Frank_ The Voice Part 28

Besides, the part she was playing, the tough and careless s.e.xual firecracker pioneered by Harlow in Red Dust Red Dust, was made-to-order for Gardner. "For someone with my naturally irreverent temperament," she recalled, playing a sa.s.sy, tough-talking playgirl who whistles at men, drinks whiskey straight from the bottle, and says about wine, "Any year, any model, they all bring out my better nature," was a gift from the G.o.ds. I never felt looser or more comfortable in a part before or since, and I was even allowed to improvise some of my dialogue.

Ava sparkled in Mogambo Mogambo. At the peak of her charm and beauty and wry elusiveness, she seemed, for the first time in her movie career, like the best possible version of herself on-screen. Even by her own account, she would never again be quite as good. No doubt the slightly sadom.a.s.o.c.h.i.s.tic waltz she did with Ford-tension and release-helped her achieve that ease. It also didn't hurt that the director was more than a little in love with her.

She was well aware of Ford's devotion. But that didn't make it any easier to tell him she wanted to leave the shoot after less than three weeks and have an abortion. He was a devout, if highly conflicted, Catholic; and this was, after all, the early 1950s. "Jack Ford tried quite desperately to talk me out of it," she wrote.

"Ava," he said, "you are married to a Catholic, and this is going to hurt Frank tremendously when he finds out about it.""He isn't going to find out about it, and if he does, it's my decision.""Ava, you're giving yourself too hard a time. I'll protect you if the fact that you're having a baby starts to show. I'll arrange the scenes, I'll arrange the shots. We'll wrap your part up as quickly as we can. Nothing will show. Please go ahead and have the child."I said, "No, this is not the time, and I'm not ready."

What she couldn't tell Ford-and couldn't tell the world when it came time to write her memoirs-was that she was no longer certain that she loved Frank, and that throughout the fall she had often detested him. Even now, when his heart's desire seemed within reach, when he might actually be able to turn things around for himself, he had to leave her for a month, and she knew what that meant. He hated being alone every bit as much as she hated it, and he would find company. He always did.

Frank had to cool his heels for most of Thursday the twentieth while Columbia ran other screen tests on Stage 16 of the Sunset-Gower lot: not all were for Eternity Eternity, but one was of the actor and comedian Harvey Lembeck, who was also trying out for Maggio (and had already acted in a service role in Stalag 17- Stalag 17-and would wind up in Sergeant Bilko's squad on The Phil Silvers Show The Phil Silvers Show). When Sinatra finally walked into Buddy Adler's office, he was in a state. The handsome, prematurely silver-haired producer handed him a script, and Frank waved it aside. "I don't need this," he said. "I've read it many times."

"I didn't think he had a chance, anyway," Adler recalled. "So I said, 'Well, okay.'"

For his test, Frank was to play two drunk scenes: In the first, Maggio interrupts a heart-to-heart talk in a bar between the bugler Prewitt and the prost.i.tute Lorene (to be played by Montgomery Clift and Donna Reed in the movie), amusing them by pretending to shoot c.r.a.ps with c.o.c.ktail olives. In the second, drunker still, he goads a pair of MPs outside the Royal Hawaiian Hotel into beating him up. Both scenes embody perfectly what Prewitt says of Maggio: "He's such a comical little guy and yet somehow he makes me always want to cry while I'm laughin' at him."

The role, in other words, was an actor's dream-a softball teed up to be knocked out of the park. Yet as Sinatra walked onto the soundstage, it wasn't quite as an actor. "Frank had never been that crazy about acting," Ava said. "[B]ut he knew he was was Maggio and besides, he was dying to do a straight dramatic part and escape from the typecasting he'd been subjected to in musicals." Maggio and besides, he was dying to do a straight dramatic part and escape from the typecasting he'd been subjected to in musicals."

Maggio would be redemption; Maggio would be vindication. After all, the typecasting of the 1940s was based on unquestioned American stereotypes: an Italian's role (much like a black's) was to sing and entertain. Even the downturn in Sinatra's career could be tied to the country's acc.u.mulated indignation at his hubris-the nerve of the little wop, trying to stand on the national stage! Small wonder that, as Frank remembered, he was "scared to death" when the camera started rolling. Thirteen thousand miles and endless delays, all for one chance, ten minutes of film...

Reports on the result conflict. "The [screen] test was all right but not great," said the Eternity Eternity screenwriter, Daniel Taradash. "We'd tested Eli Wallach, and in terms of acting his test was much better. We'd all settled on Wallach." screenwriter, Daniel Taradash. "We'd tested Eli Wallach, and in terms of acting his test was much better. We'd all settled on Wallach."

But the man who would direct the movie-and who was conducting Sinatra's screen test-felt differently. At forty-five, Fred Zinnemann was a filmmaking veteran of more than twenty years' experience, a Viennese Jew who'd come to Hollywood from Europe as a young man, and now, as the director of The Member of the Wedding The Member of the Wedding and and High Noon High Noon, had gained a reputation as a meticulous, thoughtful craftsman for whom a film's moral vision meant as much as the box-office receipts. Zinnemann gravitated to stories that set underdogs against overwhelming forces: High Noon High Noon, in which Gary Cooper's sheriff had to face down a vengeful ex-con without the help of the fearful townsfolk, was seen by many as a parable for the McCarthy era.

Angelo Maggio is nothing if not an underdog, a cog in the great machine of the U.S. Army, in rebellion-much like his friend Prewitt-against that inst.i.tution's many strictures and inequities, as well as its bullies. Prewitt has his ethnicity, his white Americanness, on his side. But Maggio is a little man, an Italian, with no weapons except his Brooklyn chutzpah and his wits. His physical delicacy is part of his charm. Zinnemann had seen Eli Wallach's screen test and been bowled over by his acting, but he had misgivings. Wallach was a physically powerful man. The minute the director saw Sinatra's small frame and narrow shoulders and haunted eyes, he was intrigued. When Frank condensed all the pain of the last two years into ten minutes of screen test, Zinnemann was floored.

In his office, Buddy Adler was getting ready to go home. "Since [Sinatra's] was the last test of the day, I didn't intend going down on the stage," the producer recalled.

But I got a call from Fred Zinnemann, "You'd better come down here. You'll see something unbelievable. I already have it in the camera. I'm not using film this time. But I want you to see it."Frank thought he was making another take-and he was terrific. I thought to myself, if he's like that in the movie, it's a sure Academy Award. But we had to have Harry Cohn's okay on casting and he was out of town. So Frank went back to Africa.

Adler's recollection conveniently foreshadows Sinatra's Oscar and elides all the complications surrounding Eli Wallach-leave it to a producer to spin a good yarn. Cohn was out of town, in New York talking to his moneymen. But it would be almost two months before final casting for Eternity Eternity was set, including Maggio. And Frank would not go back to Africa for three long weeks. was set, including Maggio. And Frank would not go back to Africa for three long weeks.

One thing he knew, though: he had nailed it, no matter what Harry Cohn wound up deciding.

Meanwhile, Ava's pregnancy threw Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer into a tizzy. Once she had notified her MGM publicist and her agent of her intention to have an abortion, the front office fired off a vehement, if euphemistic, cable to John Ford: CONFIDENTIAL: UNDERSTAND GARDNER CABLED AGENT SHE UNSETTLED AND NOT WELL AND PLANNING BRIEF TRIP TO LONDON FEEL THIS VERY UNWISE FOR MANY OBVIOUS REASONS UNLESS YOU DECIDE IT NECESSARY OTHERWISE SUGGEST YOU USE YOUR PERSUASIVENESS AND HAVE LADY STAY PUT.

But by this time, Ava and Ford were as thick as thieves. The director cabled back: GARDNER GIVING SUPERB PERFORMANCE VERY CHARMING COOPERATIVE STOP HOWEVER REALLY QUITE ILL SINCE ARRIVAL AFRICA DEEM IT IMPERATIVE LONDON CONSULTATION OTHERWISE TRAGIC RESULTS STOP SHOULD NOT AFFECT SCHEDULE WEATHER HERE MISERABLE BUT WE'RE TRYING NO MOZEL BUT HARD WORK REPEAT BELIEVE TRIP IMPERATIVE.

Ford's cable was a remarkable performance itself. In forty-three words, he established his faith in his star, the integrity of his shoot, and his winking solidarity with his Jewish corporate masters. A masterpiece of persuasion, and an undeniable call to action.

MGM made all the arrangements. Ava Gardner was an extremely valuable a.s.set, and MGM was very good at making arrangements. Transportation had to be set up, a clinic in London contacted-abortion was legal in England-and publicity spun. The cover story was a tropical disease, painful but not too serious, although the Los Angeles Times Los Angeles Times's page-one lead was attention-grabbingly dramatic: AVA GARDNER STRICKEN ON SET IN AFRICALONDON, Nov. 24 (AP)-Doctors pumped powerful shots of antibiotics into Actress Ava Gardner tonight to beat down a tropical infection picked up while movie-making in Africa.The Hollywood beauty-who made the mistake of drinking the local water in Kenya's native country-lay in pain with stomach troubles.But her doctors said it is not serious and promised to have her back on her feet again in a couple of days.She was whisked to London by plane and rested this afternoon at the Savoy Hotel. Then, said a Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer official, she went quietly to a nursing home tonight for treatment.Strict privacy was ordered for the actress, wife of Crooner Frank Sinatra. There are neither visitors nor phone calls. Only a doctor saw her.Filming continues in Kenya by shooting scenes in which Miss Gardner does not appear.

Frank got the news along with everyone else, and, at length, reached her by phone in London.

Her voice was weak. There was an echo on the line. G.o.d only knew who was listening in.

He'd been worried sick about her. Was she okay? What had happened?

What had happened was that like a moron, she'd eaten some f.u.c.king lettuce, which any sane white person in Africa knew you should never do in a million years...More important, though-what about his screen test?

He told her, and she was happy for him. Genuinely happy, even though she had just aborted their child...But she was so tired-would he understand if she slept a little?

Of course he would understand. She should get her rest, and he would call her when he got to New York.

The first thing he did when he hung up was drive to Billy Ruser's jewelry store in Beverly Hills and pick out a present, for her birthday and Christmas-a pair of earrings, emeralds to go with her eyes. Ruser, an old pal, helped Frank himself.

They were gorgeous. "How much?"

"Twenty-two thousand."

Frank exhaled and looked out the window, his eyes suddenly moist.

"Frank, give the earrings to Ava."

"Billy, I can't afford these."

Ruser put them in a box and pushed it across the counter. "You pay me when you have it."

Then he bought Christmas presents for the kids and Nancy-he would be far away at Christmas. Frank borrowed a couple of grand from Van Heusen, who was swimming in dough, still cranking out movie songs for Crosby. He and Chester made plans for later, a couple of girls, one black and one white...

He drove over to Holmby Hills. Nancy was holding the fort with the money he sent her, though the big house was still on the market. She simply didn't need all that s.p.a.ce, and she could bank a nice sum if she sized down.

She was practical. But Frank was also surprised to see, when she opened the front door, just how good she looked-as though, without him, she would have withered up and blown away, grown old overnight. She was wearing his pearls, and the smell of something delicious cooking in the kitchen somehow added to her allure. Ava couldn't-wouldn't-boil water...He kissed his ex-wife. On the mouth. She kissed back just a tiny bit, as if she'd momentarily forgotten everything-but then she was tapping him on the chest. Asking him what he was doing.

Then Nancy junior was there, in a sweater and blue jeans and saddle shoes. He noticed the little swellings underneath the sweater.

Tina, four, edged up under her mother's arm, staring up at him; behind them, eight-year-old Frankie sat silently on the steps, his hair combed neatly, a scab from a playground accident on his forehead, his dark eyes suspicious.

Frank picked up the bags he'd brought. Christmas was early this year!

Nancy Sandra cheered. Her little sister smiled shyly; the boy raised his eyebrows. Frank's ex-wife gave him a knowing look, but seemed pleased anyway.

He asked if he could come in. She nodded.

Her dignity was indestructible; she had begun to make a life without him. She cultivated the gossip columnists, many of them women; they naturally took her side. Hedda Hopper wrote in early November: When I was on my lecture tour, a Nancy Sinatra fan wanted to know if she'd take Frank back. So I asked her."The idea is ridiculous," she said. "Frank's a married man now. He sees our children all the time, and he loves them. But as for anything else, it never enters my head." Her friend Jim Henaghan brought an oil man to see her house, so maybe one of these days she'll sell it and buy a smaller place. Nancy's quite a gal.

Romances were hinted at, but her most steadfast companion outside the Barbato circle seemed to be the similarly single Barbara "Missy" Stanwyck. Mostly, though, the former Mrs. Sinatra took great care to stay busy. The columnist Edith Gwynn wrote (on the very day of Ava's abortion): "Spent a pleasant evening at Nancy Sinatra's where a dozen or so dined on fancy Italian dishes the gal herself cooked up, and looked at some movies later. Nancy is proud of her three kids-and well she might be. They're dolls-and talented like crazy!"

Frank opened at the French Casino on Wednesday night, November 26, and though it wasn't the Copa, the house was full and he was in good voice-and good spirits, even when a heckler called out, "Where's your wife?"

"Where's your your wife?" Frank shot back. wife?" Frank shot back.

After the show, he strolled over to his favorite Manhattan restaurant, Patsy's, on West Fifty-sixth Street, for a late dinner. It was a cozy Italian joint run by the Scognamillo family, unpretentious and fiercely loyal to Sinatra. "At the end of the meal," the New York Times New York Times reported in 2003, "Sinatra asked the owner what he was serving for Thanksgiving, which was the next day. Aware that Sinatra had not seen the 'closed for Thanksgiving' sign on the door, the elder Mr. Scognamillo replied, 'Whatever you like.' After Sinatra left, the owner took down the sign and announced to the staff: 'Tomorrow we are open. Everyone, please come, and bring your family. I don't want Mr. Sinatra to eat alone.'" reported in 2003, "Sinatra asked the owner what he was serving for Thanksgiving, which was the next day. Aware that Sinatra had not seen the 'closed for Thanksgiving' sign on the door, the elder Mr. Scognamillo replied, 'Whatever you like.' After Sinatra left, the owner took down the sign and announced to the staff: 'Tomorrow we are open. Everyone, please come, and bring your family. I don't want Mr. Sinatra to eat alone.'"

That night Frank went straight back to work at the Casino. Between songs he schmoozed the audience, turning his ordeal at customs into an amusing anecdote ("A funny thing happened to me on the way here from Africa...") and even essaying a couple of slightly nervous Mogambo Mogambo jokes. On Gable's marksmans.h.i.+p: "Is he good! In one week, he shot six natives!" And on Ava: "It's pretty lonesome here without my wife. After all, you know the dangers she'll face making a movie in Africa-lions, tigers, crocodiles; Clark Gable..." jokes. On Gable's marksmans.h.i.+p: "Is he good! In one week, he shot six natives!" And on Ava: "It's pretty lonesome here without my wife. After all, you know the dangers she'll face making a movie in Africa-lions, tigers, crocodiles; Clark Gable..."

Gable wasn't the danger. In early December, Ava returned to the Mogambo Mogambo camp and, as always, managed to stir up some action right away. When she wanted to go out into the bush and get up close to some wild animals, the handsome white hunter Bunny Allen was happy to oblige her. They soon found themselves in the midst of a herd of elephants, where Ava, suddenly startled by a fire-hose-like splas.h.i.+ng very close at hand, grabbed Allen's arm. "It's all right," the hunter whispered coolly. "Elephant's just gone to the bathroom." Ava's loud laughter sent the herd thundering off-but there she was, still holding on to Bunny... camp and, as always, managed to stir up some action right away. When she wanted to go out into the bush and get up close to some wild animals, the handsome white hunter Bunny Allen was happy to oblige her. They soon found themselves in the midst of a herd of elephants, where Ava, suddenly startled by a fire-hose-like splas.h.i.+ng very close at hand, grabbed Allen's arm. "It's all right," the hunter whispered coolly. "Elephant's just gone to the bathroom." Ava's loud laughter sent the herd thundering off-but there she was, still holding on to Bunny...

It wasn't a grand affair, just a couple of nights, then sweet, dry-eyed good-byes. They were alike, the two of them: good-looking and easily bored.

"Ava couldn't be alone," the production coordinator Eva Monley said. "That was, I think, why she had so many affairs. She'd say, 'Hey, come on, have a drink with me, I'm bored all by myself,' and she'd bring back a prop man or whoever [to her tent]."

Back in New York, the French Casino was asking Frank to extend his stay, but, Earl Wilson wrote, "he has a prior commitment-Ava." On Friday the twelfth, his thirty-seventh birthday (not his thirty-fifth, as he still led the world to believe, and as Wilson dutifully reported), he "was given a birthday cake by lady fans...[who] squealed just like they did at the Riobamba almost 10 years ago."

Ten years...The girls were ladies now, and Frankie was verging on middle age. Many of the ladies were still willing to go to bed with him-and a few did-but road romance wasn't the same as it had once been.

He really did miss his wife.

Frank arrived back on location the following week, bearing gifts for Ava's big birthday, from himself and her family. Some accounts say he brought a diamond ring and a mink, the latter of which seems unlikely in darkest Africa, but then Sinatra and sensible gift giving never did go together. Ava is said to have made a scornful remark about who really paid for the gifts-but what of Billy Ruser's layaway earrings? Reports are inconsistent. Ava insists it was a charmed period. "Frank came back to Africa in time for Christmas-and my thirtieth birthday-full of enthusiasm and joy," she recalled.

But Frank wouldn't know for weeks if he had clinched the Eternity Eternity role: Cohn was still horse-trading with Eli Wallach's people, and Frank was on pins and needles, which wouldn't have made him delightful company. "Then came the death wait," he told Hedda Hopper in 1954, of his return to the role: Cohn was still horse-trading with Eli Wallach's people, and Frank was on pins and needles, which wouldn't have made him delightful company. "Then came the death wait," he told Hedda Hopper in 1954, of his return to the Mogambo Mogambo shoot. shoot.

I thought I'd collapse waiting for reaction to that test. My agent sent word that Columbia was testing six other fellows, among them some fine stage actors. My chin hit my knees and I gave up. Ava was wonderful at cheering me up, and said, "I wish you wouldn't quit just because you got one stinking telegram." Clark Gable...kept saying, "Relax, skipper. Have a little drink and everything will be all right."

Drinking rarely made things all right where Frank and Ava were concerned. Given his tendency to prettify the past, his stark language ("thought I'd collapse...I gave up") is striking. Then sometime while he was waiting to hear from Columbia, the alcohol loosened Ava's tongue, and she told him about the abortion. The revelation could only have been devastating to him.

Frank's first thought would have been the terrible memory of Nancy's abortion. His second would have been the big family he had proclaimed he and Ava would have. His Italian procreative pride had finally collided with his wife's skittishness about childbearing-not to mention her own physical and professional pride.

The two of them had much in common, but too much of it was negative. And in each, the capacity for intimacy was stunted. The story Ava told on herself about her fury at Frank for interrupting her in her bath, and her general shyness about appearing naked in front of her husbands, clashes tellingly with all the accounts about her fascination with prost.i.tution and anonymous s.e.x, the dalliances with propmen, the naked parading in front of native bearers on Mogambo Mogambo. If she could see a man as an inferior, her own shaky self-worth wasn't challenged. She was drawn to strong men but ultimately threatened by them.

For his part, Frank had briefly known, and quickly fled, the confinements of conventional marriage. Jersey City, Hasbrouck Heights-he could still remember that tight feeling in his chest...Nancy had ruled those small households and, during the couple's tenure in them, ruled him as well. And the big households in Toluca Lake and Holmby Hills cohered around Nancy, not him. He was gone.

He would keep returning for the rest of his life, would be an inveterate dropper-in. He would always be wedded to Nancy; she knew him as no one else did. He craved this intimacy as he craved all intimacy, but with Nancy, as with almost everyone else, the rules were the same: he must be able to leave the second he got bored. And he was too intelligent not to realize that almost n.o.body in the world defined intimacy his way. The one exception was Ava, who played by the same rules he did. Which made it impossible for them to stay together. The contradictions would torment him till the end of his days.

"Fred Zinnemann...has gone to New York to test stage players for 'From Here to Eternity,'" Hedda Hopper wrote in her syndicated column on December 3, 1952.

The picture will have seven top roles; but Columbia figures with that set-up a Broadway actor or actress can be built into a movie star and put under contract as was Judy Holliday in "Born Yesterday." Seems that every rugged actor in town, including Humphrey Bogart, wants to play the part of Sgt. Warden. Bogie is due to go to Europe for "Beat the Devil" with John Huston. But I hear that picture may be postponed if he lands "Eternity." Frank Sinatra has already tested for the role of Maggio. From the reports I've been getting from those who've seen the test I'd wager he's in.

"Frank's still in there pitching for the magic [sic] role in 'From Here to Eternity'; and I think he's just right for the part," the columnist noted a week later.

His manager a.s.sured me that, despite the printed report, Sinatra was not gumming up the deal by holding out for too much do-re-mi. When he wants a part badly, as he does this one, Frank considers money of secondary importance. If memory serves me correctly, he gave at least a bulk of his salary for playing the priest in "The Miracle of the Bells" to charity. And, besides, the "Eternity" role could open up a completely new phase to Sinatra's acting career.

n.o.body knew this better than Sinatra, but casting for Eternity Eternity was in flux, as casting frequently is for big movies. As were Frank's nerves. He distracted himself by organizing a Christmas show for the was in flux, as casting frequently is for big movies. As were Frank's nerves. He distracted himself by organizing a Christmas show for the Mogambo Mogambo company: he sang carols, native choirs performed, Ford recited "A Visit from St. Nicholas." Christmas pa.s.sed, then New Year's, and there was still no word from Columbia. He could exert only so much influence on Harry Cohn, and being thirteen thousand miles removed from the action didn't boost his confidence. Since Frank was currently without a press agent-he could no longer afford the weekly retainer he'd been paying Nat Shapiro, and had precious little to publicize anyway-he did what he could. He worked the phones from Nairobi, kept Sanicola jumping, spun the columnists. At least one of those positive reports about Frank's screen test came straight from Frank himself. And it was sheer genius to convert his desperation-his offer to Cohn to play Maggio for next to nothing-into largesse. (Who was keeping exact track of how much of his company: he sang carols, native choirs performed, Ford recited "A Visit from St. Nicholas." Christmas pa.s.sed, then New Year's, and there was still no word from Columbia. He could exert only so much influence on Harry Cohn, and being thirteen thousand miles removed from the action didn't boost his confidence. Since Frank was currently without a press agent-he could no longer afford the weekly retainer he'd been paying Nat Shapiro, and had precious little to publicize anyway-he did what he could. He worked the phones from Nairobi, kept Sanicola jumping, spun the columnists. At least one of those positive reports about Frank's screen test came straight from Frank himself. And it was sheer genius to convert his desperation-his offer to Cohn to play Maggio for next to nothing-into largesse. (Who was keeping exact track of how much of his Miracle of the Bells Miracle of the Bells pay he'd t.i.thed? It had to have been "at least a bulk," whatever that meant.) pay he'd t.i.thed? It had to have been "at least a bulk," whatever that meant.) To a certain extent, a publicist was unnecessary. To an extent, by sheer virtue of his continued notoriety and his connection to Ava, Sinatra's name stayed in the news. This cut two ways, though. Ava was now the star; Frank, the consort. Those who knew something about the pathetic but plucky character of Maggio from the novel (as Hedda Hopper clearly did) appreciated the delicious appropriateness of Sinatra's seeking the role, but they were in the minority. Most of the world had had it with him. Even Earl Wilson. "When Frank Sinatra was flying to Africa and then back to play a nightclub date in Boston, n.o.body in the press was interested," the columnist recalled. "Even I wasn't much interested. I noted that when he arrived at the airport, Frank needed a haircut."

Ava and John Ford on the set of Mogambo Mogambo, early 1953. Two tough characters who clashed at first, then grew deeply fond of each other. (photo credit 32.2) (photo credit 32.2)

Act Five

THE PHOENIX

33.

Montgomery Clift and Frank shoot From Here to Eternity From Here to Eternity, Hawaii, April 1953. Sinatra, ordinarily a prima donna on movie shoots, "was very, very good-all the time," director Fred Zinnemann recalled. "No histrionics, no bad behavior." He knew the film was his last best chance. (photo credit 33.1) (photo credit 33.1) The second week of 1953 brought a welcome distraction-welcome to Frank, at any rate: Ava was pregnant again. For her part, Ava felt doubly miserable, for she was sick as a dog and she knew the baby wasn't his.

It might have been Bunny Allen's; it might have belonged to any one of two or three different propmen, she wasn't sure. Once she tied one on after work, anything could happen, and frequently did. But she knew it wasn't Frank's: the numbers didn't add up. Conception would have occurred in early December, right around the time he was playing the French Casino. Maybe even as late as the tenth or twelfth. Happy Birthday, Frank.

She couldn't bear to tell him that she would have to get rid of this one too, and he mistook her misery for mere physical discomfort. "He was delighted," she recalled.

I remember b.u.mping across the African plain with him one day in a jeep, feeling sick as the devil. Right on the spot, for the first and only time in our relations.h.i.+p, Frank decided to sing to me. I know people must think that he did that sort of thing all the time, but the man was a professional and the voice was saved for the right occasions. This must have been one of them, because he sang to me, oh so beautifully, that lovely song, "When You Awake." It didn't stop me from feeling sick, but I've always remembered that moment.

A week later he was gone again.

Had his plane gone down on this trip-as, for example, would the plane of the great young cla.s.sical pianist William Kapell, later that year-Frank Sinatra's legend would no doubt have grown over the decades to come. He would not have been forgotten like the two-dimensional Russ Columbo or Buddy Clark; rather, he would have left a large, tragic, stunted legacy, that of a great talent cut short at a low ebb (like Hank Williams, who had died of an overdose that New Year's Day). The grand and troubled relations.h.i.+p with Ava, never resolved, would have been remembered and romanticized; the dozens of great recordings he had already made would have grown in stature. Even the few slight but charming movies would have taken on a nostalgic glow. His career decline near the end would have given the saga an extra fillip. Sinatra would have been recalled not only as an important figure of the mid-twentieth century but also as a great should-have-been. Who knew what he might have become?

But his plane didn't go down (nor, for all his abject fear of heights and flying, would any of the thousands of flights he would take over six decades). Instead, he arrived, unheralded, at Idlewild on a chilly afternoon in late January 1953.

"Frank Sinatra, needing a haircut, got into town from Africa and Ava and headed for Boston..." This was the full extent of Earl Wilson's item on Sinatra, final ellipses and all, in his column of Friday, January 23. In fact, Frank had landed in New York on Monday the nineteenth, but he was such old news at this point that Wilson could wait awhile to take note of his arrival. All but incognito, Sinatra was on his way to do two weeks at Lou Walters's Latin Quarter (where Lou's daughter Barbara, aged twenty-three, was director of publicity). From there he would fly to Canada and play a week at the Chez Paree in Montreal. As promised, he was touring the provinces. The gigs were all he could get, and he was glad for them.

The next day-it was Eisenhower's inauguration-Frank got that haircut, flew to Boston, checked in at the Ritz-Carlton, and went over to the Latin Quarter to rehea.r.s.e. Young Barbara Walters greeted him eagerly, telling him proudly of the newspaper interviews she had lined up. Frank smiled wearily, imagining the line of bulls.h.i.+t he would have to spin for the gentlemen of the press. He took the band through its paces, liked what he heard, and went back to the hotel alone. A little bit after eight, the phone rang. It was Bert Allenberg, calling from the Morris office in L.A. Was Frank sitting down?

Sinatra poured himself a tumblerful of Jack Daniel's after he hung up. He drank the whiskey, refilled the gla.s.s, and drank that one off too. He paced the living room of his suite, fast, talking to himself. "I wanted to tell somebody but there was n.o.body around to tell it to!" he later recalled. "I thought I'd go off my rocker."

The shock of finally getting what he had wanted so badly was so great that at first he wasn't sure how to feel. One of his first emotions, irrationally enough, was sharp regret at having agreed to work for so little. A thousand dollars a week...It was not only less than pocket change;1 it could brand him for life as cut-rate. A couple of nights after opening at the Quarter, he went over to George Wein's Storyville club in the Hotel Buckminster to hear Duke Ellington, and got to talking with Pearl Bailey, who was also on the bill. it could brand him for life as cut-rate. A couple of nights after opening at the Quarter, he went over to George Wein's Storyville club in the Hotel Buckminster to hear Duke Ellington, and got to talking with Pearl Bailey, who was also on the bill.

She asked Frank what he was up to. Another movie? Bailey turned to her husband, Ellington's drummer, Louie Bellson, and gave him a wink. She just loved to see Frankie in those sailor suits. Bellson gave her a mock scowl.

Frank shook his head. No more sailor suits. "Pearl, they've offered me a movie called From Here to Eternity From Here to Eternity. They're paying me a thousand bucks a week, which is nothing."

Bailey looked impressed. From Here to Eternity From Here to Eternity? That big book?

That was the one.

"Take it and don't look back," Bailey told him.

He took it. And he'd brought it off without having to put a horse's head in Harry Cohn's bed. Mario Puzo was the one who did that, fifteen years later. The famous scene in The G.o.dfather The G.o.dfather has a Sinatra-like singer named Johnny Fontane beg his padrone Don Corleone to help him land a career-changing movie role in the face of strong opposition from a Cohn-like studio chief named Jack Woltz. The novelist knew that Sicilian criminals frequently used dead animals as warning signs to their enemies, and he knew that Harry Cohn was an avid horseplayer (though he never owned a racehorse). Puzo was also aware that Cohn had had close gangland ties since the beginning of his career, that he fancied himself a tough guy-he even wore a gold-and-ruby friends.h.i.+p ring given to him by a smooth mafioso named Johnny Rosselli, Frank Costello's West Coast representative. has a Sinatra-like singer named Johnny Fontane beg his padrone Don Corleone to help him land a career-changing movie role in the face of strong opposition from a Cohn-like studio chief named Jack Woltz. The novelist knew that Sicilian criminals frequently used dead animals as warning signs to their enemies, and he knew that Harry Cohn was an avid horseplayer (though he never owned a racehorse). Puzo was also aware that Cohn had had close gangland ties since the beginning of his career, that he fancied himself a tough guy-he even wore a gold-and-ruby friends.h.i.+p ring given to him by a smooth mafioso named Johnny Rosselli, Frank Costello's West Coast representative.