Lady Blue Eyes Read online

  Songs like “Strangers in the Night” or “My Way,” which he’d been asked to sing over and over again since the 1960s, did absolutely nothing for him. He always said the words were not subtle enough, too “on the nose.” Knowing that he’d still have to sing them at every concert, he’d try to lighten the experience by joking with the audience that those tunes had kept him in pizza for years. He’d play with the words or add a phrase every now and then like Dean did with his “bourbon (instead of pennies) from heaven” or “when you’re drinking, you get stinking” (instead of “when you’re smiling”). In “The Lady Is a Tramp,” Frank would sing “She’s broke, and it’s oke,” or add things like “She likes the cool, fine, koo-koo wind in her hair.” Anything for a laugh.

  Before Frank went onstage each night he’d tell me what his finale would be (in the early days it was almost always Paul Anka’s “My Way”), and as soon as he finished the penultimate number (often a torch song like “One for My Baby”) and I heard the opening bars of “My Way,” I’d reluctantly get up from my front-row seat. With the steadying arm of a security man to lead me away in the darkness as unobtrusively as possible, I’d hurry through the labyrinth of backstage passageways and into a limo waiting at the stage door, its engine running. At the end of each performance, Frank would wait for a cue from the wings that I was ready, then tell his audience something like “Sleep warm. May you live to be a hundred years old, and may the last voice you hear be mine.” Sometimes he’d say it in Italian before taking his final bow. He’d select a single rose from among the many flowers thrown onto the stage, and then he’d walk off with it. He’d be out the back door and sitting next to me in the limo, glowing with heat and excitement, before his fans had even stopped applauding.

  “Here, beautiful,” he’d say, above the sirens of the police motorcycle outriders howling as we set off. Presenting the rose to me with a kiss, he’d smile and add almost shyly, “This is for you.” There was rarely any sitting around after the show like some performers do, swathed in warm towels. If ever there was a lineup of visitors outside his dressing room door, that would be before a show, not after. Once a show was over, the night was just beginning, and Frank needed to be away from the theater. He wanted companionship and chatter, his drinking buddies and me.

  As the limo sped us away, he’d lean back against the leather seat in his stage tuxedo and smile. He’d be in a buoyant, electrically charged mood, a post-show high that would take him hours to come down from as he quietly relived every note of the performance he’d just given. As he always said, when people put their hard-earned dollars down to see him, he owed it to them to be the best he could be and give nothing short of a top-notch performance every night. That’s why he wore black tie. Even after all those years of performing, the roar of the audience still moved and thrilled him, as did the sight of young people in the crowd. As he slowly unwound, he’d ask me, “Did you feel that love in the house tonight? They were so warm. I can’t believe I’m still getting away with it after all these years in the business. And singing to kids too—teenagers and couples in their twenties!”

  Our motorcade would whisk us back to the airport to fly someplace in our twelve-seater Gulfstream, complete with bar and kitchen, fully equipped for a party. If we were staying in town, we might go back to our hotel suite. More likely than not, though, we’d head to an out-of-the-way Italian restaurant where most of the staff wouldn’t even know who was coming to dinner that night. The man paying the bill (booked under a pseudonym) would surprise the busboys by sneaking in through the kitchens to meet his twenty or so guests and heading straight to a private room or a quiet corner. Frank loved those nights best of all, I think, and the anticipation of a noisy Italian supper always lifted his spirits.

  Even after the party was over and we were settled into bed together, Frank and I would usually talk into the wee small hours of the morning. There was always so much to discuss about our day—the traveling, the show, the crowd, the dinner, and the company of good friends. As the sun came up and we finally succumbed to tiredness, he would never fail to say those three little words. The last thing I heard each night before I drifted off to a deep and blissful sleep was always “I love you.”

  EIGHT

  Celebrating a new addition to our household.

  COURTESY OF THE AUTHOR

  The Tender Trap

  Frank was, without doubt, the most romantic man I had ever met. Not only did he make a point of telling me how much he cared for me every day but he’d leave little notes and cards around the place for me to find.

  They might have been secreted inside my purse, slipped under my pillow, or stuck to the refrigerator door or a bathroom mirror. He’d draw a smiley face wearing a bow tie, and then beneath it he’d write something thing like “Good morning, pretty—I love you, F.” “Sweetheart!! I love you so much—I may quit drinking! Nah! But I do adore you,” or “To my Girl, I love you. What’s-his-name.” He’d often sign himself Charlie Neat because it was the perfect moniker. Charlie was a name he used whenever he wanted to be incognito on the telephone, at a hotel or venue, and he was obsessively neat. I have kept every one of the notes he wrote me, and I still have them, pasted into a scrapbook.

  Even in the middle of a world tour with its punishing rehearsal and performance schedules, Frank always took time out to surprise me with dinner plans, unexpected excursions, or trips to our favorite stores. He claimed I had a “black belt” in shopping, but then who wouldn’t when repeatedly told, “Get what you want, baby—the sky’s the limit.” Even though I could buy myself whatever I wanted, he continued to shower me with gifts. Knowing how fond I am of jewelry, he’d pick me out something like a set of “poils” from Japan and present them to me, often in the most unlikely way.

  One night we were preparing to go out for a gala dinner in Monte Carlo, and I was having my hair done in our suite. Not yet dressed, I was wearing a smock while a hairdresser tended to me at my dressing table. Frank strolled in wearing his tux and asked, “What are you wearing tonight, sweetheart?”

  “That oyster silk gown you like,” I replied, smiling at his reflection in the glass.

  “What jewelry?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. I might wear my ruby and diamond choker, but I haven’t decided.”

  He reached into the pocket of his dinner jacket and pulled out the most incredible necklace I had ever seen in my life. There was no velvet box, no fancy wrapping, just a necklace dripping with diamonds and emeralds, ending in a final drop of a rock the size of a quail’s egg. “Try this,” he said, casually slipping it into the pocket of my smock. “It was made for Madame Cartier.”

  My hairdresser gasped.

  Lifting it out and staring at it more closely, I held my breath. This was the Cartier Necklace, the talk of Monte Carlo. It had been the centerpiece of the Boutique Cartier window next door to the casino. Only the previous day I’d stopped and stared at it in awe with some of my girlfriends. Speechless, I draped it around my neck as Frank fixed the clasp. I could feel the weight of it on my skin, and the coolness of the stones. I’d always loved emeralds, and these were the finest I’d ever seen, not that I could see them very clearly because my eyes misted over with tears of gratitude and love.

  “I don’t know what to say!” I finally whispered.

  He kissed the nape of my neck. “Then say nothing. Just turn a few heads tonight.”

  As I arrived at a gala on Frank’s arm that night wearing the Cartier Necklace, Caroline Tose (the wife of Leonard, who owned the Philadelphia Eagles) came rushing up to me and, staring at the necklace, asked, “Is that what I think it is?” When I nodded, she cried, “Holy shit!” From then on, that piece of jewelry was known to us as the Holy Shit Necklace.

  Frank had such a great eye for a good stone, and he really appreciated fine jewelry. I don’t know where he picked up that skill, but he sure perfected it with practice. The trouble was he’d buy me so much jewelry, especially when we were traveling, that I began
to worry about where to keep it. In the early days, I’d wear it all at once. I might have ten necklaces hidden under my dress because I was scared to leave them at the hotel. That became rather ridiculous after a while, so I’d put what I wasn’t wearing into the hotel safe whenever we went out, but that meant going back to the safe each night just to undress and hand what I was wearing back into safekeeping. That soon irritated Frank, so I had the new pieces he bought me securely shipped home and traveled with paste copies instead.

  Frank’s generosity extended far beyond me and others in his inner circle. He was often kindest of all to strangers. I’d wander into a room and hear him on the phone to his accountant, Sonny Golden, asking him to check out some tragic story he’d just read in the newspaper about a mother who couldn’t pay her medical bills. “Make sure she’s okay and has everything she needs,” he’d say. “And don’t tell her who sent the check.” He’d be chatting with a barman in a hotel late at night and discover that the kid longed to take up golf. The next day, a brand-new set of clubs would be delivered. If Frank received nice letters from fans, they’d be invited backstage to his dressing room before watching his show from the best seats.

  He’d track down musicians he’d worked with decades earlier and throw surprise dinners in their honor. He’d have Dorothy Uhlemann, his personal assistant, arrange for a terminally ill fan to be taken to his concert in a limo because she’d written and told him that she hoped to see him perform before she died. He’d fly in Frank Garrick, the man who’d given him his first job at a newspaper, for a ringside seat. He’d anonymously replace the Christmas presents a family had lost in a fire after he’d watched their story on the TV news. Or he’d sit with the newspaper circling the names of strangers down on their luck and have Dorothy send them five hundred dollars from “a well-wisher.”

  When an actor friend sent him a note asking for his help to “bail him out” of a Beverly Hills hotel, Frank sent the cash for the bill—attached to a parachute. When the actor George Raft had a tax bill he couldn’t pay, Frank gave him a signed check but didn’t fill in the amount. “Use what you need,” he said. He’d offer to do a series of concerts in some ailing nightclub he used to know just to make enough money for the owner to retire or pay a medical bill. He’d invite the kids of old friends backstage if he played a university town and give them a pep talk about working hard. He paid off the mortgages, loans, and debts of just about anyone who asked him.

  My bighearted man was a real gentleman, always so proper and correct—except perhaps when he got into fights. There was definitely a Jekyll and Hyde aspect to Frank’s character, and he was undoubtedly a complicated individual. He once claimed to be a manic-depressive, but I don’t believe he was. A depressive is down a great deal of the time, but Frank was always up, up, up.

  Restless and impatient, he wanted laughs and entertainment, all the time. He’d become an insomniac after years of working late, but I also think he just didn’t want to miss anything. Nor did he like the nights, or at least the blackness of night. I asked him several times what it was about nighttime that he feared, but he’d just reply, “I don’t like it,” as if that explained everything. He didn’t sleepwalk or suffer from nightmares; he just preferred to go to sleep after daylight. When he had finally drunk enough and was ready for bed, he’d sleep like a baby for six or seven hours straight. He’d wake up refreshed and hungry for a brunch of bacon, eggs, and toast—which he ate almost every day of his life. Different performers have different ways of getting themselves keyed up for a show. Some people play sports, others go for a run. Some sit quietly and psych themselves mentally, others have sex. Frank’s way was to shout at everyone behind the scenes, which is why I rarely went backstage before a show. His behavior stemmed from a combination of nerves and the need to get up steam to perform, but it wasn’t pretty to be around.

  Frank would snap at anyone for the slightest misdemeanor, imagined or real. He’d yell at Hank Catanneo, his concert production manager and a dear friend, and he’d scream at his son Frank Jr., who worked as his conductor for years (boy, what he went through). Frank needed to get himself so angry, so up, that when he strutted out onstage like a boxer entering the ring, he was in total command of his audience and ready to kill. It worked every time.

  Those around him soon came to understand that it was part of their job to take some heat. They knew what to expect and they prayed they wouldn’t be in the firing line, but if they were they accepted it with the graciousness of devoted employees who knew Frank didn’t mean anything by it and would make it up to them later. When Bobby was hired as his road manager after leaving UCLA, I was worried that he’d get yelled at too, but Frank never did turn on my son—a measure of his great fondness for him, I think, although Bobby would say that his kinship to me gave him “a pass.” In any event, Bobby wouldn’t have minded because he couldn’t believe his luck. He learned so much on tour, including how to run a show and negotiate contracts, experiences that set him on his eventual path as an entertainment lawyer. Not only that but Frank made sure to pay him a great deal of attention. He became a terrific father to Bobby. Frank always treated Bobby as if he was his own son, and I am deeply grateful.

  Bobby also got to see firsthand what Sinatra-mania was all about because the fans went wild, especially in Europe. Everywhere we went, it seemed, women screamed and fainted and tried to get as close as they could. In Paris, they stormed the stage, and musicians dove for cover under their chairs as the player of the big bass waved it around to fend off hysterical women. In Amsterdam, where Frank performed at the opera house, the concert was so oversold that they had to set up extra chairs on the balcony and at the front of the stage. Even more fans stood or sat out in the streets and balconies near the theater playing Frank Sinatra music on their record players. The entire district was filled with the sound of Frank’s voice as we arrived. It was incredible.

  Once the show was over, we hurried into our limo and set off with a police escort, but our vehicles were quickly swamped by fans who pressed forward until they were hammering on the roof and doors. Then they began chanting Frank’s name—“Frankie! Frankie! Frankie!”—and rocking the car. At one point, we were rocked so violently that our faces were almost level with the street. I was really frightened and thought, Oh, my God! This is going to be it! Somehow, Jilly managed to get us out of there by yelling at the police to push back the people so our car could move forward. It was a close call.

  Before Bobby came on the road with us, he worked for the Dinah Shore television show and for our friend the producer George Schlatter on Laugh-In. George, who’d known Frank since the fifties, had been behind some of the most successful comedy and musical shows ever made. Frank either called him Crazy or pronounced his name Spanish-style as “Horhay.” Bobby loved working with him, especially as he nurtured the idea of being a director one day (like his father). He was even more thrilled to meet one of his heroes, the actor-director Orson Welles, who was a guest on The Dinah Shore Show. Orson was a fabulous character and a big drinker. Frank called him the Big Man, and they had some riotous times together.

  One day, Frank called Bobby up and said, “Why don’t you walk into Horhay’s office tomorrow and ask him if he’d like to have me on Laugh-In?” That was a huge gift to Bobby, because George had been asking Frank for years and he’d always refused. So Bobby went to see George and found him sitting in a big chair behind his desk. When he asked, “How’d you like Frank to be on your show?” George was so astonished he leaned back in his chair and tipped right over onto the floor.

  Frank’s one condition for appearing on Laugh-In to do a number of routines and utter the famous catchphrase “Sock it to me!” was that George arrange for him to pour gunk onto the head of the Hollywood gossip columnist Rona Barrett, whom Frank called Rona-Rat. In the end George hired a Rona Barrett look-alike to sit there gamely while Frank poured green paint all over her hair. Frank had a ball recording that show; larking around with the young Robin Williams or
pretending to be a newscaster, he was in his element. He even fixed it for Jilly to make a cameo appearance on the Joke Wall.

  George Schlatter always said Frank had a cast-iron stomach and liver, and he was probably right. Ever since I’d first met him, I’d realized that Frank expected his cohorts to stay up with him all night and keep him and Mr. Daniels company. George was one of the “lucky” ones, taken along for the ride. When Frank and George were together, they were like children playing and causing mayhem. Eventually, though, Frank’s late nights began to be dreaded even by George. Once, George told the barman to fill up a bottle of vodka with water so that he wouldn’t get too drunk. When Frank found out, he was furious and made sure that never happened again. Another time we were in Gstaad, Switzerland, visiting Roger Moore and his wife, Luisa, and staying in an apartment above George and his wife, Jolene. No matter how late we got back from a restaurant or club, Frank wanted to party. If George folded and went to bed, Frank would pound on the floor of our apartment to wake him up or telephone his room and yell, “Get up here, Crazy!” One night George crawled out of the elevator in his pajamas wearing a hard hat and waving a flag.

  Our friends often formed a private pact to stay up with him in shifts over several days, so that no one person had to carouse with him night after night in what he called the American Olympic Drinking Team. Frank was eagle-eyed at spotting anyone trying to make a subtle escape and had all sorts of tricks up his sleeve for those who slipped off to bed at what he considered a premature hour. One night in Florida in the middle of a tour, Tom Dreesen went to his hotel bedroom, hoping for an early night. Not long after he’d climbed into bed, there was a pounding on his door. It was a six-foot-two bellman who said, “Mr. Sinatra would like you to join him at the bar.” Tom attempted to bribe the messenger with a twenty-dollar bill to tell Frank he couldn’t be found. The bellman replied, “Mr. Sinatra gave me a hundred dollars to tell you he wants you to come down to the bar.” Tom groaned and said, “Couldn’t you just tell him no one answered the door?” To which the bellman replied, “Mr. Sinatra said you’d resist and that if I had to drag you down to the bar, he’d give me an extra hundred.” Tom and Frank stayed up until dawn. There was no beating him.