: Shaw, Twentieth-Century Romantic, p. 127.
12 “They don’t quite get”: Ibid., p. 126.
13 “M, N, O, P”: Lyrics from “A—You’re Adorable,” words and music by Buddy Kaye, Fred Wise, and Sidney Lippman (New York: Laurel Music, 1948).
14 “The voice is better at night”: Frank Sinatra Jr., interview with Michael Bourne, WBGO, Nov. 5, 2009.
15 “The recording date”: Granata, Sessions with Sinatra, p. 52.
16 “The sometimes unruly crooner”: Newsweek, vol. 34, 1949.
17 “On the island of Stromboli”: Lyrics from “(On the Island of) Stromboli,” words and music by Ken Lane and Irving Taylor (1949).
18 “Check this”: Columbia Records Archive, Sony Music Corporation.
19 “Dear Frank”: Ibid.
20 “Deep down”: Flamini, Ava, chapter 8.
21 “W
e met in the ladies’ room”: Gardner, Ava, p. 222.
22 “October 30, 1949”: Nancy Sinatra, American Legend, p. 91.
23 “The Swoon is real gone”: Shaw, Twentieth-Century Romantic, p. 125.
24 “Both Frank and I”: Gardner, Ava, p. 226.
25 “All my life”: Ibid.
26 “Bobby and I”: Kelley, His Way, p. 154.
27 “She was like a Svengali”: Server, Ava Gardner, p. 187.
28 “Quentin Reynolds and Heywood Broun’s”: Walter Winchell on Broadway, syndicated column, Dec. 14, 1949.
29 “You’re the salt in my stew”: Lyrics from “You’re the Cream in My Coffee,” words and music by Lew Brown, Buddy Gard DeSylva, and Ray Henderson (New York: DeSylva, Brown, and Henderson, 1928).
30 “I said that”: 1949: Lite Up Time Shows by Frank Sinatra (Jazz Band, 1993). Compact disc.
CHAPTER 24
1. The motto of Metro’s production manager, J. J. Cohn: “A rock is a rock, a tree is a tree, shoot it in Griffith Park” (Silverman, Dancing on the Ceiling, p. 104).
2. A man destined to be one of history’s footnotes, Clark (né Samuel Goldberg) had been one of Columbia’s biggest recording stars until his untimely death in an airplane crash the previous October. “He was a real rival to Crosby,” recalled the Columbia producer George Avakian. “But he also had the handicap of not being able to appeal to people visually because he wasn’t good-looking. He was a slightly overweight, slightly undersized person of very drab appearance. Everything was drab about him. So the quality of his voice was terrific, but nothing else happened. He would have been a disaster in the television era, because he looked like your father’s younger brother” (Avakian, in discussion with the author, Oct. 2006).
3. A remarkable booking, given Sinatra’s odor at the moment. The Copa was the crème de la crème of nightclubs, and bookings for even the biggest stars were usually four weeks. How to explain? As tempting as it is to look for organized crime behind every potted plant in Sinatra’s life, the Mob really does seem to have stuck with him through the roughest patches in his career, and Frank Costello owned the Copa.
4. Later the author of The Manchurian Candidate, which of course became a movie starring Sinatra.
SOURCE NOTES
5 “Never before has”: Shaw, Twentieth-Century Romantic, p. 130.
6 “I’m quite sure”: Ed Sullivan, Little Old New York, syndicated column, Feb. 1, 1950.
7 “She arrived late”: Server, Ava Gardner, p. 182.
8 “Frank Sinatra squired”: United Press, Feb. 7, 1950.
9 “a major mistake”: Shaw, Twentieth-Century Romantic, p. 133.
10 “I am very much”: Kelley, His Way, p. 157.
11 “Ava Gardner’s current travels”: Sheilah Graham, Hollywood Today, syndicated column, Feb. 10, 1950.
12 “FRANK SINATRA’S WIFE”: Los Angeles Times, Feb. 15, 1950.
13 “the shit really hit the fan”: Gardner, Ava, p. 225.
14 “I am very glad”: Louella Parsons, International News Service, syndicated column, Feb. 24, 1950.
15 “romantic episode”: Los Angeles Times, Feb. 15, 1950.
16 “I have here”: Herman, Joseph McCarthy, p. 99.
17 “Ava Gardner’s lines”: Erskine Johnson, In Hollywood, syndicated column, March 10, 1950.
18 “apostle of degradation”: See Spoto, Notorious, p. 296.
19 “Items-We-Doubt”: Walter Winchell on Broadway, syndicated column, March 14, 1950.
20 “I found myself”: Summers and Swan, Sinatra, p. 155.
21 “Every single night”: Ibid., p. 157.
22 “Someone told Sinatra”: Kelley, His Way, p. 160.
23 “Sam, Frank”: Friedwald, Sinatra! p. 183.
24 “I’m adored, I’m adored”: Lyrics from “I Am Loved,” words and music by Cole Porter (New York: Hal Leonard, 1950).
25 “My voice was”: Kelley, His Way, p. 160.
26 “After the opening”: Friedwald, Sinatra! p. 183.
27 “Whether temporarily”: Shaw, Twentieth-Century Romantic, p. 135.
28 “Frank was nervous”: Gardner, Ava, p. 228.
29 “Did you have to sing”: Wayne, Ava’s Men, p. 119.
30 “We took a plain”: Artie Shaw, interview with Ted Panken, April 2, 2002.
31 “Artie solved”: Gardner, Ava, p. 230.
32 “It was Frank”: Ibid., p. 231.
33 “It’s like being”: Server, Ava Gardner, p. 267.
34 “Every artist is a woman”: Richardson, A Life of Picasso: The Triumphant Years, 1917–1932, p. 341.
CHAPTER 25
SOURCE NOTES
1 “As you know”: Columbia Records Archive, Sony Music Corporation.
2 “Mitch, we’ve got”: Ibid.
3 “What makes you”: Friedwald, Sinatra! p. 78.
4 “Daisy is darling”: Lyrics from “American Beauty Rose,” words and music by Arthur Altman, Hal David, and Redd Evans (1950).
5 “irresistible”: Friedwald, Sinatra! p. 179.
6 “Oh, God”: Gardner, Ava, p. 220.
7 “extreme cruelty”: Associated Press, April 27, 1950.
8 “neither of us”: International News Service, April 27, 1950.
9 “Frank Sinatra, cast loose”: “Sinatra Breaks with M-G-M; Will Free-Lance,” Long Beach (Calif.) Independent, April 29, 1950.
10 “Hey, did you”: Nancy Sinatra, My Father, p. 87.
11 “I hear you”: Ibid.
12 “Listen, Sinatra had”: Server, Ava Gardner, p. 187.
13 “I can say this now”: Nancy Sinatra, American Legend, p. 95.
14 “You couldn’t do that”: Lee Herschberg, in discussion with the author, May 2006.
15 “he would send off”: Server, Ava Gardner, p. 187.
16 “was tragic and terrifying”: Shaw, Twentieth-Century Romantic, p. 137.
17 “BALI TOO H’AI”: International News Service, May 4, 1950.
18 “Yes, I’ll probably see”: Kelley, His Way, p. 166.
19 “I remember one time”: Server, Ava Gardner, p. 197.
20 “A very, very wild spirit”: Ibid., p. 201.
21 “ ‘Ava,’ Bappie said”: Gardner, Ava, p. 241.
22 “thought she was the most”: Server, Ava Gardner, p. 197.
23 “Someone had passed”: Gardner, Ava, p. 246.
24 “it just got into her blood”: Server, Ava Gardner, p. 187.
25 “Oh, what a lovely surprise”: Ibid., p. 205.
26 “Of course, I knew”: Ibid., p. 207.
27 “They can’t make this”: Shaw, Twentieth-Century Romantic, p. 139.
28 “This bullfighter is nothing”: Server, Ava Gardner, p. 207.
29 “Eiffel Tower and stuff”: Shaw, Twentieth-Century Romantic, p. 139.
CHAPTER 26
1. The incident rhymes strangely with the 1970 visit by Elvis Presley to President Richard M. Nixon, in which Presley volunteered to be a “Federal Agent-at-Large” in the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs. Like Sinatra, Presley cited his ability to mix with undesirables—in this case, hippies. And like Sinatra, Elvis got the brush-off—though in a nicer way (for one thing, Nixon took the meeting).
SOURCE NOTES
2 “It takes real courage”: Richmond, Fever, p. 177.
3 “Sinatra, astoundingly thin”: Ibid.
4 “If TV is his oyster”: Havers, Sinatra, p. 148.
5 “Sipping tea on stage”: Nancy Sinatra, American Legend, p. 96.
6 “I watched mass hysteria”: Shaw, Twentieth-Century Romantic, p. 141.
7 “Bless me, he’s GOOD”: Ibid.
8 “People who simply put”: Ibid.
9 “pleasant throwaways”: George Avakian, in discussion with the author, Oct. 2006.
10 “a cute little novelty”: Frank Sinatra, interview with Ben Heller, WMID, Atlantic City, N.J., Sept. 4, 1950.
11 “There’s no sign of life”: Wilson, Sinatra, p. 94.
12 “I don’t think Frank”: Na
ncy Sinatra, American Legend, p. 97.
13 “Bright, with good”: Friedwald, Sinatra! p. 185.
14 “DATE: SEPTEMBER 7, 1950”: Kuntz and Kuntz, Sinatra Files, p. 67.
15 “the Hollywood–Los Angeles underworld”: Dixon (Ill.) Evening Telegraph, May 29, 1950.
16 “Sinatra’s decline”: Ibid.
17 “heard the whispered”: Server, Ava Gardner, p. 215.
18 “a tear or so”: “Frank Sinatras Legally Parted by Court Action,” Los Angeles Times, Sept. 29, 1950.
19 “I don’t feel much”: Ibid.
20 “I would see her faint”: Nancy Sinatra, My Father, p. 74.
21 “Frank Sinatra walked off”: Shaw, Twentieth-Century Romantic, p. 144.
22 “a surprisingly good actor”: Ibid.
23 “bad pacing, bad scripting”: Ibid.
24 “Frank was always late”: Kelley, His Way, p. 171.
25 “Frank was always washing”: Ibid.
26 “Frank was insanely jealous”: Ibid., p. 170.
CHAPTER 27
1. There are some who claim that it was Frank himself who came up with the idea to do a record with Dagmar: he was always a willful, often shrewd, manager of his own career—though sometimes he was more headstrong than wise. In any case, desperate times call for desperate measures, and if the duet was Frank’s idea, we should probably applaud him for his audacity, if not his perspicacity.
2. In fact, there is a famous list of some two hundred important popular songs that Sinatra never recorded, out of either sheer neglect or (far more likely) fear that they wouldn’t sell.
3. Miller threatened to terminate Clooney’s contract if she didn’t record “Come On-a My House.” And as the producer Paul Weston, Jo Stafford’s husband, told Charles L. Granata, “You can’t believe the crap that he had Jo record, tunes like ‘Underneath the Overpass,’ stuff that just died. He would be very persuasive, and the artist didn’t have much choice. They’d say, ‘This is a piece of crap,’ and Mitch would say, ‘Oh, it’s gonna be a hit,’ so they’d do it” (Friedwald, Sinatra! p. 193).