Frank_ The Voice Part 20

But long-distance telecommunication in Catalonia was still erratic at best. Sometimes hours of transatlantic operator a.s.sistance were necessary only to be told again that the lines were down or that no one was answering. When at last he would reach her, the connection was often filled with static and her voice a maddeningly faint and broken echo. Conversations would end with his frantic declaration of love and anguished hope that he had correctly heard Ava declare the same.

I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that you can hear the disconnect in the records he made during that grueling April: As Mitch Miller triumphantly noted, the orchestra was perfect. Frank, however, was merely good. And the main thing was that he and the orchestra didn't sound good together together.

Then, at the Copa dinner show on May 2, Sinatra reached for a high note on South Pacific South Pacific's "Bali H'ai." The note wasn't there. He somehow managed to finish the show-then rushed back to his bed at the Hamps.h.i.+re House, where he sat in his pajamas, weakly calling for hot tea and honey. As Frank rested, feeling deeply sorry for himself, Hank Sanicola let slip a rumor that had been making the rounds in midtown: Lee Mortimer had bet Jack Entratter $100 that Sinatra would never finish out the Copa engagement.

That was all he needed. At 2:00 a.m., strictly against Dr. Goldman's orders, Frank was back at the club, dressed and ready for the last show of the evening. He cleared his throat and dedicated "I Have But One Heart" to Ava. He sang it all the way through. Then Skitch Henderson kicked the band into gear for "It All Depends on You." What happened next "was tragic and terrifying," Henderson recalled: He opened his mouth to sing after the band introduction and nothing came out. Not a sound. I thought for a fleeting moment that the unexpected pantomime was a joke. But then he caught my eye. I guess the color drained out of my face as I saw the panic in his. It became so quiet, so intensely quiet in the club-they were like watching a man walk off a cliff. His face chalk white, Frank gasped something that sounded like "Good Night" into the mike and raced off the floor, leaving the audience stunned.

It may have been tragic and terrifying to Skitch and Frank, but to the newspapers it was a source for gloating: BALI TOO H'AI; VOICE VOICELESSFrank Sinatra's voice deserted him Tuesday and his doctor said it was because the crooner tried to make it do the impossible-hit a soprano note.Dr. Irving Goldman explained that Sinatra's normal range is two octaves in the baritone-tenor cla.s.s. When Frank tried to hit too high a note in the song "Bali H'ai," the physician said, his left vocal chord [sic] dissented.In medical terms, Sinatra suffered what the doctor called a "submucosal hemorrhage."Doctor Goldman ordered ten days of silence for "The Voice," who has been appearing at New York's Copacabana night club. Sinatra is due to open an engagement in Chicago May 12, and if he is to make it, said the doctor, he must keep mum until then-no talking or singing.Sinatra's friends said that to keep the ban of silence, Frank will go to a vacation hideaway.

The hideaway was Charlie Fischetti's mansion on Allison Island in Miami, an establishment where hoa.r.s.e monosyllables would not be at all out of place.

On May 12, Sinatra was tanned and rested, his voice much improved. But instead of heading to the Chez Paree in chilly Chicago, he was waving to reporters, pointing to his throat, and boarding a flight to sunny Spain with Van Heusen. "Yes, I'll probably see Ava," he croaked to the reporters. "But we'll be as well chaperoned as at a high-school dance."

"Even if he has to hire sixteen duennas," Chester piped up.

Frank was, of course, bearing gifts: Ava had said she was missing her gum and her favorite soft drink, so he carried along a carton of Wrigley's Spearmint and a six-pack of c.o.ke. And a $10,000 diamond-and-emerald necklace.

The suits at MCA were grim faced at the news that he had blithely canceled the Chicago engagement (though the owners of Chez Paree, where the Fischettis had a special table, were quite understanding). But Frank had to reestablish contact with Ava. She had been gone for over a month now-anything could have happened. Knowing her, plenty probably had.

If he was pining for her, the reverse did not seem to be true, as a production a.s.sistant on Pandora and the Flying Dutchman Pandora and the Flying Dutchman, Jeanie Sims, recalled. "I remember one time we were shooting a scene of Ava by herself," Sims told Lee Server.

She was supposed to be lost in some deep thought about the man she was in love with. And she couldn't sort of get it right for [the director, Albert Lewin]...Al finally went over and said to her, "Ava, is there some one person in your life who you love or have loved more than anyone else on earth?" And she answered him so quietly I could not hear her. And he told her to think of that person and it was just the impetus she needed, and she got it perfect on the next shot. And afterward I was a bit curious, and I asked Al what she had said, who she had loved more than anyone, and Al said, "The clarinet player-Artie Shaw."

Ava, though, was living for the present. She took her pleasures as she found them, and she found them everywhere. With a kind of beauty that comes along once in a hundred years-not just in her lush and haughty face but also in her long-limbed body, her smoky voice, her feline walk-she transfixed men and women alike. She had never been out of the States before, and Europe, still depressed after the war, was stunned at the sight of her.

"A very, very wild spirit," recalled her Pandora Pandora co-star Sheila Sim. On a quick sightseeing and shopping jaunt to Paris before filming began, Ava and Bappie had ditched their MGM driver and sneaked off to see the co-star Sheila Sim. On a quick sightseeing and shopping jaunt to Paris before filming began, Ava and Bappie had ditched their MGM driver and sneaked off to see the real real sights. Soon, completely by accident-or so Ava swears in her memoir-they were shocked, shocked, to find themselves in a bar full of men who weren't really men. Well, Bappie was shocked. As her little sister wrote: " 'Ava,' Bappie said in her dark-brown North Carolina Baptist Belt voice that fortunately n.o.body understood except me, 'we are in a sights. Soon, completely by accident-or so Ava swears in her memoir-they were shocked, shocked, to find themselves in a bar full of men who weren't really men. Well, Bappie was shocked. As her little sister wrote: " 'Ava,' Bappie said in her dark-brown North Carolina Baptist Belt voice that fortunately n.o.body understood except me, 'we are in a House of Lesbians House of Lesbians!'" From Ava's point of view, however, "All the girls [were] welcoming, and charming."

Everyone was smitten with her. Albert Lewin, recalled the cinematographer Jack Cardiff, "thought she was the most beautiful woman in the world, and he used to just gaze and gaze at her. And we would shoot her, and he would say, 'I want to do another close-up. Closer.' And we would do that. And then he would say, 'Let's do another one. Different angle.' Then one more, 'Closer.' And on and on like that."

But her biggest admirer was the bullfighter: the rumors were true, kind of. His name was Mario Cabre, he was thirty-five years old, and he was a second-rate torero but a first-rate self-promoter. He was playing a bullfighter in the film, one of Ava's suitors, and so he figured, why should fact not mirror fiction? He was instantly bewitched by her, but also saw her as his ticket out of Palookaville. To complicate matters, the MGM unit publicists were eager to promote a romance in order to distract the world from the grand opera of Gardner and Sinatra.

And then there was Ava herself, incessantly complicated. In her autobiography she is at great pains to dismiss Cabre as a mere nuisance: Someone had pa.s.sed on to him the concept that there is no such thing as bad publicity: if you want to be famous you've got to get into the headlines. And what greater opportunity could he have than an attempt to replace Frank in my affections? His motivation was cynical self-interest. His declamatory rhetoric about this great pa.s.sion in his life, his love for me and mine for him, made headlines in Spain, America, all over the world, and that's all he cared about. He gave interviews saying I was "the woman I love with all the strength in my soul," wrote the most idiotic love poems imaginable, and then marched off to recite them at the American emba.s.sy in Madrid.Initially, I suppose I thought this was vaguely amusing, and since we played lovers in the same film, no one was exactly encouraging me to come out and publicly say he was a nuisance and a jerk. But when he started to involve Frank in his shenanigans, saying he would not leave Spain alive if he came on that visit, Mario became a major pest.

It must be remembered, however, that Gardner dictated her memoir (to not one but three successive ghostwriters) toward the end of her life, when she was sick and the beneficiary of numerous gestures of goodwill, including money, from Frank Sinatra. In the spring of 1950, by the testimony of her colleagues on Pandora and the Flying Dutchman Pandora and the Flying Dutchman, it was a different story: she was initially resistant, but then not so resistant, to the charms of the handsome torero. At first he was just a very good-looking Spaniard. But when he fought that bull, "it just got into her blood right away," recalled the set dresser John Hawkesworth. "The excitement and the color and the drama of the thing, she loved it."

Sinatra's arrival, on the other hand-he landed in Barcelona on May 11-was an unwelcome surprise. Maybe he wanted to test her. If so, he found the true Ava: When he arrived in Tossa de Mar, she was off someplace with Cabre, and the crew had to distract Frank with a poker game until she could be found. Then she waltzed in, all smiles and wreathed in that perfume, and all his questions-Where had she been? What had she been doing?-evaporated.

"Oh, what a lovely surprise!" Ava exclaimed, at the sight of him. "Darling! How great!"

The next few days were a combination of melodrama and low comedy. Upon hearing of Sinatra's arrival, the torero swore that he would kill the singer. Director Lewin had the good sense to take Cabre at his word and have him sent to a remote location to prepare for his bullfighting scenes. In the meantime, off went Sinatra and Gardner, with the Spanish press in hot pursuit. It rained; shooting was halted. The lovers spent the day in her villa; the reporters camped outside. Inside, Frank and Ava were at each other like wasps in a bottle, fighting about the bullfighter (she denied everything). Then they made up.

The sun came out. Shooting resumed. The sun hurt Sinatra's eyes. As Chester sat by solicitously, Frank sulked and drank champagne and out of sheer boredom tossed a few bones to the reporters. ("Of course, I knew what people would say when I flew here. I am not a youth anymore," he said, sounding oddly Spanish. "I expected this curiosity.") "Don't you have anything else to say, Frank?" a reporter asked.

"Yes," he said. "Bing Crosby is the best singer in the world."

On Sunday, the lovers and Van Heusen went out tuna fis.h.i.+ng. The sea sparkled; the Americans laughed and drank more champagne and caught a couple of big fish. The reporters were far away.

On Monday she had to go back to work. The reporters were cl.u.s.tering again. One of them handed Sinatra an American newspaper carrying a story about Nancy. She had spent Mother's Day without Frank for the first time ever, the report read. She had received gifts from the children, but nothing from her husband, who had spent the weekend in Spain with Ava Gardner. The story mentioned the diamond-and-emerald necklace.

"They can't make this one of those things," Frank growled. He denied the existence of the necklace. "We have been chaperoned every minute we have been together," he said. He was referring, in all seriousness, to Van Heusen. "We know now that because of this publicity, it was a mistake for me to have come here," he said, and announced he was leaving twenty-four hours early.

There was another tearful parting, then he and Van Heusen flew to Paris to console themselves with wh.o.r.es.

Earl Wilson tracked Frank down at the Cafe Lido, a lively nightclub featuring bare-breasted chorus girls. Frank shouted over the phone-partly because he had to, due to the faint transatlantic connection, but mostly because he was upset: "This bullfighter is nothing to her. NOTHING! This girl is very upset because she's had nothing to do with this boy," Frank went on. He was screaming a little; him with not too good a throat, either!"What did you and Ava do in Spain?" I innocently inquired. A reporter on this kind of story has got to ask a lot of foolish questions."We were sunning ourselves all day and we went out for a ride when she wasn't working," Frank shouted."She and I took a lot of drives. We took a lot of looks at the countryside. We caught a couple of tuna fish."And that reminded Frank of something he had been wanting to get across to the whole world and, though that beautiful Lido show with the creamy-skinned beauties was waiting, he took time to explain."We've kept this clean as anybody could," he exclaimed. "Just so n.o.body could hit below the belt, we were well chaperoned all the time. We were chaperoned like a high school dance. ALL THE TIME!""And did you talk about getting a divorce so you can get married?""I've never said a word about it. NOT A WORD," he fiercely insisted, "and here's something you can use. Everybody's talking about Ava and me getting married...EVERYBODY...except Ava and me!"

The trip to Spain had been a fiasco. He wasn't working (while Ava was): he hadn't sung in a month. On the way home-and where exactly was home? in his office on South Robertson?-squadrons of reporters met him at every stop along the way, in London and in New York and finally in Los Angeles, all asking the same stupid questions: Was Ava in love with the bullfighter? Was Frank running away from the bullfighter? And by the way, were Frank and Ava planning to get married?

He stopped at his office just long enough to shower and change clothes, then drove out to Holmby Hills bearing gifts: dolls and toys from Paris for the kids, a gold charm bracelet for Nancy, engraved: "Eiffel Tower and stuff." Not so romantic. It wasn't meant to be. What note was he supposed to strike? She gave him a look that would have broken his heart if he'd had the courage to hold her gaze.

Instead of an apology, he tried for a molecule of levity, at his own expense: he wished her happy Mother's Day.

She just stared at him. He averted his eyes again.

He had gone over in the early evening so the kids would still be awake, wanting to see them but also knowing that his wife wouldn't make a scene in front of them. He was disappointed to find Tina, the baby (she was about to turn two), asleep.

He offered to come back in the morning.

She considered it. Then nodded.

Sinatra and Bob Hope. Hope gave Frank a guest spot on his TV show-Sinatra's first television appearance-soon after his voice came back, when no one else wanted to employ him. (photo credit 25.2) (photo credit 25.2) He returned the next morning-two visits in twenty-four hours! Little Nancy, thinking this might mean Daddy was home for good, ran and jumped into his arms; Frankie hung back and stared. Tina clung to her mother's leg. Frank picked the baby up with his other arm, held both his girls at once. The little one didn't seem quite sure who he was. In the years to come she would have no memory of this visit, nor of many others.

That night he flew back to New York with Bob Hope, who, miraculously enough, had given him a job.

26.

The Frank Sinatra Show. "Bad pacing, bad scripting, bad tempo, poor camera work and an overall jerky presentation," Variety Variety said. The broadcast limped along from late 1950 to early 1952, often sponsorless, until CBS pulled the plug. said. The broadcast limped along from late 1950 to early 1952, often sponsorless, until CBS pulled the plug. (photo credit 26.1) (photo credit 26.1) Sinatra's savior at this juncture was his hardworking lawyer Henry Jaffe, who-since MCA was sitting on its hands where Frank was concerned-had been pestering Hope's people for months to hire his client for the comedian's new television variety show. TV was new and scary territory for Bob Hope, but he had to try: his NBC radio show, a mainstay of his career since 1937, was rapidly losing listeners to Crosby, Jack Benny, and Arthur G.o.dfrey. Accordingly, when General Motors offered Hope a five-show contract (at $150,000) for a television broadcast to be sponsored by Frigidaire, Ski Nose jumped at it.

The medium was barely out of its infancy: programmers were making it up as they went along. Sid Caesar's frenetic, wildly inventive Your Show of Shows Your Show of Shows, which had premiered on NBC in February, was doing brilliantly. Bob Hope's Star Spangled Revue Star Spangled Revue (the t.i.tle was the frightened era's equivalent of a flag lapel pin) debuted on NBC on Easter Sunday, and did not fare as well. Hope, who had to share the stage with refrigerators, seemed to think it sufficient to put on a vaudeville show in front of the camera. Douglas Fairbanks Jr. and Dinah Sh.o.r.e played along gamely, but the music-hall pacing, in the given context of early TV-live and uncut-was less than galvanizing, and reviews were less than ecstatic. The second show had to be better. (the t.i.tle was the frightened era's equivalent of a flag lapel pin) debuted on NBC on Easter Sunday, and did not fare as well. Hope, who had to share the stage with refrigerators, seemed to think it sufficient to put on a vaudeville show in front of the camera. Douglas Fairbanks Jr. and Dinah Sh.o.r.e played along gamely, but the music-hall pacing, in the given context of early TV-live and uncut-was less than galvanizing, and reviews were less than ecstatic. The second show had to be better.

Hope's choice of guests for that broadcast was interesting. Beatrice Lillie, an old pal from his London music-hall days, was funny and eccentric; Peggy Lee was ascendant, and s.e.xy; but the best you could say about Frank Sinatra (besides the fact that until a couple of months earlier he could sing) was that he certainly was in the papers a lot.

One place Frank had never been, though, was in front of a TV camera. Acknowledging the fact, Hope introduced him a little nervously: "It takes real courage to get your feet wet in television. I'm really glad this chap decided to take the plunge. I'm thrilled to introduce Mr. Frank Sinatra."

Yet if Bob Hope was tentative, his first guest was anything but. "Sinatra, astoundingly thin, balletic in his movements, and dazzling with his smile, showed no nerves about appearing on the tube," writes Peggy Lee's biographer Peter Richmond. "He nailed 'Come Rain or Come s.h.i.+ne' with a suggestion of c.o.c.kiness that was in equal parts annoying and appealing. His absolute composure, performing live in front of an audience whose size he couldn't begin to guess at, made it instantly obvious that he would have no problem climbing back to the top."

Obvious to whom? Frank's absolute composure was-now more than ever-mostly an artful illusion. And television was not to be his medium. The whiff of arrogance, whether contrived or real, made him a hot presence on the cool tube: the contrast jangled. Nor did he have much of a gift for comedy, the lifeblood of television variety. He was too angry, too edgy. In a sketch on the Hope show he played-of all people-Bing Crosby, the avatar of cool. The results were less than impressive, counteracting the magic Frank had spun with his singing. "If TV is his oyster, Sinatra hasn't broken out of his sh.e.l.l," Variety Variety noted. noted.

The day after his television debut, Frank went back to radio-for one more week. His contract for Light Up Time Light Up Time had expired, and Lucky Strike wasn't hustling to renew. Yet another company had cut him loose. On Monday, June 5, he was officially at liberty. had expired, and Lucky Strike wasn't hustling to renew. Yet another company had cut him loose. On Monday, June 5, he was officially at liberty.

In the meantime, Jaffe was in talks with CBS, which was laboring mightily to squeeze some value out of its rapidly diminis.h.i.+ng a.s.set, to create a pair of vehicles for Sinatra that fall: another radio program and, against all better judgment, a TV show. Frank was also booked at London's Palladium in early July; until then, he was facing an empty month, and a vacation was the last thing he needed. His voice was back; he wanted to sing.

In late May and early June, while Sinatra's first collaboration with Mitch Miller, the dreadful "American Beauty Rose," was having its brief moment at the bottom of the charts, it became clear to Miller that none of the other eight up-tempo numbers Frank had recorded that spring were tickling the public's fancy. Accordingly, the producer decided to take a stronger hand with his star. If the public didn't want to hear Sinatra swing, then maybe he should sing something else.

Miller had been instrumental in the decision to move Sinatra up-tempo, but it had been Frank and George Siravo who'd made all the creative decisions in April. For the session on June 28, Miller had a new concept, one he controlled completely. The songs, "Goodnight Irene" and "Dear Little Boy of Mine," had an earnest, folksy quality ("Irene" had recently been a big hit for the Weavers), and to heighten that quality, background voices were used-the Mitch Miller Singers. Miller himself, naturally, arranged and conducted. And Frank Sinatra just sang along with Mitch.

If he hated it, it didn't show. Sinatra was in excellent voice on both numbers-utterly unsuited to his character and personality though they were. Listen to them, and even with the corny background chorus they almost make sense. In fact, "Goodnight Irene" went straight to number 5 on the Billboard Billboard charts, Sinatra's biggest hit in over three years. charts, Sinatra's biggest hit in over three years.

Ava had finished all her location shooting for Pandora Pandora. All that remained were some interiors, to be filmed at Shepperton Studios outside of London. With a fond farewell to Spain and an hasta la vista hasta la vista to Mario Cabre, she moved into a luxury flat near Hyde Park, and a corps of reporters and photographers promptly set up camp at her doorstep. She greeted them with husky-voiced, affectionate ribaldries when she went out in the morning and returned at night, and they, like everyone else, fell in love with her. to Mario Cabre, she moved into a luxury flat near Hyde Park, and a corps of reporters and photographers promptly set up camp at her doorstep. She greeted them with husky-voiced, affectionate ribaldries when she went out in the morning and returned at night, and they, like everyone else, fell in love with her.

On July 5, Sinatra flew to England, in high spirits: Henry Jaffe had arm wrestled Bill Paley into giving Frank a five-year contract for a TV variety show, to commence in October. (CBS also threw in a new radio show, Meet Frank Sinatra Meet Frank Sinatra, to start concurrently.) At $200,000 per annum, the deal was potentially worth $1 million, and while it was subject to all sorts of provisos, escape clauses, and caveats, it theoretically gave Sinatra the edge over Bing Crosby as the highest-paid singer in show business.

Landing in London was like stepping out of a time machine. In the States, it was a new, bad decade: President Truman had just sent U.S. troops to Korea; Joe McCarthy was rapping pieces of paper and barking threats. In England, where bombed-out buildings were still much in evidence, it felt like the early 1940s, a time that had been very good to Frank Sinatra. London, a town desperate for some cheering up, greeted him with the kind of hysterical acclaim he'd been missing badly lately-especially from teenage girls, who once again came out in screaming droves.

When he reunited with Ava, it was as a man who'd gotten his mojo back. He was a c.o.c.k of the walk again, and she liked him that way.

He in turn devoured the adulation. One night, Ava's co-star Sheila Sim and her husband, Richard Attenborough, picked up Ava and Frank to take them to the premiere of a new Noel Coward musical. Crowds were gathered outside Ava's flat, and when she emerged, she whisked right through them and hopped into Sim and Attenborough's car. Frank came out a moment later, a huge grin on his face, and signed every autograph book thrust at him. When he finally got in the car, Ava was furious: they had agreed ahead of time that they would skip all that. Frank just shrugged.

He may have been One-Take Charlie for the movies, but when it came to his music, he was a man possessed. The Palladium was at least the equivalent of the Paramount, and he rehea.r.s.ed all day, every day, until the opening.

And he didn't disappoint. Backed by England's biggest big band, Woolf Phillips and the Skyrockets, Frank knocked them dead. Nancy junior writes: Sipping tea on stage between songs, he began with "Bewitched," "Embraceable You," and "I Fall in Love Too Easily." When he started singing "I've Got a Crush on You," the screaming started. Saying "Steady now," he changed the mood with "Ol' Man River," followed by a parody, "Old Man Crosby, He Just Keeps Singing Along," that brought down the house.

The critics loved him too. "I watched ma.s.s hysteria," wrote the New Musical Express New Musical Express's reviewer. "Was it wonderful? Decidedly so, for this man Sinatra is a superb performer and a great artiste. He had his audience spellbound." The Sunday Chronicle Sunday Chronicle's man mustered even less English reserve: "Bless me, he's GOOD! He is as satisfying a one-man performance as the Palladium has ever seen."

The deeper thinkers of Fleet Street tried, hard, to a.n.a.lyze Sinatra's appeal. Most of the results reflected the eternal cultural divide between the two great countries separated by a common language. But the London Sunday Times Sunday Times's distinguished drama critic, Harold Hobson-later to be a prescient champion of Harold Pinter, John Osborne, and Tom Stoppard-was far ahead of the rest of the world in his penetrating a.s.sessment of Sinatra: People who simply put Frank down as "the Voice" are missing the point. It is not the voice but the smile that does such enormous, such legendary execution...the shy deprecating smile, with a quiver at the corner of the mouth. Here is an artist who, hailing from the most rowdy and self-confident community the world has ever known, has elected to express the timidity that can never be wholly driven out of the boastfullest heart. To a people whose ideal of manhood is husky, full-blooded and self-reliant, he has dared to suggest that under the cras.h.i.+ng self-a.s.sertion, man is still a child, frightened and whimpering in the dark.

Kissing Ava good-bye-no tears this time; she'd be returning to the States soon-Frank flew back to New York and, on August 2, walked into the Columbia studios to record a number from an upcoming Bing Crosby picture (there was no escaping Crosby!), Mr. Music Mr. Music. The song, written by Bing's personal tunesmiths Johnny Burke and Jimmy Van Heusen (Chester may have traveled with Sinatra, but he was still earning his money from Crosby), was called "Life Is So Peculiar."

The arranger and conductor was the Canadian-born Percy Faith, who, long before "Theme from A Summer Place A Summer Place" and "Love Theme from Romeo and Juliet Romeo and Juliet," knew how to swing. Sinatra, backed by a superb small band (including his old pal Matty Golizio on guitar and the great Johnny Blowers on drums) and accompanied by singer Helen Carroll and the vocal group the Swantones, was in a fine mood, and it showed. The number is a trifle, to be sure, but it's a charming, exuberant trifle-and something more.

In an earlier context, the producer George Avakian spoke of a contrast he observed at a 1946 Sinatra recording session: when Frank sang a couple of heavily orchestrated ballads, Avakian said, he seemed tense; yet late in the session, when laying down a couple of "pleasant throwaways" with a jazz trio, the singer was utterly relaxed.

So it was on the "Life Is So Peculiar" session. Even though this band was fourteen pieces rather than three, Sinatra was clearly comfortable with the jazz context and, even more important, with the triviality of the tune itself, which he would soon refer to, in an interview, as "a cute little novelty song." But he sounds (if a bit husky around the edges) just great, easy and swinging. And most remarkably, his voice, imbued with a new maturity, actually harks ahead ahead to the great Capitol sessions he will do two and a half years later, in a new, unimaginable lifetime. to the great Capitol sessions he will do two and a half years later, in a new, unimaginable lifetime.

And further: there's a positively eerie moment at the end of the second chorus as Frank sings: Life is so peculiar, but as everybody says,That's life!

The rascally lilt he gives to those two very familiar last words harks ahead two two lifetimes, across the Capitol years and deep into the Reprise era, to the turbulent year in which Sinatra's wedding to the twenty-one-year-old Mia Farrow would be bookended by two disastrous physical altercations, signaling the singer's deeply disquieted state of mind. Frank was angry when he recorded "That's Life" in October 1966, angry at a world that was starting to pa.s.s him by and angry at a record producer who'd just told him that his previous take of the song had been...well, not so interesting. (His audible anger made the final take very interesting.) In August 1950, of course, he was simply having fun. lifetimes, across the Capitol years and deep into the Reprise era, to the turbulent year in which Sinatra's wedding to the twenty-one-year-old Mia Farrow would be bookended by two disastrous physical altercations, signaling the singer's deeply disquieted state of mind. Frank was angry when he recorded "That's Life" in October 1966, angry at a world that was starting to pa.s.s him by and angry at a record producer who'd just told him that his previous take of the song had been...well, not so interesting. (His audible anger made the final take very interesting.) In August 1950, of course, he was simply having fun.

In the middle of the month Ava returned to Los Angeles, and Frank was there to meet her. Then she vanished. "There's no sign of life around [Gardner's] pink stucco house on a mountain top behind Hollywood," a wire-service report noted, a little plaintively.

Her trunks are in the garage, but the shades are drawn and telegrams are piling up unopened on the doorstep.She's cut off her private telephone. And she's cancelled the messenger service that used to take her calls.Reports have her hiding away in a tiny cottage in Laguna beach...staying with friends...dining with Sinatra in a secluded beach cafe...and staging a roaring battle with him at Charley Foy's nightclub in San Fernando valley.

She wasn't in Laguna Beach, or staying with friends. In fact, Frank had quietly rented a house on the beach in Pacific Palisades, and she had moved in with him. For the briefest of moments, they had eluded the press.

But not their problems. As soon as Frank and Ava set up housekeeping, he began having his children over on weekends. She didn't like it, and said so. Often. In front of the kids or not; she didn't give a good G.o.dd.a.m.n. The one true piece of the wire-service report was that roaring battle at Charley Foy's.

Over Labor Day weekend Frank returned to the Steel Pier in Atlantic City, where he had sung as a fresh-faced young pup with Harry James and His Music Makers. He could still draw a crowd, but this time what the people wanted to hear was "Goodnight Irene." "I don't think Frank liked it too much, but it was a big hit for him," Johnny Blowers recalled. "I used to think to myself, How in the world did Mitch ever get him to do this? But anyway, he did it and it was big. It went over."

Later, though, doing a radio interview with a local disc jockey, Ben h.e.l.ler (who'd played guitar with Harry James way back when), Sinatra tried pus.h.i.+ng the "jazz things" he'd recorded with George Siravo in April: "Bright, with good jump tempos, both to listen to as a vocal and to dance to." h.e.l.ler, though, wanted to know what was new new.

"We've got a new one now that is moving pretty good called, if you'll excuse the expression, 'Goodnight Irene,'" Frank said.

"Hey, that's a nice tune," said h.e.l.ler.

"You wanna bet?" Frank replied.

After a beat, he realized he might have gone too far, even for him. "Nah, it's pretty good," he added.

"You should sing a lot of songs like that," h.e.l.ler told him.

"Don't hold your breath," Sinatra said.

Life was getting more and more peculiar for Frank Sinatra. Later that week he dispatched an intermediary to the New York office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation with an extremely unusual offer. An FBI memo reveals: DATE: SEPTEMBER 7, 1950TO: MR. TOLSONFROM: J. P. MOHRSUBJECT: FRANK SINATRA___________ [name deleted] called at my office today after having endeavored to arrange an appointment to see the Director. I explained to ____________ that the Director was extremely busy, that he was fully committed and would be unable to see him. stated that he had been requested by Frank Sinatra to contact the Director with...a proposition that Sinatra had in mind. ___________ said he was a friend of Sinatra, that he considered him to be a sincere individual and that he has known him for six years. ___________ described Sinatra as a "Dago who came up the hard way" and said he is a conscientious fellow who is very desirous of doing something for his country. ___________ stated that Sinatra feels he can do some good for his country under the direction of the FBI.___________ stated that Sinatra is sensitive about the allegations which have been made concerning his subversive activities and also his draft status during the last war. Sinatra feels that the publicity which he has received has identified him with subversive elements and that such subversive elements are not sure of his position and Sinatra consequently feels that he can be of help as a result by going anywhere the Bureau desires and contacting any of the people from whom he might be able to obtain information. Sinatra feels as a result of his publicity he can operate without suspicion...___________ stated that Sinatra's princ.i.p.al contacts are in the entertainment field in Hollywood and New York City. ___________ further advised that he didn't know whether Sinatra has any current information with respect to subversives. He said that Sinatra understands that if he worked for the Bureau in connection with such activities it might reflect on his status and his standing in the entertainment field but he is willing to do anything even if it affects his livelihood and costs him his job.___________ said that Sinatra is willing to go "the whole way."...I told ___________ that I wasn't aware of Sinatra's activities other than what I had read in the papers. I told him further that I wasn't aware of Sinatra's possibilities and that that was something we would have to a.n.a.lyze and determine. I further told ___________ that we would not ask Sinatra or any other individual to engage in any activities that would reflect on the individual and that any action taken by the individual would have to be a voluntary decision on his part. ___________ was also informed that I was not aware of the fact that Sinatra could be of use to us but that I would call to the Director's attention ___________ 's visit to me and that we would consider Sinatra's request and that if he could be utilized we would communicate with him.

On the bottom of the letter is a handwritten notation by Tolson: "We want nothing to do with him. C."

Then one by Hoover: "I agree. H."1

What had possessed him? The Communist witch hunts were in full swing; guilt by a.s.sociation was guilt presumed. Sinatra knew the FBI was sniffing around him-in June he'd requested permission to go abroad to entertain U.S. troops, but had been denied a security clearance because of "subversive activities": namely his mid-1940s idealism, reconsidered in the hard light of 1950. The bureau was even watching his Manhattan dentist, Dr. Abraham Weinstein. In a typical screed that May, Westbrook Pegler managed to lump Sinatra, George Raft, Leo Durocher, Frank Costello, "the HollywoodLos Angeles underworld," and President Truman's supposedly lax Department of Justice into one subversive-smelling ball.

However hopeful Frank may have been about his upcoming TV show, he was scared: his career had sprung a leak. "Sinatra's decline," Pegler wrote, "has been just a matter of fair wear and tear...plus the natural waning of a hopped-up reputation." Many others were saying the same. Was he really "willing to do anything" for the FBI, "even if it affect[ed] his livelihood and [cost] him his job"? His job was on the line in any case.

Ava blew through town on her way back to California to prepare for her new movie, Show Boat Show Boat. Frank was starting his CBS television and radio shows, and was looking for a Manhattan apartment. In the meantime, he was once again borrowing Manie's suite at the Hamps.h.i.+re House. A temporary-very temporary-love nest. Work was about to separate the lovebirds again, and the tension, as always, was erotic. But Ava wanted to get married, and while Frank told her he wanted that too, she could sense his ambivalence. When she called him on it, he'd shake his head. He didn't know if Nancy would ever give him a divorce. It was the Church-she was just a better Catholic than he was.

Ava, her biographer Lee Server writes, "heard the whispered scuttleb.u.t.t from others: 'She thinks she can wait you out, you two will blow over and she'll have him back one day. That's all she wants.'" Server continues: To Ava, it was an infuriating irony: There they were, wanting to do the right thing and get married, and there was this woman using her religion as an excuse to keep them "living in sin"...The affair and the scandal had provoked the first serious rift in her relations.h.i.+p with Bappie, who disliked Sinatra and believed he was harming her career. "You hang on to him, Ava," Bappie told her, "and he's going to ruin you like he's ruined himself."

So there was more fighting, more makeup s.e.x; they stayed in and they went out. Going out was always important. On Wednesday night, September 27, the two of them attended the Joe LouisEzzard Charles fight at Yankee Stadium: the news photographers snapped them sitting cozily close, Sinatra with his thinning hair and love-struck grin, Ava with a fur coat, thick red lipstick, and a cigarette between her fingers. Charles outpointed the former champ Louis in fifteen rounds to become the world heavyweight champion.

The next day, Nancy Sinatra outpointed Frank in Santa Monica Superior Court, winning her separate-maintenance suit and custody of their three children. The Los Angeles Times Los Angeles Times ran a large photograph of her above the photo of Frank and Ava at the prizefight, and she won this contest, too, hands down, looking every inch the wronged woman in her demure checked suit, white blouse with Peter Pan collar, and brown leather gloves. Her chin is held high, her hair attractively (and no doubt freshly) coiffed in soft waves, her expression neither triumphant nor stricken but distant and philosophical. To glance back and forth between the pictures of her and Ava-who looks frankly vulgar-is to wonder what the h.e.l.l Frank was thinking about. ran a large photograph of her above the photo of Frank and Ava at the prizefight, and she won this contest, too, hands down, looking every inch the wronged woman in her demure checked suit, white blouse with Peter Pan collar, and brown leather gloves. Her chin is held high, her hair attractively (and no doubt freshly) coiffed in soft waves, her expression neither triumphant nor stricken but distant and philosophical. To glance back and forth between the pictures of her and Ava-who looks frankly vulgar-is to wonder what the h.e.l.l Frank was thinking about.

Nancy (who had lived in Hollywood long enough to know the value of images) surely had all of it in mind when she dressed for her court appearance.

She dabbed away "a tear or so," the Times Times reported, as Judge Orlando H. Rhodes awarded her "the Holmby Hills home, its furnis.h.i.+ngs and effects, a 1950 Cadillac, 34 shares of stock in the Sinatra Music Corp. and one-third of Sinatra's annual gross earnings on the first $150,000 and 10% of the next $150,000." For his part, Frank got a 1949 Cadillac, a jeep, the Palm Springs house, rights to some oil property in Texas, and "any phonograph records or radio transcriptions he may desire." He was also given "all money in bank accounts"-not much at that point. reported, as Judge Orlando H. Rhodes awarded her "the Holmby Hills home, its furnis.h.i.+ngs and effects, a 1950 Cadillac, 34 shares of stock in the Sinatra Music Corp. and one-third of Sinatra's annual gross earnings on the first $150,000 and 10% of the next $150,000." For his part, Frank got a 1949 Cadillac, a jeep, the Palm Springs house, rights to some oil property in Texas, and "any phonograph records or radio transcriptions he may desire." He was also given "all money in bank accounts"-not much at that point.

At the hearing, the Times Times account continued, account continued, Mrs. Sinatra testified that on numerous occasions her husband would go to Palm Springs for week ends without her and that he would "stay away for days at a time."On other occasions, she said, when they were alone or had company he would go into another room, ignoring her and the guests.Accompanying this particular testimony were tears edging down her cheeks. She dabbed them with a dainty handkerchief.Summing up, she said her husband's conduct "made me terribly nervous and upset and humiliated me."Mrs. Sinatra's sister, Miss Julie Barbato, was her corroborating witness.She testified that she knew from her own knowledge that Sinatra embarra.s.sed his wife by staying away from home and by rudely refusing to a.s.sist in the entertainment of guests.