by Kitty Kelley
“Will Mia accompany you to London?” asked a reporter.
“Oh, yes, by all means, yes,” said Frank.
After a quick glass of champagne, the couple was in a limousine en route to the airport to fly to Los Angeles.
“I gave a wedding dinner for eighteen [no members of Frank’s family among them] and they spent the night here with us so that no one would know where they were,” said Edie Goetz, who took credit for finally persuading Frank to get married. “Billy and I both said, ‘Oh, go ahead and do it. She’s crazy about you.’ ”
The news of the marriage stunned Frank, Jr., who was in Cocoa Beach, Florida, performing at the Koko Motel. “I think you got the wrong party, pal,” he said when asked how he felt to be one year older than his stepmother. “I don’t believe it. I just don’t believe it.” That night, before singing what he called his Sinatra Songs, he told his audience: “I’m going to devote exactly five minutes to my father because, as he once confided in a moment of weakness, that’s exactly how much time he devoted to me.”
Frank and Mia began their honeymoon a few days later in New York City, where Frank socked a photographer who was trying to take a picture of them entering the “21” club for a party hosted by the Bennett Cerfs. The next night, Frank and Mia went to Fort Lee, where Dolly Sinatra had been cooking for two days, preparing ravioli, scallopine, scungilli, stuffed green lasagne noodles, fettucine, corkscrew pasta, macaroni, spaghetti, and sausage gnocchi. She loaded her tables with cheese, cold cuts, and sweet sugary desserts. She’d done the same thing when Frank had brought Ava Gardner to Hoboken fifteen years before, but that had been an occasion to celebrate. Ava was a big movie star and one of the most beautiful women in the world. Mia Farrow was just a girl, younger than Frank’s two older children, and she’d never even been in a movie.
“Dolly, who always praised Ava Gardner, wasn’t impressed with Mia at all, but she was putting on a good show for Frank,” said Al Algiro, a close friend of Dolly and Marty who had helped with the dinner. “It was a great party. Toots Shor was there and that comedian Joe E. Lewis and Jilly Rizzo, of course. Nancy, Jr., [who was in New York at the time] came and so did Rosalind Russell and Freddie Brisson and Liza Minnelli, who smoked little cigars all night. Mia dressed kind of funny, with long white stockings like a nurse and a short little dress that almost came up to her hips, it was so short. She didn’t say much the whole evening. After everyone left, Dolly said, ‘Well, what do you think?’ I shrugged and said Frank was over twenty-one and could marry whomever he wanted. ‘Yeah, I suppose,’ she said. ‘But this one don’t talk. She don’t eat. What’s she do?’ Then she shook her head and said, ‘It won’t last long, so I guess it’s a good thing they weren’t married in the Church.…’ ”
26
The Sinatras continued their honeymoon in London in a penthouse apartment in Grosvenor Square while Frank worked on The Naked Runner. On weekends, he and Mia flew to the south of France and stayed in Jack Warner’s villa in Cap d’Antibes, but within three weeks he grew restless. Bored with the movie, he wanted to go home.
“We had a location shoot up the Thames River about eighteen to twenty minutes by helicopter from London,” said Brad Dexter. “I had made the run a couple of times with the chopper pilot to make sure he knew the route because Frank insisted on flying rather than driving to save time. He also expected everything to be run with military precision. The morning of the shoot, the British government summoned my pilot and gave me a substitute who had never flown the route before. We picked up Frank and took off just as the fog came in. Minutes later, the pilot lost his direction. Frank, who had barely spoken to me since returning to London, asked how long the flight was. I told him eighteen to twenty minutes, so he sat back, tight and taut, without saying a word. After eighteen minutes in the air, he said, ‘Well? Where’s the location?’ I couldn’t see a damn thing, so I asked the pilot and he admitted that he was lost.
“Frank went nuts. ‘I don’t stand for excuses, goddammit,’ he said. ‘I don’t work with incompetents. We should’ve been there by now. I don’t know why the hell I ever came to England. I hate this goddamn country. I don’t know why I’m making this lousy picture.’ He went on and on, building a huge resentment toward the movie.
“After forty-five minutes the pilot finally drops us down on the location spot, where the director, Sidney Furie, is waiting, ready to talk to Frank about his scene, but Frank jumped out of the chopper and said, ‘I don’t want to work. I don’t want to act. I’m sick and tired of this “mother” movie. I think we ought to dump the whole thing, change the location, and get the hell out of here. Let’s go back to Palm Springs and shoot it in the desert.’ With that, he walked off and stood under a tree, pouting. The director, a sensitive, creative guy, who had been working his arse off for nine months, couldn’t believe his ears. ‘This is terrible, Brad,’ he said. ‘Just terrible. I can’t make a picture under these conditions with a man who is totally and completely uncooperative.’ He started crying hysterically. ‘I’m quitting the picture,’ he sobbed. ‘I’m not going to work with such a cretin. I’m walking off the picture now.’ With that, he jumped in his jeep and drove off, leaving me in the middle of England without a director, with a petulant star who’s being paid one million dollars but refuses to work, and a crew of fifty guys who’re getting paid to stand around and watch this craziness.”
Hailing another jeep and driver, Dexter sped off to find the director, who was roaring down the highway nursing his bruised feelings. Catching up to him, Dexter pulled him over to the side of the road and begged him to return to the picture, swearing that he would bring Sinatra around. After an hour of persuasion, the two men returned to the location and the director set up for his shot with Frank, who was still standing by himself under the tree.
Dexter approached him. “Look, Frank, the director is ready to shoot now. The scene is all set up. I know you’re uptight and you’ve got some problems, which are none of my business, but this could be a wonderful picture for you if you would only participate. The important thing is that the clock is running and all this time is costing money—your money and Warner Bros, money. So why don’t you come back with me now and do the scene. Be a professional and let’s make this picture work.”
Sinatra looked at his friend with venom, turned on his heel, and walked to the set. Approaching the director, he said, “Okay, what do you want me to do?”
For the next three days, shooting in England went according to schedule, and the cast and crew looked forward to moving to Copenhagen for the next location site.
“All of us were due to film in Denmark,” said Derren Nesbitt, Frank’s British co-star. “Then my schedule was changed, and I didn’t have to go. Sinatra knew I was disappointed, so he arranged for me and my family to join them. He had a car pick us up at our home in the country and take us to the airport, then his private plane to Copenhagen. When we arrived, he’d left a manila envelope for us with money. I remember remarking how difficult it would be to spend this amount in ten days, and then the same amount arrived again in a plain manila envelope every morning at the hotel. We had a wonderful time. He was very generous.”
In Denmark, Frank told Dexter that he wanted the weekend off to fly back to Los Angeles to star in a benefit for Governor Edmund “Pat” Brown, who was running for his third term. Brown’s Republican challenger was Ronald Reagan, a former actor and president of the Screen Actors Guild, who was making his first run for public office.
“I told him to take the time off and I’d shoot around him for a few days,” said Dexter. “I was a big Pat Brown supporter myself and thought it was a worthy cause, especially against Reagan, whom Frank and I both couldn’t stand.”
Sinatra’s antipathy toward Reagan in 1966 was intense. “He hated the guy, just hated him,” said a woman who lived with Jimmy Van Heusen. “We’d be at some party, and if the Reagans arrived, Frank would snip his fingers and say, ‘C’mon, Chester. We’re leaving. I can’t stand that
fucking Ronnie. He’s such a bore. Every time you get near the bastard, he makes a speech and he never knows what he’s talking about. The trouble with Reagan is that no one would give him a job.’ This happened time and time again because Frank could not abide being in the same room with the Reagans. Every time they’d walk in, we’d have to walk out, and each time we’d have to listen to Frank’s diatribe against Reagan all over again.”
“It’s true that Sinatra despised Ronnie almost as much as Richard Nixon,” said Peter Lawford. “He said he thought he was a real right-wing John Birch Society nut—‘dumb and dangerous,’ he’d say, and so simple-minded. He swore he’d move out of California if Reagan ever got elected to public office. ‘I couldn’t stand listening to his gee whiz, golly shucks crap,’ he said. Frank couldn’t stand Nancy Reagan, either; he said she was a dope with fat ankles who could never make it as an actress. He took every opportunity he could in Las Vegas to change the words to ‘The Lady Is a Tramp’; instead of singing ‘She hates California, where it’s cold and it’s damp,’ Frank would sing, ‘She hates California, it’s Reagan and damp … that’s why the lady is a tramp.’ ”
Shecky Greene said that Frank was vehement on the subject of Reagan. “We were all at a house in Miami watching Joey Bishop’s show on television one night when Reagan came on to welcome Joey,” said the comedian. “Frank immediately got crazy and started screaming things and calling Reagan every name in the book. He hated the guy and cursed him out all night long.”
After the “Night of Stars” fund-raiser for Governor Brown at the Los Angeles Sports Arena, Frank produced another benefit for him in San Francisco. It featured Dean Martin, Ella Fitzgerald, Joey Bishop, Connie Francis, Trini Lopez, Dan Rowan and Dick Martin, the Four Step Brothers, and Nelson Riddle’s orchestra, and raised $175,000. Reagan tried to counter Sinatra’s swinging appeal with folksy Republicans like Irene Dunne, Roy Rogers, John Wayne, and Pat Boone, whom Frank ridiculed, saying, “If I had a son, I’d like him to be like Pat Boone—till he was three hours old.”
“Frank campaigned hard for me throughout the state,” said Governor Brown. “He raised a lot of money and staged both my inaugural galas.” He did not have the chance to stage a third gala because in 1966 Reagan defeated Brown by almost one million votes.
Before the election, Frank had instructed Mickey Rudin to call Brad Dexter in London to say that he was not returning and for Dexter to put all the footage together from The Naked Runner, bring it back to California, and finish the film there. Dexter refused, saying he had production commitments in England. Rudin insisted, but the producer ignored him. Determined to complete the picture, Dexter met with the director and started reshaping the script so they could finish without Frank.
“We’d steal takes from scenes that he’d already done before,” he said. “That’s how we got all our close-ups.”
Days later, as Dexter recalled, Rudin arrived in London to deliver Frank’s ultimatum in person.
“As Sinatra’s lawyer, I want to inform you that my client gave me instructions to give to you,” he said. “You are to wrap all the film and return to California to finish the picture. In other words, stop shooting now or get out.”
Dexter refused to do either, saying that he was going to deliver the picture to Jack Warner at Warner Bros, upon completion. “I’m not going to contribute to Frank’s delinquency, and if he won’t come back here and lend himself as an actor to this film, then we’ll do it without him. Now you go back and tell him that, Mickey, and stop bothering me.”
The lawyer returned to California while Dexter remained in London for two months finishing The Naked Runner.
“Upon completion, I returned to Los Angeles and drove to the Sinatra offices at Warner Bros., where Milt Krasney [Vice-President of Sinatra Enterprises] said, ‘Welcome back, Brad. I was instructed to inform you by Mr. Rudin that you are fired off the picture and that you are to pack your things and clear them out of the office and vacate the premises immediately.’ I told him that he couldn’t fire me and neither could Mickey Rudin. There’s only one man who owns this company, and if he wants to fire me, that’s fine, but he’s going to have to do it, I said. It was nine o’clock in the morning and I picked up the phone and asked for the tie line to Frank’s house in Palm Springs.
“George Jacobs answered and said Frank was asleep. I insisted that he be awakened. Minutes later, Frank came on the line and in a sleepy voice said, ‘How are you? How was the flight? You sure took your time in getting back here.’ I told him that the picture was finished for him to look at, but that I’d just been informed by Milt Krasney via Mickey Rudin that I was fired and was to leave the lot immediately. ‘I’m not taking orders from any of your lackeys,’ I said. ‘If you want to fire me, fire me, but I want to get it straight from you—no one else. Do you understand, Frank?’ There was a long pause on the phone and then a click. He’d hung up.
“Since he didn’t have the guts to fire me, I went ahead and finished the picture in California. I had already been paid $35,000, but was still owed a balance of $15,000, so when the film was completed, I sent a telegram of resignation to Sinatra with a copy to Rudin and asked for the remainder of my producer’s fee. I waited a few months, but never heard a word. Nor did I ever receive my final payment. By that time, though, I was producing over at Paramount and it was worth $15,000 to me just to be rid of Frank Sinatra and never have to have anything more to do with him. That meant not having to sit up with him every night until he could go to sleep; not having to be around continual brawls and cherry bombs and drinking until the last bottle was empty and the last song sung. Frank’s a sick guy in many ways, and that sickness becomes a heavy burden for those close to him after a while.”
Some people in Hollywood were shocked that the friendship between the two men did not survive making the movie together, and Sinatra’s publicist was called upon to explain.
“When the picture was finished, Frank asked to see a rough cut,” said Jim Mahoney. “Dexter told him this was impossible; the film was not yet suitable for viewing. He was the producer, of course, but he seemed to have forgotten it was Frank who gave him the job. Anyway, that was the end of it.”
Years later, when asked about his near drowning and the man who had rescued him, Sinatra said, “Brad didn’t really save my life. It was an old guy on a surfboard.” After that he often referred to Dexter as “Brad who?”
In November 1966, Frank began his first engagement in Las Vegas since marrying Mia. She attended his opening night at the Sands, where the standing-room-only crowd stretched to catch a glimpse of her as she walked to her ringside seat on the arm of her husband’s close friend, Joe E. Lewis. She gazed at Frank adoringly as he sang his songs and the crowd exploded with applause. Midway through his performance, he paused to introduce the celebrities in the audience and then used the racial tensions growing in east Los Angeles for a repartee which made people extremely uncomfortable.
“Smokey the Bear was supposed to be here tonight … you all know Smokey. That’s Sammy Davis. But he couldn’t make it. He has an opening of his own … down in Watts. It’s a gas station. He calls it Whitey’s. He sells three kinds of gas … regular, ethyl, and burn, baby, burn. But Sammy’s okay. He had a wedding anniversary recently, and I sent him a gift—yeah, I sent him and Mai a love seat covered in zebra skin, so when they sit together they won’t be so conspicuous.… Well, let’s see. What else is new? Oh, yeah. I got married.… She’s here,” he said, pointing to Mia, who stood up to receive thunderous applause from the audience. “Yeah, I sure got married.… Well, you see I had to. … I finally found a broad Ï can cheat on…
A gasp rose from the crowd and heads swiveled to spot Mia’s reaction, but she had lowered her head in shame. Sensing the audience’s disapproval, Frank tried to continue as if nothing had happened.
“Ain’t she pretty?” he said, pointing to his young wife, but by then he had lost the rapport with his audience. “I guess I’d better sing. I’m in a lot o
f trouble.”
That evening, Frank and Mia and the Sinatra entourage stopped at the Aladdin to watch Joe E. Lewis’s midnight show. Frank jumped up onstage to help the comedian with his material.
“I really came in to see Jackie Mason,” he said. “Nah, I’m just kidding. … If that bum came out here on the stage now, I’d bite him on the neck. He’s a creep. …”
Mason’s lacerating jokes about Frank’s marriage to Mia inflamed Sinatra, who did not find references to his hair transplants and elevator shoes funny. Nor was he amused when the comic talked about the couple’s nightly ritual: “Frank soaks his dentures and Mia brushes her braces … then she takes off her roller skates and puts them next to his cane … he peels off his toupee and she unbraids her hair.…”
The next day, the comedian said he received an anonymous call threatening his life if he continued making such jokes, but he did not alter his act or change his material. Six days later, an armed assailant climbed onto the patio of his hotel room in Las Vegas and fired three bullets, which shattered a glass door and lodged in the mattress of his bed.
“I told the police that Sinatra’s people had been calling me and telling me to lay off,” said Mason, who was convinced that someone was trying to kill him. “Maybe it was some kook who wanted to impress Frank.”
The Clark County sheriffs office in Las Vegas investigated, but closed the case two days later, saying that despite the evidence of the three pistol shots, there was no motivation for the shooting.
“I knew that Sinatra owned Las Vegas when the detectives there made me the prime suspect and asked that I take a lie detector test,” Mason said.
Three months later, Mason appeared in Miami at the Saxony at the same time Frank was appearing at the Fontainebleau. Mason continued telling his Sinatra jokes and related what had happened to him in Las Vegas. “I have no idea who it was who tried to shoot me.… After the shots were fired, all I heard was someone singing: ‘Doobie, doobie, doo.’