Sinatra

by J. Randy Taraborrelli

  Many of Frank’s friends and family members wanted to speak out about what they believed were inaccuracies in the book, but Frank wouldn’t allow it. He now realized the book would have been less anticipated and ultimately less successful had he not drawn attention to it by filing a lawsuit against its author. “My father issued a gag order and forbade any of us to say anything public about this situation,” Nancy Sinatra later said. “We nearly strangled on our pain and anger.”

  The book didn’t make a dent in Frank’s appeal. In fact, once he recovered, the rest of 1986 would be a blur of concert dates—the Golden Nugget in Atlantic City, Carnegie Hall in New York—and personal appearances. He opened at the refurbished Chicago Theatre in September to a huge reception. “This is about chicks leaving you in crummy hotel rooms where you drink whiskey for four or five days,” he said while introducing the song “One for My Baby.” He added, “You can ask Eddie Fisher. He’ll tell you the whole goddamn thing. [Elizabeth Taylor] left him. But then she got fat, so who cares?”

  “In 1986, he raised $1 million for the Desert Hospital in Palm Springs with a $1,500-a-plate benefit,” Bill Stapely recalled. “Frank arranged everything, including the guest list, the food, and the entertainment. He even waited on tables. Then, after he was done serving dinner, he slipped out of his waiter’s clothes and into his tux to sing for his guests.”

  Ironically, the success of Kitty Kelley’s His Way demonstrated that Sinatra was still a popular figure in pop culture as he turned seventy-one. As it was, Frank worked throughout the rest of the year and throughout 1987 as well, trying not to give a second thought to the book. No doubt that’s the way Dolly would have wanted it.

  By this time, Frank and Barbara had bought a new home on Foothill Road in Beverly Hills. They would keep the compound in Palm Springs, but now would also have a permanent residence in Los Angeles.

  Also in 1987, Frank and Mickey Rudin finally came to a parting of the ways. The split came as a surprise to many people. The two had run their course, which had been many decades of a good relationship. As often happened in Sinatra’s world though, words were said—by both parties—that forever ended not only their working rapport, but their close friendship as well.

  “It’s difficult to explain it all,” Mickey would say years later. “In fact, I would never betray Sinatra’s confidence by trying to explain. Suffice it to say, Frank and I had a good working relationship until a certain time in his life when things began to change, not with his career but within the family—that’s all I will say about it. Finally, at the end, we both were hotheads and the result was the end of one of the most cherished relationships in my life. It was difficult because I loved not only Frank but his kids, who I had watched grow up. So, that’s all I will say about that.”

  It was difficult for Frank to accept that Mickey Rudin was no longer in his life, but also hard for his family members. The Sinatras knew and loved Mickey and believed he had their best interests at heart. Without him in the picture, the future seemed anything but certain.

  The Sinatra Sisters Reach Out to Barbara

  After Frank’s hospital stay, Barbara, Tina, and Nancy Jr. decided to sit down and try to work out their differences. According to one well-placed source, it was Tina’s idea. Nancy wasn’t sure it would amount to much. Of course, the women had tried to do this in the past, but it never resulted in anything productive. However, Nancy agreed that it was at least worth another try. She still had hope that things could work out. Doubtless ringing in her ears were the words her father had told her repeatedly throughout her life: “Stay away from dark thoughts, Chicken. Don’t despair.”

  The three women met for lunch in a Beverly Hills restaurant.

  Considering who the Sinatras were at their emotional core, some friends of Nancy’s and Tina’s thought that the best course of action might have been for the sisters to just unload on Barbara with all barrels. After all, wasn’t that the Sinatra way? Both daughters had learned from their parents and grandparents to assert themselves in the age-old tradition of Italian-American women, unafraid to fully express themselves and ready to face the consequences, as long as their views were heard, understood, and respected. This was most certainly the way they conducted their lives, both personally and professionally.

  There weren’t many people in show business who thought of either Sinatra sister as being circumspect or tactful. Like their father, they got the job done by being vocal and, when necessary, opinionated. When they’ve had to also go up against Frank, they did that, too. “You’ve got to face Frank Sinatra,” Nancy once said. “Tell him the truth. Battle it out. Yes, he’ll get mad and so will you. But you’ll come to some conclusion. You can’t be so in awe of him that you’re awed right out of a relationship.” They knew how to deal with Frank, and usually they found a way to deal with him. Dealing with Barbara? Now, that was another story.

  But Nancy and Tina were both emotionally spent and now just wanted to reach out to her. They didn’t want to hurt Barbara’s feelings because they knew it would upset their father. As Barbara sat before them, white pearls around her neck, a fine emerald pin on her shoulder, she seemed somehow quite fragile. Was she nervous? The daughters couldn’t help but notice her delicate hands with tapered fingers nervously toying with the menu. Yet there was always something a little cold and removed about her.

  If they could just accomplish one thing with this luncheon, the Sinatra daughters had decided, it was to let Barbara know just how deeply they loved their father. As obvious as that should have been, they felt that she didn’t fully grasp how much they cared about him, how he was everything to them. They felt that if she really understood as much, many of the slights that had taken place in the past might not have occurred. It was probably naive of them, however, to think they could touch Barbara with such sentimentality, especially considering her previous behavior. If anything, it appears that this luncheon was just a last-ditch effort on the daughters’ part.

  To that end, Nancy told stories of her childhood with Frank, how he taught her to swim, to ride a two-wheeler, to paint. She talked about her teen years, her marriage to Tommy Sands, and how her father had helped her through the divorce. Tina spoke of how lucky Nancy and Frank Jr. had been to have Frank with them when they were very young, and how she had always felt that she missed out on having him present when she was a little girl. Ava had come into the picture when she was just two and her father was gone from her, she explained. She hoped that Barbara would now understand more fully why she so desperately needed her father in her life, and that if she was ever overreactive in feeling slighted where he was concerned it was because of her traumatic experience of him as a little girl. They spoke of Frank Jr.’s kidnapping, and how powerless they felt to help their father during that time, and how much they had all suffered as a family. The bond they shared as Sinatras was real and meant everything to them.

  Barbara listened intently. Her steel-blue eyes, usually filled with such enormous power, brimmed over with tears several times. She said she understood. Hearing such heartwarming stories about the man she loved made her emotional and, for a moment anyway, seemed to melt her icy façade. In response, Barbara said she felt the daughters had a wrong impression of her. “I have never once tried to come between you and your father,” she told the Sinatras. “I just don’t know why you would think such a thing.” She said that she only wanted to be a part of the deep familial bond they shared with him, and trying to fit in had always been her only intention.

  Maybe one problem with the conversation the three women had on this day was a lack of specificity. While the daughters tried to outline some of their grievances, they couldn’t be as open as they wanted; they still had a sense that they didn’t want to make things worse. For her part, Barbara simply didn’t think there was any problem—or at least not any that she wanted to acknowledge—so therefore there was nothing to address.

  When the luncheon was over, neither Nancy nor Tina felt the least bit satisfied.
They agreed to try to see eye-to-eye with Barbara in the future, and also to communicate with her better. Barbara promised to keep the lines of communication open as well. They all three loved Frank, they at least agreed on that much, and they said they would do whatever they needed to get along. Something was missing from this entreatment, though, at least to hear the daughters tell it years later—and maybe that was just an honest recognition and blunt summation of some of the serious problems at hand.

  While Tina and Nancy left the luncheon feeling disheartened, Barbara, from all accounts, seemed just fine. She actually thought it went quite well.

  Rat Pack Redux?

  As performers and personalities, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, and Sammy Davis had been linked in the public consciousness for well over twenty-five years. By 1987, although older, they were still active as entertainers despite a myriad of physical and emotional problems that had beset all three. In October 1986, they were together doing benefit performances for the Barbara Sinatra Children’s Center at the Eisenhower Medical Center in Rancho Mirage when it occurred to Sammy that the three should work together again. They still had that chemistry and had remained good friends, though there had been long stretches in the last twenty-five years when they hadn’t seen each other. Why not work together?

  At the end of 1986, Frank was seventy-one, Dean was sixty-nine, and Sammy was sixty-one. Sammy suggested that they perform together at Bally’s in Las Vegas, where all three were presently under contract. Frank, always one to push an idea to its limits, had another suggestion: a full-fledged concert tour. Sammy, who always enjoyed performing and had a great affinity for Frank, was excited about the prospects. Dean, not so much.

  By October 1987, Dean was a changed man. It had only been six months since the death of his thirty-five-year-old son Dean Paul, whose air force Phantom jet had crashed at 500 miles per hour into the same San Gorgonio Mountain near San Bernardino that had claimed Dolly Sinatra’s plane in 1977. With the death of his son, it was as if the light went out of Dean’s world and he began to sink into a severe depression. Even though he tried to continue working—he was onstage at Bally’s in Las Vegas just eight days after the funeral—he appeared to have lost his will to live. In subsequent months, his health deteriorated and his drinking habits began to spin out of control. All of his friends were concerned about him, but none more than Frank and Sammy.

  “Dean would never talk about it,” Sammy once said of Dean’s reaction to Dino’s death. “We tried, you know? But Dean was Dean.”

  Two days after the first discussion about the possibility of a tour, Frank called Sammy. “Charlie, let’s do it,” Frank said eagerly. “It’ll be hard work, but it could be exciting. And I think it would be great for Dean. Maybe get him out. For that alone, it would be worth doing.”

  A few weeks later, the men had another meeting at Frank’s Beverly Hills home. Frank told them that he now realized that an idea he had earlier shared with them, of traveling by train, was impractical. The combined entourages, musicians, and technical crew of all three entertainers would amount to eighty-one people. Because it would take a week to travel between cities, feeding and housing that many employees would be a costly endeavor. “We’ll have to fly,” Frank decided. He said that he believed the three of them could sell enough tickets to fill auditoriums that seated as many as twenty thousand.

  “I didn’t want to do it. Hell no,” Dean Martin would explain years later, sitting in La Famiglia restaurant in Beverly Hills. “I was done. My best days were behind me. I was working here, working there, just to keep myself going, somethin’ to do. But this? I knew that this was gonna be a lot of work. When it was going to be by train, I thought that might be fun. But when it became airplanes and airports, I knew it wasn’t going to be for me. But how could I say no? I didn’t want to let Frank and Sam down. In my heart, though, I knew it would be the biggest mistake of my life.”

  In December 1987, Frank, Dean, and Sammy held a news conference at Chasen’s restaurant in Beverly Hills to announce the tour. Wearing tuxedos, the three men met at Frank’s home, talked over breakfast about what they were going to say, and were then driven to the restaurant together in a black stretch limousine. They were met at Chasen’s by an unruly battery of reporters. This was big news. The Rat Pack was reuniting, and the wire services, newspapers, television networks, and foreign press were all present for the official announcement. American Express was sponsoring the tour; HBO would be televising one of the performances as a special. The three men took their places on the dais.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, we thank you for coming here today,” Sammy began.

  Dean cut in: “Is there any way we can call the whole thing off?” Everyone laughed. (“But I wasn’t kidding,” Dean said later, shaking his head.)

  The press conference went well. The guys heckled each other in much the same way they did in the 1960s. It was clear that they had the same irreverent sense of humor. When someone from the sea of reporters asked if the reunion would be an annual event, Sinatra quipped, “Sammy is sixty-two, and he’s the kid. I’m seventy-two, and Dean is seventy. At our ages, the only annual event you hope for is your birthday.”

  When someone mentioned a Rat Pack reunion, Frank cut the writer off by saying that the moniker was “a stupid phrase.” The tour would be billed as the “Together Again Tour.”

  Each of the twenty-nine city stops along the well-publicized tour sold out well in advance of the concert dates. Frank was relieved. He had wanted to remain optimistic about ticket sales, but feared the worst. Buoyed by the good news, he telephoned Sammy and said, “The accountants just told me you should come out of this thing with between six and eight million dollars.” It looked good for all three men, another beginning, or maybe a glorious finish.

  Rehearsals began at the Ren Mar Studios a few weeks after the press conference, where an elevated, square duplicate of the round stage they would be using was erected. The forty-piece orchestra had been organized using New York musicians under the guidance of conductor Morty Stevens.

  Joseph Wilson, who worked as a sound technician at Ren Mar Studios, remembered the early rehearsals. “Frank was awesome. He sang like he was performing in front of a huge audience. I am a big Sinatra fan, and for me this was a thrill. His presence, man, in a black satin bomber jacket with a baseball cap, lumbering along on that makeshift stage, singing ‘Mack the Knife,’ was incredible. This old guy looked like a champion in front of that orchestra.

  “Then Sammy did some numbers, ‘What Kind of Fool Am I?’ ‘Candy Man.’ I knew Sam well. He had a new hip, he told me. They’d just operated on him shortly before this time. Still, he looked good. He sang well, like a man half his age. He was the best, vocally, of the three.

  “Then Dean started singing ‘Volare,’ and, well, that was sad. He didn’t know the words. We had a teleprompter, but he wasn’t looking at it. He sat on a stool and halfheartedly sang, and as he did, you could see Frank with an expression that said, ‘Oh, shit! This isn’t gonna work.’ Dean did a couple more things, ‘That’s Amore,’ I think, and then he just stopped in midsong and walked offstage. He kind of crumpled into a chair, lit a cigarette, and started hacking.”

  Frank went over to Dean, slapped him on the back, and said, “What you just did up there? Worst goddamn thing I ever heard.” Frank delivered the line like comedic sarcasm, not an all-out criticism. But Dean got the point. He grinned halfheartedly and said, “No shit.”

  “You know, we got teleprompters these days,” Frank added. “You don’t gotta know the words.”

  “Yeah, but you gotta know how to read,” Dean said, tossing off the line as if he were in front of an audience.

  Frank shook his head and walked over to Sammy. The two went into a conspiratorial huddle.

  After that rehearsal, Joseph Wilson pulled Sammy aside and asked about Dean. “What’s up with him, man? He looks bad.” Sammy let out a long sigh. “This tragedy with his kid, it’s killing him. What can we do? Why’d t
his have to happen to Dino? It’s so damn unfair.”

  “You think he’ll last on this tour?”

  “Hell, man, I’ll be amazed if he lasts through the rehearsals,” Sammy said. Wilson then handed Sammy his silk jacket, which was emblazoned on the back with the words “Michael Jackson—Bad Tour.” Sammy put on the coat. “But I pray to God he does,” he continued.

  The Trouble with Dean

  The first date for Frank, Sammy, and Dean was at the Oakland Coliseum on March 13, 1988. There were early signs of divisiveness among the three Rat Packers as soon as they landed in Oakland. The plane taxied to a deserted area of the runway, where they were met by security guards. Then Frank and Sammy got into a black stretch Lincoln, while Dean went his own way in a beige stretch Caddy.

  Dean remembered, “There was something cold about Frank. I didn’t want to be ’round him. I felt like he thought I was a putz. Sam? He was Frank’s sidekick. I was out of my league. I’d rather be playin’ my own joint, doin’ my own act, be my own boss. I didn’t want Sinatra givin’ me no orders. I was grown. This wasn’t 1960.” His voice trailed off. Then he clarified, “Frank just likes to have it his way, you know. His kind of food, his kind of car, his kind of living. I’m simpler. I didn’t need all that crap.”

  With the Oakland house sold out—sixteen thousand seats—the show was a complete success. Each singer had a solo set, and then they joined together for a lengthy medley of their hits as a swinging finale. Dean held up well throughout his part of the act. His self-effacing, easygoing charm remained intact despite his uneasiness with his surroundings. He sang laid-back versions of his own special-material songs, such as “Pennies from Heaven” (“When it rains, it always rains, bourbon from heaven”) and “When You’re Smiling” (“When you’re drinking, you get stinking . . . and the whole world smiles at you”), with finger-snapping ease. He had been performing these numbers for decades with little alteration.