Sinatra

by J. Randy Taraborrelli

  By the winter of 1949, Frank was more bored and restless than ever. Another man might have tried to settle into his marriage, maybe learned more about his long-suffering spouse, perhaps found some common ground upon which to build and sustain a long-term relationship, even if only for the sake of his children. But not Frank. He still wanted thrills, especially during these days when his career wasn’t providing them for him.

  Enter Ava Gardner. Again.

  The Affair Begins

  While in Palm Springs for a party in late 1949, Frank Sinatra once again ran into Ava Gardner. Immediately the sparks started flying. “I suppose we were rushing things a little the last time we met,” he said, smiling.

  “You were rushing things,” she countered.

  “So, let’s start again,” Frank offered eagerly. “What do you say?”

  Ava later recalled, “That night, we drank, we laughed, we talked . . . and we fell in love.”

  This time, Ava wanted to know more about the status of Frank’s marriage. He explained that it was over but that he was still committed to his three children. All she heard was the word “over,” and that was enough for her. That night, they made love, and as Ava remembered it, “Oh, God, it was magic. We became lovers forever—eternally.”

  Ava Lavinia Gardner was born on Christmas Eve 1922 in the small farming community of Grabtown, North Carolina, located about eight miles from the town of Smithfield, in Johnston County. This sleepy, impoverished community—with no electricity and unpaved, always muddy roads—was about as far away from the life of a movie star as one could get.

  Named after her dad’s sister, Ava was the last of seven children born to southern sharecropper and tobacco farmer Jonas Bailey Gardner and his wife, Mary Elizabeth, who was often called Molly. William Godfrey, a friend of Ava’s formerly from Grabtown, recalled, “She worked in the tobacco fields, I remember, but she couldn’t wait to make her mark on the world in some way. She flailed around for a bit in the early days. She went to business school for a while after graduation, as I recall. She seemed to know, though, that whatever it was she was destined for, it was going to be big.”

  When Ava was growing up, young men were afraid to date her because of her wild, explosive temper. Her friends recall the time she caught a boy she was dating kissing another girl. She berated him, slapped him, and kicked him. As one friend put it, “You didn’t cross Ava.”

  At the age of eighteen, Ava went to New York to visit her sister Beatrice (“Bappie”), now married to a photographer named Larry Tarr (who worked for the family-owned business, Tarr Photographic Studios). After he took her picture as a lark and then displayed it in his shop, it was seen by an errand boy who worked in the law department of Loew’s, Inc. That errand boy wanted Ava’s telephone number so that he could call her for a date. He used his tenuous connection with MGM (since MGM and Loew’s were affiliated) to try to get it from Larry Tarr. He told Tarr that he believed MGM would be interested in Ava. He didn’t get her phone number; Tarr refused to give it to him. However, Tarr did take the pictures to MGM himself. So struck were the MGM talent scouts by Ava’s stunning looks that they suggested she do a screen test. After seeing the test, Louis B. Mayer was immediately interested. It seemed somewhat miraculous to her that without even really trying or paying her dues, she was on her way to a big career. She made the move to Hollywood at nineteen. “I didn’t know anything about anything,” she recalled, “but part of me had no doubt I would end up a movie queen.”

  Although her southern accent was so thick that many people at MGM had a difficult time understanding her, Mayer signed her to a seven-year contract and assigned her to studio voice coach Lillian Burns. It would be four more years, though, filled with bit parts and small roles—now she was paying her dues—before MGM began grooming her to be a star, giving her etiquette lessons, constantly changing her hair and makeup in search of the right look, and attempting to teach her a few other things as well . . . like how to act.

  According to all accounts, even as a major film star, Ava was insecure about her ability as an actress. She had often said that her greatest fear was that she would be “found out,” that her true self would be revealed. “I’m a fraud,” she’d say to intimates, “and I live in fear of being discovered.” Still, between 1941, when she first arrived in Hollywood, and 1946, Ava would appear in seventeen films, many on loan to RKO and Universal, for which MGM exacted heavy fees.

  “Maybe her insecurity is what made her so attractive on film,” speculated her business manager from 1962 until her death in 1990, Jess Morgan. “Insecurity haunted her for her entire life and, in her personal life, made her act in ways that could be completely unreasonable. You had to learn how to handle Ava. If she saw that you were weak, she’d go after you . . . and run right over you.”

  Ava Gardner had had two brief marriages, one in 1942 to a man who was arguably the biggest star at the time, actor Mickey Rooney. It lasted fourteen months. The second was in 1945 to bandleader Artie Shaw, which lasted two years. Both were unhappy unions. She also had a turbulent relationship with Howard Hughes, whom she described as “cold and ruthless, although with me he was always gentle and concerned.”

  Artie Shaw treated her badly, though most of Ava’s friends believe he was the true love of her life—not Frank Sinatra. (Ava wanted to have Shaw’s child; she never wanted Sinatra’s.) She moved on with her life after her second marriage ended, though she never really got over the way Shaw had treated her. Ava would charge that Shaw had been emotionally abusive, always criticizing her, making her feel worthless, and in effect validating the feelings of inadequacy that so haunted her.

  On December 8, 1949, Ava and Frank ran into each other in the lobby of the Ziegfeld Theatre in New York when both attended the opening of the Broadway musical Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. It was during this supposedly impromptu meeting, according to Sinatra legend, that they first became attracted to one another, or as Ava’s friend Ruth Rosenthal-Schechter put it, “an overpowering attraction obvious to all. The next day, their meeting was the talk of New York.”

  Actually, Frank and Ava had gone to the premiere together with another couple, whom they’d invited as a cover for their presence. Not only were they together at the premiere, but they were staying at the Hampshire House in New York in Manie Sacks’s suite. By the end of 1949, their romance was in full bloom.

  “All of my life, being a singer was the most important thing in the world,” Frank told Ava at the end of the year. “Now . . . you’re all I want.”

  Something about his declaration bothered her. It was too dramatic, even for her, and she loved good drama as much as the next girl. “You need more than just one person in your life,” she told him. “No one should be that important.”

  It wasn’t what he expected her to say. But there was no turning back for him now. During a time when illicit sex and extramarital affairs were strictly taboo, Ava was a bit of an anomaly. She wasn’t opposed to having affairs with married men; she’d had them in the past—most notably with Robert Taylor when he was married to Barbara Stanwyck—and she now set her sights on Frank, saying that “there’s no rhyme or reason to a love affair.”

  As they got to know each other, Ava and Frank began to feel they had a great deal more in common other than their mutual objections to the demands of show business. They both enjoyed being up all night, drinking, partying, and then sharing intimacies and secrets in a booze-induced haze. They loved Italian food and enjoyed watching televised boxing bouts.

  In no time, it was impossible for Frank to imagine living his life without Ava. The feeling was not quite mutual, because Ava liked to keep her options open, just in case something better came along. Just like Frank. “Their love affair may have been meant to be,” recalled Frank’s daughter Tina, “but that doesn’t mean it was meant to work. These were two tautly strung, ambitious, restless people who could never quite be satiated.”

  Lana’s Warning to Ava

  At the beginning of th
e affair, Frank was hopelessly romantic. For instance, Ava recalled that while he was driving her to the home she and her sister Bappie leased in Palm Springs, he pulled over to the side of the road and began to serenade her under one of the palm trees. A private concert by Sinatra? What girl would not be moved? Ava Gardner. She thought it was incredibly corny, and she never let him forget it. Still, it was a nice gesture.

  The next day, Ava found herself thrilled by a different side of Frank—his reckless, dangerous side. As the two drove through Palm Springs in his Cadillac, they recklessly fired bullets from two .38 revolvers into the air like gangsters in a bad movie. Not only did they hit streetlights and store windows during their dangerous prank, but they actually nicked an innocent passerby. As a result, both were promptly arrested. It would cost nearly $20,000 for Sinatra to keep the incident out of the news: $10,000 to hide the records of the man who had been grazed by one of the bullets; $5,000 for the Indio, California, chief of police; $2,000 for the arresting officers; and another $2,000 to repair the damage to city property. (George Evans went to Palm Springs on his behalf to take care of the expensive transactions.) “Now, this is fun,” Ava enthused after their shared fracas. “This is the kind of fun I like to have.”

  On one occasion during this period, Lana Turner spotted Ava across a crowded room at a cocktail party in Beverly Hills. Lana politely excused herself from a conversation and headed toward the powder room. Along the way, she made eye contact with Ava and, with a quick tilt of the head, summoned her to a powwow.

  Ava and Lana were very good friends. Both had once been married to Artie Shaw, and both agreed Shaw was the most emotionally abusive, unkind man they had ever known. After Ava joined Lana in the ladies’ room, Lana began to talk about Frank. As the two touched up their makeup, Lana left out few details while documenting the events of her own affair with Sinatra and how badly it had ended. “Not a single big female star hasn’t cried on his cock,” she told Ava.

  According to what Ava later recalled, Lana said, “That Frank is a real son of a bitch. I’m just trying to warn you, sister. Stay away from him.” She said that she thought she and Frank were on their way to the altar, when, in fact, he’d already decided that he was going back to Nancy. He didn’t even have the courtesy to warn her in advance. “He will never leave that wife of his, and all those kids,” Lana said. “Protect yourself.”

  Ava had to laugh. The idea that any woman needed “protection” from a man was so absurd to her, she didn’t even know how to respond. Even when Artie Shaw was unkind toward her, she still felt she was the one in control. “Maybe he needs to stay away from me,” Ava observed of Frank with an arched eyebrow.

  “Sister, you don’t know what you’re getting yourself into,” Lana continued. “The way he dumped me?” Lana explained that she didn’t even know she and Frank were finished until she read in the morning paper about his very public reunion with Nancy at the Phil Silvers show. After she finished with her makeup, Lana snapped her purse shut and concluded, “To think he could do that to a woman like me.”

  Ava couldn’t just disregard Lana’s opinion. In fact, Lana had tried to warn her about Artie Shaw, but Ava didn’t listen and went ahead and married him anyway. It was a disaster of a marriage, she had to admit. But Frank was different, she maintained. She said that she and Frank had something she and Artie never had—true love. According to her later recollection, she said, “Frank will most certainly leave Nancy for me if I decide he should. And if I decide I want to marry him, he’ll do that, too. If I’m in love, I get married; that’s my fundamentalist Protestant background. That’s why I married Artie, for better or worse,” she concluded.

  Lana just shrugged. She wasn’t so invested that it mattered to her one way or the other; she had done her best. “I just want you to be happy, sweetheart,” she told Ava.

  “I am happy,” Ava said as she embraced her friend. “I am so very happy.”

  “Absolutely Not”

  When Nancy Sinatra realized that Frank was now dating Ava Gardner, she didn’t even want to discuss it with him. The two were living in the same house on Carolwood, but now they weren’t even talking to one another.

  One morning George Evans and Ted Hechtman met at the Carolwood estate to discuss the situation with Ava from a strategic public relations standpoint. Nancy’s mother was also present. Sinatra was not.

  “I remember that Nancy seemed exhausted. She had three little kids, one an infant, there was a nanny running around, a bunch of housekeepers. . .her mother in town, helping out . . .and Nancy looking beautiful in a floral-print dress, full makeup and hair. Gorgeous, really. I looked at her and thought, ‘Why does Frank need more? This woman has it all.’ She invited us in and we sat in the kitchen at the table.”

  “What exactly is it you want us to do about Ava Gardner?” George asked Nancy. Nancy looked at her mother, who just shook her head in the negative. She then softly said she wanted to do nothing. She reminded George that they had been unable to do anything about Lana Turner, and, at least from what she could glean, Ava Gardner was far more notorious. They then discussed whether or not they should try threatening Ava with the morals clause warning, but it was decided that if it hadn’t worked on Lana, it probably wouldn’t work on Ava either. Nancy’s mother put forth the notion that if Frank didn’t want to be married to Nancy any longer, maybe there was nothing that could be done about it. Nancy just stared straight ahead, seeming deadened to the whole subject. George then suggested that perhaps he could get Lana to reason with her. However, he didn’t seem too enthusiastic about that prospect, perhaps remembering how Lana had dismissed him when he tried to talk to her about Frank. Nancy told him not to even bother. It was as if everyone had run out of options. “I’m so tired of this bullshit,” Nancy finally said, becoming angry. “I don’t care anymore. Screw him and Ava Gardner for all I care. Screw them both.”

  “Do you realize how many times Frank has disappointed us?” Nancy’s mother asked Evans and Hechtman. She said that Frank had disappointed them so repeatedly, they no longer trusted him. She then turned to her daughter and, placing her hand over Nancy’s, said that she didn’t understand the world she lived in, “not one bit, dear.” Mrs. Barbato well knew, though, that her husband had cheated on her throughout their marriage, and that there wasn’t anything she could do about it. Nancy had always felt badly for her mom and had said she would never accept that kind of treatment from a husband of her own . . . yet here they all were.

  “So does that mean you will give him a divorce if he asks for it?” George asked Nancy.

  “Absolutely not,” Nancy shot back without even having to think about it. “I won’t make it easy on him. No!” Then, after a beat, she slammed both hands onto the table and rose. “Absolutely not,” she repeated before she stormed from the room.

  George, Ted, and Mrs. Barbato sat at the table for a moment, staring at one another in awkward silence. “Well, gentlemen,” Mrs. Barbato finally said as she rose, “I guess you have your answer.”

  A Take-Charge Kind of Woman

  By 1950, not only was Frank Sinatra’s recording career in trouble, but apparently so was his voice. One Columbia recording engineer remembered, “The songs were there; the voice was not. Because he was failing vocally, he had something else to be unhappy about.”

  In January, Frank performed his first concert in two years, in Hartford, Connecticut. Though record sales were slow at this time and he was having trouble with his vocal cords, it was clear that the public was still somewhat interested because, unlike the scenario at most recent concerts, these dates were almost sold out. These shows generated his biggest take ever: $18,267 for two days.

  Also at this time, Sinatra and George Evans—now together for nine years—tried to smooth over the many working disagreements they’d been having these past few years. Again, Evans tried to talk some sense into Frank, telling him that he would be “ruined” by the affair if the press got wind of it. “I’m already ruined,” Fr
ank said. “So what do I care?”

  One morning in early January 1950, George tried to reason with Frank again in a meeting that took place in the upstairs lounge of the Copacabana in New York. Evans would later explain that he had asked the singer Lena Horne—also a client of his—to “happen by” and sit in on the meeting. With Horne perched on a barstool between the two men and sipping a coffee, they began once again to air their grievances.

  During the meeting, Lena tried to convince Frank that his extracurricular activities could do irreparable damage to his image. Ironically, Lena was a very good friend of Ava’s; both were MGM contract players and had often commiserated about the men in their lives. Lena believed the relationship would be damaging to both of them, and therefore she told Sinatra to “come to his senses.” Why would a man with as many fans as Frank be so careless? She mentioned that his female fans in particular might take offense.

  Frank didn’t seem very eager to listen to advice about his private life from an outsider, even if he did admire Lena Horne as an artist. According to George Evans’s later recollection, Frank told her to butt out. He threw some money down onto the bar, clinked George’s glass, and took off, muttering under his breath. As he left the lounge, Lena turned to George and asked, “What does Ava see in him? Please, won’t you explain it to me, because I just don’t get it.”

  One of the reasons George hadn’t contacted Ava directly was because when they met a couple of months earlier, the chill between them had been palpable. Ava knew that George was opposed to their relationship and she didn’t want anyone around Frank who could exert any influence over him where she was concerned. Because he was already so vulnerable and unstable, she worried Frank might listen to negative opinions about her, especially if they came from someone he trusted. By her own later admission, Ava felt she had to employ a certain amount of strategy if she were to take him from Nancy.