Retirement?
At the age of fifty-five, how much longer could Frank create controversy? He didn’t feel he had himself to blame, though. Trouble always seemed to find him, as far as he was concerned.
Frank hated getting old, and the idea of being thought of as out of touch bothered him. The year 1969 had seen the recording of two of Sinatra’s lesser-known albums, A Man Alone (lyrics by Rod McKuen) and Watertown (lyrics by Bob Gaudio). To some fans, both albums seemed to be a mismatch of artist and material and added little luster to the Sinatra canon. To them, it was as if Frank was searching for a more youthful, contemporary sound but had failed.
Meanwhile, in his private life, Frank was also seeing significant change. His hair, for instance, had become a source of irritation. He despised the toupees he felt forced to wear to cover his baldness. He had gotten a hair transplant; however, it didn’t “take.” Also, he was gaining weight and blamed rich Italian foods, but dieting was out of the question. And he was tired more often. He could no longer drink liquor all night long and then be able to fully function the next day, as he had done for years. His voice was weakening; years of smoking Camel cigarettes had done some damage to it. Long ago, he’d been diagnosed as manic-depressive, but these days the episodes of depression were deeper, the highs fewer and farther between.
He tried to keep himself socially active and—some thought—also seemed to be trying to defy the aging process by dating two young actresses, Carol Lynley, who was twenty-nine, and Peggy Lipton (who was starring in the TV show The Mod Squad), twenty-five. Both were enthusiastic about dating him, and he juggled them for a while.
Of late, another problem had surfaced that just made Frank feel his age: His right hand, the one in which he usually held the microphone, was causing him great pain. At first he thought it was arthritis. However, it turned out to be Dupuytren’s contracture, a shortening of muscle tissue in the hand. “It hurts like hell,” Frank complained. As a result of this problem, his hand was becoming twisted; eventually he would have surgery. “Maybe I should just retire,” he said at this time. “Maybe my time is up. Maybe there’s nothing left to do.”
At this stage of his life, Frank should have been proud of his achievements, not bored by his career. But in fact his line of show business just wasn’t the same. Entertainers like Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis, and Joey Bishop were now considered squares by the money-spending youth of America. Las Vegas was their last bastion of complete, unconditional audience approval, and, as we have seen, Frank seemed to sometimes have significant problems offstage when he played that particular city. “He says it’s the end of an era, and he’s right,” his daughter Nancy noted. “His kind of show-business era has ended.”
In March 1971, Frank surprised his public—but not so much those in his inner circle—when he suddenly announced that he was retiring from show business. In a prepared statement, he said that during the course of thirty years of touring he’d had “little room or opportunity for reflection, reading, self-examination and that need which every thinking man has for a fallow period; a long pause in which to seek a better understanding of the changes occurring in the world.” Those who knew him best felt that Sinatra was just exhausted from decades of traveling and performing and that what he really needed was a break, certainly not retirement. “What I felt at the time was that he was maybe overreacting,” said Frank Jr. “He wasn’t ready to stop. No way was he ready to stop singing. He referred to it as a ‘long pause,’ didn’t he? In my mind, that meant a break, not an end.”
Indeed, in retrospect, it now seems injudicious to devote much attention to Frank’s “retirement” concert on June 13, 1971, at the Los Angeles Music Center, considering that he would be back onstage at a fund-raiser for the Italian-American Civil Rights League just five months later. However, his “final” concert—a benefit for the Motion Picture and Television Relief Fund, which raised $800,000—was attended by many of his political and show-business friends, including Vice President and Mrs. Agnew, Governor and Mrs. Reagan, presidential adviser Henry Kissinger, Cary Grant, Jack Benny, Don Rickles, and Rosalind Russell, who introduced him to the audience.
Frank’s first wife, Nancy, was present at the fund-raiser, as were his children. Frank’s performances of “All or Nothing at All,” “I’ve Got You Under My Skin,” “I’ll Never Smile Again,” “My Way,” and “That’s Life” provided a well-rounded program of songs that spanned thirty years of timelessly enjoyable music. The show inspired four rousing standing ovations. In an article for Life, Tommy Thompson wrote, “He had built his career, he said softly, on saloon songs. He would end quietly on such a song. He slipped from his words into ‘Angel Eyes,’ surely a song for the short hours. He ordered the stage dressed in darkness, a pin spot picking out his profile in silhouette. He lit a cigarette in mid-sentence and its smoke enveloped him. He came to the last line, ‘Excuse me while I . . . disappear.’ And he was gone. It was the single most stunning moment I have ever witnessed on stage.”
“This isn’t it, Pop,” Frank Jr., now twenty-seven, told him backstage in his dressing room where friends and media congregated.
“No, this is really it, Frankie,” Frank said, his tone definitive. “I mean it, kid.”
His son shook his head. “The world needs Frank Sinatra, Pop. The world’s not gonna let Frank Sinatra just disappear like at the end of ‘Angel Eyes.’ It’s just not gonna happen, Pop.”
Frank smiled warmly at his son. Then he pulled his first wife, Nancy, into an embrace. “Our kid here, he thinks he knows it all, doesn’t he?”
“He does,” Nancy said, nodding her head. “And he knows exactly what he’s talking about, too.”
Nixon-Agnew
On November 25, 1971, Frank Sinatra played host for three days to Spiro Agnew and his family over Thanksgiving weekend. Now that he had forged a close friendship with Agnew, Sinatra was determined to see him become president in 1976. Therefore, when Nixon threatened to take him off the ticket in 1972, it was a letter-writing campaign orchestrated by Frank that—at least in part—kept him in the race. (The campaign had been financed by private contributions.)
Frank said he was a Nixon-Agnew man because of the former’s stand on admitting China to the United Nations, a position Frank said he agreed with and about which he had been vocal. Though he had been extremely critical of Nixon in the past, Sinatra would now become his strongest supporter, contributing $50,000 to his campaign for reelection in 1972. “I don’t happen to think you can kick eight hundred million Chinese under the rug and simply pretend they don’t exist, because they do,” he said. “If the UN is to be truly representative, then it must accept all the nations of the world. If it doesn’t then what the hell have you got? Not democracy—and certainly not world government.”
Many of Frank’s friends were annoyed with him for supporting Nixon and the Republican Party. Some felt it was actually Frank’s friendship with Agnew that really spurred his interest in the Republican Party. They felt that if he had been close to someone in the Democratic Party, he would have easily switched allegiances. In other words, there were those who felt that Sinatra wasn’t really committed to the party’s platform as much as to a friend who had political clout.
One of the most outraged of Sinatra’s inner circle was Mrs. Mickey Rudin, his attorney’s wife, who wrote him a letter berating him for his choice, thereby putting the job of her husband—a longtime Sinatra loyalist—in jeopardy. Sinatra didn’t take it out on Mickey, but he never spoke to his wife again.
Frank’s outspoken daughter Tina was another one of those dismayed by her father’s support of Nixon. She and Frank had added politics to their list of common interests and often traded ideologies. She had been diligently campaigning for George McGovern and had said she would do anything in her power to help unseat Nixon. Every time she had asked Frank where he stood, he’d been evasive. However, she knew how much he had supported Nixon in the past, and also how close he was to Agnew. She just hoped he
would see things her way. Then one night she was watching the television news and learned that Frank was officially endorsing Nixon. “My hair was on fire,” she recalled. “I called him at the compound and vented my spleen: ‘Damn it, Dad. I’ve been killing myself for McGovern and now you come out for Nixon?’ While I’d been stationed for hours at shopping malls, registering fifty people in a day, he’d just swayed a trillion votes in a blink.”
“Jesus, Tina,” Frank said. “I need this right now like I need Parkinson’s!” Frank realized how upset Tina was and suggested that she drive out to Palm Springs so that they could discuss it. It was midnight. She raced out to the desert, angry. She then spent a few days with her dad there; they agreed to disagree.
Richard Nixon seemed somewhat intrigued by Sinatra. He appreciated the support and seemed amused by him whenever they were together. Former Secret Service agent Marty Venker, who worked for Nixon, said, “One night the Nixons dined out in New York with Frank. As they were walking out of the restaurant, a teenage boy took their picture. Sinatra flew into a rage,” Venker remembered. “He said to me, ‘Take his camera.’ I ignored him until he said, ‘Look, you either take the kid out or I’ll take the kid out.’ I said, ‘Listen, Frank. Just get in the car and settle down.’ He shut up after that. In the car, Nixon later said to me, ‘That Frank’s got a hell of a temper, doesn’t he?’”
The year ended on a triumphant note for Republicans when in November the party was victorious in forty-nine states; Nixon and Agnew were back in the White House.
Part Twelve
THE BARBARA YEARS
Barbara Marx
One of Barbara Marx’s earliest memories of Frank Sinatra concerns the time she and her husband, the comic Zeppo Marx (the straight man of the famous Marx Brothers; his real name was Herbert), were invited to Sinatra’s second home—Villa Maggio in Pinyon Crest— about an hour from his compound, up in the hills. It was for a late-night game of charades with other friends. At the time, the Marxes were neighbors of Frank’s in Palm Springs; Frank and Zeppo had long been friends. There were two teams; each team picked someone on the opposing team to be timekeeper for the rounds. Frank, who considered Barbara more an acquaintance than a friend, picked her and handed her a large brass clock.
It was four in the morning; the game began. Though Frank did his best, his clues (having to do with tobacco packaging warnings) completely eluded his team, which included the comedian Pat Henry and baseball manager Leo Durocher. “Time’s up,” Barbara shouted triumphantly. Frank—who hated losing at anything—glared at her. “Who made you timekeeper?” he demanded to know. “You!” she exclaimed. Frank snatched the timepiece from Barbara’s hands. For a moment, it appeared that he was going to “clock” her with it. Though she would later recall being frightened, she stood up and met his angry gaze with one of her own. Then, in typical Sinatra fashion, Frank turned and threw the clock with all his might against one of the doors. “Springs, coils, and shards of glass flew across the room,” Barbara later recalled. Everyone was stunned. How does one respond to such behavior? Finally, it was the comic Pat Henry who broke the ice. “I just now got what the charade is, Francis,” he deadpanned. “As Time Goes By.” At that, Frank shook his head and started laughing. “To everyone’s relief,” Barbara recalled, “the moment of danger had passed. But already I was aware that a big part of Frank’s attraction was the sense of danger he exuded,” she would recall, “like an underlying, ever-present tension.”
The former Barbara Ann Blakeley was born in Bosworth, Missouri, on October 16, 1927. When she was ten, her parents moved to Wichita, Kansas, where they struggled through the Great Depression. Tall and slender, she was able to find work modeling for department stores and auto shows after she graduated from high school and moved to Long Beach, California, with her parents and sister. She won several local beauty contests before marrying Robert Harrison Oliver, described in press accounts as both “an executive with the Miss Universe pageant” and “a singer,” but in reality a bartender and part-time singer named Bobby Oliver, who fancied himself as sounding like Sinatra.
An enterprising young woman, at the age of twenty-one Barbara opened a beauty school—the Barbara Blakeley School of Modeling and Charm—had a child (Bobby), and then divorced Oliver. After that marriage ended, she fell in love with a singer named Joe Graydon, who also sang Sinatra standards in his act. When he accepted a job in Las Vegas, she went with him and eventually became a showgirl at the Riviera Hotel, fulfilling a “secret yearning.” (She has said that she considered herself “one of the worst dancers in the history of Las Vegas.”) When Joe lost his job and the romance went out of their relationship, Barbara began to notice Zeppo Marx in her audience every night. At fifty-six, he was retired from the Marx Brothers act. He now wanted to meet the “beautiful blonde who was always just slightly out of step,” and they became attracted to one another and thus began their romance. Barbara was twenty-six years younger than Marx.
Though Barbara was ambitious, her long-range goals were more of a personal nature than professional. By her own admission, she intended to marry someone wealthy enough to provide for her and her son. So that Zeppo wouldn’t think she was interested only in his money, she would borrow furs and jewels (from California designer Mr. Blackwell, creator of the “World’s Ten Worst Dressed Women” list) to give the impression that she was well off. “No one knew better than Barbara the power of illusion in catching and keeping a man,” said Mr. Blackwell of the woman who was his lead model in 1959. “Barbara bluntly stated that she was determined to marry a man of means. Zeppo Marx was her target; she’d succeed in landing the comic or die trying. Since she had no intention of dying, Zeppo didn’t know what hit him.” (Barbara wasn’t crazy about Blackwell either: “He was mean to everyone around him, especially his boyfriend, Spencer.”)
And of her skills as a model, Blackwell noted, “Barbara was a quick learner and quickly drank up the meticulous details all major models are required to master: the proper way to turn, to coo, to seduce, and still remain aloof. Her brilliant smile, sexy saunter, and golden-girl aura catapulted her into the latest flavor of the week.”
Of Zeppo, Barbara recalled, “He did have charm. And he could offer me another life, far away from my punishing schedule and monthly scramble to pay the bills.”
Zeppo and Barbara were married in 1959. Barbara’s marriage enabled her to become a member of the Palm Springs Racquet Club and the Tamarisk Country Club, which was close to Marx’s house and to Frank Sinatra’s. Suddenly she had money, position, and entree, golfing with celebrities like Dinah Shore, who became one of her closest friends. In fact, her tennis skills were so good that she was often invited to Frank’s to play with Spiro Agnew when he was Sinatra’s guest. Barbara and Zeppo—also a tennis enthusiast—socialized with Sinatra quite often at his home, and also at the Cal-Neva Lodge. One day, Frank called Barbara and asked, “You got a friend you can come over here and play tennis with? I need another couple for a match.”
“Sure,” she said. “Where will we play?”
“Here, at my place,” Frank said.
“But you don’t have a tennis court, do you?” she asked.
“I didn’t, but I do now.” Frank said. “Ava’s coming, and so I built her a tennis court. She likes to play.”
“You built her a tennis court?” Barbara asked, astonished. “Well, how long will she be staying?”
“Oh, just a couple of days,” Frank said nonchalantly.
About a week later, Barbara showed up at Frank’s with a friend. The first thing she noticed was Ava’s maid, Rene Jordan, preparing Moscow Mules—vodka, ginger beer, and lime served in a copper mug—at a bar Frank had built next to the new tennis court. By this time, Ava was long past tipsy. She could barely stand up, let alone play tennis. Frank spent the entire time flirting with Barbara, trying to make Ava jealous. At one point he had Barbara pinned against a chain-link fence and was looking over his shoulder to see if Ava was watching. “She could
n’t have cared less,” Barbara would later recall with a laugh. Finally, Barbara left the estate, alone. The last thing she remembered seeing, looking back over her shoulder, was Ava flirting with the gentleman with whom Barbara had arrived.
“I’d always been a fan of [Frank’s] singing,” Barbara said in 1988. “I’d always had all of his records. But I really didn’t care about knowing him because of the press I’d read. It just wasn’t a pretty picture.” Still, despite her perception of him, she somehow couldn’t resist him. One night, she and Zeppo were being entertained by Frank. It was a large party, everyone playing gin rummy in small groups. Frank’s and Barbara’s eyes met; he motioned to her. He got up and went into the kitchen; she followed. “Once he turned on the charm, my defenses rolled away like tumbleweed,” she recalled. “When he pulled me into his arms, I found myself returning his kiss with as much ardor.”
One afternoon while Barbara was at a party hosted by another woman Frank was dating at the time, the actress Eva Gabor, he asked her to go to Monaco with him. She agreed. It was in that principality, then, that the two started their affair, unbeknownst to Zeppo. But Barbara says that when she found Zeppo with another woman on his yacht and it didn’t bother her, she knew the marriage to him was over. Now she found Frank irresistible. “I think anyone who met Frank Sinatra would have to have sparks,” she said at the time in trying to explain the attraction. “Because he is a flirt. That’s just part of his makeup. And there’s no way to avoid that flirtation. No way.”
Tina Sinatra first met Barbara during that fateful trip to Monaco. She wasn’t sure what to think of her. She knew that Barbara was married to Zeppo and she believed her father had more sense than to become involved with a married woman. To her it seemed as if Barbara and Frank were just friends. Though Tina ordinarily didn’t trust the kind of married woman who would be in Monaco with a single rich man, she decided to give Barbara the benefit of the doubt, especially since she did have her son, Bobby, with her as a chaperone.
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