Sinatra

by J. Randy Taraborrelli

  At noon, George drove up to the compound’s gate, inserted his key into the lock, and turned it. The gate wouldn’t open. He tried a few more times; still no luck. He rang the bell. In response, one of Frank’s Filipino houseboys came out of the house, ran down the driveway, and stopped on the other side of the gate. “No good to come in,” he told George. “Must go now before too late!”

  What was going on?

  “Movers pack up your belongings in big boxes,” the employee told George before scampering away back up the long driveway and to the main house.

  George rang the bell again. This time one of the uniformed black housekeepers came out and made her way down the driveway. Without saying a word to him, she handed George an envelope through the metal bars. Then she too ran back up to the house. George ripped open the envelope and pulled from it a typed letter. It was from Mickey Rudin, telling him that his services were no longer required. He was terminated, effective immediately. He was not to enter the premises and not to try to contact Frank in any way. Moreover, his possessions would be delivered to him in three days as soon as he contacted the Rudin office to tell him where he had relocated. Also, Mickey added, “there will be no severance pay.”

  It would be about a week before Jacobs would figure out what had happened. Rona Barrett had heard that George had been dancing with Mia at the Candy Store. She reported it on the early morning news. Though George had worked for him for fifteen years and the two had never had a single disagreement the entire time, Frank felt he knew what he had to do: He had the locks changed, called Mickey Rudin in Beverly Hills, had Rudin write the letter of dismissal, and then had someone drive it out to the house in the desert and deliver it . . . and all before noon!

  Cycle of Pain

  After dismissing George Jacobs, Frank Sinatra went down to Acapulco for a brief holiday. He was unhappy about the way things had worked out with George. He didn’t really believe anything was going on between George and Mia, but he felt it was poor form for his valet to be dancing with his estranged wife. Why would Jacobs be careless enough to give Rona Barrett a story—a woman Jacobs knew Frank detested? Quite unreasonably, he felt let down.

  While baking in the sun and trying to sort it all out, he had a bit of an epiphany about Mia. He suddenly realized that the cycle of pain that had begun with Ava years ago was repeating itself, and now, this time, he was the victimizer. He asked Mickey Rudin and an associate from Rudin’s law firm, Gang, Tyre, Ramer & Brown, to fly down for a meeting with him.

  In 1998, the law associate would recall that when he and Mickey showed up in Acapulco, Frank was “very despondent.” He was wearing a white terrycloth robe, sitting on the deck of his suite and puffing on a cigar. “You remember what I went through with Ava?” he asked Mickey. Mickey said he remembered a great deal of it, but that he had been retained by Sinatra toward the end of the romance. “She put me through hell,” Frank said. “It was unequal.” When asked to elaborate, Frank said that he loved Ava “ten times more” than she loved him and that he suffered because of it. “Now,” he concluded, “I’m doing the same thing to Mia.” He said that Mia was “too young for this bullshit.” He added that he was amazed she’d been as patient as she had been, but he suspected it wouldn’t last long. He ended by telling Rudin to get rid of her.

  The next morning, Mickey Rudin and his associate from the law firm knocked on the front door of the Bel-Air estate Sinatra was leasing. Mia answered, still in her robe. “Frank called me from Acapulco,” the associate recalled Mickey as saying (it’s not known why Mickey suggested that it had been a telephone call and not an in-person meeting), “and told me to tell you that you have to go. You can stay anywhere you want and he’ll pay for it, but you can’t be here when he returns.” From the expression on his face, the associate said it was clear that Mickey regretted once again having to be the bearer of bad news. “I’m sorry, kid,” he said. “My hands are tied.”

  “But can’t I stay until Frank gets home,” Mia pleaded, “and then he and I can talk about it?”

  “No.”

  “But I know that if we just had a chance to talk,” she pressed on, “he would change his mind.”

  “I’m sorry,” Mickey said.

  “But where will I go?” she asked.

  “Any hotel you like,” he said. “Frank will pay for it. But you just can’t be here when he gets back. That’s the bottom line, kid. You gotta go.”

  Mickey and his associate stood before Mia and waited for a response. If Sinatra wondered how much it would take before she’d finally be done with him, he might have had his answer if only he’d been present. According to the witness, Mia just glared at Mickey. She didn’t need to say a single word, her face said it all. Then, as the two Sinatra emissaries waited, she whirled around, went back into the house, and gathered some of her belongings. She put as much as she could in a small red suitcase. Head held high, she angrily walked out the front door, single suitcase in hand, past Mickey Rudin and his associate without saying anything. She got into the yellow Thunderbird Frank had given her as a gift. She slammed the door closed. And she drove away.

  Coda

  After Frank’s final decision about her destiny, Mia tried to move on with her life. She had said during her marriage that she wanted to study Transcendental Meditation (TM) with the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi; she’d been studying Zen Buddhism for years. When the Beatles began studying with the Maharishi, it lent what many might argue was an unfair air of faddishness to the concept of TM. But Mia was searching for something to fill her life and ease her pain. She was tired of feeling bewildered and helpless and determined to do something spiritual about it. Thus her trip to the Himalayas to study with the Maharishi.

  When she returned to the States, she felt revitalized. She moved the rest of her belongings out of the Bel-Air house. She also said she didn’t want anything from Frank, no alimony at all. She just wanted to move on with her life. Through Mickey Rudin, Frank told Mia they would always be friends.

  Frank and Mia’s divorce was finalized on August 19, 1968, in Juárez, Mexico. “I don’t seem to be able to please him anymore,” Mia told the court in her brief appearance. Mickey accompanied Mia to Mexico. Frank did not appear.

  Around the time of the divorce, Rosemary’s Baby was released, making Mia Farrow a major movie star. At about the same time, Frank’s movie, The Detective, received a very mediocre reception at the box office.

  After Mia returned from Mexico, she and her mother, Maureen O’Sullivan, had lunch at the Polo Lounge at the Beverly Hills Hotel to “celebrate” her new freedom. Later they went back to the home Mia was now renting in Beverly Hills. During their afternoon together, they tried to come to terms with what had happened to Mia’s life these last turbulent four years.

  Somehow, at least as much as they could figure it, Mia had been swept into a world not of her own making, a world that had nothing at all to do with her . . . or her career . . . or her friends . . . or her family. It had taken everything for her to find a way to fit into that world, only to discover that she never really belonged there in the first place. “Life was not easy for Frank Sinatra, or for anyone who stood beside him,” she later concluded. Still, it was incredibly painful to say goodbye to him and to everything he had represented in her life. She had so idealized him at the beginning of their relationship, it was very disillusioning to finally acknowledge that he was not the man she thought he was. Eventually, she and Frank would become friends. But it would take some time.

  Part Eleven

  TRANSITION

  Changing Times

  As the 1960s came to a close, some of the more colorful personalities in Frank Sinatra’s life began to vanish, starting with his longtime gangster friend, Sam Giancana. The close relationship Frank had with Sam had been irreparably damaged after the Cal-Neva incident. Then, after the Kennedy assassination in 1963, there were rumblings among some of the younger up-and-coming hoods out of Chicago that Giancana was on his way out. Sam wanted n
othing to do with Frank anyway. He called Sinatra “old news,” and the apathy was mutual.

  On the evening of June 5, 1968, Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in Los Angeles at the Ambassador Hotel where he was celebrating the South Dakota and California primary victories. He died the next day. Frank was hit hard by the death of another Kennedy. Of course, he’d had his problems with Bobby early on, but RFK really came through for him when Frank Jr. was kidnapped, and Frank never forgot it. RFK’s murder also brought forth the strong emotion Frank felt over JFK’s death; his heart went out to the Kennedys.

  Prior to Bobby’s death, Frank had already decided that he would support Vice President Hubert Humphrey for president. Even though Humphrey had excellent liberal credentials, most liberals turned their backs on him because he was part of a Johnson administration that had sent troops to Vietnam. Frank had always been a staunch Democrat, and it would be easy to say that the older he got, the more conservative he became. In some respects, that’s true. But not only were Frank’s politics as complex as the times, they were also fueled by his personal feelings. For instance, he truly felt that RFK wasn’t ready for the presidency and had said so publicly; it was nothing personal against Bobby.

  Sinatra and Lyndon Johnson really had no interest in knowing each other. While Sinatra didn’t like the president’s politics, Johnson felt that Sinatra was a magnet for trouble. As far as Frank was concerned, the sooner LBJ was out of office, the better. Indeed, the war was not really a conservative-versus-liberal issue; both liberals and conservatives eventually came to oppose it. But because of Humphrey’s affiliation with Johnson, most liberals were against him as well, including Sinatra’s friends, such as Sammy Davis, Shirley MacLaine, Sammy Cahn, and other pals who had been in full support of JFK. In fact, Frank was one of the few stars to support Hubert Humphrey. (Diana Ross and the Supremes also came out in support of him.) Sinatra liked Humphrey and felt that, if elected, he would end the war in Vietnam.

  In May 1968, Frank flew to Washington to attend a party for Humphrey hosted by columnist Drew Pearson in Georgetown. Frank was with his friend Allen Dorfman, a known associate of Jimmy Hoffa’s. Afterward, Frank had dinner with Mrs. Jimmy Hoffa and Teamsters vice president Harold Gibbons. While they all may have been friends, this was precisely the kind of poor judgment call that customarily caused trouble for Frank with the media. A reporter from the Washington Post had already begun asking questions about the relationship among Dorfman, Sinatra, and Humphrey and whether it had to do with the possibility of Humphrey’s pardoning Hoffa in exchange for Sinatra’s endorsement.

  In July and August 1968, Frank embarked on a stumping concert tour for Humphrey that would take him to Cleveland, Baltimore, Minneapolis, Detroit, and Philadelphia. At this same time, Wall Street Journal reporter Nicholas Gage wrote a scathing expose of Sinatra that once again linked him to the Mafia—“and not just two-bit hoods, either, [but] the Mafia’s elite”—using FBI contacts and certain documents from the Bureau as evidence. As could be expected, Frank was upset by the article. It was so inflammatory, in fact, that certain of Humphrey’s aides suggested that he had better not align himself with the entertainer. This was exactly what had happened in the early 1960s, when RFK encouraged JFK to distance himself from Sinatra.

  It got worse. Washington lawyer Joseph L. Nellis, who had been on the Kefauver Committee and had interrogated Frank in 1951 about his Mafia connections, shot off a letter to Humphrey warning him of Sinatra’s mobster ties. “It’s true you need support from every segment of the population,” he wrote, “but surely you would agree that you don’t need support from the underworld, and Frank Sinatra is unquestionably connected with the underworld.” In response to this and to similar missives from concerned politicians, Humphrey said he would not disavow Sinatra completely; however, he would definitely proceed with caution.

  Then Martin McNamara, former assistant U.S. attorney in Washington, contacted Henry Peterson, head of the Justice Department’s organized crime division, and charged that Frank was indebted to Sam Giancana, Paul “Skinny” D’Amato, and other mobsters “for having picked him out of the entertainment doldrums a few years back.”

  Suddenly, Humphrey was reluctant to take Frank’s telephone calls, just as JFK had been. He was usually not responsive to his letters. Frank felt as if he were on the outside, and he didn’t like it. In fact, the word in Washington was that he was poison to Humphrey, and maybe even to anyone else in the political arena. Sinatra finally did get through to Humphrey on the telephone, but their relationship was strained from this point onward.

  In the end, despite Frank’s best efforts, Hubert Humphrey lost the presidential election in November. However, it was a close race—in fact, one of the closest in American history: Richard Nixon won by only 223,000 votes, with 43 percent of the vote, beating Humphrey and the third-party (American Party) candidate, segregationist George Wallace. Sinatra was dismayed by the loss. Meanwhile, comedic satirist Mort Sahl joked, “Once you get Sinatra on your side in politics, you’re out of business.”

  My Way

  In November 1968, Frank Sinatra recorded the Cycles album with Don Costa arranging. “Cycles,” with its melancholy, world-weary lyrics, is one of Sinatra’s best, most autobiographical songs. It tells of an aging man’s recognition that life is cyclical and that, as they say, bad things happen to good people but that it is hope that remains constant. Frank’s performance of this song on the television special Francis Albert Sinatra Does His Thing, while sitting casually on a stool, wearing a tux and smoking a cigarette, is unforgettable.

  The rest of Cycles is less memorable, including Sinatra’s renditions of contemporary songs such as “Gentle on My Mind” and “By the Time I Get to Phoenix.” Frank was never at his best when tackling songs from 1960s-era writers and composers. Despite the pop success of “Somethin’ Stupid” and “Strangers in the Night,” he was still considered passe by much of that generation’s youth, and his personalized interpretations of popular songs of the day often sounded just a little creaky and “square.” He was at his best when he sang songs that really meant something to him, like “Cycles.”

  Frank ended 1968 by recording what is probably his best-known song, “My Way,” on December 30. The song was actually a French composition, with lyrics by Gilles Thibaut and music by Claude Frangois and Jacques Ravaux, originally entitled “Comme d’Habitude” (“As Usual”). Paul Anka, a former teen heartthrob and pop vocalist who had matured into a creditable songwriter, penned the English lyrics. In essence, the song tells of a man who at the end of his life looks back over it all and notes that he lived it the way he saw fit, regardless of who was affected by his actions. This actually was how Sinatra had conducted his life up to this point, and how he would continue to do so.

  Paul Anka recalled, “RCA Victor, the label I was with at the time, was quite perturbed that I didn’t keep the song. But my assessment was, ‘Hey, I’m in my twenties [Anka was twenty-eight]. Here’s a guy that’s in his fifties who’s got a lot more experience, and that’s casting to the song the way an actor does to a play. Frank Sinatra was the right guy to do it. He did more for that song than I ever could have done.”

  Frank never liked “My Way.” In fact, the many ways he expressed his disdain for it in concert were moments almost as popular as the song itself!

  “Of course, the time comes now for the torturous moment,” he said before performing it at the Los Angeles Amphitheater in 1979.

  “I hate this song. I hate this song! I got it up to here with this goddamned song,” he said that same year in Atlantic City.

  It’s easy to understand why Frank took issue with “My Way.” Standing onstage in front of thousands of people night after night and singing about how little he cared about what people thought of him? No. Privately, yes, the song had value and meaning. However, onstage, Frank’s persona was much more humble than the lyrics of “My Way” suggested. In fact, it’s amazing he even recorded the song, it’s so counter to what
he wanted his public to think of him. Most of his fans would agree, though: Thank goodness he did!

  Despite his feelings about it, “My Way” went on to become a Sinatra anthem. While the record would be a hit for him when released in 1969, it never cracked the Top Ten, peaking at number twenty-seven. (In the United Kingdom, however, it was a huge success, on the charts for 122 weeks.) What was originally considered a pleasant and interesting record became legendary. As the years progressed, Frank continually found new value in the song. The older he got, the better it seemed to fit.

  Marty Sinatra—Rest in Peace

  The year 1969 sounded a very sad note for Frank Sinatra when his father, Marty—now retired after twenty-four years of service with the Hoboken Fire Department—became critically ill with an aortic aneurysm. Marty’s chronic asthma had developed into emphysema over the years, which made his prognosis all the more grave. Frank decided to send his father to Dr. Michael DeBakey, a celebrated cardiologist who had pioneered artificial-heart research and someone whom Sinatra greatly admired. In fact, over the years Frank had paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for certain friends of his to have heart operations performed by DeBakey at Methodist Hospital in Houston. He flew his parents to Houston to meet with the doctor on January 19 and then stayed there with his father in the hospital for the last five days of his life.

  “Dr. DeBakey told me that in all the years he’d spent watching people deal with their parents’ grave illnesses, he had never seen anything like my father’s devotion,” said Nancy Sinatra. “He was moved by such concern and especially by the unashamed displays of affection and tender love. They had always been openly affectionate, men of few words, understanding each other easily.”