Sinatra

by J. Randy Taraborrelli

  In the end, Frank was generally unhappy about the broadcast, even though everyone in his circle was relieved by its respectful tone. To Sinatra, a deal was a deal. It wasn’t so much the benign questions about Mia and the underworld that annoyed him as it was the basic lack of principle behind them. It didn’t matter to Frank that CBS couldn’t control Walter Cronkite any more than it mattered that his answer regarding Mia had been excised from the broadcast. Privately, he called both Hewitt and Cronkite every name in the book.

  When Frank’s publicist, Jim Mahoney, suggested that as a goodwill measure, perhaps he should send a note of thanks to Don Hewitt, Frank deadpanned, “Lemme ask you something? Can you send a fist through the mail?”

  What to Do About Mia?

  Everything was going fairly well for Frank and Mia until the end of 1965. Then a serious problem arose when Nancy Sr. and her daughters, Nancy Jr. and Tina, began planning a party to celebrate Frank’s fiftieth birthday. Hundreds of Frank’s closest friends and associates would be in attendance—“a veritable cream of Hollywood society” is how the Journal-American put it, “emphatically A and not B group people.” The dinner party was scheduled to be held at the Trianon Room of the Beverly Wilshire Hotel on Sunday evening, December 12.

  Nancy Sr., who was forty-eight that year, didn’t believe that Frank was really serious about Mia. She was so young, it just seemed hard to believe he was invested in her. Incredibly, Nancy continued to hold out hope that she would reconcile with Frank, and Nancy Jr. held on to that same dream. They were simply not going to take Mia seriously. “If my father gets serious with that girl, I will be very upset,” Nancy Jr. said at the time. “I’m sorry, but how am I supposed to feel? It’s no reflection on Miss Farrow, who I am sure is lovely. However, the fact remains that she is four or five years younger than I am! How am I supposed to feel about that?”

  Despite her and her daughter’s misgivings, Nancy Sr. still didn’t want to start any trouble. Therefore, three days before the event, she suggested that Frank invite Mia. He was happy, of course, as was Mia. He took her to a Beverly Hills boutique and treated her to a shopping spree—“anything my girl wants, she can have.” Among the bounty of expensive designer clothing Mia bought was a baby blue chiffon dress for the party.

  “Frank’s taking me to his birthday party,” an elated Mia told her Peyton Place director, Jeffrey Hayden, the morning of the event. “It’s going to be so much fun.”

  Hayden was immediately worried. “Mia, you are in the very first shot tomorrow morning,” he told her, according to his memory. “At 8 a.m. Please, I am begging you, Mia, don’t stay out too late with Sinatra. I need you here at 8 a.m. Promise me, Mia!”

  That night, Mia excitedly prepared herself for the party. She had brought her change of clothes to Frank’s house and decided to do her makeup and hair there as well. “How do you like my dress,” she asked as she descended the staircase. She posed for Frank, twirled around, and smiled.

  “I’m afraid I changed my mind, Babyface,” Frank said. “I’m sorry. You can’t go.”

  “But why?” Mia asked, instant tears springing to her eyes. George Jacobs ran to get a box of tissues. He knew what was coming.

  “It’s just not going to work,” Frank explained. “My son called and he’s upset and his sisters are upset. I don’t know. Just do me a favor, Mia, and don’t go, okay?”

  “I don’t understand,” Mia said crying.

  “Look, Mia,” Frank said firmly. “You’re not a little girl, you’re a woman. Act like one.”

  Insulted, Mia angrily ran from the Sinatra mansion, got into her convertible, put it into gear, and screeched down the driveway and away as fast as her wheels could take her. Frank immediately felt badly. He knew he hadn’t handled the situation well at all. “What a schmuck I am,” he told George Jacobs. He asked George to jump into his car and follow her to her apartment just to make certain she got there safely.

  The party celebrating Sinatra’s fiftieth birthday was a glittering affair, as advertised, but Frank was distracted. He couldn’t hide it. He tried to be present, but Mia rarely left his thoughts. To make things worse, Frank Jr. hadn’t even shown up! Therefore, Frank Sr. had to wonder what difference it made what he or anyone else thought of Mia. He also wondered what Mia was doing all by herself back in her little apartment. Probably crying her eyes out, at least according to what he fretted to guests.

  “No More Little Girl”

  The day after the party, Mia was due at the set at eight in the morning. When she didn’t show up, director Jeffrey Hayden was frantic and pacing. “Where the hell is she?” he asked everyone. “It’s nine and she’s not here. She’s never late. Of all days!”

  Finally, an hour later, Mia showed up. Hayden let her have it. “Mia!” he exclaimed. “We have ten pages to film here today! Get to that makeup table! Stop this little-girl stuff! You’re an actress! You’re a mature person! You’ve got a crew of seventy-five people waiting to shoot your scenes.” He was tough on her.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, very quietly. Seeming somehow dazed, Mia then walked robotically to her dressing room. She sat down. She found a pair of scissors on the table, she gazed at her reflection in the mirror . . . and then she proceeded to cut off her hair. Those long locks that Frank had so loved from the moment he met her, all gone in an instant. Given the speed with which she did it, it couldn’t have been done in an artful way, either. It actually looked like she just had hacked away at it. Or as Mia herself put it, “I picked up a pair of scissors and cut my hair to less than an inch in length.”

  “She came back a minute and a half later,” Jeffrey Hayden recalls. “She walked over to me, held up her hand full of the hair from her head, and she said, ‘Jeff. No more little-girl stuff.’ And handed me all her hair.”

  Jeff was mortified. He didn’t know exactly what was going through Mia’s mind, but in that moment he didn’t care. Whatever was going on in Mia’s private life was her business. His concern was Peyton Place. “Mia!” he said, dismayed. “We gotta match your last scene from yesterday’s shooting! What will we do?”

  She shrugged. “I just wanted you to know I’m growing up,” she said flatly. “No more little-girl stuff.” With that, she turned and walked away.

  Jeff Hayden ran to the telephone and called Paul Monash, the producer of Peyton Place, who also wrote for the show. “Paul, tell me what to do,” Jeffrey said, panicked. “Mia, she cut off all her hair! It’s not going to match yesterday’s shots!”

  Monash was startled, of course, but there wasn’t much time to be confused. He had to solve the problem quickly. “Get two flats [blank set walls] and a bed,” he said. “Get Mia into that bed and I’ll be down in fifteen minutes.”

  Hayden did as he was told. Two walls were set up in the corner of an empty soundstage. A simple bed was placed in front of them. Mia came into the studio and Hayden told her to lie down in the bed. “Okay, she’s in the bed,” he said, calling Monash again. “Now what?”

  “Get some bandages and wrap her head in them,” Monash instructed. “I’ll be down in five [minutes].”

  “So we wrapped bandages around Mia’s head,” Jeffrey Hayden recalled. “Minutes later, in walks Paul Monash with new pages of dialogue. Turns out, Mia’s character had been in an auto accident,” Hayden recalls, laughing. “We shot it, boom, boom, boom—and Mia’s character then stayed in that hospital bed with her head bandaged for the next several weeks.”

  “There were stern lectures about responsibility, and I apologized a lot,” Mia Farrow would later recall. “But, privately, I couldn’t see a problem.”

  Boots and Strangers

  In February 1966, Frank’s daughter Nancy, now twenty-five, hit number one on the charts with the truly unforgettable song “These Boots Are Made for Walking.” Nancy had actually been recording for five full years on her dad’s Reprise label before finally striking gold. In fact, she had recorded about fifteen singles—such as “Cufflinks and a Tie Clip” and “L
ike I Do.” But then she teamed up with writer-producer Lee Hazlewood, and the result was “Boots,” a hard-edged, feminist song. It boasted a tough, no-nonsense lyric, and Nancy would later say that she had to dig deep to find that aspect of herself. “ ‘Boots’ was hard,” she said, “and I’m as soft as they come.” Hazlewood felt differently about her, though. “You’re not a sweet young thing,” he told her. “You’re not the virgin next door. You’ve been married and divorced. You’re a grown woman. I know there’s garbage in there somewhere. Find it! Show it to me!”

  “These Boots Are Made for Walking” hit the number one spot in just three weeks; it would go on to sell four million copies and garner three Grammy nominations.

  Nancy had a number of hits in the 1960s other than “Boots,” such as “How Does That Grab You, Darlin’?” and “Sugar Town,” as well as “Summer Wine” and “Jackson,” both duets with Lee Hazlewood. While she started with somewhat limited ability and a narrow range, her producers turned any limitations into an undeniable style all her own. She recorded a number of albums, many of which are today cult classics.

  She was often compared to her father, which she found absurd. She became so annoyed by the constant comparison early in her career, she actually telephoned a critic. It was very much like Nancy to call a reporter with a grievance. “I have a bone to pick with you,” she told the surprised writer. “Keep a sense of humor about this call, though, okay? I don’t want you to get all defensive.” The surprised critic agreed. “Listen, I will never be my father. I will never be Frank Sinatra. Nobody on this planet will ever be another Frank Sinatra. So critique me all you want, and in fact, I welcome it. But please promise me, no more comparing me to my father.” The critic promised.

  Today, Nancy still has a very loyal following. She once said that had she not chosen to become a wife and mother, she felt she could have segued into a career in adult pop or standards pop similar to that of Linda Ronstadt. Though the public mainly knew her through hit singles and her “Boots” image, she would go on to do impressive shows in Las Vegas. In her films, such as Speedway (1968) with Elvis Presley, she demonstrated a relaxed presence; the camera loved her.

  As his daughter’s career took off, Frank Sinatra began 1966 by booking another successful engagement at the Sands in Las Vegas with Count Basie and Quincy Jones. These shows were recorded and were released later in the year as a live album, Sinatra at the Sands.

  On April 11, Frank would record one of his most classic songs, “Strangers in the Night.” This tune would prove to be the third number one record for his Reprise label, following Dean Martin’s “Everybody Loves Somebody” and Nancy Sinatra’s “Boots.”

  “Strangers in the Night,” with its tango rhythm, would also go on to become Sinatra’s biggest worldwide hit. It even replaced the Beatles at the top of the charts on July 2, 1966, when it supplanted “Paperback Writer.” One look at the Billboard Top Five that week and it’s clear that Frank was once again relevant among a much younger pop set: the Beatles, Cyrkle (“Red Rubber Ball”), the Rolling Stones (“Paint It Black”), and Dusty Springfield (“You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me”).

  Reprise A&R executive Jimmy Bowen was responsible for finding “Strangers” for Frank. He had first heard the melody by German composer Bert Kaempfert and promised Kaempfert that if he could write English lyrics to it, Sinatra would record the song. It took a while to set the recording date with Frank, and by the time he was ready to record the song, Bobby Darin and Jack Jones had already recorded their own versions. Three days before Jack’s version was to hit the streets, Jimmy Bowen telephoned arranger Ernie Freeman to tell him that Sinatra—not Darin—had to have the hit with this one. It was just the perfect song for Sinatra, or so Bowen felt, and he wanted Freeman to come up with a classic, hitmaking arrangement.

  Three days later, Bowen and an orchestra were in the studio rehearsing the new arrangement. That was at 5 p.m. By eight, Frank was behind the mike. An hour later, the session ended. Twenty-four hours after that, the record hit the streets and radio stations were playing it. “You couldn’t do that today if you had a million bucks on the line,” Frank later said, and he was right. (The song would later be covered by a wide array of artists, including Mel Tormé, Johnny Mathis, the Supremes, Barry Manilow, and, oddly, even James Brown.)

  Frank and Nelson Riddle cut the Strangers in the Night album in just two days. It’s an interesting collection in that it demonstrates Frank’s ability to do almost any kind of album effectively. This was clearly a patched-together, hurried effort designed to capitalize on a big hit, featuring songs that have no relation to each other. Yet it is still utterly engaging and charming.

  The Strangers in the Night album soared to number one on Billboard’s charts and stayed there for seventy-three weeks. Frank would go on to win a Grammy for his performance of the song, and Ernie Freeman won one for his arrangement.

  While “Strangers in the Night” was the big hit, the follow-up is also an enduring classic: “Summer Wind” (with lyrics by Johnny Mercer). It is still considered by most music critics and Sinatra aficionados as one of Frank’s best recordings. His laid-back vocal performance and Riddle’s sultry arrangement (with jazz organ) found just the right groove, even if it didn’t enjoy the commercial success of “Strangers in the Night.” Though “Summer Wind” was also recorded by Perry Como and Wayne Newton, it was Frank’s rendition that made the biggest impression on most listeners and disc jockeys.

  Mia Meets the Family

  Frank didn’t know what to make of the fact that Mia had cut her hair so dramatically. Was it some sort of retaliation for the birthday party? Mia insisted that it wasn’t, but he couldn’t help but be suspicious. After all, she knew how much he had loved her long hairstyle. Still, there seemed no reason to belabor it. So he made light of it. “Now you can go out for Little League like the rest of the boys,” he told her.

  By the spring of 1966, Frank and Mia had been together for almost two years. Frank’s family still hadn’t even met Mia, which for her was a problem. In her mind, it stood to reason that if Frank was serious about her he would integrate her into his life, not keep her separate from it. After discussing it with her, he had to agree.

  Frank realized that introducing Mia to Nancy Sr. and Nancy Jr. might be tricky. He also knew that Frank Jr. wasn’t going to be a good barometer for how the family might accept Mia. Tina was different, though. She was practical, like Frank. She wasn’t romantic and idealistic, she was pragmatic, or, as he liked to say, “She knows the score.” He suspected that it would be Tina who would give Mia the fairest shot.

  One day, Frank invited Tina over to a house he was renting in Holmby Hills. He suggested that they could play tennis, knowing full well that Mia was planning to come by. “If you stick around,” he told Tina, who was eighteen by this time, “you’ll get to meet Mia.” Tina was excited.

  When Mia finally showed up, she made a huge impression on Tina. “I thought to myself, ‘She’s perfect,’ ” Tina would recall. Mia was so disarming and fun to be around; in the weeks to come she and Tina would become fast friends. Just three years apart, they had a lot in common. Frank was right about his youngest daughter; she hadn’t let him down.

  Later, Tina would admit that she never believed Frank and Mia could make a real go of it as a couple, but she had no problem with them at least trying. When Frank finally introduced Mia to the two Nancys, it wasn’t so bad. “I was there when he brought Mia to Big Nancy’s house,” George Jacobs recalled. “It was awkward, of course. But Big Nancy was very gracious and tried to make Mia feel at home, which got her a gold star in my book. Mia was so nervous, I think Big Nancy felt sorry for her. I remember her saying, ‘It’s all right dear. We’re just an ordinary family like yours.’ And Mia laughed and said, ‘I sure hope not! Because my family is far from normal!’ Tina seemed to get along great with her, but Nancy was very standoffish. She was not about to lose her father to a girl Mia’s age. She and Mia would become friendly in
time, but not in the beginning. It was tense. Meanwhile, Frankie didn’t even show, which didn’t surprise anyone but Mia.

  “In the car on the way home, Mia said to Mr. S., ‘Your son doesn’t like me and he hasn’t even met me.’ Frank glanced at me, sighed heavily, and then looked at Mia and said, ‘Well, not everything is about you, Mia.’ ”

  Frank and Mia Marry

  But my mother is going to be so upset,” Mia argued. “I have to tell her!”

  “I don’t care,” Frank said. “You can’t.”

  It was July 19, 1966. The two were speaking on the phone. She was in Los Angeles. He was in London, where he was finishing up the movie The Naked Runner and getting ready to take a flight back to Los Angeles.

  “I’m not even telling Nancy, Tina, Frank . . . none of ’em,” Frank said. “Even my first wife, Nancy. No one can know that you and I are gettin’ hitched.” Maybe he realized that the impending nuptials would be a most unpopular subject among his loved ones, and he didn’t want them interfering with his plans. Or perhaps he remembered the controversy that had erupted over whether or not Mia should attend his birthday party, and he didn’t want any more trouble. Whatever his reasons, he decided that his loved ones should be kept in the dark about the wedding.