Lady Blue Eyes Read online

  Fortunately I had a healthy constitution and could match Frank drink for drink and still know what I was doing by the time I went to bed. I also learned from his trick of never emptying his glass. Frank always said he hated women who couldn’t hold their drink, who wore too much makeup or heavy perfume. He claimed to be allergic to perfume, and the only one he could stomach was Fracas, a scent by the Parisian perfumier Robert Piguet. Frank also disliked women who smoked—he thought smoking was “unfeminine.” Well, I passed on the first three counts, but I did smoke, which was something he made me give up fairly early on.

  Unlike Frank, who’d have a couple of drags on a cigarette and then throw it away, I used to smoke mine to the end. When he asked me to give it up, I said, “Well then, why don’t you quit too?” He not only chain-smoked cigarettes but enjoyed cigars and the occasional pipe—a throwback to his admiration for Bing Crosby, I always thought. Frank told me flatly, “I can’t quit, I don’t want to quit, and I’m not going to quit, but you have to.” It was a challenge for me, and when I was weaning myself off the cigarettes, I’d sit at the bar next to someone who smoked and say, “You light it and put it there and when I see him looking the other way I’ll take a puff.” If ever Frank caught me, he was quite rough on me. Eventually, I was hypnotized, and that worked.

  “I’ve packed in smoking as you asked,” I told him. “But the deal is that you can no longer smoke when I’m around and neither can anyone else. If you want to kill yourself, go ahead, but don’t kill me.” To my surprise, he agreed, and although he smoked unfiltered Camels to the day he died, he almost always stepped away from me to do so. He wouldn’t even smoke in the car.

  A friend of Frank’s once said that one of the qualities that most endeared me to him was my stamina, although I think we killed a few people along the way. My son, Bobby, sure learned how to live life to the full under Frank’s tutelage, and drinking and staying up all night were just part of it. In true Sinatra style, Bobby began dating some of the most eligible women on the circuit. I thoroughly approved of them all, especially those who understood the pressures of life in the spotlight in case Bobby ended up being Frank’s stepson one day.

  Not that Frank was offering anything like that yet. When we first started dating, the option of marrying him someday had been mentioned, but he’d never spoken about it since. I was beginning to think he might be allergic to the word marriage. What he was offering instead was excitement and laughter, the chance to be his lover and companion, and the joys of being treated like a goddess. He was one of the most famous men in the world, after all. Everyone, from world presidents to the Pope, had a favorite Sinatra song. Women adored Frank because he was such a romantic. Despite my secret hopes for something more permanent eventually, I knew that just to be at his side made me the luckiest girl alive.

  As a respite between legs of the tour, we’d slip back to Palm Springs for a few days to unpack and catch our breath. I think it was then that I first realized Frank’s mother, Dolly, was as unhappy about our relationship as Zeppo’s friends and family seemed to be. She rarely visited the Compound if I was there and barely acknowledged me if we saw her elsewhere.

  I heard through the grapevine that she’d asked Frank, “Aren’t there enough whores around? Why do you have to work on your best friend’s wife?” Not that I should have been surprised. Dolly was a feisty little dame who had a hold over Frank like no one else. They had such a love-hate relationship, and I think she was probably the only person Frank was afraid of his whole life. Having almost died giving birth to her thirteen-and-a-half-pound son, an event that left her unable to bear any more children, Dolly had invested all her emotions in her only child and encouraged him from the start. Trouble was, she also acted like she owned him and wouldn’t stop bossing him around, as well as bad-mouthing everyone from me to his children and his ex-wives. A Catholic who became more devout the older she got, she despaired of his three failed marriages and wanted Frank to find a “good, Catholic” girl and settle down. Sadly, I didn’t fall into either category.

  In spite of Dolly’s open hostility to me, though, I liked her very much. She was fun, with a terrific sense of humor; I could certainly see where Frank got his from. Standing less than five feet tall, she swore like a trooper and had a filthy nickname for everyone, but she cooked like an angel. She liked nothing more than to have Frank and his Italian American friends, like Jilly, Joe Tomatoes, and Gerry the Crusher, around dipping bread into her “gravy.” She’d always bawl them out about it, but she didn’t mind. Nor did she seem to mind “Uncle Vincent” living with her until the day he died. He was a sweet man, some distant relative or old family friend who’d lived under the same roof with her and Marty forever, although no one could remember why. As bighearted as her son, Dolly took him in, fed and cared for him selflessly. The more I got to know Dolly, the more I admired her. She was a survivor, as I was. I hoped that, as time went on and she realized that Frank and I were serious about each other, she’d change her mind about me.

  It wasn’t just Dolly who was putting pressure on us in those early days, although her feelings toward me certainly placed Frank in a difficult position. Our bigger challenge, however, was probably overfamiliarity with each other. As the months passed and we continued with his grueling touring schedule, Frank and I were thrown together twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, in hotel suites, limousines, theaters, trains, and planes. Most of the time I can honestly say the experience was nothing short of wonderful; it was a real thrill, and I felt privileged and honored to have such a ringside seat. But with Frank’s constant need to be entertained after he’d entertained, staying up late night after night, drinking with his buddies on top of the traveling, the rehearsals, and the shows, the days were long and the nights even longer, and one or the other of us wasn’t always at our best. I’d defy any couple not to fight every now and then under those circumstances.

  Although Frank never stopped being the romantic, he could be difficult with those around him—especially if he’d had too much to drink or felt a show hadn’t been perfect. He was never more keyed up than in the hours following a performance, when he needed to burn off some of that incredible energy he’d built up. Sometimes that need manifested itself in a tantrum, but more often than not it just required him to drink with his buddies. We were at Caesars Palace in Vegas one night when I came back to our suite after a dinner out with friends and found Frank much the worse for wear. Dean was sitting at the bar mummified. Frank was lying on the floor. Others were slumped all around. I walked in, took one look at all of them, turned around, and walked out. The next day Frank asked me, “What happened to you last night?

  “I went to bed,” I told him. “I didn’t want to watch my drunken man rolling around on the floor with his drunken bum friends.” He was visibly taken aback.

  Frank never went off on me like he did with some people, and he rarely yelled at me because I was one of the few who’d yell back. Realizing that, his friends began to call on me if he was in one of his moods because they knew I was their best bet at calming him down. One night at the Waldorf in New York, I was in the old Cole Porter Suite in the Towers and Frank was down in the bar with a bunch of friends when Jilly called me at around four in the morning. “Will you please come down here, Barbara?” he whispered into the telephone. “Frank’s going to tear the place up if you don’t.” If Jilly couldn’t calm him, then I knew we were in trouble.

  Recalling Jimmy Van Heusen’s advice that if Frank was drunk it was best to disappear, I reluctantly threw on a robe and took the elevator. I could hear Frank being belligerent even before I entered the bar. I don’t know what had set him off—maybe nothing. It was usually the booze talking anyway, and I’d learned to bounce with it. When I walked in, Frank looked up, bleary-eyed, and said, “What are you doing down here?”

  “I came to get you.”

  He looked around at his buddies and said, “Well, maybe I’m not ready to be got yet.”

  “Well,
maybe you are,” I replied, staring him down.

  There was an awkward silence as he reached for his glass and took another slug. I shrugged my shoulders and walked back toward the door. Turning, I said, “Frank, I’m going to take the elevator now, and I’m going back to bed. I’d like it very much if you came with me.”

  He looked right back at me and then downed the last of his drink. “Well then, why didn’t you say?” He stood up and followed me out like the puppy that he really was.

  There were times, of course, when he couldn’t be calmed; he just didn’t want to be. I sometimes think he acted out when he was like that. He liked to push people’s buttons and test their boundaries. He’d always been easily bored, and his fiery personality demanded drama and performance. There was no doubt about it, Frank Sinatra was an event, and it wasn’t always the easiest of tasks to talk him down off the ledge, but usually beneath even his most frightening temper there was an element of humor. Either way, coming from a family who could barely muster a bit of simmering discontent, I found his Italian passion rather stimulating, and believe me—it had its plus sides.

  Another night when he’d been sitting up late with the boys, drinking and ranting at something, I’d locked myself in my bedroom because I didn’t want to be disturbed. Sure enough, around five in the morning Frank started beating on the door. “Who is it?” I called warily from beneath my sheets.

  “Your Italian lover,” he replied. How could I not let him in after that?

  My role in those early days and for all our years together was to keep everything running so that Frank could go onstage and do what he had to do. He could be a challenge, all right, but it was heaven for me to be with him even when he acted out. I was his companion, consultant, nurse, psychiatrist, and lover. The only thing I wasn’t yet was his wife.

  I won’t deny that it was a test of our relationship and of my stamina, but I felt up to it even when I had concerns closer to home. Zeppo was making our divorce negotiations difficult, which made me increasingly anxious about my future. I had little or no earning potential anymore. I owned nothing other than the house Frank had gifted me and a few nice pieces of jewelry. I worried that I had no long-term security for me or for Bobby, something I seemed to have been fretting about my whole life.

  One day I was out having lunch at the Bistro in Beverly Hills with Sidney Korshak, the husband of my friend Bee, when Zeppo’s attorney Greg Bautzer leaned across from an adjacent table. “Barbara,” he told me, “the only thing you’re going to get from Zeppo is the clap.” From the expression on Sidney’s face, I thought Greg was unlikely to survive the afternoon. Sidney was a powerful attorney and a formidable ally, a close friend of Frank’s. Nothing moved in the world of high finance without Sidney knowing about it, and he offered me his support from then on.

  He told me, “Barbara, you have no worries. Your problems are my problems. If you need my advice about anything, you call me.” So I did. I called him from wherever I was with Frank—Chicago, New York, or Paris—telling him when I’d received another letter from Zeppo’s attorney threatening this or that. Each time Sidney would tell me, “Leave it to me, Barbara. This is nothing for you to worry about. This is my problem now.”

  When the divorce was eventually settled, Zeppo agreed to pay me a fifteen-hundred-dollar monthly allowance for ten years and let me keep the 1969 Jaguar he’d given me four years earlier. Frank, not to be outdone, immediately upgraded it to the latest model. I was very grateful to Sidney for his help in the negotiations, but as we’d spoken on the telephone several times a week for almost a year, I missed talking to him. One day soon after the settlement was completed, I tracked him down to a boardroom in New York and persuaded the secretary to put me through. “Sidney!” I said long-distance. “You have another problem!”

  “What now?” he replied, hoping that the legal drama was over.

  “I just tried to get an appointment at the beauty shop and they say they’re fully booked. Can you help?”

  There was a long pause, and then slam, the phone went down.

  Even though my divorce was finalized and I was a woman of independent means, thanks in the end to Zeppo’s unexpected generosity, I was still worried about where Frank and I were heading.

  The luster had undoubtedly gone from our relationship. We would fight and break up every now and then, and it wasn’t always about him not being able to commit to me or being disrespectful in some way. It was about a lot of things—usually something and nothing—as most breakups are, but it was never about other women. I didn’t own him; I had no claim on him to speak of, and I didn’t even go there.

  We were both independent, strong-willed people, after all. I hadn’t survived two marriages and my time in Vegas with Joe Graydon, been a Vegas showgirl, and run my own school by being a wallflower. In any event, Frank liked strong women. That was what first attracted him to Ava, I think. And as with Ava, whenever he and I argued, it was sudden, noisy, and temporary. He never hit me, although he did once raise his hands during a fight and told me, “God, I want to punch you!”

  “Okay,” I replied, defiantly offering him my right cheek, “give it your best shot.”

  “What would you do if I did?” he challenged.

  “I’d leave and you’d never see me again.”

  His hands dropped to his sides.

  One thing Frank couldn’t stand was rejection. We were at a dinner one night in Palm Desert and he did or said something that hurt me, so I got up from our table and went to call a taxi. Our friend Kenny Venturi appeared by my side (probably sent by Frank) and said, “I’ll take you home.” Kindly, he drove me to the house Frank had bought me. As soon as I got in I called up Dinah at her place at Trancas Beach and asked, “Do you need a roommate for tonight?”

  “Why, yes, actually!” she replied, instantly appreciating that Frank and I must have had a fight. I wasn’t home more than ten minutes before I’d packed an overnight bag and left for the beach. Which was just as well, because an hour or so later a drunken Frank and Jimmy Van Heusen drove over to my house and set off dozens of cherry bombs in my backyard in the hope of waking me up. They couldn’t understand why they didn’t get any response. Well, not from me anyway. Frank’s mother was staying in a house nearby, and she responded all right. Throwing open the window, she yelled, “If you two motherfuckers don’t stop all that noise, I’m calling the police!”

  Frank tracked me down at Dinah’s the next morning and called me up. “Why did you take off like that?” he asked, sounding like a petulant child.

  “It’s simple, Frank,” I replied. “I knew we couldn’t be speaking for a couple of days, and if that was going to happen, I decided I’d rather be at the beach.” There was no answer to that.

  Life was certainly never boring with Frank, and it kept me on my toes. Not that I wasn’t used to a bit of drama. Bobby was once asked what it was like to be the son of Barbara Marx, and he replied, “Wherever my mother is, that’s where the action is.” Throughout my childhood in Bosworth, I’d looked at my parents’ relationship and that of my friends’ parents and decided there’d be nothing worse than being bored to death in the way they were. With the life I was leading, I was certainly in no danger of that.

  As soon as Frank and I had let off steam, we’d limp back to each other’s arms and only enjoy the making up all the more. We had such rapport. That’s when Frank would be his most sweet and kind and loving. He’d say things like “If you want that mountain, Barbara, I’ll get it for you. All you have to do is tell me what you want. If you want the moon, darling, it’s yours.” I’d never had anybody talk to me like that. It was amazing to hear, particularly after Zeppo.

  As part of his next American tour, I asked Frank if we could find the time to visit Bosworth, Missouri, because I wanted to show him where I grew up. It had to have been more than thirty years since I’d been in my hometown. When we got there and drove around in Frank’s limousine, I was astonished at how little the place had changed. Our jo
urney across town took just a few minutes, and although the streets weren’t dirt anymore, my grandparents’ house looked exactly as it always had. Sadly, I couldn’t locate our house—it must have been pulled down, or maybe it blew down in a cyclone. I shivered at my memories of the storm cellar. The Methodist church, school, and drugstore were just as I remembered them. The general store was still there and trading but wasn’t called Blakeley’s anymore, and the rail to tie the horses to had been replaced with a parking lot. I couldn’t face stepping inside because I knew the members of the Spit ’N’ Argue Club would be long dead and I doubted the potbellied stove still had pride of place. Frank didn’t want to hang around much anyway. I was well aware of his loathing for long car journeys, so we cruised slowly past the sights I suspected I’d be seeing for the last time, then sped back toward the life I had made for myself beyond Bosworth’s humble streets.

  As another favor I asked Frank if he could arrange to do a show in Wichita, Kansas, because I had so many friends and family there who were desperate to see him perform. I must admit that this time I couldn’t wait to go back to the town where I’d spent my teenage years to show them what the gangly country girl with the “Missour-a” twang had done with herself. I’d never lost touch with my school friend Winnie Markley, and when she heard that we were coming to town she and her husband, Jimmy Razook, threw us a party at their house. Needless to say, when we arrived there was a long lineup of people who wanted to shake hands with Frank. Everyone I’d ever known, it seemed, came out of the woodwork. He was very patient and met them all and posed for photographs with incredible grace.