by Kitty Kelley
Despite the furor, the program, which won the Arbitron ratings for that time slot, was a highly flattering hour showing Frank cavorting with Dean Martin and Sammy Davis, Jr., telling jokes and singing during a recording session and at a benefit for prison inmates. The critics were disappointed.
“We expected a tiger last night and we got a pussycat,” said the Associated Press.
“… Journalistically it was a placebo of rewrite,” said Jack Gould in The New York Times, adding, “[It] wasn’t authorized but it could have been.”
The Chicago Daily News wrote: “Frank Sinatra owes CBS one more telegram. This one should say, ‘Disregard all previous telegrams from me and my friends and thanks for the fair, honest treatment.’ ”
The Los Angeles Times said: “Sinatra and his loyal clan could not have put together a more flattering look at their leader.”
Jack O’Brian in the New York Journal-American wrote: “Sinatra had the chance to deny most of his established affinity for underworld characters, and not a cock crowed during that denial, which was virtually the comedy high point of the show.”
The Herald-Tribune said: “CBS and the public have been had.… Frank Sinatra not only perpetuated his public image. He gilded the self-made lily.… Once more, but this time under the CBS News aegis, he offered only the public image—the dedicated singer, the generous benefactor, the deep thinker, the happy comrade, the firm executive, the devoted parent—he wants the public to accept as the whole man.”
The Sinatra camp was delighted with the documentary. Jilly Rizzo sent a telegram to Frank, boasting: WE RULE THE WORLD!
Jim Mahoney suggested a public relations gesture toward CBS-TV. “Shall I drop a line to Hewitt?” he asked Frank, but Sinatra was still angry at Walter Cronkite for asking him if he was going to marry Mia—even though that segment had not been aired. “Can you send a fist through the mail?” he asked.
The crowning event of his fiftieth birthday celebration was the dinner party given for him on December 12 at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel by his former wife, Nancy, and his daughter, Nancy, Jr., who had relented and said that he was welcome to bring Mia if he wished. He declined, knowing how uncomfortable everyone would feel. Milton Berle was the master of ceremonies for the evening, which featured a filmed parody of the CBS-TV interview prepared by Jack Haley, Jr., and Sammy Cahn showing scenes from various Sinatra movies. George Burns and Jack Benny did comedy sketches, Tony Bennett sang, and Sammy Davis, Jr., jumped out of a cake to amuse the one hundred fifty guests. Tina Sinatra helped with the party and did a little skit with her sister, but their brother, Frank, Jr., did not attend.
After midnight, when everyone had gone, Frank was seen sitting alone in the ballroom with Brad Dexter sobbing because his son had not been there to share the evening with him.
“Everybody was here and it was a glorious party, but the one person in the world I would have wanted more than anybody else was my boy and he didn’t even send me a telegram, or a card, or anything,” said Frank.
Dexter tried to comfort his friend, saying that Frank, Jr., probably had tried to call.
“My son never calls me,” said Frank. “He puts as much distance between us as he possibly can.”
Frank drove to Mia’s apartment that night as he had promised to do. When he walked in, he was surprised to see that she had cut off her long golden hair.
“I chopped my silly hair off because I was bored with me,” she said.
Once he recovered from the shock Frank said, “It’s terrific. Now you can go out for Little League like the rest of the boys!”
Mia told Corinne Entratter that she’d done it because she’d become too prideful about her long hair. “Mia was always so vain about her hair, always twisting it and pushing it, so I was quite shocked when she clumped it all off. I asked her why she’d done it and she said, ‘I just thought I should not have anything I should be vain about.’ It was almost like something a nun would say.”
The next day, when Mia joined Frank and Brad Dexter for lunch at the Beverly Wilshire, Sinatra greeted her by saying, “Hiya, Butch!”
For weeks, Frank and Dexter had been discussing plans for launching a new phase in Frank’s career that would concentrate on his acting. Having been made vice-president of Sinatra Enterprises in charge of production, Dexter was looking for the kinds of properties that would showcase Frank as an actor and do away with the japing antics of his last few movies, which Bosley Crowther of The New York Times said were characterized “by many globs of sheer bad taste that manifest a calculated pandering to those who are easily and crudely amused.” The critic dismissed Von Ryan’s Express as “outrageous and totally disgusting,” and said that Marriage on the Rocks was nothing more than “a tawdry and witless trifle about a bored married man.”
“It is provoking to see this acute and awesome figure turning up time and again in strangely tricky and trashy motion pictures that add nothing to the social edification and encouragement of man,” he said. “One after another of his pictures in the past several years has been a second- or third-rate achievement in dramatic content and cinema artistry, and the only thing to be said for a few of them is that they have galvanized and gratified some elements that prefer lurid action and bravado to solid commentary and sense.… What grieves a long-time moviegoer is to remember how bright and promising he used to be, beginning with his charming performance with Gene Kelly in the musical Anchors Aweigh.”
Frank was aware of the shortcomings of his recent movies and said, “I guess the trouble has been that at the time I did these pictures, nothing better seemed to be available. It all boils down to material.”
Brad Dexter hoped to resurrect Sinatra’s film career with quality work.
“I wanted Frank to develop the professional pride in his movies that he had in his recordings,” he said. “We talked about it a lot and he said that he wanted to inherit Bogart’s mantle and be an actor’s actor, so I started looking for the best stuff I could find for him. I brought him Harper, and he loved the story, but Mickey Rudin blocked the deal because he didn’t want Elliott Kastner and Jerry Gershwin, who owned the property and developed the script, to get paid $400,000 to produce a picture which might only make it on Sinatra’s name. The movie went to Paul Newman instead, and everyone made a fortune. I wanted Sinatra Enterprises to acquire Anthony Burgess’s Clockwork Orange, so I sent the book to Frank and told him to read it. He called me back saying he couldn’t understand a word and didn’t see it as a movie, so I had to turn it down. The movie was later made by Stanley Kubrick and made millions.
“Finally, I got Frank to agree to do The Naked Runner, a suspense drama in which he was to play an unwitting assassin, a role that would capitalize on his explosive, combustible personality. Frank was all for it, and so I started production work in London in 1966, but there were problems, real problems, because Frank was going through his Mia period and was beset trying to decide whether to marry her or not. It was a bad period for him and … everything ended in disaster.”
On June 8, 1966, Frank took nine persons, including three women and Dean Martin, Jilly Rizzo, and Richard Conte to the Polo Lounge of the Beverly Hills Hotel to celebrate Dean’s forty-ninth birthday. Shortly after midnight, Frederick R. Weisman, fifty-four, president of Hunt’s Foods and brother-in-law of multimillionaire philanthropist Norton Simon, walked in with Franklin H. Fox, a businessman from Boston. The two men had come from a rehearsal dinner at Chasen’s for the wedding of their two children and wanted to toast the future as prospective fathers-in-law. Walking past Sinatra’s table, they sat in a booth nearby and ordered drinks.
Conversation was difficult for them because of the noise from the Sinatra table, so after a few minutes, Weisman leaned over and asked Frank and his party to keep it down, adding that their remarks were offensive to the women in the room. Frank looked at the man with contempt. “You’re out of line, buddy,” he said, turning back to his raucous table.
Franklin Fox watched Sinatra look
closely at the man who had dared to criticize him, and heard him make an anti-Semitic remark, adding, “I don’t think you ought to be sitting there with your glasses on talking to me like that.”
Weisman rose to object to Sinatra’s slur, holding up his hand to ward off any possible blows, but Frank was on his way out. It seemed as though he had dismissed the incident, but a few minutes later he stormed back to the Weisman table.
“He came back to vent his anger, and Fred stood up,” said Franklin Fox. “My efforts were simply to keep Sinatra away from him, and I did that by sidearming him. I was standing in front of Fred when Sinatra threw the telephone.… Dean Martin was trying to get him out of there, and the next thing I knew Fred was lying on the ground, and Sinatra and his party had walked out. I was trying to help Fred on the floor.… When we weren’t able to revive him, we called an ambulance and he was carried out of the room on a stretcher.”
Still unconscious twenty-four hours later, Weisman was taken to the intensive care unit of Mt. Sinai Hospital, where he was in critical condition for forty-eight hours and not expected to live. On Saturday, June 11, he underwent cranial surgery to correct the effects of a skull fracture. By the next day, he started showing signs of regaining consciousness, but there was damage from the blow, which caused what his doctors called “retrograde amnesia.”
Awaiting Weisman’s recovery, the police investigating the brawl were having trouble locating the rest of the principals.
“Sinatra has been in hiding,” said Police Chief Clinton H. Anderson, “but we’ll get him. We want to find out the cause of the fight and the physical condition of Weisman at the time.”
Frank telephoned the Beverly Hills police from his home in Palm Springs and said that the fight was all Weisman’s fault. “This man said, ‘You talk too fucking loud, and you have a bunch of loud-mouthed friends,’ ” said Frank. “I thought he was kidding; then I realized he wasn’t. … He hit me, and at once another man jumped between us. The top of the cocktail table at which I was sitting was broken from its base as Weisman fell across the table and then to the floor. I at no time saw anyone hit him and I certainly did not. I looked behind me, and as I left, I saw a man on the floor.”
Dean Martin, who had gone to Lake Tahoe, verified Frank’s story by phone.
“Martin had nothing to say, as you might expect,” said the chief. “He said he didn’t see anything.”
A year later, Dean admitted to Italian journalist Oriana Fallaci, “The cops came. We said we didn’t know who did it and walked out. But we did, yeah.”
In Palm Springs, Frank was worried as he waited to see if Weisman would live or die. Mia had flown to be with him, as had Jack Entratter and his wife, and together the four of them kept a death watch.
“That’s the only time I think I ever saw that man scared,” said Corinne Entratter. “For two weeks, we all sat there staring at each other. Mia and I tried to learn how to play backgammon. Nobody went anywhere. We were like prisoners. We just didn’t go anywhere. We just waited it out. Nobody knew how it would come out.”
Although Weisman was showing steady improvement, the bulletins from the hospital were not encouraging at first. “His condition from the operation is satisfactory, but he remains in serious condition and still is unconscious,” said a hospital spokesman. Three days later he regained consciousness but the hospital reported his condition as “still serious.” Weisman recognized family members but could not remember anything and kept introducing his wife to his doctor. By June 27, he had recovered enough to talk to the police about what had happened that night in the Polo Lounge, but he said he could only remember what happened leading up to the fracas. From the moment he was struck, his memory was gone. His family was so outraged by what had happened to him that they wanted to press criminal charges against Sinatra. But, as they later confided to friends, they had received anonymous phone calls threatening to harm their children, so they were afraid to act.
Frank’s long history of violence so intimidated the Weismans that they decided to forget the whole affair.
“He wants the case closed,” said Weisman’s attorney, Grant B. Cooper, “A further investigation as to whether he was hit, pushed, or fell is not necessary.”
“We don’t want to talk about it. There is just nothing to say,” said Weisman’s wife.
“There’s nothing to settle. We just want to forget it ever happened,” said his brother.
On June 30, the Los Angeles district attorney announced that he was closing his investigation. “In the absence of any other evidence, we have concluded no prosecution is indicated, and that this case is closed,” he said.
A few days later, Frank gave Mia a nine-carat diamond engagement ring he had bought at Ruser’s jewelry store in Beverly Hills for $85,000. He presented it to her on July 4 during the weekend they spent in Mt. Kisco, New York, with Random House publisher Bennett Cerf and his wife, Phyllis. Cerf, whom Sinatra called The Bookmaker, had been an adoring fan of Frank’s since he had first heard him sing in the early forties. Their friendship had become close in the early sixties when Frank was a bachelor and would use the Cerfs’ Mt. Kisco home for a month-long summer retreat.
On July 5, Sinatra left for London to start filming The Naked Runner. A few days later, Mia walked into P.J. Clarke’s in Manhattan flashing the stupendous diamond. “It’s a friendship ring from Frank,” she said.
Remembering what had happened to Lauren Bacall when she talked to the press about Sinatra’s marriage proposal, Mia’s mother quickly called Frank in London and asked what she should say about the ring. She received his permission to announce the engagement with no definite date for the wedding.
“I couldn’t be more delighted,” Maureen O’Sullivan told the press. “Frank is a wonderful person, and I know they’ll be happy together.”
That night Sinatra had dinner with Brad Dexter at The Colony in London, a gambling club managed by George Raft. They played a little blackjack and returned to their suites in Grosvenor Square, where Frank announced his plans to marry Mia. He asked Brad what he thought about it, and Dexter didn’t lie to his friend. “It’s too big an age difference, Frank. You’re talking about thirty years in age. It doesn’t make sense. When she’s forty you’ll be seventy, but if that’s what you want, go ahead and marry the girl.”
“Well, don’t you think it’s a good idea?”
“No, I really don’t.”
“Why don’t you approve? The age business doesn’t mean a thing. Besides, she’s a good kid and I’m lonely. I need somebody.”
“I know you’re lonely, but I think you’re confusing the love you have for your son with what you feel about Mia. Junior won’t respond to you, but Mia does.”
Erupting in fury, Frank swept the table lamps to the floor with a loud crash and threw an ashtray at the window, shattering the glass into glistening shards. Without a word, he grabbed the telephone and placed a call to Jack Entratter at the Sands in Las Vegas. Glaring at Dexter, he barked orders at Entratter to get a marriage certificate, line up a judge, order cake and champagne, and prepare everything necessary for a wedding.
“Make all the arrangements,” he said, “because I’m leaving London tomorrow, and Mia and I are getting married.”
Then he called Mickey Rudin and told him to find his pilot, Don Lieto, to pick him up and fly him to New York. He called Bill and Edie Goetz in Los Angeles and told them they were to be best man and matron of honor in forty-eight hours. Then he called Mia and told her to fly from New York to California and from there to Las Vegas without saying a word to anyone, including her mother.
“I sat there as he made all these calls, wondering if he’d gone crazy,” said Dexter. “Since he just seemed to get madder and madder, I finally left and went to bed around five A.M. Frank flew out of London the next day, and Mia’s doom was sealed.”
Arriving in New York on July 18, Frank had dinner with his former girlfriend, Peggy Connolly, and hardly acted like a man about to be married. The
next day, he flew to Las Vegas and arrived at the Sands accompanied by Mia, Bill and Edie Goetz, and his valet, George Jacobs. Judge William P. Comp-ton was waiting with a marriage license that had been witnessed by Harry Claiborne and Jack Entratter. Minutes before the ceremony, Frank took George Jacobs aside and said, “Call Miss G,” their code name for Ava Gardner. Jack Entratter tried to dissuade George from making the call, but George insisted.
“It’ll be my ass if I don’t get hold of that lady before someone else does, and I’ll find her if it’s the last thing I do,” he said, heading for the phone. “She’s the love of his life, and you know it!”
Ava’s comment on the nuptials was succinct and bitter. “Ha!” she said. “I always knew Frank would end up in bed with a little boy.” Later, she dismissed her former husband as “a scared monster. He was convinced there was no one in the world except him,” she said.
At five-thirty P.M. on July 19, 1966, Frank took Mia into Jack Entratter’s living room, where the strains of Frank’s new record, “Strangers in the Night,” were faintly audible over the hotel’s speaker system. The judge read a four-minute civil ceremony. Frank slipped a gold wedding band on Mia’s finger, kissed her three times, and the judge pronounced them husband and wife.
“Let’s break out the wine and caviar,” Frank said.
“I’ve never seen such anxiety before,” recalled Edie Goetz. “They were both so nervous you couldn’t believe it. Frank’s face was flushed and he twitched nervously as they repeated their vows.”
The twenty-one-year-old bride turned and hugged her sixty-six-year-old matron of honor, saying, “This is the happiest day of my life.”
Grinning, Frank led her from the air-conditioned room into the 107-degree heat to pose for wedding pictures on the patio of Entratter’s Oriental garden. Saluting reporters with his hand raised upward, he said, “My bride.”
“This is a big day, fellas. I can’t think of what to say. We just decided to get married last week. We were both out west, it seemed right, and we’re in love, and it was logical.”