Frank_ The Voice Part 22

"Did you ever learn what business they were in?"

"No," Frank said. "Actually not."

"Where did you get started in the entertainment business?" Nellis asked.

"In a small club in Hoboken; I must have been around seventeen."

"What's your attraction to all these underworld characters?"

"I don't have any attraction for them," Frank said. "Some of them were kind to me when I started out, and I have sort of casually seen them or spoken to them at different places, in nightclubs where I worked, or out in Vegas or California."

"Do you know Frank Costello?"

"Just to say h.e.l.lo. I've seen him at the Copa and at the Madison, and once we had a drink at the Drake where I stay when I'm in New York."

"What about Joe Doto?"

"I've met him," Sinatra said. "He's the one they call 'Adonis,' right?"

"Right. How well do you know him?"

"No business," Frank said. "Just 'h.e.l.lo' and 'goodbye.'"

"Well, what about the Jersey guys you met when you first got started?" Nellis asked.

"Let me tell you something, those guys were okay," Frank replied. "They never bothered me or anyone else as far as I know." He was wringing his hands now-almost as though he were was.h.i.+ng them. "Now," Frank said, "you're not going to put me on television and ruin me just because I know a lot of people, are you?" His famous voice was wavering a little. Nellis couldn't help feeling a little thrill of power.

"n.o.body wants to ruin you, Mr. Sinatra," the lawyer said waspishly. "I a.s.sure you I would not be here at five in the morning at your lawyer's request so that no newsmen could find out we're talking to you if we intended to make some kind of public spectacle of any appearance before the committee."

Frank wasn't placated. His voice rose and tightened. "Well, look," he said. "How in h.e.l.l is it going to help your investigation to put me on television just because I know some of these guys?"

Nellis shook his head impatiently. "That will be up to Senator Kefauver and the committee," he said. Then he softened ever so slightly. "Right now, if you're not too tired, I want to continue so we can see whether there's any basis for calling you in public session. Let's get back to what I was asking you about. And I will ask you specifically: Have you ever, at any time, been a.s.sociated in business with Moretti, Zwillman-"

"Who?" Frank asked.

"Abner Zwillman of Newark," Nellis said. "They call him 'Longy.' Or Catena, Lansky, or Siegel?"

"Well, Moore, I mean Moretti, made some band dates for me when I first got started, but I have never had any business dealings with any of those men."

"But you know Luciano, the Fischettis, and all those I have named?"

"Just like I said; just in that way."

The sky outside the dirty windows was still black. "What is your attraction to these people?" Nellis repeated.

"Well, h.e.l.l, you go into show business, you meet a lot of people," Frank said. "And you don't know who they are or what they do."

The lawyer's eyes flashed behind the circular lenses. "Do you want me to believe that you don't know the people we have been talking about are hoodlums and gangsters who have committed many crimes and are probably members of a secret criminal club?"

Sinatra had to stifle a smile. Club Club. That was rich. Like the Turk's Palace, with secret handshakes and orange and black silk jackets. Well, it was a little like that, actually. Except for the silk jackets.

"No, of course not," Frank said. "I heard about the Mafia."

"Well, what did you hear about it?"

Frank shook his head, elaborately disingenuous. "That it's some kind of shakedown operation," he said. "I don't know."

"Like the one you were involved with in the case of Tarantino?"

Finally, Sinatra allowed himself a half smile. It was almost six in the morning; the torment was almost over. Out over the East River, the sky was beginning to lighten. "I'm not sure that one was anybody's idea but Jimmy's," he told Nellis.

What's your attraction to these people? The question was by no means a simple one: no wonder Joseph Nellis asked it not just once but twice during the session. However much revulsion or incredulity the government lawyer may have felt at Sinatra's a.s.sociations, he also understood the Mafia's mystique. His boss, after all, was scoring the biggest success in the brief history of television by putting these people on the air. Something about the Mob got-and still gets-to everyone. To a great degree the American fascination with gangsters stems from the pleasant fantasy that they have razored away the troublesome complexities of life by sheer, brutal acts of will. Sinatra sometimes fantasized that his celebrity had accomplished the same end. It was an illusion he would entertain until the end of his life, but the chickens always came home to roost. Life's troubling messiness won out in the end. So it went, too, with gangsters: there was no escaping the condition of being a human being. The question was by no means a simple one: no wonder Joseph Nellis asked it not just once but twice during the session. However much revulsion or incredulity the government lawyer may have felt at Sinatra's a.s.sociations, he also understood the Mafia's mystique. His boss, after all, was scoring the biggest success in the brief history of television by putting these people on the air. Something about the Mob got-and still gets-to everyone. To a great degree the American fascination with gangsters stems from the pleasant fantasy that they have razored away the troublesome complexities of life by sheer, brutal acts of will. Sinatra sometimes fantasized that his celebrity had accomplished the same end. It was an illusion he would entertain until the end of his life, but the chickens always came home to roost. Life's troubling messiness won out in the end. So it went, too, with gangsters: there was no escaping the condition of being a human being.

And yet every time Frank shook the hand of one of these powerful, magnetic men, the man on either end of the handshake enjoyed the same fantasy about the other: This f.u.c.ker has got it knocked This f.u.c.ker has got it knocked. The smiles broadened; the handclasp grew firmer as the warm thought took hold.

Gelb a.s.sured his client that it had gone reasonably well, but Nellis had handed Frank a subpoena before he left, and Frank didn't see much a.s.surance in his lawyer's eyes. Sinatra thanked Gelb, dismissed Sanicola, went back to the Hamps.h.i.+re House. He took two Seconals, chased with three fingers of Jack Daniel's, and paced. A f.u.c.king subpoena. If they called him in to testify, he was well and truly f.u.c.ked. He got in the shower and ran the hot water for twenty minutes; he couldn't stop yawning. He sat on the side of his bed, towel around his waist, and drank another gla.s.s of whiskey. Gelb had a.s.sured him he was unlikely to be recalled. How unlikely? The lawyer met his eyes with a hard gaze. Unlikely, he repeated. Frank swished the whiskey in the gla.s.s. A crazy thought intruded: He was standing on the bar at Marty O'Brien's, naked, trying to sing, unable to make a sound. The old men stared at him; Dolly tapped her stick on her palm. When he opened his eyes again, it was after five thirty, and the sun was setting over the Hudson.

Later that morning Nellis reported to Kefauver. Sinatra had been lying, the lawyer said; he was certain of it. On the other hand, "He's not going to admit any complicity concerning Luciano or the Fischettis in terms of being a 'bagman' or courier for them or anybody else," Nellis said. "If we take him into public session, his career will really be jolted-possibly beyond repair. He may even balk at the TV cameras and raise a lot of h.e.l.l without saying anything."

Kefauver accepted Nellis's recommendation not to call Sinatra to testify. The senator was less concerned about Frank's career than his own: people were already calling the hearings a show; there was no sense turning them into a circus.

They were rowdy at Toots Shor's that night, making pleasantly filthy jokes about Kefauver, and Frank felt braver. The next evening, trailed by Sanicola, Silvani, and Ben Barton, he strode into the Columbia studio at Third and Thirtieth to record two numbers from the new Rodgers and Hammerstein show, The King and I The King and I. It didn't get any better than Rodgers and Hammerstein. Axel was there to conduct his arrangements of "h.e.l.lo Young Lovers" and "We Kiss in a Shadow," and it didn't get any better than Sibelius. Frank joshed with the violinists; he joked with the drummer Johnny Blowers about the miniature Zildjian cymbals Axel had brought to give the music a Siamese sound. Then the engineers turned the tape on; Stordahl brought down his baton. Sinatra put up his hand.

His voice wasn't right. He sipped hot tea, he joked with Sibelius and the musicians, he tried to keep smiling, but all of it-the late nights on the phone with Ava, the bad calls at odd hours from Little Nancy, the cigarettes and whiskey and the f.u.c.king subpoena-all of it was starting to get to him, scratching away at his confidence and at his instrument itself.

Yet even though "h.e.l.lo Young Lovers" took not three or four or even ten but twenty-two takes, Frank smiled; he sipped his tea, happy to keep going however long it took. It was Rodgers and Hammerstein; it was Stordahl. He was, for the moment anyway, in the best possible hands.

Of course the mood couldn't last. While MCA was busy attending to its important clients-in a groundbreaking precedent, Lew Wa.s.serman had recently secured Jimmy Stewart profit partic.i.p.ation in his pictures-Sinatra was screaming at Henry Jaffe to get him a G.o.dd.a.m.n movie, fast.

Offers were not pouring in. But then the screenwriter and Sinatra drinking buddy Don McGuire came up with a hard-hitting scenario he thought might be right up Frank's alley, a story about a hot-tempered saloon singer who gets a career boost from a mobster and regrets the consequences. It was a little close to the bone, but Frank liked it anyway. Here was a chance to put Clarence Doolittle and all those sailor suits behind him, to do the kind of gritty movie he could have done with Knock on Any Door Knock on Any Door, if they'd let him do it. To be, at last, a man on-screen. As for the subject matter: Let the G.o.dd.a.m.n public think whatever they wanted, he thought; they were already thinking it anyway. The screenplay was called Meet Danny Wilson Meet Danny Wilson.

Jaffe managed to sell the script, and Frank as the star, to Universal International, a studio that was making its big money from Abbott and Costello and Ma and Pa Kettle and Francis the Talking Mule. Universal offered Sinatra a flat fee of $25,000 to do the picture. It was almost an insult, but things being what they were, he jumped at it.

In the meantime, Ava's fortunes were skyrocketing. MGM was thrilled with her performance in Show Boat Show Boat, convinced it had a major new star on its hands. Her contract was soon up for renewal, and there was serious talk of a big increase, something in the neighborhood of $1 million a year. She soft-pedaled the money when she spoke with Frank on the phone, but he could hear the excitement in her voice. Some part of him was happy for her-he did love her-but naturally enough, he also felt belittled. He knew all about career trajectories. There were times, at four and five o'clock in the morning (and who could he tell about this?), when he felt like the lowest of the low.

He and Axel and many of the same musicians were back in the Thirtieth Street studio to record three more songs on the night of March 27. The first was another number from The King and I: The King and I: a cute thing called "I Whistle a Happy Tune," with a typically inspirational Hammerstein lyric about coping with fear by pretending not to be afraid. And Mitch Miller, who was in the control room that evening, had come up with a cute idea-Frank himself would do the whistling parts. Sinatra gave the tune a charming, convincing performance, which made the next number he recorded all the more shattering. a cute thing called "I Whistle a Happy Tune," with a typically inspirational Hammerstein lyric about coping with fear by pretending not to be afraid. And Mitch Miller, who was in the control room that evening, had come up with a cute idea-Frank himself would do the whistling parts. Sinatra gave the tune a charming, convincing performance, which made the next number he recorded all the more shattering.

The song, composed by Joel Herron, the former musical director of the Copacabana, and the lyricist Jack Wolf, was called "I'm a Fool to Want You." It was a big, melodramatic ballad, much in the style of "Take My Love," another melodramatic ballad Herron and Wolf had previously sold to Ben Barton, who ran Sinatra's publis.h.i.+ng company, Barton Music Corporation. Frank's recording of "Take My Love," which turned a perfectly honest theme from Brahms's Third Symphony into an outright weeper, sold like the dog it was. "I'm a Fool to Want You," however, was something else. Yes, it was sappy, but the vaguely Slavic, minor-key melody felt original rather than canned, and when Frank sang it that night, something amazing happened.

Herron and Wolf had given him a lyric sheet, and Sinatra, as always, had studied it carefully, trying to absorb the words into his bloodstream. But when the orchestra started to play, Frank sang lyrics that were subtly but emphatically different from those that Wolf had written. Joel Herron, still alive in the mid-1990s, when Will Friedwald interviewed him, confirmed that Frank had changed the words but, enigmatically, refused to be drawn out on exactly how. "I asked him specifically, and he evaded the question," Friedwald recalls.

Sinatra sang just one take-a take for the ages-and then, as the legend has it, fled the recording studio, unable to go on. In this case the legend rings absolutely true. "I'm a Fool" may not be a great song, but Sinatra's shattering performance of it transcends the material. His emotion is so naked that we're at once embarra.s.sed and compelled: we literally feel for him.

"That's a heartbreaking performance," said George Avakian, not ordinarily a fan. "And the lyric, which I understand Sinatra contributed largely to, is very powerful. Psychologically, it's very much a part of Sinatra. The fact that it's a song that reflected his life at the time always intrigued me. There aren't too many occasions when a record comes out of a person's life so directly."

Mitch Miller disagreed sharply on the autobiographical interpretation. "That's bulls.h.i.+t!" he said. "Because what he's drawing is the emotion from your your personal life. He's saying it for you." personal life. He's saying it for you."

But then, Miller was always an ornery cuss-especially in later years, when critics constantly a.s.sailed him for supposedly ruining Sinatra's career. In this case, his irritability probably trumped his better judgment: never before or again would Frank sing so transparently from the heart.

The change from Wolf's original lyric was marked enough that "when they played us the side, I freaked out," Herron recalled. "When the session was over, we were with Ben Barton and Hank Sanicola, and Jack and I went off by ourselves and said, 'He's gotta be on this song!' We invited him in as a co-writer." There are clues to what Sinatra created. Lyric writing, in the great era of American popular song, was an extremely precise art, marked by concision and consistency of style. And at two junctures in this lyric, the style veers ever so slightly, first in the expressively awkward "A love that's there for others too" and then in the metrically inconsistent "Pity me, I need you," with its incorrect use of a word-"pity"-whose first syllable must be emphasized, throwing off the rhythm.

Bolstering the case for making these two lines the culprits is their emotional relevance: Frank did indeed worry constantly-and justifiably-about the "others" in Ava's life. And pity was something he sought constantly throughout his life, but never more so than during the near death of his career in the late 1940s and early 1950s: a period that coincided more or less precisely with his Ava years.

MGM had started test screening Show Boat Show Boat, and the response cards were coming back with almost unanimous raves for Ava Gardner. She had entered that rarefied realm where she could do no wrong. Accordingly, when she asked Dore Schary if she could take some time off to go to New York, the production chief told her to enjoy herself.

With Frank, as always, everything at first was sweetness and light. Ava was feeling grand. She prevailed on him to take her to visit Dolly and Marty in Hoboken, even though Frank, driven to distraction by Dolly's incessant demands for money, hadn't spoken to his mother in nearly two years. Dolly answered the door and greeted Ava like a long-lost daughter, reaching up to embrace her, then giving her wayward son a Look. He was still still too f.u.c.king thin. too f.u.c.king thin.

Great to see you too, Ma.

The house smelled delicious-Dolly had prepared a tremendous meal: antipasto with cold cuts (especially Genoa salami, Frank's favorite); veal piccata; homemade ravioli with meat and spinach. And Ava was charmed: Dolly showed me the house, every inch of it, and was it clean? Oh, my G.o.d. I mean Frank was the cleanest man I ever knew...If I'd caught him was.h.i.+ng the soap it wouldn't have surprised me, and he inherited it all from his ma...And of course Dolly had to tell me all about Frank, with Frank squirming at every word...getting more and more furious as Dolly dragged out alb.u.m after alb.u.m of cute pictures of Frank as a child, dressed up in all kinds of little outfits...It was all so welcoming, such a great warm Italian household with no holding back. They even had an old uncle, either her brother or Marty's, living with them.

No holding back, except for the fact that Marty ("quieter, withdrawn, with a nice smile") said barely anything, and poor Chit-U, not a single word. Dolly was the one who didn't hold back; Ava followed her lead, growing less inhibited with every gla.s.s of Chianti. And Frank, Ava recalled, "[looked] at me very carefully, trying to sense how it was going, whether I was approving or not, his face reflecting that slight worry you have when you want someone you you love to love what love to love what you you love." love."

Also that more than slight worry he felt every second he spent with his mother.

Of course the visit was more than casual. And once Ava saw how thoroughly her prospective mother-in-law approved of her, she applied the screws even more tightly to Frank. When was he going to get a divorce?

They were riding back to the city. Frank stared out the car window, drawing on his cigarette. He had no answer: it was all in Nancy's hands.

Ava, who had heard it once too many times, told the driver to pull over as soon as they emerged from the tunnel. She gathered her stole around her, loosing a cloud of that mind-numbing perfume, opened the car door, and got out.

A few days earlier, Frank had taken Ava along to watch the live broadcast of his television show. She was unimpressed. "Stagehands running in and out," she recalled. "You never knew what camera was on you. I got a nervous breakdown just watching."

The production values of a TV variety show in the early days certainly couldn't bear comparison to those of a gold-standard movie studio like MGM, but The Frank Sinatra Show The Frank Sinatra Show had-technically and artistically-an especially flea-bitten air about it. The rudimentary comedy sketches submerged the talents even of bright lights such as Phil Silvers and Don Ameche. And then there were lesser lights, such as one Virginia Ruth Egnor, known professionally as Dagmar. had-technically and artistically-an especially flea-bitten air about it. The rudimentary comedy sketches submerged the talents even of bright lights such as Phil Silvers and Don Ameche. And then there were lesser lights, such as one Virginia Ruth Egnor, known professionally as Dagmar.

Dagmar was Li'l Abner Li'l Abner's Daisy Mae incarnate: a tall, eye-poppingly buxom West Virginia blonde with a big wide smile and a pleasant, unaggressive personality. She could act a little, but mostly all she needed to do was stand there. She was so well-known to the national TV audience that all Sinatra had to do to draw big laughs was raise an eyebrow.

She was therefore a natural to join the troupe when Frank began his first live engagement in six months, a two-week stand at the Paramount starting on April 25. He introduced her by saying, "Please n.o.body sit in the front row-if she takes a bow you'll get crushed." The comedy stayed on that level, though the musical portion of the show was solid: Sinatra was backed by a band led by his old Dorsey pal Joey Bushkin. But the bobby-soxers were gone; there were empty seats in the orchestra. "The only autographs I'm being asked for now," Sinatra told Bushkin, "are from process servers." And the movie on the bill was, all too poignantly, My Forbidden Past My Forbidden Past, starring Ava and her old flame Mitchum.

The only notice the New York Times New York Times took of Frank's Paramount show was in a single sentence at the bottom of a two-column review of the movie: "Featured on the stage of the Paramount are Frank Sinatra, Dagmar, Eileen Barton, Joe Bushkin and his orchestra, Tim Herbert and Don Saxon." took of Frank's Paramount show was in a single sentence at the bottom of a two-column review of the movie: "Featured on the stage of the Paramount are Frank Sinatra, Dagmar, Eileen Barton, Joe Bushkin and his orchestra, Tim Herbert and Don Saxon."

Not a single Sinatra side had charted since "Nevertheless (I'm in Love with You)" notched a pallid number 14 the previous December. Ballads weren't working; up-tempo numbers weren't working; folk tunes were last year's news. Mitch Miller felt stumped. Then two things happened in quick succession: Miller saw Frank and Dagmar do comedy together at the Paramount, and a songwriter named d.i.c.k Manning brought Mitch a cute new novelty number called "Mama Will Bark."

A great mythology has gathered around this song.1 The deliciously awful t.i.tle alone has become a shorthand for the downfall of Sinatra's career, a collapse that-according to myth-was all but engineered by the nefarious Miller. Sinatra himself liked to reinforce this impression. "I growled and barked on the record," he told his daughter Nancy. "The only good business it did was with dogs." Nor did Miller, an irascible and self-promoting character, do much to help his own reputation. The deliciously awful t.i.tle alone has become a shorthand for the downfall of Sinatra's career, a collapse that-according to myth-was all but engineered by the nefarious Miller. Sinatra himself liked to reinforce this impression. "I growled and barked on the record," he told his daughter Nancy. "The only good business it did was with dogs." Nor did Miller, an irascible and self-promoting character, do much to help his own reputation.

In fact, Mitch Miller was doing everything he could to jump-start Sinatra's dying recording career in the spring of 1951: the goateed hit maker was up for trying anything-anything-that might work, and so, for that matter, was Frank Sinatra. A novelty number? Why not? It was a c.r.a.pshoot, but plenty of them had succeeded: look at Frankie Laine's "Mule Train"; look at Rosemary Clooney's "Come On-a My House" (both produced by Miller).

Frank Sinatra loved recording great songs, but even more he loved recording hit records,2 and he desperately needed a hit that spring. Moreover, unlike, say, Clooney and Jo Stafford, both of whom were under constant contractual pressure by Miller and Columbia to record songs they didn't like (and pay for the recording sessions), and he desperately needed a hit that spring. Moreover, unlike, say, Clooney and Jo Stafford, both of whom were under constant contractual pressure by Miller and Columbia to record songs they didn't like (and pay for the recording sessions),3 Sinatra had, through the good offices of Manie Sacks, grandfathered final approval over material into his contract with the label. In other words, Mitch Miller wasn't foisting anything on Frank Sinatra. Miller brought "Mama Will Bark" to Sinatra, and Sinatra said yes. Sinatra had, through the good offices of Manie Sacks, grandfathered final approval over material into his contract with the label. In other words, Mitch Miller wasn't foisting anything on Frank Sinatra. Miller brought "Mama Will Bark" to Sinatra, and Sinatra said yes.

However, Frank had been able to be considerably choosier just twelve months earlier. Returning from his disastrous visit to Ava in Spain, Frank had stepped off the plane at La Guardia to find his new producer br.i.m.m.i.n.g with excitement over two new songs he'd found. "Great stuff, Frank!" According to Sinatra archivist Ed O'Brien, Sinatra and Miller drove directly to the Columbia recording studio, where Miller had an orchestra waiting. Sinatra looked at the sheet music for the numbers, "The Roving Kind" and "My Heart Cries for You." He gave the producer a look, but gamely enough ran through both songs with the musicians. The first was a bouncy, faux-folksy sea chantey ("She had a dark and roving eye-yyy, and her hair hung down in ring-a-lets"); the second, a swooner with a polka-esque chorus ("My heart cries cries for you, for you, sighs sighs for you, for you, dies dies for you"). Hearing these atrocities actually set to music was all Sinatra needed. "Frank looks at Miller and says, 'I'm not recording this f.u.c.king s.h.i.+t,'" O'Brien said. "He throws the sheet music on the floor and says, 'You get yourself some other boy-I'm not doing this in a million years.' And he walks out. for you"). Hearing these atrocities actually set to music was all Sinatra needed. "Frank looks at Miller and says, 'I'm not recording this f.u.c.king s.h.i.+t,'" O'Brien said. "He throws the sheet music on the floor and says, 'You get yourself some other boy-I'm not doing this in a million years.' And he walks out.

"Here we are, we're all set up, we've got the music, we've got the musicians, the session is that night, we're paying everybody-'What the h.e.l.l am I going to do?'" Miller told O'Brien. "So Miller jumps on the phone and calls Guy Mitch.e.l.l."

Guy Mitch.e.l.l-born Albert George Cernik-was a twenty-three-year-old former child movie actor and radio singer recently signed to a Columbia recording contract by Miller (who came up with Cernik's new name thusly: "You're a nice guy, and my name is Mitch.e.l.l-we'll call you Guy Mitch.e.l.l"). On the phone, according to O'Brien, Miller asked Mitch.e.l.l, "'Guy, would you like to come in and do a couple of quick songs for me?' And Mitch.e.l.l comes in and does the songs, and they both go right to the top of the charts. One was Number 1, the other made Number 2."

By May 1951, Guy Mitch.e.l.l was an important recording star, and no one knew this better than Frank. And so, when Miller-filled with certainty and energy, the main ingredients of persuasiveness-asked him to record "Mama Will Bark," Sinatra said yes.

And on May 10, Frank and Mitch and Axel, along with a horn section, a rhythm ensemble including the reliable Johnny Blowers and Matty Golizio, a radio and cartoon voice artist named Donald Bain, and-yes-Dagmar, went into the Columbia Thirtieth Street studio and perpetrated the song.

Yet the truth is that Sinatra made many-many-recordings in his career just as bad as, if not worse than, "Mama Will Bark." In the late 1940s and early 1950s alone he did a substantial number of true dogs, the likes of "Chattanoogie Shoe s.h.i.+ne Boy," "One Finger Melody," "The Hucklebuck," and, in a July 1951 reunion with his old boss Harry James (who was also under Miller's thrall at Columbia), "Castle Rock," which James called "the worst thing that either one of us ever recorded."

"Mama Will Bark" isn't that. It's kind of cute and kind of sweet, and even if it's ultimately regrettable, it's also pretty harmless. It is, quite simply, a cartoon of a song-a dream-duet between a boy dog (Frank) and a girl dog (Dagmar)-and Frank, whether to his credit or his shame, is wholeheartedly into it. He sings along to the mambo beat in good voice and with good humor, neither taking the thing too seriously nor (sorry) d.o.g.g.i.ng it. Between Frank's wooing choruses ("You look so lovely in the moonlight...Your eyes are s.h.i.+ning like the starlight"), Dagmar delivers her recitativo interjections ("Mama will bark...Papa will spank") in absurdly flat, Appalachian-accented tones-she was clearly a lot better to look at than to listen to. And despite what Frank said about growling and barking, Bain handles almost all the heavy lifting in that department: all Sinatra has to do is give out with a couple of yips and a single "woof" at the end.

But he hated himself in the morning.

Friedwald points out he might not have had any regrets if the record had simply died, but it didn't-it charted. The canny Miller released "I'm a Fool to Want You" and "Mama Will Bark" as the A and B sides of a 45-rpm disc on June 23, and (based on number of jukebox plays) "Fool" reached number 14 and "Mama," number 21. It was ironic, to say the least: the apex and the nadir of his art on two sides of one thin disc. And the public, at this point anyway, liked them both just about the same.

28.

Frank and Ava at the Desert Inn, September 1951. He would try facial hair from time to time over the years: It was not a good look for him. (photo credit 28.1) (photo credit 28.1) A week after woofing that woof, Frank flew west with serious business in mind. Ava was taking his calls, but barely: she was curt and wouldn't see him. When he went to 320 North Carolwood to try to talk Nancy into giving him a divorce at last, it was with hat in hand. And Nancy, who couldn't help herself when it came to Frank, was genuinely worried about him. All at once, his sadness (which she knew so well) had a quality of desperation. "If I can't get a divorce," he begged her, "where is there for me to go and what is there for me to do?" week after woofing that woof, Frank flew west with serious business in mind. Ava was taking his calls, but barely: she was curt and wouldn't see him. When he went to 320 North Carolwood to try to talk Nancy into giving him a divorce at last, it was with hat in hand. And Nancy, who couldn't help herself when it came to Frank, was genuinely worried about him. All at once, his sadness (which she knew so well) had a quality of desperation. "If I can't get a divorce," he begged her, "where is there for me to go and what is there for me to do?"

They talked, and agreed to talk again. He greeted the children sadly and left. He came back twice more-it was the most the kids had seen of him in a long time. As always, Little Nancy had the fantasy that he might be coming home to stay. Husband and wife went into the living room and closed the door; the nanny shooed the children away. Nancy Barbato Sinatra looked into the eyes of the man who had occupied the center of her life for almost fifteen years and asked him if this was what he really wanted.

He quietly told her that it was.

On May 29, Nancy informed the press that she and Frank had come to a decision. "This is what Frank wants," she said, "and I've said yes. I have told the attorneys to work out the details."

A few days later, she told Louella Parsons: "I don't think a woman can be blamed for trying to hold her home together, especially when there are children. I held out a long time because I love Frank and I thought he would come back. But, when I saw there was absolutely no chance, and that he really wanted to marry someone else, I had my lawyer get in touch with his lawyer." Then she said, "I am now convinced that a divorce is the only way for my happiness as well as Frank's."

Yes was one thing; lawyers were another. Happiness would be a quant.i.ty in short supply all around.

As soon as he left the gloomy confines of the Holmby Hills house (which, without telling him, Nancy had already put on the market, priced to move fast at $200,000), Frank's mood lifted. His spirits soared as he drove the winding roads up to Nichols Canyon.

He was still walking on air when he returned to New York. "Frank Sinatra was the happiest I've seen him in years-and also in wonderful voice-when he opened a one-week engagement at the Latin Quarter," Earl Wilson wrote.