Sinatra

by J. Randy Taraborrelli

  A couple weeks later, Barbara and Frank were lounging by the pool at the compound, enjoying the afternoon together. Seeming soothed and refreshed by the limitless peace of the desert, Frank turned to her and quietly said, “Darling, maybe we should set a date?” And that question was about as close to a proposal as Barbara Marx ever got from Frank Sinatra.

  “He was romantic in every other way, but for some reason he just couldn’t bring himself to say the words, ‘Will you marry me?’” Barbara later recounted. She thought that perhaps it was because he’d had three failed marriages. Or maybe it was because he had felt somehow coerced into giving her a ring. She didn’t care, though. She knew he loved her, she knew how she felt about him, and she didn’t need to hear the words.

  Barbara quickly told her parents and her son, Bobby, the good news. But replicating the culture of secrecy that had characterized his marriage to Mia, Frank decided not to tell his ex-wife Nancy or their three children about the engagement. It was never easy to put anything over on Tina, though. She somehow found out about it; she always found out about whatever was happening with her father, one way or another.

  “My sister told me that Dad and his friend, Barbara Marx, were in a serious relationship, perhaps even engaged,” Nancy Sinatra recalled. “I didn’t believe her. Barbara wasn’t Dad’s type.” Nancy had somehow managed to avoid the reality of her father becoming serious with Barbara. One can’t imagine how she could have missed it; it had been going on for years! As far as she was concerned, though, her mother and father still had a chance. In her mind, there were still sparks between Frank and Nancy, and she believed in her heart that they were destined to be with one another. She still wasn’t willing to give up her dream that her parents would reunite. Therefore, in her world, Barbara Marx didn’t even exist. Until she did.

  One night in June, Frank showed up with Barbara for a family party at Nancy’s home. Barbara looked sensational that night, maybe even having had some work done on her face. (Tina said she “had a brand-new profile.”) When the Sinatras saw the engagement ring sparkling on her finger, they figured it out. Were they happy about it? Surprised would be a better word. But why the secrecy?

  With Mia, it seemed a little clearer, especially in retrospect, why Frank had been so secretive. The age difference, the debate about whether or not to invite her to his fiftieth birthday party . . . even though Tina had no problem with the relationship, Frank knew that everyone else did, and it just wasn’t worth it to him to deal with their opposition. He didn’t want them ruining the moment for him.

  However, thus far no one had openly objected to Barbara Marx, except his own mother, and he knew she would not be satisfied with anyone. Of course, Frank wasn’t living in a vacuum. He knew what the women in his life thought of Barbara from what they’d told others in his circle. He didn’t want to deal with their opposition. And where Dolly was concerned, he really didn’t want to deal with it. He dispatched poor Mickey Rudin to tell her he was going to marry Barbara. Mickey later said his ears smarted for days from the language Dolly used in response to his “good news.”

  Naturally, it hurt the Sinatra women that Frank had kept another major life decision a secret from them. Or was it really Barbara’s doing? Actually, it wasn’t her choice at all, but they didn’t know that at the time. It was easier to blame her, anyway, because it didn’t hurt as much.

  As we have seen, no one orchestrated drama quite like Frank Sinatra, and after stunning everyone with Barbara’s sparkler, he dashed away from the family party, explaining that he had a scheduled recording session. Barbara was left at the house to fend for herself with Frank’s confused ex-wife and daughters. The women had no choice but to sort it out for themselves. The Sinatra women actually felt badly for Barbara; this was poor form by Frank, and they knew it. So they did their best to make her feel welcome, not uncomfortable.

  Frank and Barbara soon made a public announcement that they would marry on October 10, 1976, at Kirk Douglas’s home. Actually, though, they were planning a secret wedding, one that would take place much earlier, in July.

  Surprise Prenup?

  The “secret” ceremony to join Frank and Barbara as husband and wife was to be held on July 11, 1976, at Sunnylands, the thousand-acre Palm Springs estate of publisher, philanthropist, and former ambassador to the Court of St. James’s Walter Annenberg. Of course, despite Frank’s best efforts, the press got wind of the impending nuptials, but the reporters were made to wait outside the gates in the 115-degree heat.

  Frank’s best man was to be Freeman Gosden, who played Amos on the Amos ‘n’ Andy radio program. Bea Korshak, wife of attorney Sidney Korshak, was the matron of honor. A New York Times reporter, noting the armed guards, considered it “security befitting an international summit conference.”

  On the morning of the ceremony, as Barbara was getting dressed, there was a knock on the door. It was Mickey Rudin. By this time, everyone in Frank’s world knew that anytime Mickey showed up unexpectedly at your door, it probably wasn’t going to be with the greatest news. There he stood before the bride-to-be, along with Sidney Korshak.

  Korshak was a labor lawyer known as a “fixer” for businessmen dealing with the mob in Chicago. He’d gotten his start working for Al Capone. The FBI viewed him as one of the most powerful and influential attorneys in the world. He was also a friend of Barbara’s, best friend of her ex-husband Zeppo’s. By coincidence, he had dated Nancy Barbato for a short time in the late 1950s after her divorce from Frank and before he married his wife, Bea.

  Barbara, still in curlers, would later recall that she welcomed the men into her room. They all sat down in front of a small table. Mickey, speaking out of the corner of his mouth because of the cigar dangling from it, took a document—many pages—out of a manila envelope, placed it on the table before her, and slid it toward her. “You have to sign this before you and Frank can get married,” he said, according to her recollection of events.

  “What is it?” Barbara asked.

  “It’s a prenup.”

  Barbara later recalled that she was surprised. She would maintain that she and Frank had never discussed a prenuptial agreement. She’d say that she wasn’t sure if she was opposed to the idea or not, simply because she’d had no reason to consider it. “Does Frank know about this?” she asked.

  “Of course,” said Mickey.

  Barbara thumbed through the thick stack of papers. It was legalese that would have taken some time for her to digest. She would say that the moment seemed unfair to her; it felt like a pressure tactic. “No. I’m not signing this,” she decided. She slid the document back across the table to Mickey. “No way.”

  “Then the wedding’s off,” Mickey said firmly. “If you don’t sign, no wedding.”

  “But . . .”

  In fact, many of the 120 guests had already arrived by private planes at the Palm Springs airport, eight miles away, including the Ronald Reagans, who interrupted their presidential campaign; Spiro Agnew; Sammy Davis Jr.; the Gregory Pecks; Jimmy Van Heusen; Leo Durocher; and famed heart surgeon Dr. Michael DeBakey, who had operated on Marty. Dolly was to be present, as were Nancy and Tina. Frank Jr. wouldn’t be present because of a prior commitment, an East Coast singing engagement. How would it look if the wedding was canceled so suddenly?

  “Sidney, have you seen this?” Barbara recalled asking Korshak.

  “Nope,” he said. “But sign it. You’ll be okay.”

  She mulled it over quickly as the two men stared at her. “I just don’t think this is right,” she finally said, “but, okay. I guess I have no choice.” She took a black Flair pen from Mickey and signed the papers. She handed the pen back to Mickey. He gave it to Sidney, who put it in his vest pocket. Satisfied that the papers were in order, Mickey slid them into the envelope.

  “Now, if that will be all,” Barbara Marx said, rising. “I have to get ready for a wedding.”

  Interesting story. But did it really happen the way Barbara recalled it? Perhaps
, but the veracity ofBarbara’s version of events seems somewhat compromised by a letter to Sidney Korshak from Mickey Rudin dated July 7, 1976—three days before the wedding. In the document, Rudin confirms with Korshak that a prenuptial agreement was on the table and that Rudin had advised Barbara to seek counsel relating to it, and that she had decided to be represented by Korshak. It further confirms everyone’s understanding that Korshak would negotiate on Barbara’s behalf, even though he was not licensed in the state of California. The document was signed by Mickey, Sidney, and Barbara. Based on this letter, it would appear that Barbara did know that a prenuptial agreement was in place. But had she not discussed it with Frank, as she claimed? That’s very possible. Not only was it true that Frank often made important decisions affecting the people in his life without first consulting them, but it was also the case that his intimates were usually not confrontational with him about these important matters for fear of upsetting him and getting on his bad side.

  Whatever the truth, it wouldn’t be the last time the matter of Barbara’s prenuptial agreement with Frank would be raised.

  Frank and Barbara Marry

  At forty-six, Barbara Marx was a stunning bride in her Halston-designed beige chiffon wedding dress with its prominent jeweled brooch at the point of the off-center V-neck. She handled herself with enormous self-assurance as she greeted each and every guest. She would be escorted down the aisle by her father. Frank, sixty, wore a beige silk-and-linen suit with a beige silk tie and a brown-and-beige handkerchief in his breast pocket.

  Nancy and Tina both looked a little stricken. In fact, Nancy later admitted that she cried for an entire week before the ceremony. Some people were confused by her reaction, but what they didn’t know about her was that she and Frank had a sort of symbiotic relationship; she always seemed to know exactly what he was thinking. “We’re not just father and daughter, with an easy, loving relationship; we’re joined at the hip,” she would say. “We read each other easily, even from a distance.” She could sense his ambivalence about marrying Barbara from the moment she found out they were engaged, and it was impossible for her to ignore it. In fact, something in Nancy told her they were all in for big trouble with this marriage. There was just a certain imperiousness in the way Barbara held her head, in her general demeanor, that Nancy found more than a little off-putting. Call it woman’s intuition; whatever it was, Nancy was on high alert. Or, as she put it at the time, “I’m lit up like a pinball machine over this thing.”

  Barbara didn’t quite know what to make of Nancy’s and Tina’s obvious misgivings about her. “Is it that they’re just the spoiled and pampered daughters of a very rich and powerful man?” she asked one guest. “If so, one would think they would at least try to appear to be happy.” When told that the Sinatras weren’t much for pretense, Barbara nodded. “Obviously,” she said with a small, amused smile.

  Barbara also knew that Tina and Nancy had once been enamored of Ava, and had also welcomed Mia into the family. That hurt a little. In fact, Frank had a lovely oil painting of Mia still hanging in a hallowed place in the master bedroom. Barbara never mentioned it to him, but it did bother her. She decided to do something about it—in her own way. She went out and had a large poster of Zeppo Marx framed, and she hung it in the same room. “What the hell is that doing there?” Frank asked. “Oh, I thought this room was dedicated to memories,” Barbara said, motioning to the painting of Mia. Frank didn’t say a word, but the next day the painting of Mia was gone—and so was the poster of Zeppo.

  Immediately prior to the ceremony, with only five minutes to spare, Frank took Nancy and Tina aside for a quick private moment. “I’ve thought this through,” he told them. “And I’ve really considered your mother. You know I’ll always love her. It would have been great if we could have all stayed together as a family, but that’s not how things worked out. This is what I want now. This marriage is what I need in my life.” The Sinatra daughters had no choice but to wish their father well. In truth, they really just wanted him to be happy. What could they do? Crying, they embraced him and gave them their blessing.

  Later, when Judge James H. Walsworth asked the bride if she “took” Frank for richer or poorer, Frank said with a grin, “Richer, richer.”

  After the champagne reception, the guests rode in air-conditioned buses to dinner at Frank’s house, just a few blocks away. On display were his gift to Barbara, a peacock-blue Rolls-Royce, and hers to him, a gray Jaguar XJS. The newlywed Sinatras would later honeymoon with three other couples (the Morton Downeys, the Bill Greens, and the Paul Mannos).

  At the reception, Nancy and Tina put on the best faces possible, but by this time they were too overwhelmed with worry to camouflage it. Nancy’s toast—as Frank might have put it—“really took the cake.” Raising her flute of champagne toward her father, she said, “I hope that with Barbara you’ll be less vulnerable.” Everyone clinked glasses, but no one was quite sure of Nancy’s intended meaning. She was unable to keep the concern out of her voice, and her toast sounded ominous.

  Dolly, of course, had strong feelings about Barbara. At first she just didn’t like her, and that was the end of it. But then Barbara scored some points with her when she decided, about a year before the marriage, that she wanted to convert to Catholicism. She wasn’t a religious woman. However, she did want to share the same religion as Frank, even though he too was far from religious. Some people were suspicious about Barbara’s motivations, feeling she was just trying to work her way deeper into the Sinatra family. In fact, with some, Barbara would never be able to win favor, no matter what she did; her critics would always suspect an ulterior motive. One wonders, though, if any woman would have been good enough for Frank’s first wife and his daughters, short of someone as completely harmless as young Mia. Realistically, an age-appropriate woman like Barbara would have to be a formidable person for Frank to even be interested in her—and that kind of woman was likely going to find opposition from his family.

  When Barbara asked Dolly to be her catechism instructor and to help her with her studies, Dolly was, at first, as suspicious as everyone else—but she decided to do it. It was good that she did; it definitely brought her closer to her future daughter-in-law. She spent many hours with her during this time, and the two found common ground. Dolly was never going to be Barbara’s biggest advocate, but at least she stopped speaking out against her.

  For her part, Tina was also apprehensive, but slightly more practical than Nancy. She felt that if Frank decided he’d made a mistake, he’d just get out of it. He’d send Mickey Rudin over to Barbara’s home one day with divorce papers and tell her to sign on the dotted line. Barbara would do so, and that would be the end of it. It certainly wouldn’t be the first time. Tina did her best to console her sister throughout the wedding day. However, Nancy’s worry must have been contagious, because by the end of the evening Tina was also a bit rattled. She went out onto the patio to clear her head, and while there became involved in a pleasant conversation with the actor Kirk Douglas, which took her mind off of things, at least for a moment.

  “Tina, I’ve got something for you,” came a voice from behind. It was Sidney Korshak, walking over to Tina and Kirk. He reached into his pocket. “Here’s a little something for you,” he said handing her a Flair pen.

  “But what’s this, Sidney?” Tina asked, confused.

  “That’s the pen Barbara used to sign the prenup this morning,” Sidney said with a smile. “And believe me, this little pen just saved you guys a shitload lot of money.”

  Dolly Sinatra—Rest in Peace

  After her husband, Marty, died, Dolly Sinatra found herself lonely and wanting to be even more involved in her son’s busy life and in the lives of his offspring. “She thinks she’s the big hit,” Frank said in an interview at this time. “She lives next door to me in Palm Springs,” he told the reporter. “If she was here with us now and she wanted to say something about me, she would refer to me as ‘Frank Sinatra’ while I’m s
itting here. She wants to be sure that everyone knows who she’s talking about.” Still, sometimes she was too much for Frank. He would go days trying to avoid her, which was difficult since she lived right next door.

  In August 1976, when she was seventy-nine—she would turn eighty in December—Dolly told her granddaughter Nancy that she sensed that she would not live much longer. Since her grandmother was in generally good health—though persistently swollen ankles had become a source of pain and annoyance—Nancy dismissed Dolly’s morbid notion. She decided that she was simply fatigued and, as she knew Dolly was wont to do, feeling self-indulgent and self-pitying. Perhaps she just wanted more attention.

  On Thursday, January 6, 1977, Frank was scheduled to open in Vegas, again at Caesars Palace. Dolly, who enjoyed Las Vegas and thrilled to the sounds and sights of gambling machines, intended to be present for her son’s opening. In fact, she enjoyed gambling so much that Frank had a slot machine installed in her Palm Springs home. “When she loses, she doesn’t worry about it,” he said. “She just gets out the screwdriver.”

  At 5 p.m., Dolly and a visiting widowed friend from New Jersey, Anna Carbone, boarded a twin-engine Learjet, which Frank had hired, at the Palm Springs airport for the twenty-minute flight to Las Vegas. Dolly’s intention was to go directly from the airport to Caesars. Because of a storm in the Coachella Valley, visibility was poor. Perhaps the plane should never have taken off, because once it was airborne, visibility was zero. The pilot would have to rely on radar the entire way. Two minutes into the flight, ground control lost communication. The plane had been due to land in Las Vegas at 5:20.

  Nancy Sr. received a telephone call from Mickey Rudin to tell her that he’d just received a call from Jet Avia, Ltd., the company that owned the Learjet. It was feared that Dolly’s plane had crashed into San Gorgonio Mountain. This seemed impossible to believe; Nancy Sr. became very upset. She quickly telephoned her daughter Nancy, who was also in Los Angeles, and the two prayed for a last-minute miracle. Then they called Frank. Of course, he was paralyzed with fear by the time he shared the bad news with Barbara. “I’m sure she will be fine,” Barbara tried to tell him, before falling to her knees to pray. “Dolly and I may have had our differences in the past,” Barbara later recalled. “But we’d overcome them and truly made our peace. We had spent so much time together that we’d become friends. I couldn’t imagine how Frank would cope if she were to die in some unexpected horrible way.”