Frank_ The Voice Part 12

When he steps outside for a smoke, he encounters a gang of boys who have cornered another kid with dark hair and Semitic features.

"What's he got? Smallpox or somethin'?" Sinatra asks.

"We don't like his religion!" one of the gang responds.

"His religion religion?"

"Look, mister," another boy pipes up. "He's a dirty-"

"Now, hold on!" Sinatra interjects. He softens. "Look, fellas," he says. "Religion makes no difference. Except maybe to a n.a.z.i, or somebody that's stupid. Why, people all over the world wors.h.i.+p G.o.d in many different ways. G.o.d created everybody."

As he explains it to them, he's acting as pa.s.sionately as he acted while he sang in the recording studio, only now it's in a slightly different key-now, rather than being romantic, Frank is being kind and thoughtful and gentle but strong: ultimately persuasive. You'd never guess in a million years that this is a man with a temper so violent and unpredictable that his best friends, including Sammy Cahn and Phil Silvers, are terrified of him. The man in The House I Live In The House I Live In is Sinatra's best self, twenty-nine years old and beautiful and solid and thoughtful. This self existed, not just on celluloid. Seeing him reasoning with the tough kids and persuading them, you just is Sinatra's best self, twenty-nine years old and beautiful and solid and thoughtful. This self existed, not just on celluloid. Seeing him reasoning with the tough kids and persuading them, you just want want to give this guy a prize of some sort. to give this guy a prize of some sort.

Then, before long, he's breaking into song again, to the kids this time. It's the t.i.tle number, a paean to tolerance. What was America to him?

All races and religions That's America to me.

And it was dynamite. Looking at the film (and listening to the song) three generations later, you can't help thinking: Okay, this is corny in a lot of ways, but what's wrong with it? How far have we really come since then? It's that well done.

Mervyn LeRoy directed the short. The Hollywood leftist Albert Maltz wrote the script, and the New York leftist Abel Meeropol, under his pen name Lewis Allan, wrote the t.i.tle song's lyrics. The little film had great impact. It got people talking about tolerance; the liberal press ate it up. Practically overnight, as Tom and Phil Kuntz write in The Sinatra Files The Sinatra Files, an a.n.a.lysis of the singer's huge FBI dossier, Sinatra became "a darling of the American left." LeRoy, the producer Frank Ross, Maltz, Meeropol, and Sinatra were all nominated for honorary Oscars, and they took them home in early 1946.

But the right-wing press, as powerful just after World War II as it is today, smelled a rat. Weren't Maltz and Meeropol, no matter what name he was hiding under, both not only leftists but also card-carrying Commies? (They were. And defiantly so: Maltz would become one of the Hollywood Ten; Meeropol, who'd also written Billie Holiday's great 1939 antilynching song, "Strange Fruit"-a number so hot Columbia Records wouldn't release it-would eventually adopt Julius and Ethel Rosenberg's two orphaned sons.) The tolerance Sinatra was preaching looked, to Hearst's Westbrook Pegler and the America First Party's Gerald L. K. Smith and the Knights of Columbus's Gerval T. Murphy, among others, like a newfangled cover for old-fas.h.i.+oned socialism. (In fact, much of the conservative criticism leveled at The House I Live In The House I Live In was a newfangled cover for old-fas.h.i.+oned anti-Semitism: virtually everybody involved in the short, not to mention almost everyone running Hollywood, was Jewish.) was a newfangled cover for old-fas.h.i.+oned anti-Semitism: virtually everybody involved in the short, not to mention almost everyone running Hollywood, was Jewish.) It was directly in the wake of The House I Live In The House I Live In that FBI interest in Sinatra perked up again. On December 12, 1945, the special agent in charge of Philadelphia sent J. Edgar Hoover a memo advising the director that a confidential informant had identified "FRANK SINATRA, well known radio and movie star," as a member of the Communist Party. The informant, the memo continued, that FBI interest in Sinatra perked up again. On December 12, 1945, the special agent in charge of Philadelphia sent J. Edgar Hoover a memo advising the director that a confidential informant had identified "FRANK SINATRA, well known radio and movie star," as a member of the Communist Party. The informant, the memo continued, advised that the reason SINATRA was discussed was because of the recent article which appeared on him in "Life" magazine, setting forth his position on racial hatred and showing SINATRA talking before a Gary, Indiana, high school group.On November 25, 1945 a full page article appeared in the Sunday [Communist newspaper] "Worker" on FRANK SINATRA. This article was written by WALTER LOWENFELS, Philadelphia correspondent for the "Worker."In the Sunday "Worker" dated December 2, 1945 under "Pennsylvania News" the following item appeared: "FRANK SINATRA is going to get a gold medal and a silver plaque at the Broadwood Hotel, December 10. He will receive the first annual Golden Slipper Square Club Unity Award for his contribution to racial and religious tolerance."This information is being furnished for whatever action is deemed advisable.

The war was over, but the country was sh.e.l.l-shocked. The atrocities in Europe and the Pacific were emerging in their full horror. The U.S.A. focused on new enemies. In 1945, the House Un-American Activities Committee, having heretofore convened on an ad hoc basis, became a standing committee. And in January 1946, Gerald L. K. Smith-white supremacist, Jew hater, Holocaust denier-testified before HUAC that Frank Sinatra was acting "as a front" for Communist organizations. He spoke of "Hollywood's left-wing cabal" and called Sinatra "Mrs. Roosevelt in pants." It all would have almost been comical if much of America, at the moment, hadn't been taking Smith and the like so seriously. And Joseph McCarthy, campaigning for the Senate, was waiting in the wings.

At first Sinatra brushed off the right-wing rhetoricians like so many pesky flies. "You know," he told Walter Lowenfels, in the above-mentioned Worker Worker interview, "they called [seventeen-year-old] s.h.i.+rley Temple a Communist. Me and s.h.i.+rley both, I guess." Yet soon he was tempering his c.o.c.kiness. "I don't like Communists," he told another reporter, "and I have nothing to do with any organization except the Knights of Columbus." interview, "they called [seventeen-year-old] s.h.i.+rley Temple a Communist. Me and s.h.i.+rley both, I guess." Yet soon he was tempering his c.o.c.kiness. "I don't like Communists," he told another reporter, "and I have nothing to do with any organization except the Knights of Columbus."

But there was another organization-to the extent that it actually was organized-that remained a constant in Frank's life. His connection to gangsters should be neither overemphasized nor underplayed. As many entertainers who came up in the great era of nightclubs (the 1930s through the early 1960s) have pointed out, it was impossible to play the clubs and not come into contact with the Mob. The Boys backed the clubs, often secretly owning them and hiring front men to present a legitimate face to the public. They operated the clubs as glamorous profit centers for many of the businesses in which they took a direct interest: entertainment and liquor and cigarettes and gambling and prost.i.tution. Every enterprise touched on a dozen others. Organized crime during Frank Sinatra's early career, and prior to the U.S. government's tardy but a.s.siduous attempts to break it up, was a vast, darkly s.h.i.+mmering American under-culture-an alternative economy so huge that the uber-criminal Meyer Lansky was able to boast, famously, "We're bigger than General Motors." The problem with the remark being the small but crucial word "we." What was called organized crime was actually something far more complex-and less organized.

Unlike General Motors, organized crime was not publicly held; it did not elect a board of directors or issue stockholders' reports. Unlike privately held businesses, it wasn't formally incorporated. It was ten thousand businesses, an enormous shape-s.h.i.+fting cl.u.s.ter of enterprises under the control of whoever happened to be in control until someone more powerful came along and took over, displacing or (often) eliminating the previous owner: an infinite chain of big fish eating smaller fish. It could be argued that while legitimate business operates under the nominal oversight of the law, it is actually subject to the survival of the fittest; illegitimate business merely eliminates the oversight. Yet organized crime, lacking any checks and balances or a structural superego, functions under brute power. This may seem glamorous to outsiders who have to live by (or at least contend with) society's rules. It seemed alluring to Frank, who in becoming a man sought stronger role models than his weak father. But to the men who live it, it is simply the Life. They swim like sharks: sometimes in pods or schools, sometimes alone, now and then turning to attack each other out of sheer bloodthirstiness.

Frank Sinatra's old Hasbrouck Heights neighbor Willie Moretti was one such. Another was Benjamin Siegel, who grew up on Manhattan's Lower East Side in the early twentieth century, a remarkably bold and clever and comely youth who quickly saw crime as the only chance he would ever have to get rich. Siegel turned thirteen-bar mitzvah age-exactly at the beginning of Prohibition and, around the same time, met seventeen-year-old Meyer Lansky, who was little and ugly and tough and brilliant: he could memorize and calculate great strings of numbers, useful skills. The two boys appreciated each other's qualities. Soon they were literally thick as thieves: running numbers and rum together, stealing cars, breaking heads. Lansky was fearless but not enamored of violence for its own sake; Siegel, whose pale blue eyes sometimes took on a crazed gleam, actually enjoyed bludgeoning, stabbing, and shooting. Crazy as a bedbug Crazy as a bedbug, they said. And so Benny Siegel acquired a nickname-Bug, or Bugs, or Bugsy.

Siegel and Lansky soon formed alliances with Charles "Lucky" Luciano and Frank Costello. During the Castellammarese War among the New York gangs in the early 1930s, Siegel partic.i.p.ated in the killing of the old-time Mob boss Salvatore Maranzano that elevated Luciano to supreme power. For this, Luciano was grateful. Having made an enormous amount of money from bootlegging, Siegel married, moved to Scarsdale, and began a family. For a while, he lived as a kind of commuter-gangster. But in 1937, when his partners asked if he might be interested in relocating to Los Angeles to set up a gambling operation, he jumped at the chance.

Most of the thugs connected to the various crime syndicates around the country were built along the lines of Lansky and Luciano: small, homely men, born in poor circ.u.mstances in the Old Country or in the teeming ghettos of the American cities to which their parents had immigrated. Undernourished as children, they were street fighters: short, big nosed, scar faced, fearsome. Benjamin Siegel was something else again, far more handsome and magnetic than anyone in his line of work had a right to be. He gravitated naturally to Los Angeles because Los Angeles meant Hollywood, and Siegel was good-looking enough to be a movie actor. He made show-business connections as soon as he got to town-most notably the tough-talking Harry Cohn, founder of Columbia Pictures, fellow Jew, and an inveterate racetrack gambler frequently in need of large sums of money. The two men were drawn to each other for symbiotic reasons. For Cohn it was the cash. For Siegel it was Cohn's ready access to actresses. Siegel had moved his wife and two young daughters west, but he was also happy to acquire a string of glamorous mistresses.

Even before Frank Sinatra come to California, Siegel's legend loomed large. He was a star in a town of stars, possessing something no movie actor had: an aura of real danger. Bogart and Cagney and Eddie Robinson were only tough on the screen. George Raft had shady connections, but he was a lover, not a fighter. Siegel looked as good as any of them, and-it was whispered-he really killed people. Then it was more than whispered. In 1939, he was tried for the murder of a fellow L.A. hoodlum (and childhood friend) named Harry Greenberg; the newspapers covered the trial extensively, and though he got off, Siegel, who had been attempting to pa.s.s as a legitimate racetrack operator, was revealed as an authentic mobster. The papers loved to throw around his nickname, which he had come to hate. The word "Bugsy" alone could trigger the madness that had engendered the name.

When Sinatra came to town, there he was, the handsome criminal with the killer temper and the long-lashed blue eyes and clean jawline and slicked-back hair and beautiful sports jacket, sitting right across the aisle at Chasen's, winking at him him. The man who (Sinatra would have known from Willie Moretti) had personally pushed the b.u.t.ton on Maranzano. Who had grown up with Luciano and Lansky. Who still ran the West Coast.

Which was better, to be loved or feared?

Both.

h.e.l.lo, Frank.

h.e.l.lo, Mr. Siegel.

Please-Benny.

Benny.

"Phil and Frank were enthralled by him," said Phil Silvers's first wife, Jo-Carroll, of Siegel. "They would brag about Bugsy and what he had done and how many people he had killed. Sometimes they'd argue about whether Bugsy preferred to shoot his victims or simply chop them up with axes, and although I forget which was his preference, I will always remember the awe Frank had in his voice when he talked about him. He wanted to emulate Bugsy."

In the case of a compet.i.tor named Louis "Pretty" Amberg, Siegel covered all bases, setting Amberg's car ablaze after shotgunning him and hacking him with an ax, not necessarily in that order.

Tough guy. Frank poses for a publicity shot in 1947, the same year he allegedly knocked down the virulently anti-Sinatra columnist Lee Mortimer with one punch. (photo credit 16.2) (photo credit 16.2)

17.

Manie Sacks, Sinatra's rabbi at Columbia Records, with Frank in 1944. The singer's high-handedness in business matters caused bitter divisions between the two close friends. "Don't friends.h.i.+p and sincerity mean anything to you?" Manie wrote to Frank in 1945. "Or is it that, when you make up your mind to do something, that's the way it has to be?" (photo credit 17.1) (photo credit 17.1) Throughout 1945, as Sinatra recorded up a storm in New York and Hollywood, he was building up a thunderhead of resentment against Columbia Records. Money was the ostensible cause-the singer was bearing costs, for music copying and arrangements and studio conducting, that he felt weren't his to bear. (On the other hand, once he bought the arrangements, he owned them forever-a fact that would aid him innumerable times over the span of his performing career.) But on the evidence of a remarkable correspondence between Frank and Manie Sacks in the late summer of that year, it seems as though something else, something deep and personal, was behind the fight.

The opening salvo was a relatively petty complaint: a late July telegram from Sinatra to Sacks, grousing that Columbia must not think much of him, since everybody except him, including Axel, was getting free records. "Oh, well," he concluded. "After taxes I still have a few bucks." He signed with a sarcastic thank you.

And then, an extraordinary reply, not from Manie, but from some suit: AUGUST 1, 1945. MR. FRANK SINATRA, 1051 VALLEY SPRING LANE, NORTH HOLLYWOOD, CALIFORNIA. RE YOUR BRUTAL WIRE TO OUR MR. SACKS. THIS IS YOUR AUTHORITY, ON PRESENTATION OF THIS TELEGRAM TO ANDREW SCHRADE, TO DEMAND ONE EACH OF ANY COLUMBIA RECORDS YOU WANT FOR YOUR COLLECTION.

Brutal wire! A letter from Manie arrived a week or two later, attempting to clear the air: Dear Frank. For the past six months, there seems to be a question in your mind about certain payments which I am at a loss to understand. I've discussed the matters with Nancy, Sol Jaffe, Al Levy, Eddie Trautman [sic; Sacks evidently means Sinatra's business manager, Edward Traubner: see below]-in fact, with everyone except yourself. For some reason or another, the opportunity never presented itself, although I'd much have preferred talking to you in person rather than writing to you... Sacks evidently means Sinatra's business manager, Edward Traubner: see below]-in fact, with everyone except yourself. For some reason or another, the opportunity never presented itself, although I'd much have preferred talking to you in person rather than writing to you...I want to preface my remarks, though, by telling you (and this really goes without saying) that your interests are very important to me, and I wouldn't permit anybody to take advantage of you. But in fairness to you, and also to Columbia, I want to point out and explain why we can't do certain things.In the case of Axel: You will recall standing on the corner of 51st Street and Broadway after we had finished lunch at Lindy's, when we discussed what Axel should get [as a conducting fee]. The price of $300 [about $3,500 today] was agreed upon as being more than fair. At that time, I explained to you how it wouldn't cost you $300: I would arrange with Axel to return to you the amount that he got from Columbia for each session, which is Scale, and that you would pay him $300. For example, if we have a record date and he received $80, you would pay him $300, the $80 would be turned over to you and actually would be a net [cost] to you of $220. There was never any question at that time that we should pay the full amount for Axel. In fact, I wrote Nancy on January 31st explaining this setup and sending her some of Axel's recording checks.Look, son, if anyone received compensation of that kind from Columbia, believe me, you would be the first to get it, but it's never been done and we couldn't start a precedent of that kind. It's not good business, and I'm sure, if you'll a.n.a.lyze it, you'll agree with me. I'm not trying to bargain or be cheap because you know I'm not built that way. I'm only trying to point out a principle and also tell you that there was never any question about who was to pay Axel's salary. To enlighten you, do you recall you asked me to speak to Axel regarding the money you were to pay him, and I told you the same evening that everything was okay and that he seemed very happy about it?Now, regarding the second matter, which I don't understand. Lately, I've been getting bills from Joe Ross for copying. What is that all about? His work is your property...How could we set a precedent of paying for copying when we have nothing to do with it? ...Let's take a Sinatra date-say the one of March 6th. There were 37 men and the cost was $1,905. This we paid for. In other words, the cost of the orchestra is not deducted from royalties-it's a flat outlay by Columbia. You're the only artist who has such an arrangement...If you'll think about it for a minute, I'm sure you'll understand that the conductor's fee and the copying costs are not obligations of Columbia. If you want, I could go to Ted [Wallerstein, Columbia president] and ask him to advance these monies to you and charge them against royalties.I don't have to tell you about the way I worry and look out for your interests. I am certainly not trying to take advantage of you...I miss you-come home soon. Love and kisses, Manie.P.S.-I just got a letter from Traubner charging us $2100 for Axel's services up to the last date, and $300 for the last date-ALSO $400 for arrangements arrangements! Are we supposed to be paying for arrangements, too? What's this all about?

A couple of weeks pa.s.s, then Sinatra lets Sacks-or rather Columbia-have it. He begins the telegram with a complaint that he can't reach Manie on the phone, then goes on to say that it's not personal, but he doesn't plan to pay any any of the bills. Not one. If Columbia Recording doesn't agree, Frank says, he will have to request an immediate release. He signs with love. of the bills. Not one. If Columbia Recording doesn't agree, Frank says, he will have to request an immediate release. He signs with love.

Sacks writes back immediately, in a letter of August 24, 1945: Dear Frank: I received your wire and to say that I was taken aback and surprised is putting it mildly. I'm sorry we aren't able to discuss this in person or on the 'phone, but since there is nothing else to do, I'll have to write you my thoughts on this matter.You said, "Whatever decision I arrive at does not concern you personally." Well, who else who else does it concern? All the negotiations that had to do with records or anything else were worked out by the two of us. Why, ever since you walked into my office the first time, I have gone through everything with you. Your problems have been as much a part of my life as my own. No one, with perhaps the exception of George Evans, has lived Sinatra as I have. Many is the night I have gone sleepless thinking and worrying about your problems. I could write pages on how we sweated them out together. Everything of concern to you concerns me, too...So your unreasonable demands are actually a slap in the face to me...I explained in my last letter exactly what the situation was and why we can't pay for arrangements, copying, and the fees for Axel...If you are doubting me or questioning my sincerity, that really hurts. does it concern? All the negotiations that had to do with records or anything else were worked out by the two of us. Why, ever since you walked into my office the first time, I have gone through everything with you. Your problems have been as much a part of my life as my own. No one, with perhaps the exception of George Evans, has lived Sinatra as I have. Many is the night I have gone sleepless thinking and worrying about your problems. I could write pages on how we sweated them out together. Everything of concern to you concerns me, too...So your unreasonable demands are actually a slap in the face to me...I explained in my last letter exactly what the situation was and why we can't pay for arrangements, copying, and the fees for Axel...If you are doubting me or questioning my sincerity, that really hurts.Do you think for a minute that, as head of the department you work for at Columbia, I'd let anyone take advantage of you-or do so myself? You have a better deal today than anyone else at Columbia. We can't pay for the things you've requested-your demands are entirely out of proportion.You've had pretty much your own way and have done the things you wanted to do. So far you've recorded 49 sides, and we've released 32 sides-more than any other artist. You've had the pick of songs, you've recorded anything you want to, you've had greater promotion than anyone else with Columbia. You told me yourself that our promotion was the most outstanding you'd ever seen. Every one of us here at Columbia, from Ted Wallerstein down, has gone out of his way to make you happy. What more do you want? Just because you've made up your mind that Columbia should pay for things that are strictly your obligations and I can't tell you Columbia can't pay for them, you become annoyed and try to convince me it doesn't concern me personally, and you want your contract back.As long as you're talking bluntly, I will, too. We have no intention of paying for all the abovementioned extras. Just because you asked for your contract back, there's no reason why you should get it. We don't do business that way. I don't know who has been putting these ideas into your head or where you're getting them from. They don't sound like Sinatra...I had an operation, it took a lot out of me, I've had family difficulties of which you're well aware. But nothing has hurt me as much as the wire I received from you. Don't friends.h.i.+p and sincerity mean anything to you? Or is it that, when you make up your mind to do something, that's the way it has to be? I'm telling you, I've seen it happen and so have you. If this is the att.i.tude you want to adopt, it's got to hit you-you just can't get away with it; life itself won't permit it. Love, Manie.

No doubt Frank was nervous. Both Crosby and Harry James were outperforming him on the Billboard Billboard charts, and he was in a tight race with Perry Como. d.i.c.k Haymes was nipping at his heels. Manie Sacks was just learning some hard lessons about his protege: First, friends.h.i.+p and sincerity weren't even on the same page with success where Sinatra was concerned. Second, when Sinatra made up his mind to do something (right or wrong, as witness the Frank Garrick clash), that was precisely what he would do. And third, life would permit him to get away with it for another full half century. charts, and he was in a tight race with Perry Como. d.i.c.k Haymes was nipping at his heels. Manie Sacks was just learning some hard lessons about his protege: First, friends.h.i.+p and sincerity weren't even on the same page with success where Sinatra was concerned. Second, when Sinatra made up his mind to do something (right or wrong, as witness the Frank Garrick clash), that was precisely what he would do. And third, life would permit him to get away with it for another full half century.

Columbia stood firm. Yet despite the label's refusal to change its policy on paying for music copying, conducting, or arrangements, Sinatra would remain there for seven more years. Manie Sacks was another story. Disillusioned and unwell, he would leave the company almost three years before the man he'd once thought was his best friend.

On October 17, Ava Gardner, the gorgeous MGM B-film player Sinatra kept running into all over town, married Artie Shaw in Beverly Hills. Gardner was not quite twenty-three. It was her second marriage (she had divorced Mickey Rooney two years before), and Shaw's fifth. Shaw kept company with artists and intellectuals and tried to get Ava to start reading. Instead, she began drinking. The marriage would be over by the following fall.

Frank would test Manie's patience even further that autumn. In November the singer returned east for a three-week stand at the Paramount, then another engagement at the Wedgwood Room, and, in between, further recording sessions at Liederkranz Hall. But that wouldn't be all: Frank would turn thirty on December 12, and he wanted to end the year in style.

Success had intensified his cravings for cla.s.s. Playing the Wedgwood Room helped: Cole Porter once again rode the elevator down from his Waldorf Towers suite to catch Sinatra's act. All that was gratifying, but ultimately, as Porter had written, merely ma.s.sage.

One of the first things Frank had discovered as a recording artist was the difference between New York and Los Angeles studio musicians: West Coast instrumentalists, though every bit as virtuosic as their eastern counterparts, were far more relaxed, accommodating, s...o...b..z savvy. Most of them made a good living playing movie scores. They knew how to adapt, take orders, work well with others.

Their Big Apple brethren, on the other hand, tended to be temperamental and egotistic cla.s.sical artistes. The record producer George Avakian, who worked at Columbia in the mid-1940s, said, "They were tough-minded, insular people who were protective of their own positions-even which chair you were going to sit in." Many of the musicians initially looked down their noses at Sinatra. And since the singer already had huge respect for musical virtuosity, and a fine sense for clubs that didn't want him as a member, he courted their admiration.

But one of their number, substantially more ambitious than the rest, sought Frank out. Mitch.e.l.l William Miller-Mitch for short-was a short, chin-bearded, energetic careerist from upstate New York, a brilliant cla.s.sical oboist who had a deep love for jazz and popular music. A child prodigy, Miller had graduated at twenty-one from the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, where he'd formed an abiding musical friends.h.i.+p with his fellow student Alec Wilder-a.k.a. the Professor, the very man who had arranged and conducted Sinatra's musicianless Columbia sessions with the Bobby Tucker Singers.

Sinatra had been intrigued by Wilder's effortless musical intelligence, his rumpled academic quality, his endlessly digressive sentences, and (most of all) by the fact that unlike virtually everybody else the Professor seemed to have zero interest in kissing up to him. That was cla.s.sy. When Miller pushed forward to introduce himself to Sinatra after a recording session, he also pushed his friend Wilder. Alec wasn't just an arranger and a conductor, Mitch said, but also a composer in both the popular and the cla.s.sical idioms.

"He's got a few things I think you should listen to," Miller told Sinatra. The singer liked the oboist's nerve, which went well with his sweet playing.

The first couple of things, it turned out, were songs, one by Wilder and one by a quirky writer of rustic Americana named Willard Robison. Both, tellingly, had the word "old" in the t.i.tle: "Old School Teacher," by Robison, and Wilder's "Just an Old Stone House." The two numbers, similar tonally and thematically, couldn't have been more different from the love ballads Frank Sinatra was recording in the mid-1940s. They were art songs, with melodies that wandered and twined and landed in unexpected places. It was brave and imaginative of Sinatra to want to record them, and it was nervy, even for him, to push Manie for studio time and musicians, musicians to be conducted not by Stordahl but by Mitch Miller. But Frank pushed, and Manie yielded. Sinatra and Miller recorded the songs.

When it came to Sinatra's next high-art initiative, though, Sacks drew the line. Frank, whose ears were opening up to all kinds of cla.s.sical music, listened raptly to an air-check disc Miller had given him, containing two of Wilder's serious orchestral compositions. Sinatra played the record three or four times, then picked up the phone and tracked down the Professor. "These should be recorded," he said. He called Manie first thing in the morning and told him the same thing.

Manie begged to differ. He pleaded wartime shortages: "We don't have enough sh.e.l.lac to even press the stuff from our own artists."

"Sinatra gave us the bad news," Miller recalled. "So I came up with an idea. I said, 'Why don't you you conduct them? Then he can't refuse you-if your name is on it.' And Frank agreed, although he had never conducted." conduct them? Then he can't refuse you-if your name is on it.' And Frank agreed, although he had never conducted."

Never conducted? He couldn't read a note of music! It was a crazy idea, but to his eternal credit Frank went at the project-which, as Miller had predicted, Manie was forced into okaying-with grace, dignity, and even a kind of humility.

"Listen," he told the studio full of tough New York musicians gathered to play Wilder's airs for oboe, ba.s.soon, flute, and English horn, as well as two other pieces. "I don't know the first thing about conducting, but I know this music and I love it, and if you'll work with me, I think we can get it down."

"That was a very strange session," recalled George Avakian. "I thought to myself, 'My G.o.d, Sinatra isn't a musician; this will be a disaster.' But it wasn't. He really did conduct. Alec, of course, rehea.r.s.ed the orchestra thoroughly, and they were also all crack musicians. In fact, I think Mitch Miller played oboe on that."

He did indeed, but Miller-never one to hide his light under a bushel-also claims to have been in charge of the whole show. "Sinatra was then at the Waldorf [Wedgwood Room]," Miller said, "and he would finish at one in the morning. All the top musicians were there with us at the old Liederkranz Hall on Fifty-eighth Street. And I rehea.r.s.ed all the stuff and got it ready, and Frank came in and he waved the stick. And he didn't get in the way."

One of the musicians who played on the session, the flutist Julius Baker, was more charitable. "You know," he said long afterward, "Sinatra wasn't so bad as a conductor."

Frank Sinatra Conducts the Music of Alec Wilder, the cover of Columbia Masterworks Set M-637 declared, when it was released the following spring. Sinatra's name was in considerably larger type than Wilder's, a fact Frank protested, but Columbia, Manie explained, had to sell something something. The alb.u.m cover was a black-and-white photo of a skeletally thin Sinatra, on a field of yellow, tieless, his white s.h.i.+rt b.u.t.toned to the neck, a belt tightly cinching the twenty-eight-inch waist of his pleated pants. He was raising his arms, his mouth open, his eyes closed as if in transport. His head was highlighted in a white circle, like the halos on medieval icons.

Columbia Masterworks Set M-637 was an alb.u.m in the old sense: a cover with contents. Heavy contents. Inside the alb.u.m were three twelve-inch sh.e.l.lac 78-rpm records, green labeled, each with one Wilder composition per side, six in all: Air for Oboe, Air for Ba.s.soon, Air for Flute, Air for English Horn, Slow Dance, and Theme and Variations. G.o.ddard Lieberson wrote the delightfully forthright liner notes: If you don't know already, this alb.u.m of records-if nothing else-will convince you that Mr. Frank Sinatra is a very versatile young man. I am sure that he has no pretentions [sic] as a conductor, but on the other hand his conducting these pieces of Wilder is not merely an exercise of a whim. Frank is an idealist and an energetic reformer...[He] had never conducted before, and because of his position in a different world of music, the orchestra players first looked upon him with an ill-disguised cynicism. But it did not last long. Frank knew this music by heart, knew what he wanted, told them in a straightforward way what he expected of them, made intelligent suggestions and, in short, really conducted the orchestra.The result was not only smooth, but artistic and expressive.If you are reading these notes, it will mean that Frank has accomplished one of his prime objectives as a conductor, which is to introduce you to this music in which he so thoroughly believes.

Frank finished up the second and final session for the Wilder alb.u.m late on the night of December 10, and the following Monday, after the stand at the Wedgwood was over, flew back home. There was a New Year's Eve party to prepare. And a girl he'd been missing a lot.

He had bought her a diamond bracelet at Tiffany while he was in Manhattan, a ridiculous outlay, almost half a week's take from the Paramount, but he was a man in love. They'd talked on the phone almost every day while he was away-not easy, between his work schedule, her work schedule, and her husband. Not to mention the long-distance operators: it had forced them to speak in a kind of code, which was frustrating, but also kind of romantic.

They didn't dare write.

Sinatra had had John the butler leave the Cadillac convertible at the airport, so he could drive himself home. He thought of the bracelet when he was a half mile from home. The robin's egg blue box was under clothes in his suitcase, and Nancy always unpacked his bags. He couldn't put it in his pocket; he was about to be hugged. He opened the car's glove compartment and hid the box as best he could.

Nancy found it there a couple of days before Christmas. She'd driven over to her beauty parlor in Beverly Hills and, absurdly enough, wanted to comb her hair before she went in. She saw the robin's egg blue box. Frank had been sweet, if a little distracted, since getting back home: He'd missed her, he said. And it was sweet; it reminded her of how it had been before the children.

She undid the ribbon and opened the box.

Sitting in the car on Canon Drive, Nancy put her hand to her chest. The bracelet sparkled in the brazen California light, the most beautiful thing she'd ever seen-it must have cost a fortune. He spent it as he made it, she thought. The gold engraved Cartier lighters and cigarette cases for all his pals, even useful acquaintances, tens of thousands of dollars' worth. Whatever else he was, he was hers.

On Christmas morning, with Little Nancy and the baby happy under the big tree with their dolls and toys, he handed her a Tiffany box. A small Tiffany box. She blinked in confusion as she opened it and saw the pearl earrings. Her smile as she hugged him was deeply confused.

The party that year was especially splendid: The war was over! And the show this year would be like no other. Harry Crane had written comedy sketches; Sammy and Jule had created a whole evening's worth of songs; d.i.c.kie Whorf, a young director at Metro, had personally painted a Parisian street scene on the backdrop curtain and supervised the rehearsals.

The men wore black tie; the women, gowns. Sinatra stood at the front door and greeted the guests himself. The songs and the comedy were hilarious. Frank sang "Mammy" in blackface, complete with Jolson voice and head-shaking shtick; Phil Silvers's dazzling new wife, Jo-Carroll, a former Miss America from Texas, sang a number called "I'm the Wife of the Life of the Party," enumerating Phil's many flaws, especially his habit of breaking into comedy routines whether they were asked for or not. A sketch in which Cahn, Crane, and Peter Lawford played three restaurant patrons served by Sinatra brought down the house: when Lawford, a notorious cheapskate, asked for the check, Frank dropped a whole trayful of dishes.

Nancy, struck by an attack of shyness, mostly hovered around the kitchen, seeing to it that the food was served properly. She felt comfortable around the servants. Now and then she stuck her head out to catch a song or a sketch. She watched the beautiful women watching Frank, watched their gleaming eyes and avid smiles, and felt sick with worry.

Then she shook her head in bewilderment at the sight of sweet-faced Marilyn Maxwell, sitting next to her handsome husband, John Conte, watching Frank sing with that look look in her eyes. When Marilyn reached up to push aside a few strands of that perfect blond hair, the way women do when they're attracted to a man, there it was, glittering unmistakably, like the palest chips of ice. Her bracelet. And at that moment, Nancy literally had to hold on to the doorway for support: the earth had spun off its axis. in her eyes. When Marilyn reached up to push aside a few strands of that perfect blond hair, the way women do when they're attracted to a man, there it was, glittering unmistakably, like the palest chips of ice. Her bracelet. And at that moment, Nancy literally had to hold on to the doorway for support: the earth had spun off its axis.

Frank clowns at a CBS rehearsal, circa 1944. Joking aside, however, the man who couldn't read music really could conduct. (photo credit 17.2) (photo credit 17.2)

Act Four

ICARUS

"Let me welcome you to the MGM family."

"I'm proud to be in that family, sir."

-Louis B. Mayer and Frank Sinatra, on the radio show Old Gold Presents Songs by Sinatra

18.

Frank and the two Nancys, 1945. "Daddy was...a voice on the radio most of the time," Nancy junior wrote, years later. "A figure composed of a bow tie and two black patent leather shoes, who was always going away." (photo credit 18.1) (photo credit 18.1) She felt as if someone had smacked her in the face. Then she collected herself, straightening her shoulders, and walked across the room. She leaned over and took the woman's wrist-the wrist with the bracelet-and looked Marilyn Maxwell in the eyes.

She would have to leave. At once.

Marilyn just stared at her, saying nothing, admitting everything.

It was all done quickly, quietly, efficiently, so the all-important party could come to its triumphant conclusion. For all anyone knew, there had been a minor family emergency of some sort. The couple simply got up and left. Frank, trouper that he was, continued the song even as he watched what was going on in front of him. He got a big hand.

Afterward, in the bedroom (he wouldn't share it that night), he tried, as best he could, swearing she didn't mean anything to him.

His wife looked at him coldly.