Frank_ The Voice Part 6

No father, good or bad, goes unpunished.

Sinatra's third trip to the Coast was very different from his second. Just a year earlier, he had been traveling with Nancy and the dest.i.tute Music Makers, making the best of a bad situation after the Palomar burned down, then getting the hook while the caged canaries at Victor Hugo's looked on. Now he was free as a bird, a hot young up-and-comer with a number-one record, singing to all the stars of Hollywood, Bob Hope and Tyrone Power and Lana Turner and Errol Flynn and Mickey Rooney, at the Palladium, the million-dollar pink and chrome 1940s-Moderne palace (its twelve-thousand-square-foot oval dance floor could accommodate six thousand dancers) that had risen from the ashes of the Palomar, next door to Columbia Pictures on Sunset Boulevard.

What's more, he was in the movies. Sort of. During the Palladium stand, the Dorsey band got hired to perform four numbers in the new Paramount B musical Las Vegas Nights Las Vegas Nights.2 It was the kind of picture they called a "programmer"-the sort of lesser fare studios cranked out by the dozen in those pretelevision days, to fill out double and triple features. Hollywood was a funny place: Tommy Dorsey may have been a national figure, but in the magically self-enclosed kingdom of the movies, he was an outsider, a mere beginner. This would be his first film, and he was starting small-the bandleader was barely written into the action (such as it was). For the rest of the band-even for the nation's hottest young vocalist-it was strictly extra work, at $15 a day. It was the kind of picture they called a "programmer"-the sort of lesser fare studios cranked out by the dozen in those pretelevision days, to fill out double and triple features. Hollywood was a funny place: Tommy Dorsey may have been a national figure, but in the magically self-enclosed kingdom of the movies, he was an outsider, a mere beginner. This would be his first film, and he was starting small-the bandleader was barely written into the action (such as it was). For the rest of the band-even for the nation's hottest young vocalist-it was strictly extra work, at $15 a day.

It didn't matter to Frank. Even if the band had to play the Palladium until two in the morning and be on the set at Paramount, in makeup, four hours later; even if moviemaking turned out to be a monumentally tedious affair, with long, long waits in between anything happening at all (the musicians mostly lay around the set sleeping)-even with all the exhausting boredom, appearing in his first real motion picture fit right into Frank Sinatra's master plan. And besides the obvious goal of getting his face on-screen, the enterprise contained a major side benefit.

He had seen, on his first trip to the Coast with the Major Bowes Number Five tour unit, that just about every spectacular girl in the country gravitated to Hollywood, hoping to get into pictures. Since only a small percentage succeeded, the town was ridiculously overstocked with ridiculously available young women, all of them working the angles, doing absolutely anything they could to get their moment in the klieg lights.

Alora Gooding's moment came when the director Ralph Murphy-who would go on to make such cla.s.sics as Sunbonnet Sue Sunbonnet Sue and and Red Stallion in the Rockies- Red Stallion in the Rockies-needed a pretty girl to stare adoringly at Frank Sinatra as he stood by a piano and sang the nation's number-one hit, "I'll Never Smile Again," along with the Pied Pipers. Murphy only had to glance around the set for a moment, tapping his megaphone against his hip, before he spotted the honey blonde with the long stems and big bright smile. He nodded at her. Okay, sweetheart. She beamed. The sequence required staging and setting up and lighting, all the painstaking and time-consuming effort stimulating the illusion, in the minds of Alora Gooding and Frank Sinatra, that the moment would be their Moment. In reality, the short segment of the number that made it to film happened in the background behind a close-up of the film's two stars, Constance Moore and Bert Wheeler. A moment in a sidelight in a B picture.

But there she she was, staring adoringly, and, Christ, she was luscious, thought Frank-lissome, long legged, pert nosed, and smiling. So unlike Nancy, that vague, judgmental, faraway presence in Jersey City, all neighborhood-serious and heavy with the baby weight and fretting at him, clinging to him, even when, now and then, they indulged in the expensive, non-pleasurable luxury of a staticky long-distance call. was, staring adoringly, and, Christ, she was luscious, thought Frank-lissome, long legged, pert nosed, and smiling. So unlike Nancy, that vague, judgmental, faraway presence in Jersey City, all neighborhood-serious and heavy with the baby weight and fretting at him, clinging to him, even when, now and then, they indulged in the expensive, non-pleasurable luxury of a staticky long-distance call.

Looking at the honey blonde's big eyes and big bright mouth and perfect b.r.e.a.s.t.s and legs, he toppled. He had been with-where did the count now stand? a lot-a lot of women and girls, but something about this one, standing in glittering sunlight in front of the bougainvilleas and blue-blossomed jacarandas, something turned his brain to jelly, and he was gone.

Overseas, the Brits were fighting the n.a.z.is in the skies over England. At home, Roosevelt had just announced a national draft. Hollywood on the cusp of the war was like a picnic on a cloudless day with thunder booming far in the distance.

The girl had a day job as a parking attendant at the Garden of Allah, a fancy, boisterous apartment complex on Sunset (Scott Fitzgerald had lived there in the late 1930s, and would die just around the corner, in Sheilah Graham's apartment on North Hayworth, that December). Frank went to visit her. She wore a b.u.t.t-twitching uniform and velvet gloves so she wouldn't get fingerprints on the chrome door handles of the nice cars that pulled up in front. Frank smiled that smile of his and took her picture with his new camera. He put the picture in his wallet, and forgot about it. (He should have remembered.) It was the way she had of looking thrilled-thrilled just to be in his presence-that caught him. Innocent, but knowing just what to do. He couldn't get enough of her. The first time they woke up in his room at the Hollywood Plaza (on Vine, right across from the Brown Derby and just around the corner from the Palladium), he knew he wanted her there again that night. She moved in. Giggling when he carried her across the threshold. Nylons on the shower rod-it didn't matter. He loved her laugh.

Her real name was Dorothy, she told him. Like the girl with the ruby slippers. He nuzzled her neck, imagining she came from a farm someplace. Dorothy Gooding. It sounded like a girl who had milked cows.

In fact her name was Dorothy Bonucelli, and she was from a broken home on the wrong side of the tracks in Rockford, Illinois.

After her stepfather started paying her visits in the middle of the night, she'd fled west, winding up in Reno, a windblown high-desert town then, full of drunken cowboys reeling down the dusty streets looking for fun. She'd done what she had to. Working as a c.o.c.ktail waitress, she met a man with a hard face and tight curly hair who became obsessed with her. She strung him along as long as was necessary, then fled again, this time to L.A. It was easier to disappear in those days. She was twenty-five, a few months older than Sinatra. She told him she was twenty-two.

They lived as husband and wife the whole time he was in Los Angeles. The whole band knew; it didn't matter. Tommy knew; it didn't matter.

When the band prepared to return east for another big stand at the Paramount, he kissed her tears away and gave her a ring with her birthstone, an amethyst. He whispered promises, promises to return, in her beautiful ear. He would be as good as his word, more or less.

One day, amid the interminable tedium that was a movie set, there was a stirring-like a rainstorm moving across an open lake. Hardened gaffers and propmen suddenly turned and smiled real smiles; sleeping musicians stirred awake. Ralph Murphy dropped his megaphone to his side and stared at an amazing sight: Bing Crosby, in a gorgeous tweed jacket, blooming pleated trousers, and no yachting cap (no toupee, either). Crosby himself, preparing to shoot Road to Zanzibar Road to Zanzibar across the Paramount lot, was stopping by to pay a call on Dorsey. As it happened, Murphy was just about to start a take of the Constance MooreBert Wheeler scene with "I'll Never Smile Again" playing in the background. Crosby gave the director a nod and a wink and told him to go right ahead with what he was doing. across the Paramount lot, was stopping by to pay a call on Dorsey. As it happened, Murphy was just about to start a take of the Constance MooreBert Wheeler scene with "I'll Never Smile Again" playing in the background. Crosby gave the director a nod and a wink and told him to go right ahead with what he was doing.

Murphy put the megaphone to his lips and called, "Action": the lovers spoke their witty lines, Tommy struck up the song in the background. Bing, putting his pipe to his lips and narrowing his eyes, watched Frank carefully. After it was over, he strolled over to Dorsey. The two cool Irishmen shook hands. Just to the side, Sinatra was saying something-he hardly knew what-to Jo Stafford as, his heart racing, he watched Crosby. Crosby Crosby. Who now was nodding in his direction.

"Very good, Tommy," Bing was saying. And, indicating Sinatra: "I think you've got something there."

Then Crosby came over to Sinatra and-as Jo Stafford stood back, her eyes lighting up-shook his hand. "Real nice, Frank," the older singer said. "You're going to go far." He said it with complete conviction. He didn't bulls.h.i.t you, Bing. He didn't have to.

Going through his wallet after he returned, while he lay in bed snoring, Nancy found a snapshot of a beautiful blond girl. This girl, whoever she was, photographed well, and was smiling suggestively at whoever had taken her picture.

Nancy confronted Frank with the snapshot. He pretended to be seeing it for the first time. Her? She's n.o.body. A fan, that's all. Some kid who gave me her picture.

She stared straight into him with a look of terrible fury.

He repeated: She was n.o.body. Some girl who was hanging around the band.

Christmas came, and to make up for having to work over much of the holiday week-the Dorsey band was in the midst of its second big stand at the Paramount-he found ways to be extra-attentive. She wept again (she wept easily in the months after having the baby) and embraced him.

"Nothing meant anything to him except his career," Nick Sevano recalled long afterward. "He had a drive like I've never seen in anybody."

"I kept thinking to myself, 'I've got to climb a little higher in this next year,'" Sinatra told Sidney Zion, at Yale, forty-five years later. "I gave myself calendar times. What could I do in six months? How far could I go?"

Bullets Durgom was finding out how far. Durgom, Dorsey's short, roly-poly record promotion man (his real first name was George; he had acquired the Runyonesque handle by moving fast), had the job of visiting radio stations, in those palmy days before payola got a bad name, and doing whatever it took to drum up interest in the band's new sides. Drumming up interest might mean bestowing fancy meals, white-wall tires, expensive Scotch, even ladies. The marching orders, and the money, came straight from Tommy, the cagiest careerist around. But you couldn't flog a dead horse; what wouldn't sell, wouldn't sell. And what absolutely wouldn't sell to radio stations in 1941 were Tommy Dorsey instrumentals. Dead in the water. "All they wanted to hear about," Durgom told E. J. Kahn Jr. of the New Yorker New Yorker, for a profile Kahn wrote around that time, "was Frank."

"Oh! Look at Me Now," Sinatra doing the vocal, a big hit. "Without a Song," with Sinatra, a big hit. "Alexander's Ragtime Band" and "Little Brown Jug," sans vocals: nowheresville.

"This boy's going to be big," Durgom told Kahn, "if Tommy doesn't kill him first. Tommy doesn't like people stealing the show-and he doesn't like people who are temperamental like himself."

In May, Billboard Billboard named Sinatra Male Vocalist of the Year. Over Crosby. named Sinatra Male Vocalist of the Year. Over Crosby.

George T. Simon of Metronome Metronome, who less than two years earlier had thought the singer sounded like "a shy boy out on his first date," now found him "insufferably c.o.c.ky."

He was was insufferably c.o.c.ky. (And insufferably charming.) He walked fast, talked fast, chewed gum fast, signed autographs fast...the only thing he did slowly (very slowly) was sing. He grinned, then stormed. He hurled out orders to his homeboys Sevano and Sanicola. "Match me," he'd command, and his cigarette would be lit, just like that. He wasn't a boy singer anymore. It was all coming true. The pipe, the yachting cap, the blazer and ascot...the costumes he'd tried on fit him perfectly. Bing himself had touched his shoulder. It was almost as if he had everything. insufferably c.o.c.ky. (And insufferably charming.) He walked fast, talked fast, chewed gum fast, signed autographs fast...the only thing he did slowly (very slowly) was sing. He grinned, then stormed. He hurled out orders to his homeboys Sevano and Sanicola. "Match me," he'd command, and his cigarette would be lit, just like that. He wasn't a boy singer anymore. It was all coming true. The pipe, the yachting cap, the blazer and ascot...the costumes he'd tried on fit him perfectly. Bing himself had touched his shoulder. It was almost as if he had everything.

But he would never stop yearning, because he could never get what he truly wanted.

And he could never-ever-get it fast enough.

He was the one they came to see. Gradually at first, and then suddenly, a great national tide of girls surged up, their freshly sprouted b.r.e.a.s.t.s swelling with pa.s.sion for him him. Only a minute earlier, they'd been flat-chested kids, playing with their dollies in the dry dust of the Depression. Now they wore calf-length skirts and ankle-length white socks-bobby socks-with saddle shoes or Mary Janes, and they had a little bit of money in their purses: the Depression was over. Some newspaperman called them bobby-soxers, and it stuck.

And soon enough, the war would start, and the sad ballads he sang would hit them all the harder.

But he was the one they wanted. Kids still danced to Glenn Miller and Kay Kyser and Bob Crosby; they bounced to Benny Goodman's jazz. Artie Shaw could stir up the girls with his handsome face and clarinet wizardry, but then, he was never much for sentiment. And he had a strange relationship with his audiences: there had been the time, not so long before, when right in the middle of a concert, he'd decided the jitterbugs out on the floor were idiots, and said so, walking right off the bandstand and out of the business for a few months.

Yet right now the white-hot center of the business was the unlikely-looking Sinatra, his big Adam's apple bobbing over those floppy bow ties that Nancy, the good wife, made right at home.3 When he sang the long, long lines of those slow ballads, sounding as though his heart might burst any second, why, those girls felt as though When he sang the long, long lines of those slow ballads, sounding as though his heart might burst any second, why, those girls felt as though their their hearts might burst, and they just had to cry out- hearts might burst, and they just had to cry out- Frankiee!

Dorsey stood, ramrod straight and incredulous, the first time it happened. They were screaming, pretending to faint, really really fainting, for Christ's sake, like Holy Rollers at a revival meeting. Tommy smiled indulgently (they were ticket buyers, after all), but actually felt a kind of genteel horror: What in the G.o.dd.a.m.n h.e.l.l was the world coming to? fainting, for Christ's sake, like Holy Rollers at a revival meeting. Tommy smiled indulgently (they were ticket buyers, after all), but actually felt a kind of genteel horror: What in the G.o.dd.a.m.n h.e.l.l was the world coming to?

"I used to stand there on the bandstand so amazed I'd almost forget to take my solos," the bandleader remembered years later. "You could almost feel the excitement coming up out of the crowds when that kid stood up to sing. Remember, he was no matinee idol. He was a skinny kid with big ears. And yet what he did to women was something awful." (This last was a slip of the tongue, perhaps. In the spring of 1941, Dorsey's wife, Toots, walked out on him after she walked in on him doing something awful to s.e.xy, redheaded Edythe Wright, right in their Bernardsville house. The bandleader's reputation as a prodigious c.o.c.ksman was just another of the sources of Sinatra's admiration.) Tommy smiled about it all-at first. At first, he even made fun of Sinatra. When the girls would start swooning, he would stop the band and have the musicians swoon right back at them. "This inspired the girls to go one better," Dorsey recalled, "and the madness kept growing until pretty soon it reached fantastic proportions."

In late August 1941, the band started its second run at the Paramount in New York, a three-week engagement that had sold out-unlike the previous year's stand-strictly on the basis of Sinatra. The theater's most spectacular feature was a gigantic moving stage that rose right up out of the orchestra pit when the show began and sank back down when it was over. One night, after the band closed with "I'll Never Smile Again," and the stage began to descend, a couple of bobby-soxers leaned over and grabbed the singer's bow tie, one on each end, and wouldn't let go. "He was hanging there," Connie Haines remembered. "I ran over and screamed and hit out at their hands. Tommy ran over too and joined in too, and we got him away!"

It was nice of Tommy. After all, he must have had conflicting impulses: the great trombonist was now officially second fiddle. Dorsey took it philosophically, furiously, humorously, incredulously-he took it all kinds of ways. He was a mercurial fellow, and in the summer and fall of 1941 his world was wobbling a little bit. His wife had left him. The IRS was after him for eighty grand in back taxes-big money anytime, but especially then. The combination would have undone almost any man, but Dorsey was made of iron. Still, he drank a lot. (He had stayed on the wagon for much of the 1930s, but fell off at the turn of the decade, as he climbed toward his greatest success.) And while he was in his cups, he couldn't help contemplating the perfidy of this kid who was like a son to him (Tommy loved Frank every bit as much as Frank loved Tommy, maybe even more), the treachery of this kid turning into a scornful adolescent and not just pulling away-that would have been bad enough-but actually overshadowing the Old Man.

And yet another father figure lurked in the wings.

In November, the band headed back to Los Angeles, to play a return engagement at the Palladium and shoot another movie. This time the picture was the real deal: an MGM musical. It was called Ship Ahoy Ship Ahoy (the original t.i.tle, (the original t.i.tle, I'll Take Manila I'll Take Manila, was quickly changed soon after Manila fell to the j.a.panese two months later). It was a piece of froth, yet it starred the incomparable Eleanor Powell, a tap-dancing powerhouse and a cla.s.s act. And Sinatra got to sing three numbers in close-up, not background, this time, two with the Pipers and one, "Poor You," more or less alone, though he had to alternate choruses with his silly old pal from Shea's Theatre in Buffalo, Red Skelton.

It wasn't quite a star turn, but that scarcely mattered: Sinatra was returning to Hollywood more and more frequently. One of these times he'd break through, he was absolutely certain of it. He was feeling his oats in a very big way. The big crowds at the Palladium had got the message: he was the show. He was also moving in sweller company in Los Angeles than the year before. This time he kept Alora at bay. He was back at the Hollywood Plaza, but told her Dorsey was making him double up with Joey Bushkin. It was a lie, of course. He had his eye peeled for bigger game. He had heard that none other than Lana Turner, who'd been married to Artie Shaw for ten minutes, was s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g Buddy Rich, and if Lana Turner was s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g Buddy Rich, anything was possible.

One cool morning-a rainstorm had swept through the night before; now the City of Angels sparkled like Eden itself-he was walking between soundstages in Culver City, carrying a cardboard cup of coffee, nodding to this glorious creature (dressed as a harem girl), then that glorious creature (a cowgirl), then that that glorious creature (a secretary?)-they all smiled at him-when he ran into, of all people, an old pal of his from the Major Bowes days, a red-haired pianist who'd bounced around the Midwest in the 1930s, Lyle Henderson (Crosby would soon nickname him Skitch). Henderson was strolling with a creature much more glorious, if possible, than the three Sinatra had just encountered. She was tall, dark haired, with sleepy green eyes, killer cheekbones, and absurdly lush lips, lips he couldn't stop staring at. glorious creature (a secretary?)-they all smiled at him-when he ran into, of all people, an old pal of his from the Major Bowes days, a red-haired pianist who'd bounced around the Midwest in the 1930s, Lyle Henderson (Crosby would soon nickname him Skitch). Henderson was strolling with a creature much more glorious, if possible, than the three Sinatra had just encountered. She was tall, dark haired, with sleepy green eyes, killer cheekbones, and absurdly lush lips, lips he couldn't stop staring at.

Frankie! Henderson said, as they shook hands. His old chum was doing all right these days.

Sinatra smiled, not at Henderson. The glorious creature smiled back bashfully, but with a teasing hint of directness in her dark eyes. The pianist-he was doing rehearsal duty at the studio-then got to say the six words that someone had to say, sometime, but that he and he alone got to say for the first time in history on this sparkling morning: Frank Sinatra, this is Ava Gardner Frank Sinatra, this is Ava Gardner.

Ava Lavinia Gardner, to be exact. She was not quite nineteen, and she was from the picturesquely named hamlet of Grabtown, North Carolina, deep in tobacco-farming country. Her presence in Hollywood was a sheer fluke, the result of a mildly absurd chain of events set in motion by her traffic-stopping face. Visiting her older sister Bappie several months earlier in the big city, New York, Ava had been photographed by Bappie's boyfriend, who ran a photo portrait studio on Fifth Avenue. The boyfriend put one of the pictures of Ava in his store window as a sample of his work. Pa.s.sing the window one day, a messenger from the New York legal department of Loew's, the parent company of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, was stopped in his tracks by the photograph. He decided he would like to go out with that beautiful girl. And so the messenger called the store and inquired about the girl, saying he worked for MGM and hinting he could get her into the movies, even though he could do nothing of the sort. Bappie's boyfriend told the messenger that the girl had gone back home to North Carolina; the messenger sighed and gave up his quest. But Bappie and her boyfriend, excited by MGM's "interest," and not wanting to let the matter drop, packed up the boyfriend's best shots of Ava and hand-delivered them to Metro's New York office. Things moved very swiftly from there.

Ava had just arrived in town that August with Bappie; the two were living together in a tiny efficiency apartment in a seamy hotel on Selma Avenue. Every morning Ava took three buses to Culver City, then disembarked to spend her day taking lessons: in walking and talking and acting. The great studio machine was nudging and prodding and poking her, trying to mold her into someone as different as possible from the barefoot, sharp-tongued country girl she really was. Both she and the studio were having a rough time of it.

In the meantime, one of Metro's biggest stars was putting the full-court press on her. Mickey Rooney, only twenty-one but quite the rake, was crazy for Ava. In fact, Mickey Rooney wanted to marry her. Marry Marry her. Why? Because Ava wouldn't sleep with him. That was the ridiculous 1941 long and short of it. And truthfully, Ava Gardner wasn't that interested in sleeping with or marrying Mickey Rooney-which made him even crazier with desire-but she had been watching him on the screen for years, and here he was, in person, right in front of her! And cute as a b.u.t.ton, and so her. Why? Because Ava wouldn't sleep with him. That was the ridiculous 1941 long and short of it. And truthfully, Ava Gardner wasn't that interested in sleeping with or marrying Mickey Rooney-which made him even crazier with desire-but she had been watching him on the screen for years, and here he was, in person, right in front of her! And cute as a b.u.t.ton, and so persistent persistent.

Frank Sinatra knew none of this. All he knew as he shook her hand that morning-for just a second too long-was that he wanted to possess her. It was a familiar-enough feeling, and he was as confident as ever that he would. But as she released his hand, she gave him another look, slightly inquisitive this time, and something in his gut revolved a little bit. It was just the flicker of a sensation, and it confused him momentarily. He took a sip from his cardboard cup and smiled at her over the rim.

And then she turned and walked down the studio street and around a corner, and was gone.

Meanwhile, the big crowds kept coming to the Palladium, the movie stars in the VIP section watching with amus.e.m.e.nt as the teenage girls-the message had somehow traveled across the country, an unseen impulse of the kind that moves herds of reindeer or schools of fish-as the girls screamed Frankie's name and swooned. Out of the crowd one night, between sets, came a familiar face: a carved-out, acne-scarred countenance, on the young side of middle age, similar in some ways to his own, only Jewish where his was Italian, hesitant and thoughtful where his was mercurial and expressive.

His name was Emanuel Sacks-Manie (p.r.o.nounced "Manny"), for short. He had been a talent agent with MCA, and he had come to the Rustic Cabin around the same time Harry had, and told Frank just what Buddy Rich had told Frank: I like the way you sing I like the way you sing. Sinatra had instantly liked this serious, shyly smiling fellow-he ran across so many creeps and phonies, drunks and blowhards in nightclubs, and this guy was clearly none of that, he was clearly a smart Jew, a serious businessman, cla.s.sy, and he'd given Sinatra his business card. Which Frank had put someplace and forgotten about.

Until tonight. He instantly remembered the guy, whose homely, sensitive features were totally out of place amid the beautiful, hysterical faces at the Hollywood Palladium. They shook hands, and after a moment of small talk Frank asked him what he was up to. Still with that agency?

Not anymore. He was manager of popular repertoire at Columbia Records.

Frank stared. At Columbia?

Sacks smiled, shy but proud.

Not shy, Sinatra looked Manie right in the eye and asked how he'd like to record him as a soloist.

Coming from almost anyone else short of Crosby, it would have been, in late 1941, an absurdly presumptuous suggestion. Singers sang with bands. Bands made singers. Where was the singer who could make it on his own?

Yet Sacks looked back at him with complete seriousness. And more-Sinatra felt it: respect. Sacks said he'd like nothing better in the world than to record Sinatra as a soloist. But wasn't he still with RCA, with Tommy?

Frank smiled. Things change.

Sacks smiled back. His teeth were crooked and stained. He was ready anytime Frank was. He took a small leather case out of his breast pocket, handed Sinatra a business card.

Sinatra took it and grinned: he would keep this card in a very safe place.

Two days later, Down Beat Down Beat, in its annual poll, named Frank Sinatra Male Vocalist of the Year. The winner of the poll for the previous six years straight had been Bing Crosby.

Lion and cub. Bing and Frank, around 1940. (photo credit 9.2) (photo credit 9.2)

10.

Newly married, and still in love. Frank and Nancy, circa 1940. (photo credit 10.1) (photo credit 10.1) December 6 was a Sat.u.r.day, the biggest night of the week at the Palladium. At about 2:00 a.m., after the band had left the stand and the musicians packed up their instruments and sheet music, a select crew, Tommy and Buddy and Frank among them, got into their big black cars and drove down Sunset to a large Tudor house on a quiet side street in Brentwood. No civilian could ever understand what it was like to finish a gig, your head still buzzing, your blood pumping. You could never just go to bed. You had to keep going- going-drink, smoke, drug, talk, get laid. Maybe all at once.

The Tudor house's owner, just twenty years old, had been in the star-studded crowd at the Palladium that night, hovered over by this square-jawed, tan-skinned actor and that, but she'd only had eyes for the bandstand. She was pet.i.te, bottle blond, and deliciously curvy, with a haughty, sultry, heart-shaped face that made her look older than her age. Lana Turner had been around enough-she was a veteran of four hard years in Hollywood-to know that actors were nice to look at, but she really loved musicians. Most actors were a h.e.l.l of a lot more fascinating on-screen than in real life, and a lot of the handsomer ones were interested in other men. Musicians did did something, besides speak someone else's lines. They were funny and profane, and the ones she'd met all seemed to like women a lot. something, besides speak someone else's lines. They were funny and profane, and the ones she'd met all seemed to like women a lot.

And they were young (many of them not that much older than Lana Turner) and wild and dangerous and brilliant-the rock stars of their day. Except that they could read music. (Well, except for Buddy and Frank.) Buddy felt Lana was smiling at him and only him that night. A couple of the others felt the same way.

There was alcohol by the gallons at her house, and the sweet reek of reefer-especially around Joey Bushkin, giggling as he sat at her white grand piano, playing dirty songs and funny songs and beautiful songs. There were a few other girls, there were games and filthy jokes and hilarity, there was quite a bit of misbehavior, and then there was unconsciousness. Buddy ended up in Lana's bed (the sheets were still warm), but he had drunk too much to get it up, and you could have lit her breath with a match by that point anyway: he'd never found that very s.e.xy.

The sun rose over Brentwood to the sound of snoring in the big Tudor. A few hours later, a black Plymouth coupe pulled up in front of the house, and Lana Turner's mother, Mildred, a rawboned Arkansas lady with a history of tragedy and pain, got out, a worried look on her long, plain features. She had been calling and calling, but n.o.body would pick up the phone. Now she opened the house's heavy front door with her own key, sniffed the pungent air, and frowned at the sight of snoring musicians draped every which way-over the couches and easy chairs and carpet. Her daughter was going to h.e.l.l in a hand-basket, and so, apparently, was the world: she had come to bring the news that the country was at war.

Lucky Strike green has gone to war. Yes, Lucky Strike green has gone to war...Don't look for your Luckies in their familiar green package on the tobacco counters. No, your Luckies are wearing a different color now.

Who the h.e.l.l knew what was going to happen? The world was turning upside down, and Frank had to grab whatever he could. The word was buzzing along the musicians' grapevine: Bob Eberly, with Jimmy Dorsey's band, was thinking about going out on his own. Eberly was kind of a handsome lug, and he could really sing. He had a rich, supple baritone, and he and Helen O'Connell had just done a version of "Green Eyes" that sounded as if they were going to hop right into the sack the second they were through.

But if you listened closely, it was a trick. Eberly was just a voice-a terrific voice, it's true; a b.a.l.l.sy voice. He sounded like a man. But there was no ardor there, no yearning. There wasn't anybody around, with the exception of Crosby, who could put across a song, could make you feel it, the way Sinatra could. Bob Eberly wasn't half the singer Frank Sinatra was, and Sinatra knew it. But did the public? He didn't want to wait around to find out.

And so he began to pester Tommy relentlessly, always mentioning the Down Beat Down Beat poll (and never Manie Sacks): Dorsey poll (and never Manie Sacks): Dorsey had had to let him record a few on his own. Why not? They'd sell some records! to let him record a few on his own. Why not? They'd sell some records!

Dorsey finally said yes just to shut him up.

Frank rehea.r.s.ed constantly for the next three weeks, afternoons at the Palladium before Tommy showed up, just he and Lyle Henderson or Joey Bushkin on the piano behind him, in the huge quiet stillness of the empty dance hall. He knew exactly which songs he wanted to cut. They were all ballads, of course, all dripping with romance: There was "The Night We Called It a Day," by these new kids Matt Dennis and Tom Adair, who'd written "Let's Get Away from It All" and "Violets for Your Furs." There was a sweet Hoagy Carmichael number that hadn't been recorded much, "The Lamplighter's Serenade." And then two cla.s.sics: Kern and Hammerstein's "The Song Is You" and Cole Porter's equally immortal "Night and Day," whose lyrics he'd blown in front of the great man himself.

He had told Dorsey that he wanted strings. Oh, how he wanted them. The last time he'd had the chance to sing with a string section had been at the end of 1938, right around the time of his arrest, when he'd jumped at the chance to do a once-a-week radio show at the WOR Bamberger station in Newark just because their orchestra had a few fiddles. The job paid all of thirty cents a week-the round-trip train fare between Hoboken and Newark. But they had strings. And he got to sing three songs with those strings behind him on every show. He loved the way they carried his voice, like a vase holding a bouquet of flowers. And now he would have strings again, and he knew just the man to make them sing.

Axel Stordahl was a first-generation Norwegian-American from Staten Island who had joined the Dorsey band as fourth trumpeter in the mid-1930s. He was a less than stellar horn player,1 but it quickly became clear that he had a gift for arranging ballads. When Sinatra joined the band, it was as if he and Axel had each found his missing piece. Physically and temperamentally, the two couldn't have been more different: Stordahl, who was tall, bald, and pale lashed, looked like nothing so much as a Norwegian fisherman. He even wore a fisherman's cap and smoked a pipe. He was intensely calm, quietly humorous. Sinatra, who liked to nickname people he was fond of, called him Sibelius. but it quickly became clear that he had a gift for arranging ballads. When Sinatra joined the band, it was as if he and Axel had each found his missing piece. Physically and temperamentally, the two couldn't have been more different: Stordahl, who was tall, bald, and pale lashed, looked like nothing so much as a Norwegian fisherman. He even wore a fisherman's cap and smoked a pipe. He was intensely calm, quietly humorous. Sinatra, who liked to nickname people he was fond of, called him Sibelius.

Frank Sinatra, of course, was the opposite of calm. Yet when he sang slow numbers, some sort of ethereal best self took over, and Stordahl's writing helped him attain it. The pattern had been set on the singer's first two recordings with Dorsey, "The Sky Fell Down" and "Too Romantic," and it had continued on every ballad he'd done (and Buddy Rich had grimaced through) with the band.

The recording session, which took place at RCA's Los Angeles studios on Monday afternoon, January 19, 1942, went off perfectly. Stordahl conducted. There were fourteen players on the date: four saxes and a guitarist who were part of the Dorsey band, and an oboist, four violinists, a violist, a ba.s.s fiddler, a harpist, and a pianist-Skitch Henderson-who were not. Pointedly, there was no drummer. Nor did Dorsey attend the session-even though both of the two singles that resulted (released on RCA's discount Bluebird label) were labeled "Frank Sinatra with Tommy Dorsey and His Orchestra."

Sinatra had been a wreck in the weeks leading up to the session. Whenever he wasn't rehearsing, he was fretting about the huge implications of leaving Dorsey. No band singer had ever gone out on his own before (though d.i.c.k Haymes, who'd replaced Sinatra with Harry James, was trying some solo club dates in between his gigs as Benny Goodman's boy singer). Frank was "almost tubercular," Nick Sevano said. "He was seeing all kinds of doctors, but he was so nervous that he couldn't eat. He never finished a meal...He started talking a lot about death and dying...'I get the feeling that I'm going to die soon,' he'd say."

Yet when he walked into the studio that Monday afternoon, it was with a swagger. Harry Meyerson, the Victor A&R man who ran the session, remembered: "Frank was not like a band vocalist at all. He came in self-a.s.sured, slugging. He knew exactly what he wanted. He knew he was good."

In fact, it was the bravado that was phony-half-phony, anyway. The fact of the matter was that Frank Sinatra was scared s.h.i.tless. But (true to a pattern he would maintain for the rest of his life) when he was afraid, he liked to make others jump.

A few days later, when the first pressings of the recordings came in, his fear diminished considerably: they were terrific. Axel Stordahl later recalled sitting for an entire sunny afternoon in Sinatra's room at the Hollywood Plaza, listening to the four songs over and over on the singer's portable record player. "He was so excited you almost believed he had never recorded before," Stordahl said. "I think this was a turning point in his career."

Between the lines, Sibelius sounded a little distanced from the exultation, perhaps a bit regretful at not being able to get out and enjoy that glorious Los Angeles afternoon. That was the way it was, though, when you were close to the drama that was Sinatra: you stayed put in your orchestra seat until the performance was through.

Connie Haines remembered listening to Sinatra's "Night and Day" with some of the rest of the band, not long afterward: "Frank sat on a stool. He had on one of those hats Bing Crosby had made popular. It was slouched down over his head at just the right angle, and he had a pipe in his mouth...As the last note ended, we all knew it was a hit. The musicians rose to their feet as if one. They cheered. Then I heard him say, 'Hey, Bing, old man. Move over. Here I come.'"