Frank_ The Voice Part 13

It was a long, slow climb back toward civility, beginning with a week of silent penance and followed by a full floral offensive, bouquet after gigantic bouquet, all of which she loftily ignored. Frank stayed uncharacteristically close to home in the beginning of 1946, not even venturing into the recording studio until early February, then bringing Nancy, as tribute, a test pressing of one of the day's four cuts, a sappy something called "One Love" ("How sweet the way you play upon my heartstrings/How strange when you're away, you give my heart wings").

She ignored him, but she didn't smash the record.

Maybe she should have. At this point in his career, Sinatra was doing what he would continue to do until the end of the line: look for hits. But this process was dicey, subject as the singer was to the whims of the marketplace and the tenor of the times. And in those days the times were tricky. The mid-1940s brought two paradoxical trends to American music: the rise of the singer at the expense of the big bands, and the decline of popular songwriting. Frank himself had much to do with the former,1 but was powerless to change the latter. Times change; tastes change: the war's end had brought a kind of giddiness to the American zeitgeist, the result of post-traumatic stress and new fears. The longing wartime ballads that had made Sinatra's reputation were suddenly uncongenial to the national ear. Cheesy novelty numbers began to pop up like toadstools after a rainstorm. Kern and Gershwin were dead. Berlin and Porter were writing almost exclusively for Broadway, and while musicals continued to be a rich vein of material, the days of Tin Pan Alley cranking out lovely tunes that went straight to sheet music, records, and radio were swiftly coming to a close. but was powerless to change the latter. Times change; tastes change: the war's end had brought a kind of giddiness to the American zeitgeist, the result of post-traumatic stress and new fears. The longing wartime ballads that had made Sinatra's reputation were suddenly uncongenial to the national ear. Cheesy novelty numbers began to pop up like toadstools after a rainstorm. Kern and Gershwin were dead. Berlin and Porter were writing almost exclusively for Broadway, and while musicals continued to be a rich vein of material, the days of Tin Pan Alley cranking out lovely tunes that went straight to sheet music, records, and radio were swiftly coming to a close.

Astonishing as it may be to think about today, the idea of the standard-the great and lasting popular song, from the hands of one of the above-mentioned geniuses, or others such as Harold Arlen, Harry Warren, and Hoagy Carmichael-didn't really exist at the end of World War II. There was just a lot of music out there: great songs, good songs, fair songs, and poor songs, among which not even a great artist like Sinatra could always be depended on to navigate reliably.

He got an early leg up from a man who would become a romantic rival (and probably because of this, a Sinatra hater till the end of his life): Artie Shaw. Early in his career, the mercurial, intellectually arrogant clarinetist and bandleader hit on a simple but brilliant notion. "As Shaw put it," Will Friedwald writes, "the idea was to take the best possible songs and orchestrate them in the best possible way." With this guideline in mind, Shaw resurrected great (but incredibly enough, lightly dust-coated) tunes such as Porter's "Begin the Beguine," Kern's "All the Things You Are," and Gershwin's "The Man I Love" and made huge hit records of them.

Sinatra had ears, and he heard.

Also starting in the early 1940s, Sammy Cahn began scouting for him. "I take great pride in the fact that I introduced Frank to a lot of the great, great songs," he told Friedwald. He would continue to do so throughout their long professional relationship. But Frank was a lightning-fast learner, and the two geniuses behind his first alb.u.m, which was issued in March 1946 and consisted almost entirely of what would come to be called standards, were Sinatra himself and the warm businessman Manie Sacks.

As previously noted, Frank recorded prodigiously in 1945. He committed to disc "Where or When" and "All the Things You Are" and "If I Loved You," and he also recorded "Mighty Lak' a Rose" and "Lily Belle" and "My Shawl," as well as a couple of dozen other mostly forgotten tunes. Yet in two sessions-one on July 30 in Hollywood, one on December 7 in New York-he recorded eight numbers, six of which were masterpieces of songwriting, and these eight songs became the four discs of Columbia Set C-112, The Voice of Frank Sinatra The Voice of Frank Sinatra. It was not only Frank's first alb.u.m but also the first thematic alb.u.m of popular music available to the American public.2 It was a time when Frank Sinatra's singing could be heard profusely, on the radio or in live performance or on sh.e.l.lac 78-rpm discs; yet it was also a time when the very notion of a Frank Sinatra alb.u.m-indeed, of a phonograph alb.u.m period-was new and exotic. An alb.u.m alb.u.m was what you put stamps or family photos or b.u.t.terflies in. Yet now you could buy a wide, flat, heavy box with four records inside, with Sinatra's curly-haired, red-bow-tied, grinning image on the 1940s-Moderne cover (dancing white, yellow, and black ellipses on a field of teal; a hint of Miro and Calder), selling for the not inconsiderable retail price of $2.50, the equivalent of $30 today. And the people bought it. By the tens of thousands. Canny businessman that he was, Sacks had paid attention to Frank's masterly (and unprecedented) notion of a musical self-portrait. He had put a new and irresistible product in a new and irresistible package, raising the price but also raising the game. In a very real way, Frank and Manie, together, had reinvented Sinatra. was what you put stamps or family photos or b.u.t.terflies in. Yet now you could buy a wide, flat, heavy box with four records inside, with Sinatra's curly-haired, red-bow-tied, grinning image on the 1940s-Moderne cover (dancing white, yellow, and black ellipses on a field of teal; a hint of Miro and Calder), selling for the not inconsiderable retail price of $2.50, the equivalent of $30 today. And the people bought it. By the tens of thousands. Canny businessman that he was, Sacks had paid attention to Frank's masterly (and unprecedented) notion of a musical self-portrait. He had put a new and irresistible product in a new and irresistible package, raising the price but also raising the game. In a very real way, Frank and Manie, together, had reinvented Sinatra.

The bobby-soxers could keep swooning over their fifty-cent discs of "One Love" or "I Dream of You"; but here was a box of music for grown-ups. The theme was adult love: J. Fred Coots and Haven Gillespie's "You Go to My Head"; George and Ira Gershwin's "Someone to Watch over Me"; Strachey, Link, and Marvell's "These Foolish Things"; Cole Porter's "Why Shouldn't I?"; Woods, Campbell, and Connelly's hymn to barefoot and pregnant, "Try a Little Tenderness"; Victor Young, Ned Washington, and Bing Crosby's "(I Don't Stand) A Ghost of a Chance."

The nod to Crosby was intentional. Bing had made hit recordings of "Ghost of a Chance" and "Tenderness" in the 1930s, and had also been first with "Paradise." He was still number 1 on the charts to Sinatra's number 2. Frank was paying tribute, but he was also throwing down the gauntlet. He was Pica.s.so to the older singer's Matisse, coming on fast and strong.

And the market responded. Just over two weeks after The Voice The Voice's release on March 4, it entered the Billboard Billboard Top 5 chart, and soon it hit number 1, a position it would hold for seven weeks. The alb.u.m simply exploded onto the American consciousness, fixing Sinatra's reputation as not merely a crooner but a Top 5 chart, and soon it hit number 1, a position it would hold for seven weeks. The alb.u.m simply exploded onto the American consciousness, fixing Sinatra's reputation as not merely a crooner but a singer singer. "I was working in a record store," recalled the music publisher Frank Military, "and Dean Martin came in every day to see me. And one day The Voice The Voice alb.u.m came in, and it sold like hotcakes. I didn't know Frank, and Dean didn't know Frank, but the two of us just sat there listening to all four 78s over and over." alb.u.m came in, and it sold like hotcakes. I didn't know Frank, and Dean didn't know Frank, but the two of us just sat there listening to all four 78s over and over."

They were something to hear. Sinatra had purposely chosen the July 30 and December 7 sessions not just because they contained great songs but because of their beautifully spare settings: in each case, a nine-piece string, woodwind, and rhythm ensemble highlighted his voice perfectly. These small-group tracks sounded brand-new and special. Even the two lesser numbers, "I Don't Know Why," of fateful Paramount memory-music to get egged by-and "Paradise," were quietly ravishing, in the former case because of George Van Eps's restrained and lyrical guitar work, and in the latter because of Mitch Miller's sublime oboe.

The singing was exquisitely tender and exact and a.s.sured and, most important, it was Sinatra Sinatra. At thirty, he had cast off all influences and become, completely, himself. If he had ever sounded like Bing, he didn't anymore. If he had ever wanted to be be Bing, he didn't anymore. And he wasn't Frankie anymore, either. Now he was just Frank. Bing, he didn't anymore. And he wasn't Frankie anymore, either. Now he was just Frank.

Three days after the release of The Voice The Voice, Sinatra, along with the producer Frank Ross and the co-producer and director Mervyn LeRoy, attended the Oscar ceremonies at Grauman's Chinese Theatre, where they received their special Academy Awards for The House I Live In The House I Live In. Nancy accompanied her husband. A photo taken of them afterward at Ciro's shows them together like the cutest couple in Hollywood. Frank is in black tie; Nancy is wearing a strapless evening gown. Her hair is up; she wears a pearl choker; her creamy decolletage is lovely to behold. She is a beautiful young woman; he is a handsome young man. Their shoulders are touching.

And yet it is a strange picture: The two of them seem both intimate and distant. Frank is ardently admiring his Oscar; Nancy is smiling at someone across the table. A real couple sitting this close would be holding hands, or at least touching fingers. Yet he holds the statuette in his left hand, and rests his right, with its big pinkie ring, on the table, almost willfully distant from her. Nancy's left hand, the one closest to Frank, also lies awkwardly on the table. And on her left wrist is what looks very much like a diamond bracelet.

What goes on behind any couple's bedroom door is one of the great mysteries, but history can say with some certainty that he was outside that door for several weeks after New Year's, and then, one night, he was back in again. There were conditions, there were strictures and continued reproaches, but he was back in again.

Did she believe him? Naturally she wanted to; at the same time, she wasn't a fool. She knew that their life as a couple was anything but simple. Yet she needed his promises, not merely to hear the words, but for the sake of her dignity. She needed Frank to remember that he had made this commitment-that whatever he did elsewhere, he would be thinking about her.

As spring lit Hollywood in a blaze of jacarandas and azaleas, Sinatra was making movies again, once more commuting to Culver City. First there was a cameo in a Jerome Kern biopic, Till the Clouds Roll By Till the Clouds Roll By. At Mr. Mayer's behest, Frank sang "Ol' Man River" in a white suit, white bow tie, and white shoes, surrounded by a forty-piece (white) orchestra similarly attired. (The critics would justifiably kill him for it, but it really wasn't his fault. And the performance was magnificent.) There was also a new picture, a musical called It Happened in Brooklyn It Happened in Brooklyn. Frank was to play an Army vet (if the Duke could play soldier, so could he) named Danny Miller, returning from the war to find that the Brooklyn he'd lovingly obsessed about while overseas was not quite as he remembered. Jimmy Durante and Kathryn Grayson were to co-star, as well as-a nice surprise-his new pal Peter Lawford, portraying a sensitive young English composer named Jamie Sh.e.l.lgrove. (Of course course he was a poofter. How could he not be a poofter with a name like Jamie Sh.e.l.lgrove?) Princ.i.p.al photography on the film began on the MGM back lot in March; in June, the company would travel to New York City for location work. he was a poofter. How could he not be a poofter with a name like Jamie Sh.e.l.lgrove?) Princ.i.p.al photography on the film began on the MGM back lot in March; in June, the company would travel to New York City for location work.

But in the meantime, there was the Metro lot, with its deeply shaded alleys between soundstages and sunstruck fake Main Streets and phony city blocks and its commissary and dressing rooms, and its many actresses-stars and supporting players and extras-every one of them beautiful, every one of them wanting him.

And he, of course, wanted them.

He saw her her, Marvelous, on his first day back, walking across a knife-edge of shadow between buildings, her hair like the sun. They shook hands, just shook hands (pa.s.sersby were watching them carefully, pretending not to). Frank suddenly remembered, just for a second, his promise that he would never speak to her again. But as his palm touched hers, her perfume, that perfume, made his brain turn over.

She smiled brightly and told him she was divorcing her husband. She would be free at last.

He smiled back. People were watching.

She didn't give a d.a.m.n who was watching. She was going to be free at last. Did he want her?

He took a deep breath, inhaling her perfume.

More than anything.

Not three minutes later, turning a corner on his way to his dressing room, he came upon Lana, walking out of a soundstage in horn-rimmed sungla.s.ses, dictating something to a secretary who followed her attentively. Lana saw him, and waved a dismissive hand to the secretary.

She looked at him and lowered her gla.s.ses, smiling.

And there were others, too, of course.

On March 7, 1946, United Press put a story on the wires about a forty-five-year-old New York construction-company executive, one Sven Ingildsen, who had filed a cross complaint in state supreme court to the separation action brought by his twenty-year-old wife, Josephine. "The day after our marriage, my wife told me she simply had to see Frank Sinatra, the singer, alone-both at the theater where he was appearing and in his apartment at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel," Ingildsen's pet.i.tion stated. "I objected emphatically. She replied that she knew him and his wife and that it would only be for a short visit and she would return in no time."

Frank Sinatra's wife was, of course, in Los Angeles. And newlywed Josephine Ingildsen (the report said) didn't return home to her husband until 5:00 a.m.

"If I had as many love affairs as you've given me credit for," Frank would tell reporters many years later, "I'd now be speaking to you from a jar in Harvard Medical School." It was a great quote, a true Sinatra quote, poetry down to the deliciously absurd image, the inner rhyme of "jar" and "Harvard"-except that it was an evasion. No, it was more than an evasion, it was the Big Lie. "Love affairs" was more than a euphemism, but less than the truth: Love was always what it was about, and never quite what it was really about. Love was the fleeting ideal, the thing to be sung about, to be dreamed of while he zipped his trousers on his way from one conquest to the next. In truth, there were probably even more affairs than the hundreds he'd been given credit for. For there always had to be someone. His loneliness was bottomless, but there was always someone to try to help him find the bottom.

At the end of March, Sinatra set out on a cross-country concert tour. He would play San Francisco, Philadelphia, Detroit, New York, and Chicago through June, then return to the Coast and perform at the Hollywood Bowl in August. Location work on It Happened in Brooklyn It Happened in Brooklyn would proceed while he was in New York. Marilyn had planned a trip to Manhattan for early June, to clear her head and buy some clothes: they could spend days together, discussing the future. would proceed while he was in New York. Marilyn had planned a trip to Manhattan for early June, to clear her head and buy some clothes: they could spend days together, discussing the future.

Lana, as it turned out, was also going to be in New York, for the premiere of her big new picture, The Postman Always Rings Twice The Postman Always Rings Twice. In her career-defining role, she played a scheming adulteress to such sizzling perfection that MGM insisted her character dress all in white to mute the impression.

The concert tour was a huge success. Sinatra was at the zenith of his popularity. Anchors Aweigh Anchors Aweigh had made him a major movie star; had made him a major movie star; The House I Live In The House I Live In had made him the national voice of tolerance. In between concerts, he commuted back to Los Angeles for the weekly broadcast of his new radio show, had made him the national voice of tolerance. In between concerts, he commuted back to Los Angeles for the weekly broadcast of his new radio show, Old Gold Presents Songs by Sinatra Old Gold Presents Songs by Sinatra. Era-appropriate cigarette hawking aside ("Yes, light an Old Gold for cigarette comfort and pleasure! The comfort of extra protection against cigarette dryness, the pleasure of luxurious extra flavor!"), the show was cla.s.sy-and all-Sinatra-from start to finish. He opened each program with a soulful version of "Night and Day," slightly slowed to make it more a concert piece than a dance number. The new tempo was a powerful statement, telling the world he'd now taken full ownership of the gorgeous song whose lyrics he'd fluffed before its composer just seven years earlier at the Rustic Cabin. Frank closed each broadcast with his lovely signature tune "Put Your Dreams Away." "Sinatra," Friedwald writes, "featured songs for the ages as often as he did the best new numbers and his own hits, and even devoted whole programs to the works of Jerome Kern, Johnny Mercer, Irving Berlin, and their peers."

The new alb.u.m affirmed his dominance. The week he played the Golden Gate Theatre in San Francisco (along with the Pied Pipers, who had left Dorsey and become a hit act on their own) was the same week The Voice of Frank Sinatra The Voice of Frank Sinatra began its ascent to number 1 on the began its ascent to number 1 on the Billboard Billboard charts. The crowds swelled. In Philadelphia, he played to a house of ten thousand at the Convention Hall (the acoustics were beside the point). And in Detroit, the ma.s.s-steria was such that even his new friends at the Federal Bureau of Investigation took notice. When Sinatra arrived in the Motor City on May 8, no less a personage than Louis B. Nichols, one of J. Edgar Hoover's top aides, went to observe the goings-on. A few days later, the stunned G-man wrote a memo to the director: charts. The crowds swelled. In Philadelphia, he played to a house of ten thousand at the Convention Hall (the acoustics were beside the point). And in Detroit, the ma.s.s-steria was such that even his new friends at the Federal Bureau of Investigation took notice. When Sinatra arrived in the Motor City on May 8, no less a personage than Louis B. Nichols, one of J. Edgar Hoover's top aides, went to observe the goings-on. A few days later, the stunned G-man wrote a memo to the director: As a symptom of the state of mind of many young people I wish to call to your attention the following incident that occurred in Detroit on last Wednesday.Frank Sinatra arrived in Detroit around midnight and a group of bobby soxers were waiting for him at the airfield. He eluded them and they then congregated at the stage door of the Downtown Theater where he was scheduled to give his first performance around 10:00 a.m. on Thursday morning. The line started forming at around 2:00 a.m. The police started challenging girls who appeared to be under 16 and tried to send them home. However, I have been told, there was a long line of mere kids, many of whom carried their lunches, and they remained in line until the theater opened. Truant Officers started checking the lines early in the morning and were berated by the girls. There was widespread indignation on the part of numerous individuals that I came in contact with and a severe indictment [by] parents of the girls. One individual went so far as to state that Sinatra should be lynched.

Hoover was impressed. "Sinatra is as much to blame as the moronic bobby-soxers," he scrawled across the bottom of the memo.

At the Chicago Theatre later that month, the singer was paid $41,000-the equivalent of almost $450,000 now-for his week's work. And in New York, the Paramount wasn't big enough for him anymore. This time Sinatra was booked at Madison Square Garden, which could hold close to twenty-five thousand. The sight lines were miserable, especially from the cheap seats, and since smoking was allowed, a thick blue haze tended to gather in the balconies. In between coughing fits, the patrons in the upper rows would have barely been able to make out the tiny figure on the stage. The sound system was awful. But it was Sinatra!

He began location work for It Happened in Brooklyn It Happened in Brooklyn, in Brooklyn. d.i.c.kie Whorf quickly discovered that it was one thing to direct a New Year's Eve show at Frank's house and quite another thing to direct him in a movie. Others were learning what Manie Sacks had learned, to his sorrow. Whorf, a darkly handsome, easygoing New Englander, was a man Frank liked, but the star tested the young director's patience to the limit. As Sinatra had discovered on Anchors Aweigh Anchors Aweigh, being on a movie set made him anxious and panicky. He would leave at the slightest excuse-or simply not show up. "I got a break when we were starting this new picture in New York," he said later. "We were shooting on the Brooklyn Bridge. We'd get out there in the morning and there'd be fog, so I wouldn't have to work all day."

There were many distractions, but chiefly there was Marilyn Maxwell. All his cronies knew about Marvelous-in fact, most of New York knew. Certainly the staff at the Waldorf-Astoria were aware. She and Frank spent a lot of time in his suite, and when they went out, they were seen dining and dancing at all the right places. Marilyn visited him frequently on the set in Brooklyn, sometimes spiriting him away.

An MGM production memo for July 7: Company had early call, stood by until 1:00 P.M., then called Sinatra to be ready at 3:15 P.M., sent car for him but could not locate him. Sinatra never came. Waited until 5:50 P.M. at doubletime on crew.

The crew rolled their eyes. His pals rolled their eyes. Sinatra was walking on air.

Toots Shor finally put his foot down when Frank said he'd be bringing Marilyn to the t.i.tle bout between Billy Conn and Joe Louis at Yankee Stadium. For one thing, the fights were by definition masculine territory. When and if a lady came along, it was a big deal. All that pale flesh and perfume tended to attract attention around the ring. Especially if the lady happened to be the knockout date of a famous man with a wife.

Toots Shor was not amused at the prospect of seeing Marilyn Maxwell on Sinatra's arm smack in the middle of Yankee Stadium-not least because he planned on bringing Mrs. Toots to the fight. The presence of Frank's date would be insulting to the missus, to the inst.i.tution of marriage itself. Not to mention the fact that the big rematch between Conn and Louis was to be televised, one of the first major sporting events ever to appear on the magic box. Thousands would be watching. But when Shor told Sinatra, in all gruff seriousness, that the only woman Sinatra could ever think about bringing was Mrs. Sinatra, the crumb b.u.m looked at him and winked. Winked!

Toots shouldn't worry a bit-Marvelous would behave herself.

It was an impossible situation. So Toots called Manie, and Manie, having more or less given up on talking Frank out of irrational behavior, called Evans. Evans took a big gulp from the bottle of Maalox he kept handy in a desk drawer.

His client's life was rapidly heading for trouble. During the last year Sinatra had been Mr. Humanitarian, grabbing awards, neatly sidestepping the gossip. But Sinatra was Sinatra. There was just too much blatant misbehavior. Evans could only outflank the gossips for so long. The publicist had done his best and then hoped for the best, always a bad strategy. With Sinatra, the worst could always be counted on. "Frank was born to be a star," he once mused to a reporter. "But he was also born to be a controversial figure, and a star and controversial figure he will remain until the day he dies."

Evans knew about the production delays on It Happened in Brooklyn: It Happened in Brooklyn: the no-shows, the tantrums, the running battle with Jimmy Durante, the nicest man in the world. Sick of being stood up by Sinatra when the cameras were ready to roll, Durante had taken to disappearing himself. Whorf was looking gray faced. And Evans knew more than he wanted to know about Marilyn Maxwell. the no-shows, the tantrums, the running battle with Jimmy Durante, the nicest man in the world. Sick of being stood up by Sinatra when the cameras were ready to roll, Durante had taken to disappearing himself. Whorf was looking gray faced. And Evans knew more than he wanted to know about Marilyn Maxwell.

Drastic measures were called for. The publicist phoned Maxwell at her hotel and came straight to the point. She had a morals clause in her MGM contract. Frank was a married man. Her own divorce was not yet final. Did he have to spell it all out for her?

She began to weep. He was being terrible.

Evans spoke gently but firmly. This was a terrible situation. A marriage was in jeopardy, and the emotional stability of two small children at stake. A little girl going into the first grade. A little boy waiting for his daddy to come home.

She wailed over the phone.

But she was the one who could make it all right. Marilyn could walk away and face the world with her head held high.

Frank called her an hour later and got the full waterworks. When he was finally able to make sense of what she was saying, he understood that they were not going to be able to see each other anymore. He didn't sound quite as devastated as she would have hoped. They'd figure it all out somehow. That was when she knew it was all over.

He went to the fight anyway on Wednesday night, with Mr. and Mrs. Toots and Marlene Dietrich and Joe DiMaggio. An odd couple indeed: Dietrich was thirteen years older than the Clipper and not his type at all (who was?), but there they were together, taking the evening toward its inevitable conclusion. (Later he would report, unchivalrously, that she had bad breath.) DiMag got the expected reaction at Yankee Stadium, a hero in his first season back from the war, rusty after the break but a hero anyway. Sinatra didn't mind a bit. (He was glad he hadn't had to take a break-he might've gotten worse than rusty. He might've gotten dead.) Nor did Frank mind being the fifth wheel: he was in oddly cheery spirits that night. He and Marlene exchanged wry looks while Joe, breathing through his mouth the way he did, gazed at the other Joe, the Brown Bomber, beating up Conn in the blinding white arc lights.

Later that night Frank called up Lana, who had stayed in town after the premiere of Postman Postman. She was delighted to hear from him.

There were still other distractions that summer. Sinatra's quickly burgeoning FBI file reads: "The New York Office was advised by Frances Duffy, clerk of the Local Selective Service Board #180, New York City, that she resides at 424 Second Street, Brooklyn, New York, in a home owned by Mrs. Mary Fischetti. Miss Duffy stated that Sinatra, accompanied by Charles Fischetti, visited the home of [Fischetti's] mother and spent the evening there in about June of 1946."

The whole scene is sweetly absurd: Miss Duffy, the timid clerk at the Local Selective Service Board, renter of a small apartment (cat, crucifixes, lace doilies) in the brownstone of kindly widow Fischetti on quiet, tree-lined Second Street in Park Slope, had clearly seen Charles Fischetti before, and was clearly of a suspicious turn of mind. Though the silver-haired gent liked to pose as an art collector and sometimes introduced himself as Dr. Fisher, he was in fact a gangster, also known as Trigger Happy or, among friends, Prince Charlie. He was the oldest and most distinguished-looking of the crooked Fischetti brothers (the others were Rocco, three years younger, and Joe, the baby of the family). First cousins to Al Capone, the Fischettis had worked as Scarface's bodyguards during Prohibition and were now highly placed crooks in Chicago. They wintered in Miami, in a beautiful mansion in the exclusive enclave of Allison Island. There seemed no reason for Sinatra to have spent an evening with Charles Fischetti and Fischetti's mother in June 1946, when he was in the midst of shooting a movie.

As you might imagine, there is no dearth of speculation on the subject. Some sources mention darkly that the Sinatras had neighbors named Fischetti back in the cold-water-flat days, and that Frank was friends with one of the Fischetti children. In fact, census records tell us that there were Fischettis on Monroe Street in the 1920s, two large families of them, and that the heads of both households were in what was then called the junk business-waste management.

But a lot of Italian immigrants were in the junk business in the 1920s, and certainly not all of them were criminals. Moreover, Fischetti was a reasonably common surname (as, for that matter, was Sinatra). Maybe the Hoboken Fischettis were related to the Chicago Fischettis; maybe not.

Here's a wild hypothesis: What if Charlie Fischetti, having recently been introduced by his old pal Willie Moretti to Willie's pal Sinatra, was simply bringing Frank Sinatra over that night to impress his mom?

On the other hand, there is reason to believe that Prince Charlie had a small request to make of Sinatra that evening. And in truth, from here on, the Fischettis would begin to stick to Sinatra in increasingly disconcerting ways. In August 1946, according to the FBI, which was keeping a close eye on the brothers,3 Charlie and Joe contacted Sinatra to ask him to get them hotel reservations in New York-probably at the Waldorf-so they could attend the ArmyNotre Dame game at Yankee Stadium, a much-antic.i.p.ated matchup between two football t.i.tans. (No doubt Charlie and Joe had a financial interest in the game; no doubt they were unpleasantly surprised by the final score: 00.) Sinatra got them deluxe suites. In grat.i.tude, the boys sent him two dozen custom-made shirts. Charlie and Joe contacted Sinatra to ask him to get them hotel reservations in New York-probably at the Waldorf-so they could attend the ArmyNotre Dame game at Yankee Stadium, a much-antic.i.p.ated matchup between two football t.i.tans. (No doubt Charlie and Joe had a financial interest in the game; no doubt they were unpleasantly surprised by the final score: 00.) Sinatra got them deluxe suites. In grat.i.tude, the boys sent him two dozen custom-made shirts.

The incident sounds innocuous, but it would have been remarkable if some of the table talk between Frank and Charlie that summer and fall hadn't concerned Benny Siegel. If, as seems likely, Sinatra had confessed his admiration for the Bug, Fischetti probably would have demurred.

That was a horse Frank might not want to bet on. Benny had been a naughty boy.

The specific complaint concerned funds forwarded to Siegel by Meyer Lansky for the specific purpose of building the Flamingo Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas. The word filtering back to the Mob was that of every dollar Benny had received-and the sum now ran well into the millions-he was forwarding (via a courier, his girlfriend Virginia Hill) a significant portion to his private bank account in Switzerland. In casino terminology, this is known as the skim. In reality, Bugsy Siegel was nothing like the semi-saintly visionary Warren Beatty played in the movies: in reality, Siegel's gruesome slaughter of his fellow gangster Louis Amberg was just another day's work, and the dream of a great Hollywood-style hotel-casino in the desert was not even his. The true visionary was Billy Wilkerson, founder of the Hollywood Reporter Hollywood Reporter, Ciro's, and Trocadero-not to mention the discoverer of Lana Turner. Soon after Wilkerson began erecting the Flamingo, he had made the mistake of running low on funds. Back east, Lansky, who missed nothing, saw an opportunity to muscle in. He called his old Lower East Side landsman Benny Siegel and asked if Benny might be interested in a major stake in a casino. It took some convincing-Benny was happy living the high life in Hollywood. Now he was not only racking up enormous cost overruns with outlandish construction add-ons but also blatantly stealing from the heads of the Mob. He had come by his nickname rightly.

The Varsity-or a portion thereof. Frank rides on Toots Shor's back while Rags Ragland looks on adoringly. Jule Styne is directly to Shor's left. September 1944. (photo credit 18.2) (photo credit 18.2) Hearing the inside story for the first time, Sinatra whistled softly and looked at the bankerly Fischetti with fresh admiration. Where the Boys were concerned, Frank was always admiring: he just couldn't help himself.

19.

Serious trouble. Frank dances with Lana Turner, with his very visible wedding ring giving the world quite a mixed message. June 1946. (photo credit 19.1) (photo credit 19.1) In the meantime, there was Lana. As much as Frank had loved Marilyn, it seemed to him in the late summer of 1946 that he was twice as crazy about Lana Turner. Later he would tell Hedda Hopper, "I haven't much to say in my defense except that I was in a terrible state of mental confusion." A nightclub photograph from the period confirms this. The picture shows Sinatra and Turner dancing close, Lana in a polka-dot blouse, her lush blond hair pulled up into elaborate whirls and topped with a kind of snood. She's smiling happily. Frank, in a gray suit with white pocket square, looks ecstatic. There are thousands of pictures of Sinatra smiling, but extremely few in which he's grinning with such complete lack of restraint. Eyes slit with pleasure, he looks like an eleven-year-old at his birthday party. His left hand is clasped tightly with Lana's right, and there on the fourth finger, for the photographer and all the rest of the world (including Nancy) to see, is his wedding band.

What was he thinking? Clearly, he wasn't thinking. He'd come back to L.A. in the middle of July and flown straight into Lana's arms. "Sinatra arrived from New York but reported he was ill and didn't work," the production memo of July 17 reported. On the other hand, perhaps he really was exhausted. Besides singing concerts, intermittently shooting a movie, making speeches, attending prizefights and ball games, rubbing elbows with mafiosi, and s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g around, Frank was recording at a blistering rate: five sessions and eighteen songs since February. After July he would pick up the pace. He was still in wonderful voice when he recorded "Begin the Beguine" and "How Deep Is the Ocean?" but, interestingly, the two versions he recorded of Rodgers and Hammerstein's great "Soliloquy" from Carousel Carousel, while pleasantly sung, don't really do justice to the material.

Maybe he just hadn't enough sense yet of what it meant to be a father. When I think of all the family affairs and events I would miss over the years because I was on the road... When I think of all the family affairs and events I would miss over the years because I was on the road...

Even when he was at home, he was on the road.

On August 20, Rags Ragland died. The cause was acute kidney failure, after, according to Earl Wilson, "an over-festive vacation in Mexico." Given the state of medicine in those days, who knows? In any case, the death was tragically premature: the hulking comic was three days shy of his forty-first birthday. His sudden demise came as a ma.s.sive shock to Frank, who stood vigil at Ragland's hospital bedside along with Rags's old Minsky's Burlesque partner Phil Silvers. It was the first time Frank had witnessed the death of a close friend and near contemporary.

Among the deceased's possessions was a gold Cartier cigarette case, engraved TO RAGS FROM RICHES.

Sinatra sang at the funeral with tears in his eyes, as much for himself as for his friend: the absolute injustice and indignity of it all made him furious. With few exceptions after that, Frank resolutely avoided hospitals and funerals. Not only were illness and death unpleasant to witness, but they might also be contagious.1 You get word before the show has started That your favorite uncle died at dawn.-Irving Berlin, "There's No Business Like Show Business"

Two days later, Frank was back in the CBS studio, recording four numbers, including "There's No Business Like Show Business." His rendition is game enough, but overall-quite understandably-shockingly dispirited: it sounds as though Stordahl's sprightly thirty-five-piece orchestra, plus the male chorus, is carrying all 127 pounds of the singer.

That was Thursday. On Monday morning, Frank was on the set at Culver City, but he was just phoning it in. It wasn't just the thought of Rags. Phil Silvers was calling every few hours, sounding desperate. Several weeks before, the comic had snagged a plum booking: the Copacabana, his first time. The problem was that the Copa had signed Silvers and Rags Ragland as a team.

Silvers telephoned Jules Podell the day after Rags's death to explain that he couldn't possibly make the booking, and-not entirely to the comic's surprise-Podell informed him, in terms both blunt and obscene, that Silvers would go on solo or he could forget about the Copacabana forever.

Playing the Copa was a career maker; banishment could have the opposite effect. But Silvers wasn't a solo. He was a top banana, and a top banana needed a stooge. Could Frank help him out? Phil didn't have to mention the beautiful music the two of them had made together playing exactly those roles on last year's USO tour-the tour that, thanks largely to Phil, had rescued Frank's reputation among thousands of GIs. On the other hand, you couldn't call in favors with Sinatra. When the comic pleaded, again and again, for the singer to step into the breach, Frank was glum. He hated being put on the spot; he hated not being able to be magnanimous. "I'd come in, but I can't leave the picture," he said.

It wasn't as if he hadn't left it plenty of times already, but that was just the problem. It was one thing to displease d.i.c.kie Whorf and Jimmy Durante and Kathryn Grayson; it was something else to displease L. B. Mayer. Now that Sinatra was back on the Coast, the Chief had called him in to his office, to discuss many things, including Frank's absences.

Going to Mayer's office was like being summoned by the princ.i.p.al, and then some. It could mean a lecture on any subject at all. First Frank had to face the boss's a.s.sistant Ida Koverman, a former secretary to Herbert Hoover and a formidable presence in her own right. Ida would welcome Sinatra briskly, send him into an antechamber, and close the door behind him. There was a moment of claustrophobic panic-then Ida pushed a b.u.t.ton that opened the door to Mayer's office, revealing a long, long room, the little mogul behind his huge desk at the other end. The desk was on a platform, so that the Chief loomed above all visitors: from his side of the desk, Frank could see LB's feet, not quite reaching the ground.

His tone with Frank this time was warm and fatherly. But the message was clear: behave. We are a family. Families pull together We are a family. Families pull together.

Then Labor Day weekend came. The cast and crew were given both Monday and Tuesday off for the holiday. Frank paced, then decided.

MGM production memo for Wednesday, September 4, 1946: Sinatra telephoned in to say he was ill but we were later informed that he had left for New York without permission.

Phil Silvers played the Copa dinner show solo on Thursday the fifth. He told jokes, made fun of the waiters, sang a few songs; the clink of tableware and the buzz of conversation were louder than the laughs. A waiter dropped a tray in the middle of a song. Silvers exited to polite applause. He sat in his dressing room, his bald dome still glistening with flop sweat. Like many comics, he was a gloomy, fearful man. This was what it came down to, he thought. You blew off the gig and got banned, or you just plain blew it and didn't get asked back.

Then there was a bustle outside, and the door popped open. It was Frank, grinning like a cat with a mouthful of canaries.

They sprang into action for the 10:00 p.m. show. Sinatra sat, as un.o.btrusively as possible, at a ringside table. Silvers marched out, reenergized, to the first few bars of "Fine and Dandy" and beamed at the audience.

"Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the world-famous Copacabana," he said. "And speaking of famous-turn on the house lights a minute, will ya? If there's anybody here tonight who's famous, I want to introduce them."

Up came the lights, the crowd clamoring at the sight of Sinatra. Silvers stared at the singer without comment. "Okay, turn down the lights," the comic said.