“I thought the only thing I could do was to get out of there with any shred of dignity that might remain,” Mia later remembered, laughing. “And as I stood up to leave, his eyes met mine, and my heart stopped, you know? Everything came together. I was just so alive in that moment.”
“You know what?” Frank began as he walked Mia off the set. “There’s a private screening tomorrow night of a movie I just directed, None but the Brave. “Why not go with me?”
He noticed her hesitation. Because of the obvious age difference between them, would she be frightened away? No. She nodded and smiled. “Yes, of course,” she said.
The next night, Frank held Mia’s hand throughout the screening. Afterward, he asked her to go to Palm Springs with him. He moved fast. He wanted her to go with him, right then and there. “We can leave from here,” he told her urgently. “I have my own jet. We’ll just take off and be there in an hour. What do you say, kid?”
This was a lot for Mia to digest—a famous man more than twice her age asking her to go to Palm Springs for the weekend? “I’d never been anywhere with anybody,” she later recalled. “I never even had a date before. So, going to Palm Springs with somebody—I couldn’t even wrap my mind around it. He wanted me to leave immediately! How could I possibly do that? And I just remember babbling about how I didn’t have any of my stuff, my pajamas. My cat. My toothpaste!”
Frank couldn’t help but laugh. “You’re marvelous, aren’t you?” he teased. “Fine, you go home and get your things in order. Tomorrow morning, I’ll send a car for you. It’ll take you to the Burbank airport where I have my Learjet. And my pilot will then fly you to Palm Springs. And I’ll be there waiting for you. Okay?”
She just nodded.
“Oh, and don’t forget your retainer,” Sinatra added with a chuckle as he walked away. He winked and disappeared around a corner.
Mia and Frank in Palm Springs
The next morning, a black stretch limousine showed up at Mia Farrow’s front door, as promised. It was then that she remembered she hadn’t even given Sinatra her address. How had he known where she lived? As she pondered that question, she was whisked to the Burbank airport, where a jet awaited her on the tarmac. With the passing of a few moments, she had settled into a plush leather seat, a single passenger alone on a private aircraft. “Could this be true?” she would recall wondering. A steward asked if she’d like a drink. As she sipped her Coca-Cola through a straw, the jet took off. The hour passed quickly; soon she found herself landing in Palm Springs. Then, gazing in wonder out a small round window, Mia saw him on the runway, smiling at her: Frank Sinatra in a black suit and tie with a jaunty fedora, looking like . . . well . . . looking pretty much exactly the way one might imagine Frank Sinatra would look in 1964. Cool.
Mia wasn’t really a fan. Of course, she knew who he was—who didn’t? But her parents never listened to Sinatra, preferring Gregorian chants. She was a fan of the pop and rock and roll music of the day. So she didn’t know much about Frank other than what she’d read in gossip columns and what she’d seen on television. However, while in Palm Springs with him that weekend, she couldn’t help but be captivated by him. The sharp way he dressed, the way he smelled like lavender . . . everything about him seemed sensual. He comported himself like a man in total control, at least that’s how it appeared to her. His house was also mesmerizing. She was raised in an enormous mansion, but it was old and stuffy. Frank’s place was nothing like anything she’d ever seen before—all glass and metal, sharp angles and very modern.
“The pool was too close to the house,” Frank explained matter-of-factly as he took her on a tour, “so I had it moved . . . way back there,” he said, pointing out into the distance.
He had his pool moved? “Who does that?” she asked herself.
“And over there, that’s the helipad. That’s where my helicopter lands.
“And this room right here,” he said as he walked her down a long hallway, “this is where JFK once slept. See the plaque?” Mia gazed at the gold plaque with the president’s name on it.
Mia would recall that her first night with Frank felt like pure magic. Dinner on the patio as the sun set, just the two of them—and an army of servants catering to their every need. At the end of the night, Sinatra swept her into his arms and took her to his bedroom. By the next morning, she was already in love with him. The more they talked, the deeper she fell.
As she wandered through the house, Mia couldn’t help but notice framed pictures of a stunning brunette all over the premises. A relative? His sister, maybe? No, he told her. “That’s Ava.” Frank then opened up to Mia about Ava Gardner, confiding in her, as if he’d known her for years. The more he trusted her with his heartache, the more she was drawn in by him. His honesty was seductive. “I don’t even know why I’m telling you this stuff,” he told her with a loopy smile.
Ava. The name sounded familiar to Mia. Then it hit her. Her father had once had an affair with Ava Gardner, back in 1953 when they filmed Ride, Vaquero together. In fact, it was one of the many reasons her parents’ marriage broke up. (Frank and Ava were still married at the time.) Should she mention it? No, Mia decided. It was all just so overwhelming; she needed time to think about it.
Getting to Know You
He started calling her “Angel Face.” She began calling him “Charlie Brown.”
After Palm Springs, Frank and Mia began to date. She knew what she saw in him, it was obvious. In her eyes, he was everything a girl could ask for: A great lover. An amazing man. Powerful. In control. Famous. Honest. Yes, probably even a father figure. She wasn’t so naïve that she wasn’t able to put the pieces together: Her father was never there for her, but Frank was—at least in the moment. It made sense. She missed her father, and it felt good being with Frank.
Mia soon discovered qualities in Frank she felt were missing in herself. He was strong and defiant, whereas she often felt weak and vulnerable. He was powerful and decisive. When had she ever made a decision about which she was truly happy? Other than to date Frank, she couldn’t think of one. He was supremely self-confident, a lifetime of success imbuing him with self-assurance the magnitude of which boggled her mind. She felt like a bumbling fool most of the time. To walk into a roomful of strangers and be comfortable in her own skin? For her, it had never happened. But for Frank it was a way of life.
As for Frank, the more he got to know Mia, the more he appreciated that she seemed to have no preconceived notions about him. It was as if he could reveal anything to her and she accepted and understood it. For instance, he confessed that he had a bad temper. “It’s an Italian thing,” he explained. “I get it from my mother. I’m like her, I can really blow up. I can be pretty mean,” he admitted.
Mia said that she believed Frank’s temper was actually a consequence of being pushed too hard in his career. He was overworked, she theorized, and thus short-tempered. “You’re Frank Sinatra so they think you’re invincible,” she reasoned. “But looking at you right now, I see the truth. I see that you feel put-upon, and that’s why you act out. I understand you better than you think,” she told him.
He further told her that he was tired of his career and wanted to retire. “That’s not how you really feel,” she observed. She said she believed that because expectations of him were so great, he felt punished by his celebrity. “But I think I know you already,” she said, “and I think your passion is your music and your career. Without it, you would be very unhappy.” Instead of giving it up, Mia suggested he cut back on his career schedule and enjoy his private life a little more. Frank didn’t even know how to respond. All he knew was that Mia was very unusual. How was it that she seemed to understand him so well at only nineteen?
In fact, as he would later come to realize, Mia Farrow saw life in simple terms: She believed that at the core of each human being was pure goodness. Since Frank had long ago become convinced that at the core of each human being was pure bullshit, her view of humanity was a twist of logi
c for him. Coming after Ava, Marilyn, Betty, and others who had preceded her in his life, Mia was a breath of fresh air. She was into mysticism and yoga, which he thought was eccentric. Yet he was charmed by it all just the same. She also liked to smoke pot, which he thought was unfortunate. He didn’t do drugs. In fact, he was dead set against the growing drug culture in America. However, he obviously did drink a lot, so he decided not to judge her. Admittedly, the age difference was a bit disconcerting; Frank realized it would likely cause a scandal when word got out. Certainly it would appear to others that he was having a major midlife crisis. He also knew that his overprotective mother and the rest of his family would likely object. However, none of this seemed to matter. He was falling in love, or at least that’s how it felt to him at the time. “The good thing about love at first sight,” he would later say, “is that it saves a lot of time.”
The truth was that Frank had been discontented for so long, he felt he deserved some small measure of happiness. Therefore, he decided he was going to roll the dice with Mia. “She says she wants to get to know the real me,” he told Dean Martin. “But is there such a thing?” he wondered.
“But she’s young enough to be your daughter,” Dean said, according to his recollection of the conversation. “You don’t know what you’re getting yourself into, pallie.”
“God help me,” Frank remarked, “but I’m tired of feeling sad, old, and washed up. We’re talking marriage already, pallie.”
“But this kid, she doesn’t know you,” Dean said.
“She sees me in a different way,” Frank said. “I’m goin’ after this one, pallie.”
“Jesus Christ, Frank,” Dean exclaimed. “I got scotch older than this kid!”
Red Flag
Can this really work?” Mia asked her mother, Maureen O’Sullivan, one morning over breakfast. Frank had asked George Jacobs to take the two to breakfast.
Maureen had come to the desert to visit and stay at the compound with her daughter and Frank. She hadn’t been happy about the relationship. “He’s having a midlife crisis, and he’s using you to make him feel better about himself,” she had told Mia. “This makes me mad, Mia! Why can’t he just get hair plugs and a sports car like other men his age?” However, once Maureen got to know Frank better, she began to waver in her view. He was so courteous and such a gentleman, she couldn’t help but be just a little swept away by him. For instance, one day the phone rang; it was a reporter. Frank let him have it—“and don’t you ever call this number again, damn it!” Then, realizing that Maureen was in the room, he apologized to her for his language. That gesture impressed her. She found him to be very courtly. Still, she was worried about her daughter. Maureen, who was fifty-three, had been in show business for decades. She’d been around men like Frank before, knew they could be complex, and felt she needed more time to be sure of him.
“Well, I like him,” Mia said over breakfast. “I think he’s cool.”
“Mr. S. is cool,” George Jacobs said, trying to vouch for his employer.
“Well, obviously!” Maureen exclaimed with a laugh. “He’s Sinatra, isn’t he? But I’m not sure about this thing,” she told her daughter. “I’m just afraid you’ll get hurt.”
“Well, it has to be my decision, Mother,” Mia said.
“Yes, dear,” Maureen said. “I’m afraid that’s true.”
“It didn’t matter what her mom thought,” George Jacobs recalled. “Mia was not going to slow down where Mr. S. was concerned. She was a very determined person, no one’s pushover.”
After a couple of weeks of happiness, a problem surfaced. Mia, in years to come, would always remember the day Frank came to her and said, “I was thinking. You should give up acting. Who needs it? You and I can settle down, and I’ll just take care of you. So . . . quit.”
She didn’t even have to think about it. The answer was no. “My career is the only thing I have that gives me purpose,” Mia said. “I’m not giving it up.”
A startled expression lingered on Frank’s face. He thought she’d just agree, and that would be the end of it.
“If we’re going to be together, you must listen to what I say,” Mia said. She added that her mother had told her that this was the way relationships were supposed to work. As George Jacobs served cocktails, he tried not to eavesdrop, but it was impossible.
“Holy shit, Mia,” Frank said, exasperated. “Gimme some more gasoline,” he told Jacobs, holding out his glass to him.
“Get used to me having a mind of my own,” Mia said. “You are not my father and I am not your daughter. You don’t get to tell me what to do.”
Frank just stared at her. Mia stormed out. He then turned to George Jacobs. “And there she goes,” he told his valet, “off to play with her Easy Bake Oven.”
Fish out of Water
In February 1965, Mia Farrow would turn twenty. She had explained to Frank that she didn’t want to bring attention to the birthday. The media had already made such a big deal of the age difference, she didn’t want to remind everybody that she wasn’t even twenty-one. Frank didn’t see it that way. He wanted to host a big celebration, and anyone who didn’t approve of her age would just have to live with it. “I want to show off my best girl,” he told her. “Is there anything wrong with that?”
Mia’s birthday party was held at Chasen’s on February 9, 1965. None of her friends were present, just Frank’s—and they were all old enough to be her parents’ peers. “Why couldn’t you invite any of my friends?” she asked Frank. He just shrugged. “Never occurred to me, to tell you the truth,” he answered before rushing off.
Mia felt out of place, a fish out of water. She couldn’t hide her discomfort. It would turn out to be one of the worst nights of her young life. “Lighten up, baby,” Frank said, wrapping his arms around her after finding her alone in a corner. “Why not have some fun? After all, this is your night.”
It was impossible for her. “I can’t,” Mia said. She said that she felt as if everyone was staring at her, waiting for her to make a fool of herself. She believed they thought her nails looked bad because she bit them. “It’s my birthday,” she pouted. “Why couldn’t we just celebrate the way I wanted to?”
Now Frank was annoyed. He had spent good money on the party and had invited all of his celebrity friends, only to find his new girlfriend acting like a child. He tried to calm her down, but, truth be told, he didn’t have much patience for this sort of thing. Mia was definitely alone in her misery.
“Look, grow up,” Frank said before leaving her side. “Have a good time, or don’t. Your choice.”
The Other Side of Frank
In the spring of 1964, Swifty Lazar—the noted agent—invited Frank and Mia to a holiday party at his Beverly Hills home. The two arranged to meet there because Frank had a prior television commitment and planned to go straight to Lazar’s from the studio.
Mia showed up alone and, again, felt out of place. It was yet another star-studded affair—Judy Garland, Mickey Rooney, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis, and Donna Reed were present, all famous people she recognized, but none she actually knew. Again, while they may have been friends of her parents, they were not hers. As she tried to mingle, she saw a familiar face across the room, but one she couldn’t place. It wasn’t Ava Gardner, she knew that much, but it was definitely someone else she had seen posing with Frank in a photograph at his home. “Who’s that beautiful woman over there?” Mia asked someone standing next to her. “Oh, that’s Betty,” came back the answer. “Betty! You know . . . Lauren Bacall.” The name made Mia’s heart jump; she’d heard somewhere along the way that Frank had once been engaged to Lauren Bacall, but she had no idea why it had ended between them. Watching this stunning woman saunter through the crowd, so gorgeous and self-possessed, just made Mia feel all the more inferior. She was a real woman. She was the kind of woman with whom someone like Frank Sinatra belonged. Compared to her, Mia was just a little girl, or at least that’s how she recalled feeling in the moment.
Finally Frank showed up, tired and annoyed. He hated doing television shows, and was in a foul mood. He didn’t even kiss Mia hello. Instead, he just nodded at her, brushed by her, and went straight to the bar. That’s when he saw Betty.
Frank walked over to Betty and began talking to her. She looked profoundly unhappy to see him. Since this moment would mark the first time the two had spoken in the six years since he broke their engagement, she wasn’t welcoming of it. No one knew for certain what was said between them—Betty has since described it as “superficial conversation”—but suddenly Frank pointed to Swifty Lazar and yelled out, “It was you! You’re the reason we broke up,” he said, motioning to Betty. He was acting as if this was the first time he heard that Lazar had told Louella Parsons about the engagement seven years earlier. “Damn you, Swifty. I’ll send you straight to hell for this. Straight to hell!”
Frank was so angry, his face was flushed. He rushed over to one of the buffet tables, grabbed the corner of the white tablecloth, and in one swift motion pulled at it until everything—an entire display of iced seafood—went flying. Guests ducked as lobster tail and shrimp and crab legs rained down upon them, followed by a crash of plates and silverware.
Stunned, Mia backed herself into a corner and stared at the scene with horrified fascination. “Frank! Frank! Don’t,” she exclaimed, but it was too late. Partygoers were running for cover all around her. Mia huddled in the safety of her corner until suddenly she felt someone tugging at her arm. “Serves him right,” Frank said as he grabbed at her. “Let’s get the hell out of here.” He then pulled her by the elbow—and it hurt!—through the stunned crowd, out of the house, and to their car.
The drive home was eerie. Mia’s pleas to talk were met with total silence.
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