Sinatra

by J. Randy Taraborrelli

  About three hours after Pat and Peter Lawford arrived with Marilyn, they found a surprise in the Cal-Neva lobby: Sam Giancana. Apparently Frank had sent his private jet back to Los Angeles to pick him up and bring him there. For Frank to have invited him to the resort at the same time as the president’s sister and her husband seemed to make no sense. Was he deliberately trying to get the Lawfords up to Cal-Neva to force them to be in the presence of Giancana? It didn’t seem likely. Still, what was one to make of it? “I can’t explain it,” George Jacobs recalled. “I didn’t ask questions about it. I just let that one go.”

  Pat wasn’t able to let it go, though. “That’s it! We have to leave,” she told Peter loud enough for Giancana to hear. Peter seemed embarrassed; he felt Giancana had heard her. He walked over to Giancana, shook his hand, and began talking to him. The two then repeatedly glanced back at Marilyn while they spoke, as if they were referring to her. Meanwhile, Marilyn told Pat she didn’t feel well and that she could not possibly leave in that moment. She said she couldn’t bear to fly again. She then demanded that Pat take her back to her chalet. “I don’t feel well,” she told her. Pat led her friend away, her hand on the actress’s elbow.

  Ted Stephens worked in the kitchen at the lodge: “We got this call from Peter Lawford. ‘We need coffee in Chalet 52,’ he screamed into the phone, then hung up. He sounded frantic. No less than two minutes passed and it was Mr. Sinatra on the phone screaming, ‘Where’s that goddamn coffee?’ I learned later that they were in 52, walking Marilyn around, trying to get her to wake up.”

  Roberta Linn, who was entertaining at Cal-Neva along with Frank and Buddy Greco, recalled of Marilyn, “She wore the same green dress the entire weekend. Her hair was in disarray. She seemed out of it. She was at Sinatra’s show both nights; she would sit in the back looking unhappy. I thought it was such a shame, this girl who had everything yet nothing, really. It was very hard to see her in this condition.”

  There was more to it than just liquor, though, for Marilyn. She had developed the alarming habit of giving herself injections of phenobarbital, Nembutal, and Seconal—which she referred to as a “vitamin shot.” One day in Frank’s and Pat’s presence—this according to Joe Langford, who was also present—Marilyn opened her purse and pulled out a bunch of syringes while looking for something else. She was casual about it, placing all of the syringes on a table. Frank went white, stunned. “Marilyn. Jesus Christ. What are they for?” he asked. Marilyn said, “Oh, those are for my vitamin shots.” Pat shook her head. “Oh my God, Marilyn,” she said. To which Marilyn said, “It’s all right, Pat. I know what I’m doing.”

  “[Marilyn] was still going through her purse until, finally, she found what she was looking for: a sewing pin,” recalled Joe Langford. “As we all stood there with our mouths open—me, Sinatra, and Kennedy’s sister—she opened a bottle of pills and picked one out. Then she put a small hole at the end of the capsule and swallowed it. ‘Gets into your bloodstream faster that way,’ she said cheerfully. She turned back to Pat and said, ‘See, I told you I knew what I was doing.’ A few hours later, Pat raided Marilyn’s purse and got rid of all of the syringes.”

  “Mr. S. didn’t know what to think about any of it,” said George Jacobs. “This was pushing it. For Marilyn to maybe die at Cal-Neva while he was also on the premises? No. So, after he’d seen enough and realized there was nothing anyone could do for her, he said, ‘Okay, that’s it. Let’s get her out of here, now.’ As compassionate as Mr. S. may have been toward Marilyn, he had his limitations. So Pat and Peter took her back to Los Angeles. This was the last time Mr. S. would see Marilyn alive.”

  Less than a week later, on August 5, 1962, Marilyn Monroe was found dead at her home. In a public statement, Sinatra said he was “deeply saddened” by the news. George Jacobs remembered that “Frank was in shock for weeks, distraught.”

  When Frank went to Westwood Memorial Park for the funeral, he learned that Joe DiMaggio had given security guards specific instructions to keep him and most everyone else closely connected to Marilyn, including the Kennedys, away. DiMaggio blamed them all for her death, feeling everyone could have done a better job where Marilyn was concerned. As a man who had once beaten her, DiMaggio was hardly blameless in making Marilyn what she became.

  Out of respect for her memory, Frank Sinatra quietly left Westwood Memorial Park without making a scene.

  Swinging ’63

  A number of classic Frank Sinatra albums would be released in late 1962 and in 1963, but the best of the lot is doubtless the superb Sinatra-Basie: An Historic Musical First, the first of two albums teaming Sinatra and Count Basie. (The second was It Might as Well Be Swing, which would be issued in August 1964.) Basie’s band swings through numbers like “Pennies from Heaven,” “Nice Work If You Can Get It,” and “I’m Gonna Sit Right Down and Write Myself a Letter,” as Frank gives some of his best and most freewheeling performances. It all sounds improvised—which of course it isn’t—lending to the entire album the buoyant feeling of a live performance.

  In January, Frank flew to New Jersey to host Dolly’s and Marty’s fiftieth wedding anniversary party. At this time, Frank sold his parents’ modest three-story home to a Hoboken truck firm owner and bought them a new one: a split-level ranch house in Fort Lee with a remote view of the Hudson River. (He purchased the home under the name O’Brien, a name that had been used by his father, who once fought in the ring as Marty O’Brien.) Dolly was proud of her son’s gift to her and annoyed when one press account noted that Frank had paid $50,000 for the home. She asked friends to telephone the newspaper and make the correction: The house had actually cost $60,000.

  Frank was still close to his parents. His father, Marty, had been a rock to him over the years, especially after Frank became famous and proved he wasn’t a “bum.” Marty was always present as a sounding board, and Dolly had never changed. She was as irascible as ever, but she loved her son and everyone knew it.

  In February 1963, Frank recorded The Concert Sinatra in Los Angeles, a collection of Broadway classics. All eleven songs, including “Lost in the Stars” and “This Nearly Was Mine,” were recorded on Stage 7 at the Samuel Goldwyn Studios, giving the album a full acoustical sound.

  Also in February, Playboy published a fascinating in-depth interview with Frank, which raised more than a few eyebrows because of his views on politics and religion. Frank had wanted a strong and insightful piece from Playboy and said he wouldn’t sit down with the writer unless he promised to “talk turkey, not trivia.” He was interviewed on the set of Come Blow Your Horn; in his Dual-Ghia automobile en route home from the studio; and during breaks at a Reprise recording session during the recent Count Basie dates. In all, he spent a week with the writer.

  When the journalist asked Frank a broad question about the “beliefs that move and shape your life,” Frank became impatient. The question was just too vague. “Look, pal, is this going to be an ocean cruise,” he wanted to know, “or a quick sail around the harbor? I believe in a thousand things, and I’m curious about a million more. Be more specific.”

  For starters, Frank revealed that he did not believe in organized religion. “I think I can sum up my religious feelings in a couple of paragraphs,” he said. “First: I believe in you and me. I’m like Albert Schweitzer and Bertrand Russell and Albert Einstein in that I have a respect for life—in any form. I believe in nature, in the birds, the sea, the sky, in everything I can see or that there is real evidence for. If these things are what you mean by God, then I believe in God. But I don’t believe in a personal God to whom I look for comfort or for a natural on the next roll of the dice. I’m not unmindful of man’s seeming need for faith; I’m for anything that gets you through the night, be it prayer, tranquilizers or a bottle of Jack Daniel’s. But to me religion is a deeply personal thing in which man and God go it alone together, without the witch doctor in the middle. The witch doctor tries to convince us that we have to ask God for help, to spell out to him wh
at we need, even to bribe him with prayer or cash on the line. Well, I believe that God knows what each of us wants and needs. It’s not necessary for us to make it to church on Sunday to reach him. You can find him anyplace. And if that sounds heretical, my source is pretty good: Matthew, Five to Seven, the Sermon on the Mount.”

  The topic then turned to Frank’s art. “I don’t know what other singers feel when they articulate lyrics, but being an 18-karat manic-depressive and having lived a life of violent emotional contradictions, I have an overacute capacity for sadness as well as elation,” he said. “I know what the cat who wrote the song is trying to say. I’ve been there—and back. I guess the audience feels it along with me. They can’t help it. Sentimentality, after all, is an emotion common to all humanity.

  “Most of what has been written about me is one big blur,” he said when discussing his coverage in the press, “but I do remember being described in one simple word that I agree with. It was in a piece that tore me apart for my personal behavior, but the writer said that when the music began and I started to sing, I was ‘honest.’ That says it as I feel it. Whatever else has been said about me personally is unimportant. When I sing, I believe. I’m honest. If you want to get an audience with you, there’s only one way. You have to reach out to them with total honesty and humility. This isn’t a grandstand play on my part; I’ve discovered—and you can see it in other entertainers—when they don’t reach out to the audience, nothing happens. You can be the most artistically perfect performer in the world, but an audience is like a broad—if you’re indifferent, endsville. That goes for any kind of human contact: a politician on television, an actor in the movies, or a guy and a gal. That’s as true in life as it is in art.”

  Some feel that the Playboy feature was the most introspective interview Sinatra ever gave. It certainly did show him in a new, candid, and informed light.

  At the end of February, as the public mulled over his Playboy interview, Frank finished work on the film Come Blow Your Horn with Lee J. Cobb and Jill St. John. He plays a womanizer in the movie; frankly, the best thing about it is the optimistic, swinging title song, which can be found on Sinatra’s Softly, as I Leave You album. (Despite its weaknesses, the film would be released to positive reviews in June 1963.)

  At this time, Frank also began a brief affair with beautiful redheaded actress Jill St. John and had his private jet fly her to and from singing engagements. Though he took her home to meet Dolly—who cooked her one of her enormous Italian meals—the Sinatra and St. John dalliance resulted in nothing much more than a lot of publicity for both of them.

  In March, Frank appeared on a Bob Hope special, and then he hosted the Academy Awards.

  In May, another Sinatra film went into production: 4 for Texas, with Dean Martin as Frank’s sidekick in a goofy western comedy. When considering Frank Sinatra’s film work, it’s difficult to escape the conclusion that his movie career peaked with The Manchurian Candidate in 1961. After that, it was pretty much one silly movie after another for him, such as 4 for Texas and later Robin and the 7 Hoods. Even 1965’s Von Ryan’s Express—a favorite of many Sinatra aficionados—isn’t considered by critics to be a very good movie. It remains a mystery as to why after the turn of the new decade an actor as proficient at his craft as Frank Sinatra was never really offered the kinds of roles he deserved. “Maybe he was considered more a singer than an actor,” Frank Jr. has opined. “Maybe he made such an imprint on our culture as a vocalist that Hollywood felt he wasn’t serious about his acting, which certainly wasn’t the case. It’s difficult, though, to change Hollywood’s perception of you, as I think my father found out.”

  On July 25, 1963, Frank recorded another one of those classic “swing” Sinatra numbers, “Luck Be a Lady.” With words and music by Frank Loesser, this song was written in 1950 for the Broadway musical Guys and Dolls. (Marlon Brando sang it rather weakly in the 1955 film version.) In his recorded version, Frank’s voice is full and strong, his delivery exhilarating. Clearly this is one of his favorite numbers. His singing is sensational; the orchestra sounds fantastic.

  Frank Sinatra’s schedule was always full, and 1963 was no exception. “I don’t know how he did it,” said Dean Martin, who had an incredibly busy calendar himself. “Then again, I don’t know how I did it. In fact, I don’t even remember doing it.”

  Frank and Ava Redux

  The desperate obsession Frank Sinatra felt for Ava Gardner continued to torment him six years after their divorce was finalized. While Ava most certainly loved Frank, she didn’t have the same hunger for him that he had for her. She had never had it.

  In the summer of 1963, Frank and Ava, who was now forty, started dating again, taking it slow—for about a day. Then they were once again in a full-blown relationship. After Ava moved her belongings into Frank’s New York apartment, Frank excitedly told his friends, “She’s back, and I’m the happiest man in the world.” George Jacobs couldn’t help but ask “Mr. S.” why he would return to Ava, after everything she had put him through. Frank said he realized it was crazy and that he wasn’t fooling himself into thinking it could work out. “I just want to enjoy her while I have the time, while we’re young and we can still . . . try,” he said.

  Frank’s parents happened to be visiting him in New York, and Marty walked in on the conversation. “You fellas talking about Ava?” he asked. They told him yes, they were. “You’re a grown man, Frankie,” his father told him. “But can I offer you a little advice?”

  “Sure, Pop.”

  “If you’re gonna do it, don’t drag it out,” Marty said. “See how it goes. But if it’s bad, end it, son. Don’t spend years doing it. Learn from your mistakes. Don’t repeat them.”

  “Sure, Pop.”

  Unfortunately, the couple’s euphoria lasted only about a month. Then the battles started once again, mostly about Frank’s friends.

  “These creeps are going to bring you down,” Ava warned him one night during their 1962 reconciliation at a gathering at Jilly’s in New York. Jilly’s, a bar-restaurant on West 52nd Street, was owned by Frank’s good friend Ermenigildo “Jilly” Rizzo. Frank and Jilly had met a couple years earlier in Miami Beach and immediately struck up a friendship. A popular hangout for many celebrities, Jilly’s was also “the” place to go in Manhattan for Chinese food. Whenever Sinatra came to New York, his fans knew that Jilly’s was where they might find him.

  “One of these days, you’re going to end up at the bottom of some river somewhere wearing cement shoes,” Ava continued that night at Jilly’s, “and I’ll be damned if I’m gonna end up down there with you.”

  “Ava was scared being around Sinatra in public,” said Jess Morgan, her business manager from 1962 until her death. “She felt that at any moment there would be gunfire and she would fall dead in his arms. In fact, she told me that the only place she ever felt safe with Frank was when they were at his parents’ home because she knew that no one would touch them there.”

  Sitting at a table at Jilly’s with friends, Frank and Ava looked like the ideal couple and seemed to be having a good time over a selection of coffee and liqueurs—that is, until Sam Giancana walked in with a gaggle of his “boys.” Delighted, Frank jumped to his feet. “Mooney, over here. C’mon, buddy boy,” he said. “Join us. Look, Ava! It’s Sam.” Immediately, Ava started to seethe. Of course, Frank well knew how Ava felt about Sam. One can’t help but wonder, then, why he would have invited the gangster to their table. It was as ifhe was purposely setting out to sabotage his relationship with Ava, squandering any hope they might have of resuming their romance.

  “When Sam sat down, you could see the ice forming on the table. Ava’s attitude was that chilly,” said Thomas DiBella, who was present. “Sam was being Sam, you know, slapping guys on the back, buying people drinks. And Frank was grinning from ear to ear. But Ava was just staring at the two of them. She hated Frank’s loyalty to those guys. ‘Where was the mob when his career was all washed up and I was the one paying
his rent?’ she would ask. ‘Where was the fucking mob then?’ It wasn’t surprising, then, that Frank and Ava ended up in an argument over pretty much nothing. As they fought, Sam kept instigating things, making statements under his breath to Frank like, ‘You ain’t gonna let her get away with that, are you?’ or ‘Man, now she has really crossed the line.’ ”

  Suddenly, in one swift movement, Ava doused Frank with Sam’s gin and tonic.

  “What was that for?” Frank asked, astonished.

  “Frank was humiliated,” said Thomas DiBella. “To have this woman throw a drink in his face in front of Sam Giancana? I just remember Jilly’s face in that moment. He had one glass eye and when he was mad he had a way of staring you down so that both eyes looked like they were made of glass. Jilly glared at Ava like he was gonna strangle her. ‘You dizzy broad,’ he hissed at her. ‘Don’t even go dere!’ ”

  “Apologize to Sam, Ava,” Frank said, controlling his temper. “Apologize to me, too. What’s wrong with you?”

  Ava turned to Sam and stared at him for a moment with narrow eyes. Then she stormed out of the room. Sam laughed. “You need to straighten that broad out,” he told Frank. “She’s got no respect for you. I’ve never seen anything like that. That was classic. You hear me? Classic.”

  Frank didn’t say much for the rest of the night. He was embarrassed and dismayed—not only with Ava, but probably with himself as well. All of the pain she had caused him was still there, just under the surface. It didn’t take much for all of it to come back to him, and for him to run from it. The last thing he said to Sam before leaving was, “Don’t worry. When her phone don’t ring, she’ll know it’s me.”