Frank_ The Voice Part 18

"It wasn't a very happy Christmas in 1948," Big Nancy recalled, "but it was the cutest card I'd ever seen." Cute, yes: the card was a cheery cartoon of a Christmas tree, with photos of the family members printed inside globe ornaments. Little Nancy and Frankie each occupied one of the upper globes; underneath, Big Nancy and baby Tina cuddled cozily inside one ornament, and Frank-all alone-grinned from another.

23.

Jimmy Van Heusen with Ava and Frank, early 1950s. (photo credit 23.1) (photo credit 23.1) Look at him! Who you got waitin' for ya in New York? Ava Gardner?-Jules Munshin, as Ozzie, to Gene Kelly's character, Gabey, in On the Town On the Town It hadn't been a very happy Christmas thanks to Frank's extreme emotional distance-an air of distraction that drifted in more and more often, like a fog bank, at which point he would simply walk out of the house to G.o.d knew where. Nancy finally admitted to herself that whatever he promised, whatever he bought her, he was never going to change. Out in the world, Sheilah and Hedda and Louella were stepping up the drumbeat about his affairs. Years later, Nancy junior wrote: One day while I was playing dress-up in Mom's dressing room, I climbed up on a chair to get a shoe box off a shelf and knocked to the floor a stack of magazines that Mom had hidden in her closet. I sat down in the midst of the pile. They were movie magazines like Photoplay Photoplay and and Modern Screen Modern Screen, and they were filled with pictures of Dad and...Mom and Frankie and Baby Tina and me. There were also pictures of Dad with other ladies. I remember Marilyn Maxwell and Lana Turner. I was devastated.

For a long time Frank's wife had shielded herself from the extent of his infidelities, but more and more she realized, with a sorrowful but hardened resignation, that just about everything she'd heard or imagined was true. He came and went as he pleased and did exactly what he wanted, with whomever he wanted. Nancy tried to busy herself with fixing up 320 North Carolwood, but there were times when she couldn't take it anymore. At those times she would phone George Evans and complain; Evans would listen sympathetically and tell her he'd talk to Frank. And he did talk to Frank, for all the good it did.

At a January engagement party for Mel Torme and the Columbia starlet Candy Toxton, Frank and Jimmy Van Heusen showed up uninvited (and in Frank's case, loaded). Sinatra was carrying a magnum of champagne wrapped in ribbon. "Here ya go, Mel. Happy Birthday," he said, handing the bottle to the younger singer-whose birthday had been in September-and calling loudly for the bride-to-be, on whom he apparently had a crush. "The moment Candy saw him walk in," Torme recalled, "she rushed up the stairs to my bedroom and locked herself in." Torme ran up the stairs, on the heels of Sinatra, who announced that he wanted to "wash up." He went into my bathroom, tried the door to my bedroom, found it locked, and began to bang on the door. Invited or not, he was a guest in my home, so I tried to reason with him...He tossed an expletive at me and continued to pound on the door. I heard Candy, inside my bedroom, say, in a small, rather sad voice, "Go away, Frank, please." Van Heusen, a true gent, shamefacedly came up the stairs and pried Frank away from the bedroom door."Come on, Frank. Let's go," he pleaded."No," Sinatra said sullenly. "Wanna see Candy."I gritted my teeth. I could now hear Candy crying in the bedroom. "Frank, I think you'd better get out of here," I said.Van Heusen tugged at his arm. "Yeah, he's right, pal. Let's go." Frank hesitated at the top of the stairs and gave me one hard look. Buddy Rich told me that Sinatra was able to handle himself pretty well, and I sure as h.e.l.l did not want to tangle with him.Frank stormed out of the house.

When he was drunk, which was more and more often these days, he was a law unto himself. Evans saw it happening and despaired, then he too grew resigned. Around this time, Earl Wilson ran into the publicist at the Copacabana: I found [him] in a grave mood. "I make a prediction," Evans said across the table in the lounge. "Frank is through. A year from now you won't hear anything about him.""Come on," I protested to the man who'd done more than anybody to make him famous."He'll be dead professionally," Evans said. "I've been around the country, looking and listening. They're not going to see his pictures. They're not buying his records. They don't care for Frank Sinatra anymore!""But you're the fellow that's supposed to whet up that yearning for him, aren't you?" I asked."I can't do it anymore," Evans said. "You know how much I've talked to him about the girls. The public knows about the trouble with Nancy, and the other dames, and it doesn't like him anymore.""I can't believe that," I said."In a year," Evans reiterated, "he'll be through."

In January, MGM celebrated its Silver Jubilee by gathering fifty-seven of its biggest stars, including La.s.sie, for a historic group photograph. There they sat (except for La.s.sie, who stood in front), in chairs arranged on bleachers on a soundstage, row on row of them, Tracy and Hepburn and Gable and Astaire and Garland and Durante and Errol Flynn, living proof that the great studio had, if not quite more stars than in the heavens, then at least more than anyone else. Wearing an unflattering light gray suit and looking oddly pallid (and distinctly balding), Sinatra sat at the far right in the second-to-last row, in between Ginger Rogers and Red Skelton (who had broken everyone up when he walked in, calling out, "Okay, kids, the part's taken, you can go home now"). Ava sat front and center in the second row, between Clark Gable and Judy Garland, strangely sedate in her blue suit and pearls and bright red lipstick. Her hands, clutching a pair of red gloves, lay demurely folded in her lap.

Appearances-as was always the case where the movies were concerned-were deceiving. As was the distance that separated Ava and Frank in the bleachers.

When she drove onto the studio lot that day, Gardner recalled, "a car sped past me, swung in front, and slowed down so much I had to pa.s.s it myself. The car overtook me again and repeated the process. Having done this about three times, the car finally pulled alongside me, the grinning driver raised his hat and sped away to the same photo session. That was Frank. He could even flirt in a car."

The first weeks of February saw an escalating series of transcontinental shouting matches between Sinatra and George Evans, who was increasingly exasperated with his most famous client. Evans, who had eyes and ears everywhere, knew about Ava. And by early 1949, the publicist was at his wits' end. When Frank wasn't yelling at him over the phone, Nancy was. She wanted George to do the impossible: Make him change. Bring him back.

Evans had worked wonders before, but in Ava Gardner he saw real trouble. He was sure she didn't care whose life she destroyed, whose home she wrecked. Evans had gotten a whiff of her heedlessness. "Do you suck?" she liked to ask strangers, when shaking hands for the first time. Lana Turner had been a different story: At least she cared about her career. There was leverage. Gardner cared about nothing except having a good time. She was that most dangerous of creatures, a gorgeous nihilist.

Frank, for his part, had made up his mind about her years before when he saw her on the cover of a movie magazine. "I'm going to marry that girl," he remarked to a friend-forgetting, for the moment, that he already was married. Now when Evans told him, over and over, that he couldn't have her, that she was bad news, that she would drag him and his career down, Sinatra reacted much as he had when Manie Sacks had informed him that he had to pay for his own arrangements-with complete outrage and absolute a.s.surance.

Despite Jack Keller's heroic efforts on Sinatra's behalf, Frank demanded that Evans fire his West Coast counterpart. The main problem was that while Keller was an energetic publicist, he lacked subservience. Jerry Lewis, who employed Keller for many years, laughed when he recalled the press agent's insolence: "I'd say, 'How come you didn't get my name in the paper this week?' And Jack would say, 'I kept it out, you putz.'" Keller's first reaction when Sinatra phoned from Indio at 3:00 a.m. to say "We're in trouble" had been: "How can I be in trouble when all night I've just been lying here in bed?"

Yet Evans steadfastly resisted firing Keller, who was really just the whipping boy: Frank's real beef was with George Evans. At the end of February, Sinatra finally called it quits with the man who, in many ways, had made him Sinatra.

In March, Take Me Out to the Ball Game Take Me Out to the Ball Game came out, to tepid reviews. "Don't be surprised," Crowther wrote, "if you see people getting up for a seventh-inning stretch." The movies were providing diminishing returns for Sinatra, but with not much else going on in his career, he needed that MGM paycheck. At the end of the month he got back into a sailor suit and began shooting came out, to tepid reviews. "Don't be surprised," Crowther wrote, "if you see people getting up for a seventh-inning stretch." The movies were providing diminishing returns for Sinatra, but with not much else going on in his career, he needed that MGM paycheck. At the end of the month he got back into a sailor suit and began shooting On the Town On the Town, with Gene Kelly, who was co-directing the film with Stanley Donen. For the first time on one of his movies with Sinatra, Kelly would get first billing. Not only were Frank's fortunes falling, but he was thirty-three, not so young in those days. The thinness that had once seemed so cute was now something more like gauntness: with age and trouble, his face was growing harder. "He just didn't seem comfortable with his looks," said Betty Garrett, who co-starred with him on both Ball Game Ball Game and and On the Town On the Town. MGM cosmeticians had to do extensive work on him every morning, augmenting his hairline, filling in his facial scars, even padding the posterior of his sailor pants to give a more pleasing contour to Sinatra's totally flat f.a.n.n.y.

Frank's discontent went well beyond the physical: The rift with Evans gnawed at him. He would impulsively reach for the phone to call George for advice, only to realize he had burned that bridge. The IRS was dunning him, big time, for back taxes, and Dolly was. .h.i.tting him up for money every time they talked. He was nervous, self-doubting, and cranky-sometimes his skin felt too tight. At a party in Palm Springs, he sucker punched a retired businessman named Jack Wintermeyer after Wintermeyer, who was acting as bartender, couldn't figure out how to make the drink Sinatra wanted.1 Frank only avoided a lawsuit by agreeing to say he was sorry-then reneged at the last moment by shaking hands without a word. "He just can't bear to apologize," wrote the Frank only avoided a lawsuit by agreeing to say he was sorry-then reneged at the last moment by shaking hands without a word. "He just can't bear to apologize," wrote the Los Angeles Examiner Los Angeles Examiner sports columnist Vincent X. Flaherty, who was present. "No matter what the cost-career, money, anything." sports columnist Vincent X. Flaherty, who was present. "No matter what the cost-career, money, anything."

Sinatra didn't like himself very much, and the world seemed to agree with him. In March, Down Beat Down Beat wrote, of a group of sides Frank had done with the Phil Moore Four, a jazz quartet, "They don't quite get the intimate between-you-and-me feel that was attempted and Frankie hits a few off-pitch ones to boot." He wasn't about to explain to wrote, of a group of sides Frank had done with the Phil Moore Four, a jazz quartet, "They don't quite get the intimate between-you-and-me feel that was attempted and Frankie hits a few off-pitch ones to boot." He wasn't about to explain to Down Beat Down Beat what kind of mood he was in these days. They could all go screw themselves. what kind of mood he was in these days. They could all go screw themselves.

At the end of May, he told Your Hit Parade Your Hit Parade to take a hike, issuing a statement decrying the material he had been forced to sing and the style in which he had been compelled to sing it. Yet Lucky Strike swallowed the insult and immediately went into negotiations with Frank's people to create a new broadcast. The new show, unambiguously t.i.tled to take a hike, issuing a statement decrying the material he had been forced to sing and the style in which he had been compelled to sing it. Yet Lucky Strike swallowed the insult and immediately went into negotiations with Frank's people to create a new broadcast. The new show, unambiguously t.i.tled Light Up Time Light Up Time, would debut in September. One thing about that Sinatra: he certainly sold cigarettes.

But not records. His latest alb.u.m, Frankly Sentimental Frankly Sentimental, released in June, completely failed to chart: a bad first. And while Sinatra's singles did far better than in the annus horribilis of 1948-they spent a total of fifty-nine weeks on the charts in 1949-not one record rose above number 6. Other singers, some of them on Columbia, were charting higher with the same songs Frank was recording. The big seller of 1949, on RCA Victor, was the soothing but insipid Perry Como song "A-You're Adorable" ("M, N, O, P, I could go on all day/Q, R, S, T, alphabetically speaking, you're OK"). It was perfect pabulum for the ma.s.ses in a nervous year: in August, the Soviet Union would confirm Americans' worst fears by testing its first A-bomb.

Frank was striving after an ideal impossible at that point in history: to succeed commercially and satisfy himself artistically. When he merely went for hits, he produced abominations like the pseudo-country "Sunflower" (whose melody would later reappear, unimproved, as "h.e.l.lo, Dolly"). When he let himself go, as he did in the three up-tempo numbers he recorded in a remarkable July session orchestrated by George Siravo and the great Sy Oliver ("It All Depends on You," "Bye Bye Baby," and "Don't Cry Joe"), the results were thrilling. Lacquer-disc safety copies of the Sunday-evening session (Sinatra always preferred recording at night-"The voice is better at night," he was fond of saying), transcribed and a.n.a.lyzed by the Sinatra musicologist Charles L. Granata, have preserved Frank's obsessive pursuit of artistic perfection in exquisite detail: The recording date is July 10, 1949. As the evening session gets underway at Columbia's cavernous 30th Street Studio, Sinatra, arranger Sy Oliver, and conductor Hugo Winterhalter are auditioning a second instrumental run-through of George Siravo's arrangement of "It All Depends on You." Tonight's date will be jazz-flavored, the orchestra really a big "band"-no strings. Amid the chatter and bustle on the studio floor, the vocalist, listening intently to a pa.s.sage by the bra.s.s section, feels that something is amiss..."I'd like to hear the introduction, with the muted bra.s.s," he instructs the conductor. The musicians comply, and the brief section is played for his approval. After hearing the pa.s.sage, Sinatra carefully instructs both the musicians and the engineers: "I'd like to get that as tight as we can. Trombones: you may have to turn around and face the microphone or something. I'd like to hear the six of you, as a unit," he says. The engineer brings down a microphone with two sides, to help capture the precise tonal quality that Sinatra desires. The section played through again, the singer continues. "Just once more, Hugo, and would you use less volume in the reeds, with the clarinet lead? And would you play it lightly, trumpets and trombones, if you don't mind? I mean softly softly," he emphasizes.The trombone problem rectified, Sinatra, now in the booth, turns his attention to the rhythm section. He inquires of drummer Terry Snyder: "You got enough pad on the ba.s.s drum? It booms a little bit." Then, without the slightest hesitation, he turns to the studio prop men. "Would you put in a small piece of carpet, enough to cover the entire bottom of the drum?" Satisfied, he addresses the pianist. "Say, Johnny Guarneri, would you play something, a figure or something, and have the rhythm fall in? We'd like to get a small balance on it." Guarneri begins an impromptu riff on the melody, as ba.s.sist Herman "Trigger" Alpert, drummer Snyder, and guitarist Al Caiola join in. After a few moments, Sinatra's directions continue. "Ba.s.s and guitar: Trig, can you move in about a foot or so, or you can pull the mike out if you wish. And the guitar-also move in a little closer. Just a shade-uh, uh, uh-that's enough."

This was no mere voice: this was a great artist in full command of his powers and the means required to convey his art.

And yet the public mostly failed to pay attention.

The malaise seemed to be catching: as Sinatra flatlined, Columbia sputtered. Dinah Sh.o.r.e and the producer and arranger Mitch.e.l.l Ayres defected to Como's label, Victor, which had come out with a record format to compete with the LP, the 45-rpm microgroove single. The two formats, and their labels, dueled for a couple of years, and at first things didn't look good for Columbia Recording Company.

On Labor Day, September 5-exactly a week after the Russian A-test-Sinatra began Light Up Time Light Up Time. The NBC program, broadcast from Hollywood, aired every weeknight at 7:00 p.m. (on the East Coast) for just fifteen minutes: its format and time slot were copied directly from another NBC show, Chesterfield Supper Club Chesterfield Supper Club. As a sign of Sinatra's still existing but rapidly waning power, the Chesterfield show-hosted by Perry Como on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, and by Jo Stafford and Peggy Lee on Tuesdays and Thursdays, respectively-was b.u.mped to 10:00 p.m. in the East. Frank's co-star on the new broadcast was the Metropolitan Opera soprano (and fellow New Jerseyan) Dorothy Kirsten. The jam-packed format featured two solos by Sinatra, one by Kirsten, and one duet wedged between commercials. Every show began-it seems impossible to imagine in these days of fifteen-second TV ads-with a two-minute two-minute commercial for Luckies. commercial for Luckies.

Frank was earning $10,000 a week for the show. Newsweek Newsweek wrote, "The sometimes unruly crooner, whose exuberance over rapid fame has left him in staggering financial debt, could look to the show as a good boost back up the money trail." Could-but didn't. Ten thousand a week was a grand salary for the era, but it was a per-broadcast comedown from wrote, "The sometimes unruly crooner, whose exuberance over rapid fame has left him in staggering financial debt, could look to the show as a good boost back up the money trail." Could-but didn't. Ten thousand a week was a grand salary for the era, but it was a per-broadcast comedown from Your Hit Parade Your Hit Parade, and a drop in the bucket as far as his fiscal woes were concerned.

He was on a treadmill. With the breakneck pace of arranging for a five-day-a-week show, Stordahl was unable to conduct the Light Up Time Light Up Time orchestra: a further erosion of his relationship with Frank. His replacement, the choral director Jeff Alexander, went into the recording studio with Sinatra in mid-September in Sibelius's stead, arranging and conducting three numbers, including an Italianate piece, lush with mandolins, accordion, and Stordahl-esque strings, called "Stromboli": orchestra: a further erosion of his relationship with Frank. His replacement, the choral director Jeff Alexander, went into the recording studio with Sinatra in mid-September in Sibelius's stead, arranging and conducting three numbers, including an Italianate piece, lush with mandolins, accordion, and Stordahl-esque strings, called "Stromboli": On the island of Stromboli Recklessly I gave my heart.

The too-apt tune was the t.i.tle song for a romantic movie of the same name, directed by Roberto Rossellini and starring Ingrid Bergman. The film had just wrapped in Italy. In the course of making the picture, Rossellini and Bergman, who was married and the mother of a ten-year-old daughter, had fallen in love and conceived a child. The affair became a monumental scandal-unimaginable in the present era of casual celebrity couplings. Soon after Bergman gave birth, she would be denounced on the floor of the U.S. Senate and effectively driven out of the country.

But that night in September, Frank Sinatra was just recording a pretty song.

The next day, he sat down and typed yet another letter of complaint to Sacks. He began by giving his old friend the benefit of the doubt: Maybe Manie didn't know about it, Frank wrote, but other Columbia artists were recording the same songs he was. The charge was more serious than it sounds. Sinatra pointed out that he had put in many hours poring over standards to find the best songs to record. It was part of his genius to know which numbers worked for him, which tunes he could move into and make his own. And when his own label let its other singers record songs like "That Old Feeling" and "You Go to My Head" after he had already put his stamp on them, it hit Frank where it hurt the most: the pocketbook. He wanted to hear from Manie, he wrote, with stiff, furious formality, "advising me why you permit this policy and if you intend to pursue it in the future." This time he signed not with love but best regards.

The letter, typed on Sinatra's stationery ("FRANK SINATRA" and "BEVERLY HILLS, CALIFORNIA" embossed across the top), is signed a.s.sertively in blue fountain pen, with the singer's first and last names. Sacks annotated it in pencil. "Check this," he wrote, next to "You Go to My Head." And then, underneath, "Doris Day's alb.u.m."

It was treacherous, and it was true: Day, whose name Sinatra hadn't been able to bring himself to mention, had recorded both songs. The late-summer correspondence between Frank and Manie reflects a growing tension between the two, a tension that in some ways was symptomatic of the singer's troubles at Columbia. On September 20, Manie fessed up: Dear Frank:I must admit that recording with another vocalist standards you have already recorded should not be done. Frankly, I must also accept the blame in this instance because, without enough thought, I selected the songs, and not until I received your letter and checked the list did I realize you had recorded the same songs.In the future, I a.s.sure you I'll pay closer attention so that it won't happen again. I am the guilty culprit and I'm sorry.Kindest regards. Sincerely, Manie The tone of this exchange is markedly different from the Sinatra-Sacks letters of 1945. In those days, the two men had closed their missives with "Love"-even "Love and kisses." Now it was "Best regards" from Frank, and from Manie-who apparently didn't want to be outdone in the coolness department-"Kindest regards," immediately followed, with sublime pa.s.sive aggressiveness, by "Sincerely."

Sacks also sent his reply to Sinatra's office and not to his home address, as he had done previously. Maybe this was just a bureaucratic detail; more likely, it meant Manie's friendship with Frank was slipping.

All that summer and fall, Frank visited the little stucco house high over Nichols Canyon. Ava had worked hard to make the place her own, hanging the walls with Degas prints, lining the den with ma.s.sive antique bookcases containing all the volumes Artie Shaw had bullied her into reading: The Magic Mountain The Magic Mountain and and Buddenbrooks Buddenbrooks and and The Interpretation of Dreams The Interpretation of Dreams and and Babbitt Babbitt. She really had read them, mostly-and also, under Artie's dictatorship, learned to play chess well enough to beat him. All this despite what she once told an interviewer: "Deep down, I'm pretty superficial." In truth, she was anything but. Still, her lack of intellectual confidence never left her. On the other hand, when it came to her beauty, she had no doubts.

The house was surrounded by a picket fence covered with yellow roses, a trellis with petunias and honeysuckle, drying laundry snapping in the breeze. Inside was heaven.

But beware, her friend Lana told her: We met in the ladies' room during a party [Ava wrote], and she told me her story. She had been deeply in love with Frank and, so she thought, Frank with her. Though he was shuttling backward and forward between her bedroom and Nancy's, trying to equate obedience to Catholic doctrines with indulgence in his natural inclinations, divorce plans were all set up and wedding plans had been made.Then Lana woke up one morning, picked up the newspaper, and read that Frank had changed his mind and gone back to Nancy for good. It was the old Catholic arrangement: wife and family come first. Nancy had almost made a theme song out of it: "Frank always comes back to me."I really liked Lana. She was a nice girl, and she felt neither anger nor malice toward Frank and me. She just thought I ought to know. I told Lana gently that Frank and I were in love, and that this time he really was going to leave Nancy for good. If I'm in love, I want to get married: that's my fundamentalist Protestant background. If he wanted me, there could be no compromise on that issue.

That cataclysm, along with a number of others, was close at hand.

The roster of Sinatra's activities that autumn was strikingly spa.r.s.e. His daughter Nancy, usually the most a.s.siduous (and relentlessly upbeat) of chroniclers, can come up with only two events between the summer and December. "October 30, 1949: Dad returned once again to The Jack Benny Show The Jack Benny Show," she notes. And, "November 6, 1949: He performed on Guest Star Guest Star, a radio show for the U.S. Treasury Department." (Trying to b.u.t.ter up the IRS? Or the FBI?) Frank wasn't shooting a movie, and he was barely recording: between September and the end of the year, he cut just eight songs, in three sessions. (In all of 1949, despite the end of the musicians' strike, he laid down only twenty-seven sides, compared with seventy in the pre-strike year of 1947.) He did Light Up Time Light Up Time every weekday afternoon, but the quarter-hour show was rushed and frequently superficial. Stordahl's absence didn't help, nor, due to NBC budgetary constraints, did the absence of a string section. every weekday afternoon, but the quarter-hour show was rushed and frequently superficial. Stordahl's absence didn't help, nor, due to NBC budgetary constraints, did the absence of a string section.

As Frank had noted in his pained September letter to Manie, others-even at Columbia-were recording the same songs he was. And selling better. There was a new Italian boy on the scene, with a husky tenor voice so dramatic that some listeners thought he was black. To add insult to injury, he also called himself Frankie-Frankie Laine. (He had been born Francesco Paolo LoVecchio.) He could sing torch songs, spirituals, and up-tempo rip-roarers, and he could crank out gold records ("That's My Desire"; "Mule Train"). Laine's career was being shepherded by a brilliant, fiercely ambitious A&R man at Mercury named Mitch Miller-the same Mitch Miller who had turned Sinatra on to the cla.s.sical compositions of Alec Wilder.

But the king that year was Perry Como. "Anodyne," with its dual meanings of pain relief and insipidness, applied perfectly to the smooth-voiced, smooth-faced former barber from Canonsburg, Pennsylvania. Times change; the culture shifts. Yearning was out of fashion, and Sinatra was now just part of a big pack of popular singers. Billboard Billboard ranked him number 13 at the end of the year; the ranked him number 13 at the end of the year; the Down Beat Down Beat poll put him at number 5. He was officially yesterday's news. Lee Mortimer all but jumped up and down with glee. "The Swoon is real gone (and not in jive talk)," he wrote, in his poll put him at number 5. He was officially yesterday's news. Lee Mortimer all but jumped up and down with glee. "The Swoon is real gone (and not in jive talk)," he wrote, in his Daily Mirror Daily Mirror column, noting that all the hysteria over Sinatra had merely been "an unhealthy wartime phenomenon." column, noting that all the hysteria over Sinatra had merely been "an unhealthy wartime phenomenon."

Emotionally, Frank was as busy as it is possible for a human being to be: he was in love. And not sweetly and contentedly in love, but in the throes of a grand pa.s.sion, one whose DNA was stamped with wildness, violence, contradiction, pain. In Ava Gardner he had literally met his match. In a woman of spectacularly sensuous beauty he had found a soul whose turbulence equaled his own. Like Frank, Ava knew herself to be a kind of royalty, but still harbored profound feelings of worthlessness. In each, this duality fueled volcanic furies. "Both Frank and I," Ava wrote in her memoir, "were high-strung people, possessive and jealous and liable to explode fast. When I lose my temper, honey, you can't find it anyplace. I've just got to let off steam, and he's the same way."

Frank had found a true partner in the opera that was his life. All his other women had been supporting players; Ava was a diva. Like Frank, she was infinitely restless and easily bored. In both, this tendency could lead to casual cruelty to others-and sometimes to each other. Both had t.i.tanic appet.i.tes, for food, drink, cigarettes, diversion, companionship, and s.e.x. Both loved jazz, and the men and women, black and white, who made it. Both were politically liberal. Both were fascinated with prost.i.tution and perversity. Both knew the bottomless loneliness that stalks the deep watches of the night: both distrusted sleep-feared it, perhaps, as death's mirror. Both hated being alone.

And behind every move each of them made lay a fine and regal contempt for the ba.n.a.l established order of the world.

It was around then, Ava wrote, that Frank told her, "All my life, being a singer was the most important thing in the world. Now you're all I want."

For a man whose ambition had always preceded all else, this was an astonishing statement, even if he felt differently a few hours later. To the extent that he meant it (and to a great extent he did), it was as if his towering ambition had suddenly gone up in smoke. But their love was like a fire that flamed up and consumed them both. And since both were performers, exhibitionism was part of the kick-even at the very outset, there were amazed onlookers. Among them were Sinatra's manager Bobby Burns and his wife, Betty, who tried to help the adulterous couple early in the affair. Betty Burns remembered: Bobby and I had a house on the beach, and so Frank and Ava would be there all the time. We would be sitting in the living room and hear them upstairs in the bedroom quarreling and arguing. Ava would scream at Frank and he would slam the door and storm downstairs. Minutes later we'd smell a very sweet fragrance coming from the stairs. Ava had decided she wasn't mad anymore, and so she sprayed the stairwell with her perfume. Frank would smell it and race back up to the bedroom. Then it would be hours before he'd come back down.

It's like something out of Wild Kingdom Wild Kingdom.

"She was like a Svengali to him," Skitch Henderson said. "She was an enigma. A mysterious presence. You didn't quite know how she had done it to him, and I'm not sure I wanted to know. She was ruthless with him. And it used to affect his mood a great deal. It could be horrible to be with him then. Her acid tongue and her ability to just put you away. If ever I knew a tiger, or a panther...I'm trying to think of an animal that would describe her...To be honest-I didn't let anyone on to this-but I did what I could to stay out of her way. I was scared to death of her."

She was a p.i.s.ser. She scared the s.h.i.t outta me. Never knew what she'd hate that I'd do. Frank must have found the similarity to the first woman in his life unspeakably exciting. Some part of him was still that little boy, not knowing if he'd get a hug or a rap with the nightstick.

For all Ava's autobiographical professions of eternal love, she had trouble with intimacy. When she got it-and she'd got plenty since she'd first arrived in Hollywood-she didn't feel she was worthy of it. And so when a man fell in love with her, she reciprocated for a little while, then she began to torment him.

Jealousy was their emotional ammunition. They both understood it. Frank could trigger it in her literally with the blink of an eye, so conditioned was he to scanning any crowded restaurant or nightclub or party and possessing any beauty he saw.

His suspicions about Ava were better founded. She had it all worked out: if he wouldn't leave his wife, she told him, she was free to do whatever she wanted. She toyed with her old flame Howard Duff, who was desperate for her. She teased Howard Hughes, who continued to have her followed. She stepped out with a minor gangster named Johnny Stompanato (who would meet his sad end, years later, at the hands of Lana Turner's daughter). She had a little fling with her co-star in My Forbidden Past My Forbidden Past, Robert Mitchum. He went back to his wife, whose secret was: she always took him back.

The infidelities-if you could call them that-diverted her momentarily and had their desired effect on Sinatra, stoking his pa.s.sions. And she had to hand it to him: his fury made the anger of her other lovers pale in comparison. As did his wandering eye. They screamed at each other, they chased each other from room to room, breaking things, and then, their bodies still abuzz with anger, they had the most amazing makeup s.e.x that (they were quite sure) anyone had ever had.

Set against all this, what were the demands of marital duty and family life? Background noise. This was a pa.s.sion that not only scorched everything in its path but demanded absolute and constant attention. When Frank went to New York City in early December for the premiere of On the Town On the Town, Ava went too. Strikingly, Manie Sacks, cool and correct toward Sinatra just three months before, let the lovebirds stay in his suite at the Hampshire House: maybe he was feeling guilty. Big changes were afoot in his professional life, changes that would affect Frank profoundly.

On December 8, Frank and Ava attended the Broadway premiere of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes: Gentlemen Prefer Blondes: book by Joseph Fields and Anita Loos, songs (including the suddenly all too appropriate "Bye Bye Baby") by Leo Robin and Jule Styne. The pair, with the protective coloration of another couple (Manie and a date), tried their best to blend in with the first-night crowd at the Ziegfeld Theatre. Inside, Sinatra and Gardner laughed and held hands as they listened to the newcomer Carol Channing cooing "Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend." Afterward, along with Manie and his lady friend, they ducked into a car and disappeared. The photographers and gossip columnists waiting outside the Ziegfeld (New York had a half-dozen daily papers, only one of which, the book by Joseph Fields and Anita Loos, songs (including the suddenly all too appropriate "Bye Bye Baby") by Leo Robin and Jule Styne. The pair, with the protective coloration of another couple (Manie and a date), tried their best to blend in with the first-night crowd at the Ziegfeld Theatre. Inside, Sinatra and Gardner laughed and held hands as they listened to the newcomer Carol Channing cooing "Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend." Afterward, along with Manie and his lady friend, they ducked into a car and disappeared. The photographers and gossip columnists waiting outside the Ziegfeld (New York had a half-dozen daily papers, only one of which, the Times Times, refused to stoop to scandalmongering) shook their heads and stared at each other. Was this what it looked like? Remarkably, the papers held off. For the time being. The next morning, in the "Celebs About Town" section of his column, Walter Winch.e.l.l, after taking note of "Quentin Reynolds and Heywood Broun's widder having a lobby confab at the Algonquin," mentioned "Ava Gardner Period."

It was as if the columnist were biting his tongue, waiting to see what developed.

Nancy Sinatra, wired in as she was to the Hollywood gossip network, already knew. In fact, she had known about Ava for months: almost since the beginning. What was most hurtful to her was the fact that soon everyone else would know, too. That was the hardest thing about being married to Frank Sinatra-whatever he did, everybody seemed to find out about it pretty quickly.

This time Nancy made her decision: the comedy of endless breaches, hollow promises, and public reconciliations was over. She loved Frank, but finally, whether she admitted it to herself or not, she hated him, too. He was ultimately impossible. Her faith told her that Frank Sinatra was her cross to bear, forever, whether they were together or apart. Her faith also didn't allow divorce. But from here on they would no longer live as husband and wife. It was as simple as that: she had her pride, and her children, to consider.

Dolly Sinatra, who met Ava at the On the Town On the Town movie premiere, was delighted. She had never liked Nancy much to begin with, and over the last half-dozen years Frank's wife, with her new teeth and her new gowns and her abiding sense of holier-than-thou, had earned her outright enmity. This Ava Gardner, though, was something else. Three nights later at the Copa, at the thirty-fourth-birthday party the nightclub manager Jack Entratter threw for Frank, the two women got to talk for a few minutes. And Dolly loved every bit of it. Ava drank and swore like a sailor, and Dolly Sinatra could keep right up with her. At the same time-this was the amazing thing-the girl was just stupefyingly beautiful. In Dolly's travels around Hudson County, she had run across plenty of dirty girls with dirty mouths, yet with the pretty ones, and especially the beauties, b.u.t.ter mostly wouldn't melt. But this one! Dolly, like everyone else in the Copa, couldn't take her eyes off her. And Ava wore her gorgeousness so lightly, smoked her cigarettes so offhandedly, swore so fluently, and laughed so raucously that Dolly fell as hard as her son had. She pinched his skinny cheek and congratulated him on the great f.u.c.kin' girl he'd landed. movie premiere, was delighted. She had never liked Nancy much to begin with, and over the last half-dozen years Frank's wife, with her new teeth and her new gowns and her abiding sense of holier-than-thou, had earned her outright enmity. This Ava Gardner, though, was something else. Three nights later at the Copa, at the thirty-fourth-birthday party the nightclub manager Jack Entratter threw for Frank, the two women got to talk for a few minutes. And Dolly loved every bit of it. Ava drank and swore like a sailor, and Dolly Sinatra could keep right up with her. At the same time-this was the amazing thing-the girl was just stupefyingly beautiful. In Dolly's travels around Hudson County, she had run across plenty of dirty girls with dirty mouths, yet with the pretty ones, and especially the beauties, b.u.t.ter mostly wouldn't melt. But this one! Dolly, like everyone else in the Copa, couldn't take her eyes off her. And Ava wore her gorgeousness so lightly, smoked her cigarettes so offhandedly, swore so fluently, and laughed so raucously that Dolly fell as hard as her son had. She pinched his skinny cheek and congratulated him on the great f.u.c.kin' girl he'd landed.

Frank smiled at Dolly, too happy to be angry with her (Dolly's demands for money had stepped up as his bank account dwindled). His every waking hour-there weren't many sleeping ones-was occupied with thinking of her, seeing her, making love with her, fighting with her, making up with her.

In truth, he was running ragged. In between obsessive bouts with Ava, there were very bad fights with Nancy. Work-what little there was of it-was going badly too. Back in California, on Light Up Time Light Up Time, two days after Christmas, he sailed into an up-tempo, jazz-combo arrangement of Brown, DeSylva, and Henderson's "You're the Cream in My Coffee" ("You're the salt in my stew") like a ship without a rudder, fast and out of tune and not seeming to care much. Then, in the second chorus, he simply blew the lyric. "You're the starch in my collar," he repeated, like a man sleepwalking. "I said that, didn't I," he remarked with a laugh, then tossed off the rest of the song, more of a walk-through than a performance.

24.

Frank arrives at the CBS Playhouse to rehea.r.s.e for a radio show, mid 1940s. George Evans, in hat, flanks him; Manie Sacks is to the right, in dark coat. (photo credit 24.1) (photo credit 24.1) Finally there was good news. On the Town On the Town got splendid reviews and, more important for MGM, did big business. Betty Comden and Adolph Green's adaptation of their Broadway musical (originally a ballet by Jerome Robbins and Leonard Bernstein called got splendid reviews and, more important for MGM, did big business. Betty Comden and Adolph Green's adaptation of their Broadway musical (originally a ballet by Jerome Robbins and Leonard Bernstein called Fancy Free Fancy Free) made for a wonderful picture, a perfect piece of postwar exuberance. The story of three sailors on leave in the big city sparkled, especially in its spectacular opening sequence, shot in Technicolor-glorious locales around New York. The performances by Kelly, Sinatra, Jules Munshin, Ann Miller, Betty Garrett, and Vera-Ellen were buoyant. But in the end the picture was Gene Kelly's: Frank was really just along for the ride. Kelly got top billing. He not only co-directed and ch.o.r.eographed; he (along with Donen) had insisted, brilliantly, that they shoot on location in New York instead of on an MGM soundstage.1 It had cost a lot more, but the results were worth it. It had cost a lot more, but the results were worth it. On the Town On the Town set box-office records at Radio City. "Never before has any motion picture grossed as much in one day in any theater anywhere," exclaimed set box-office records at Radio City. "Never before has any motion picture grossed as much in one day in any theater anywhere," exclaimed Motion Picture Daily Motion Picture Daily.

Frank Sinatra wasn't celebrating. He didn't like being outshone by Kelly, and he hadn't gotten to sing any important ballads in the film (he'd especially coveted the beautiful "Lonely Town," but it had been jettisoned by the studio, along with most of the rest of Leonard Bernstein's great score, and replaced with chirpier songs by the less than great Roger Edens). But mostly he was tired of putting on a sailor suit. He said so loudly, and Louis B. Mayer had big ears. There was another big problem: Ava Gardner. Mayer's stars misbehaved all the time, and, LB knew, often with each other, but most of them had the good sense to keep it hidden from the public. These two simply didn't give a d.a.m.n. It got under Mayer's skin. It was a direct challenge to his power, and with the rise of television and the fall of MGM's profits, power was something that Louis B. Mayer was fretting about constantly.

And so-much given to saber rattling these days-Mayer had warned months earlier that Sinatra's contract was in jeopardy, as was Ava's, if the two didn't stop their carryings-on.

Frank at least had the good sense to take stock of his career at the beginning of 1950, and everything he saw worried him. In the middle of January he flew to New York and, after taking in Lena Horne's show at the Copacabana, sat down for a 4:00 a.m. cup of coffee with George Evans.

Evans represented both the Copa and Horne, who was making $60,000 a week there. Lena Horne's career was booming; Sinatra's, not. He told Evans all about Ava; he laid his cards on the table. There had been many women, but he had never felt this way before. He was going to marry this girl. Evans stared at him through the tortoise-rimmed gla.s.ses, speechless for a change. He let Sinatra talk it out. Finally Frank put down his coffee cup, looked Evans in the eye, and said he needed his help.

It was a very tall order, one that both Sinatra and Evans knew only Evans could handle. The publicist extended his hand, and Frank took it.

Nancy had first confronted Frank at Christmas. He denied nothing, but told his wife angrily that she was blowing the whole Ava business out of proportion. When she pursued the matter, he insisted he didn't want to talk about it-and Nancy, for the sake of Christmas, let it go. She stewed through the holiday, though, and when Frank got back from New York in January (she suspected he had gone for another a.s.signation), she let him have it.

Technically on solid ground-Ava had been in Los Angeles while he visited Evans-Frank defended himself angrily, but Nancy's anger was white-hot: she opened his closet, grabbed a handful of his sports jackets, opened their bedroom window, and threw them out. By this time the noise had awakened the children and Little Nancy was pounding on the door. Frank's wife stared at him in fury. Did he see what he was doing to the children? Did he see see?

Frank opened the bedroom door, kissed his terrified daughter on the head, and, without looking back, walked out. The next morning, Sanicola and Al Silvani came and-apologizing fervently to Nancy-removed a carload of Frank's clothing, shoes, and toiletries and took it to his office on South Robertson, where he had spent the night.

To put some money in the bank (so he could send it right out to the IRS), Sinatra was doing live appearances again, for the first time in two years. In December he had surprised himself and his agents by breaking records at the State Theater in Hartford, grossing $18,000 for two nights; now MCA had signed him for a similarly plush gig at a gigantic, brand-new hotel in Houston, the Shamrock. The place had been built by a legendary wildcatter named Glenn McCarthy, the model for the James Dean character in Giant: Giant: those were the days when Texas oilmen strode the earth, making big things happen. On Thursday the twenty-sixth, Frank and Van Heusen set out from Van Nuys Airport in Chester's plane. When they landed to refuel in El Paso, an airport manager in a leather jacket ran out onto the tarmac and handed Frank a piece of paper bearing an urgent message: he must call George Evans's office in New York at once. those were the days when Texas oilmen strode the earth, making big things happen. On Thursday the twenty-sixth, Frank and Van Heusen set out from Van Nuys Airport in Chester's plane. When they landed to refuel in El Paso, an airport manager in a leather jacket ran out onto the tarmac and handed Frank a piece of paper bearing an urgent message: he must call George Evans's office in New York at once.

A secretary answered the phone, her voice trembling. Evans was dead. He had stepped out of the shower that morning in his Bronx apartment, said he didn't feel well, and collapsed of a heart attack. He was forty-eight. The rumor emerged that he had gotten into a loud argument with a reporter the night before, about Sinatra. It was easy to get into arguments about Sinatra, especially when you had to stick up for him relentlessly. Evans had had a long career of it-seven years, not counting their brief separation. But sticking up for Sinatra and Ava Gardner was another matter.

Devastated, Frank let the Shamrock know he was canceling and had Van Heusen fly him to New York for the funeral, even though he loathed funerals. Evans had meant more to Frank than any other man except Manie; he had been a friend and tireless champion, the architect of his career. "I'm quite sure that when Frank learned of his death, the first thought that swept through [his] mind was: 'Thank G.o.d, we made up,'" Ed Sullivan wrote in his Little Old New York column, a few days later.

It's pretty to think so. What feels more plausible is that Frank's first thought was: My G.o.d, I killed him My G.o.d, I killed him. Sinatra may have been incapable of apology, but guilt was a key part of his makeup. Money was usually the solution. The day after the funeral, Frank sent Evans's widow the $14,000 that he owed the press agent. In the weeks to come, he would put Evans's son Philip, who had recently made George a proud grandfather, on the Sinatra payroll for life.

The same issue of Billboard Billboard that announced George Evans's death bore the news that Manie Sacks was leaving Columbia Records for RCA. Victor had been pursuing Sacks for months, and given the cataclysmic changes at Columbia-Dinah Sh.o.r.e and Mitch.e.l.l Ayres both gone to the rival label; Buddy Clark dead; that announced George Evans's death bore the news that Manie Sacks was leaving Columbia Records for RCA. Victor had been pursuing Sacks for months, and given the cataclysmic changes at Columbia-Dinah Sh.o.r.e and Mitch.e.l.l Ayres both gone to the rival label; Buddy Clark dead;2 Sinatra a walking shadow-Sacks must have felt the timing was right. He was forty-seven years old, getting on, and RCA, in red-hot compet.i.tion with Columbia, was offering real money. Sinatra a walking shadow-Sacks must have felt the timing was right. He was forty-seven years old, getting on, and RCA, in red-hot compet.i.tion with Columbia, was offering real money.

Sacks would have no official replacement as manager of popular repertoire at Columbia, but in February the label brought in a new head for its pop-singles division: Mitch Miller.

George was gone, Manie was gone, but business was business: Frank rescheduled the Shamrock gig for the first week of February. On the sixth, he and Van Heusen flew from New York to Houston-and unbeknownst to Frank, Ava, in Hollywood, decided impulsively to go meet him. Following MGM protocol, she put in a request to the studio to make the trip. Mayer sent down the word: no. She went anyway. Gardner biographer Lee Server wrote: She arrived late for his performance, the house lights down, but even in the dark she caught every eye and provoked a stir of excited whispers across the entire room. When he saw her Sinatra beamed as if he had been hit with a hot red spotlight. If the audience wondered about a possible relationship between the two stars, Sinatra did little to disconnect the dots, compulsively directing each song directly to Ava as if everyone else in the room had gone home.

After the show, the mayor of Houston, Oscar Holcombe, took Frank, Ava, Van Heusen, and several others to dinner at an Italian restaurant, Vincent's Sorrento. It wasn't a spontaneous decision: Holcombe's office had made a reservation-and the restaurant's owner, delighted at the prospect of such spectacular glamour descending on his establishment, had tipped off the Houston Post Houston Post, which dispatched a photographer. The next morning the wires reported: Frank Sinatra squired Siren Ava Gardner to dinner last night and almost got a chance to show off his fancy footwork in the art of fisticuffs...In the middle of his spaghetti Houston Press Photographer Eddie Schisser approached the table to ask Sinatra to pose for a quick shot."I'd like to take your picture eating spaghetti," Schisser said.Unsmilingly, the bantam singer said he wasn't having his picture taken, with or without spaghetti.Schisser reminded him that it would "take only 30 seconds," and Sinatra shoved back his chair, as if about to rise.n.o.body heard exactly what was said, but a few uncomplimentary phrases allegedly were pa.s.sed by both sides as the management moved in to maintain equilibrium.Miss Gardner tried to cover her face with her hands.

George Evans, freshly laid in his grave, was already spinning in it.

It was the first in what would be a lifelong series of such conflagrations with the press, and in a very real way the subtraction of Evans (and even the departure of Manie) made it all possible. The requisite accelerants were present: the interrupted meal; Sinatra's powerful but scarcely admitted guilt (he would later call going out publicly with Ava "a major mistake," then said, "But I was so in love I didn't care"); his generally battered self-esteem. And then there was (again relevantly) the casual, barely understood ethnic insensitivity of the times: an Italian-American should should be photographed eating spaghetti, the same way an African-American, in 1950, would be photographed eating watermelon. Sinatra didn't like it a bit, nor should he have. be photographed eating spaghetti, the same way an African-American, in 1950, would be photographed eating watermelon. Sinatra didn't like it a bit, nor should he have.

But far more damaging than the flare-up itself was the national publicity. For Nancy Sinatra, who had held a sc.r.a.p of hope that her husband might come to his senses and return to his home, this was her final humiliation. That afternoon she called a hardware store and had the locks changed at 320 North Carolwood.

Their eleventh wedding anniversary had been two days earlier.