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Frank Sinatra' Stories

From Mr. S: My Life with Frank Sinatra book :

I was thirty-seven, he was fifty-two, and he liked playing Big Daddy to me, protecting me from all those evil influences he feared I would be unable to resist. To him, the hippies were the coming scourge of the earth, as savage and destructive as the barbarians who sacked ancient Rome.

Yet Frank had married the ultimate hippie. How could the sharpest, most hard-boiled guy on earth not see what he was getting? I guess it was because he liked what he saw. Ava Gardner, the greatest love of Frank’s life, described Mia to me as “a fag with a pussy.” (For- give Ava’s pungent language, but she didn’t mince words.)

Mia was very sexy. Even though she was compared to Twiggy, she was anything but a stick. She was much more like supermodel Kate Moss, and she would flaunt her body, using self-effacement as provocative bait.

She always paraded around almost naked and would say, “It doesn’t matter ’cause I don’t have anything for anyone to get excited about,” when she knew damn well that she did. In fact, she was totally confident that she was beautiful, and that confidence was the sexiest thing about her

Although Frank tended to go for more voluptuous women like Ava, or Kim Novak, or Marilyn Mon roe, he definitely didn’t have a single type. Mia actually brought back sweet memories of his affair with the teenage and similarly built Natalie Wood, whose own insanely ambitious Russian mother had pushed her on Frank, who needed no pushing himself.

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by Anonymousreply 25May 11, 2019 9:00 AM

I knew we'd get back to Mia when the Milo thing cooled down.

by Anonymousreply 1February 23, 2017 8:01 PM

Ava Gardner was a tranny without a cock......... how dare she malign Mia.

by Anonymousreply 2February 23, 2017 8:05 PM

Also, Mia’s naughty purity and blondness reminded him of Grace Kelly. The day he met her, he sent me out to buy copies of Mademoiselle, Glamour, and Seventeen, all the young fashion magazines, to admire the endless versions of Mia who filled their pages. It was as if he was testing himself to see if he could truly get excited by this new breed of creature

Then he got his dear friend, favorite composer, and whore wrangler Jimmy Van Heusen to have their favorite madam send over a number of Mia “types,” just to sample the future merchandise.

Before they had had their first real date, he was already obsessed. Aided by her mother’s friends, the Goetzes, hyping her fancy pedigree to Mr. S, Mia had expertly laid her tender trap. Pretty clever for a teenager. I suppose she wasn’t on Peyton Place for nothing.

So if on the surface Mia seemed like one of the million hippie drug chicks you would see on the Sunset Strip in those days, she was any- thing but. She knew she had the right stuff, but part of her come-on was pretending she didn’t.

She was so confident that even though Mickey Rudin was preparing the divorce papers, and had even had her served with them on the set of Rosemary, Mia thought she could get Frank back if she wanted to. She also thought she could get him to give her a child, which is what she wanted more than anything else, and what Frank, who already had all the children he could barely handle, wanted least

by Anonymousreply 3February 23, 2017 8:06 PM

[quote]Yet Frank had married the ultimate hippie. How could the sharpest, most hard-boiled guy on earth not see what he was getting?

Mia was never a hippie. She dressed up in the hippie gear for a few weeks during the summer of love, but that doth not a hippie make.

Even the India thing she was just following her sister & needed to get away for a while after her divorce. In no time she'd run out of there and was back in London, making a film with Elizabeth Taylor. Being the film star she was...and is.

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by Anonymousreply 4February 23, 2017 8:06 PM

[quote]Before they had had their first real date, he was already obsessed.

They had their first real date the night of the day they met. Frank flew her out to Palm Spring in his private jet.

This is bullshit.

by Anonymousreply 5February 23, 2017 8:10 PM

Mia didn’t care what Frank thought. Motherhood was, only after stardom, the most powerful imperative for her. At times, she’d sit with me and go down her list of all the great and famous men she wanted to have children with after Frank.

She knew the relationship would end sometime, but she assumed it would be at her time, and only after she had created one of what would be her master race of offspring. She was talking some major names, on her wish list:

Leonard Bernstein, who was gay, Picasso, who was almost dead, J. D. Salinger, who had disappeared, and Bob Dylan, who was badly disabled from his motorcycle accident and underground. The girl thought big. She was that focused, and maybe if the Candy Store fiasco hadn’t occurred, Mia might have even gotten her way with Frank and stopped the divorce at the eleventh hour

But it did occur, and the rest is history . Mr. S was down in Palm Springs. The tension in the Bel Air house had gotten so bad that even the big mansion was too small for him when Mia was there. Out in the 115-degree desert, he holed up watching television, which he never normally did, except for the old Friday night fights on the Gillette Cavalcade of Sports. Now he would watch Mod Squad, but without bothering to arrange to meet Peggy Lipton.

He didn’t even want to dial up Jimmy Van Heusen’s endless parade of call girls. I knew the man was depressed, and I was worried about him. I had to stay in L.A., though, because Mr. S wanted me to look after Ava Gardner, who was coming into town from London..

by Anonymousreply 6February 23, 2017 8:12 PM

[quote]Ava Gardner was a tranny without a cock......... how dare she malign Mia.

I agree. Wicked.

& how many hit films has she been in that anyone remembers?

by Anonymousreply 7February 23, 2017 8:13 PM

Is Frank,Ronan Farrow's dad? That's all we give a shit about.

by Anonymousreply 8February 23, 2017 8:15 PM

[quote]Come Fag With Me

Horrid expression.

by Anonymousreply 9February 23, 2017 8:16 PM

Lord, like Frank was some angel.

by Anonymousreply 10February 23, 2017 8:16 PM

[quote]Is Frank,Ronan Farrow's dad? That's all we give a shit about.

a 'we' troll.

Speak for yourself, gurl.

by Anonymousreply 11February 23, 2017 8:18 PM

for Frank Sinatra. I was one black man who would always get past the velvet rope, would always get a great table, would always get the run of the house. I also got a lot of beautiful girls in the process. Celebrity is a major aphrodisiac, but even celebrity adjacency can cast its own spell. It wasn’t as if they wanted to use me to meet Frank.

Except for Mia, hip young chicks had no interest in meeting Frank Sinatra in those days. He was off the radar of coolness. But the idea of my working for him, of my being that close to him, that was what as cool. It was like working at the White House. It made folks want to meet you. It gave you a mystique.

The Candy Store was the disco of the moment in Beverly Hills. Because it was new, it was the place to be. The owner, Gene Shacove, who was partnered with Tony Curtis, George Hamilton, and other stars who could draw a scene, was one of the two hairdressers to the stars in Beverly Hills. Gene, the inspiration for Warren Beatty in Shampoo, slept with a lot of his clients and rode a motorcycle, just as in the movie.

But his biggest kick was making over these women into something they never dreamed they could be. One of his greatest makeovers was Jill St. John, who had been a rich, overweight Beverly Hills High School princess. Gene convinced her to change her last name from Oppenheimer, lose weight, get her nose done, and let him give her what became her trademark red hair.

It worked like a charm. Frank was crazy about her, as were Sid Korshak, the Teamster lawyer who everyone feared as the Mafia consigliere in show business, Henry Kissinger, and Robert Wagner, with whom Jill finally settled down.

by Anonymousreply 12February 23, 2017 8:20 PM

"She also thought she could get him to give her a child, which is what she wanted more than anything else, and what Frank, who already had all the children he could barely handle, wanted least" Well 'possible' she got him to give in; in 1987.

by Anonymousreply 13February 23, 2017 8:22 PM

R9 is a very bitter Nancy Sinatra.

R11 Sweetie you really give a shit about that singing thug and his heterosexual misadventures? Now if he had been on the down low.....

by Anonymousreply 14February 23, 2017 8:23 PM

[quote]She also thought she could get him to give her a child, which is what she wanted more than anything else, and what Frank, who already had all the children he could barely handle, wanted least

Well, then he really shouldn't have married young girl.

by Anonymousreply 15February 23, 2017 8:23 PM

The other celebrity hairdresser was Jay Sebring, who would come to the house to do Frank’s hair, or what was left of it. Frank was super- sensitive about his baldness and his wigs. It was one of the few things he couldn’t control. He would never set foot in a barber shop, so Jay would do house calls, even driving down to Palm Springs when sum moned. The next summer he would be a tragic victim of the Manson family.

There were a lot of pretty girls that night at the Candy Store. But because I was meeting Ava later, I wasn’t planning any pickup attempts. I was just hanging out at the bar, when who should come in but Mia, with her dear friend John Phillips. If the world thought Mia was in seclusion mourning her upcoming divorce from the Chairman, they would have been surprised by the gay party mood she was in that night.

And if anyone symbolized the drug-rock culture, or lack thereof, that Frank Sinatra detested and feared, it was the long, greasy-haired, always stoned John Phillips, Mr. California Dreaming himself. Despite the drugs, Frank did covet Phillips’s gorgeous blond wife, Mama Michelle, which probably made him hate Phillips even more. “Georgie Porgie, pudding n’ pie, kiss this girl and make her sigh,”

Mia greeted me in a playful singsong voice, as if she hadn’t seen me for years, though I had just been with her at the Bel Air house that afternoon. I thought she was high, high as a kite. “Dance with me, Georgie Porgie,” she insisted, dragging me out to the floor while John Phillips went into the men’s room to smoke a joint, or do something stronger. “John won’t dance,” she complained.

by Anonymousreply 16February 23, 2017 8:26 PM

Memoirs written by servants are always horrible and tacky.

by Anonymousreply 17February 23, 2017 8:27 PM

We danced for what seemed an eternity. I kept looking back to the men’s room to see when John was coming out, but he must have been having a wild time in there. Frank had never told me not to go out with Mia; on the contrary, he was grateful for what he called my “babysitting” her to keep her out of his orbit. And he never, ever spoke one bad word about her. But he never said anything good about her, either.

At any rate, given the pending divorce, the scene at the Candy Store, innocent as it was, made me uncomfortable. Each dance felt as if it would never end. “Sunshine of Your Love.” “This Guy’s in Love with You.” “Love Child.” But when the DJ put on “Somethin’ Stupid,” the previous year’s number one duet by Frank and daughter Nancy, it was time to give up the floor.

Mia didn’t see the humor, or the horror, of the situation. I’m not sure she was even aware what the song was. Finally, John Phillips returned, stoned and smiling. I left Mia in his hands and went out into the night.

I went up to Sunset and the Beverly Hills Hotel. Ava had had a wonderful time at the Count Basie concert and was in great spirits, unusual given her loathing of Hollywood and its denizens, We talked about Frank and Mia, which Ava knew was a ridiculous match from the outset. Everything she predicted had come true. However, she wasn’t the slightest bit pleased with the accuracy of her predictions. She felt as bad for Frank as I did

by Anonymousreply 18February 23, 2017 8:33 PM

It was the greatest shock I’d ever experienced when I found that my key to the Sinatra compound didn’t fit the lock. It had been changed. I rang and rang the bell. What was wrong? Finally one of the Filipino houseboys came to the gate, but refused to open it. “Mr. Sinatra very crazy,” he warned me. “No good to come in. You must go. Before it be too late.” Too late for what? I pressed him, but he wouldn’t elaborate. And what about all my stuff? “Movers pack up.”

And he disappeared into the house. I stood in a daze in the baking desert sun. In one split second, my life had been turned upside down, inside out, and I didn’t have a clue why. Then one of the black maids came out. She had been there for a year, and I knew her well, but she was clearly too terrified to show me any sympathy.

Instead, she handed me a letter, cut her eyes downward, and scurried away. It was from Mickey Rudin’s law office. I read it. It was short and anything but sweet. I had been dismissed, as of this instant, from Mr. Sinatra’s service. I was not to reenter the premises, nor telephone, nor in any way approach or try to contact Mr. Sinatra. My belongings would be delivered to me in three days.

There was no explanation, no apology, no severance pay. Do not pass go, do not collect $200, do not darken this door as long as you live.

Frank had done it to Peter Lawford, to his original manager Hank Sanicola, and to Jack Entratter, the Copa and Sands boss, who stood up for Frank when few others would. No one could bear a grudge like Frank Sinatra. He did it to these great friends, and he did it to others, but for all the tantrums I witnessed, all the fury, all the venom, I never imagined he would do it to me. It turned out that nothing traveled faster than gossip, and as much as Frank scorned and attacked the press, he believed the gossip before he would his best friend.

And so it went, the job of a lifetime destroyed by a spin on the dance floor. I was devastated. I had lost my best friend, my idol, my boss. I loved the guy, and I assumed he loved me, too. I had no idea what to do. I had the greatest life in the world. But now I realized that it was his life, and now I had to figure out how to get one of my own.

It was amazing how things changed, literally overnight. From being the toast of the town, or two towns, Beverly Hills and Palm Springs, I became the ghost of those towns. It was as if I didn’t exist.

Even Mia, whom I saw on Beverly Drive a few days later, crossed to the other side of the street to avoid me. She never spoke to me again, not to say she was sorry, not to share old times, not to offer to set the record straight. Not that Mr. S would have listened to her. Unlike Yogi Berra, who said it ain’t over till it’s over, when Mr. S said something was over, it was over.

Word had gotten out that Frank Sinatra had fired me, and people, even people I thought were friends, didn’t dare even to speak to me for fear of incurring the wrath of the Chairman. The folks in show business feared Sinatra the same way the folks in Communist Russia had feared Stalin.

by Anonymousreply 19February 23, 2017 8:44 PM

Even though they were apparently at war with each other most of their brief marriage, which had taken place in late 1951, Ava wanted to have children with Frank, but only if he had a career that could support them. Consequently, she began her own campaign with her friend Joan Cohn, the beautiful, long- suffering wife of the ogre who ran Columbia Pictures, Harry Cohn, the guy who invented sexual harassment, to get Frank the supposedly classy, serious role that might restart his dead career.

The casting process seemed to go on for months, and whether or not Sinatra got the part became everybody’s favorite cocktail party bet. Lazar bet against Frank, though to his face, he’d tell him that he would get this big shot or that to put a word in with Harry. He didn’t do a thing. I’d hear him talking about how ridiculous it was for Sinatra, whom he called a nonactor, to try to compete for the part with the front-runner for it, the “real” Broadway actor Eli Wallach.

The only thing Sinatra had, Lazar would say, was that he was Italian, as was the character, and he was a loser, as was the character. Yet Lazar hedged his bets. He sent Frank congratulatory champagne and flowers, and began inviting him to join his parties and those at the Bogarts’. “Maybe we can get him to sing,” he’d justify his neighbor’s presence.

The minute he got cast, Frank Sinatra was a changed man. The gloom lifted. He was all smiles. He walked differently. Even though shooting wouldn’t start in Hawaii for six months, all of a sudden he had a future again. He could hold his head up

by Anonymousreply 20February 23, 2017 8:55 PM

Frank Sinatra loved hanging out at the Bogarts’. That may have been the best perk of all of being back in the film game. A lot of times

I’d play late-night bartender, so I could see the pack in action. Sinatra was like a starstruck kid, in awe of Bogart, and watching his every move. With all the people around, it was hard to be alone with Bogart, but Sinatra tended to shadow him, following him into the kitchen or out into the garden, hanging on everything he said. Sinatra saw Bogart as his mentor, though I doubt that he ever told Bogart that. Bogart would have laughed at him. Be your own mentor, kid, or you’ll never get anywhere

Bogart had fabulous clothes, cashmere jackets, Italian shirts, and velvet slippers, and a certain cool and grace in the way he’d smoke, in the way he’d put away the Jack Daniel’s, eventually a trademark taste Sinatra acquired from Bogart. Bogart had an effortless physical grace, which Sinatra only had when he sang. Otherwise, Sinatra was tense and jumpy, and remarkably insecure for someone used to playing to screaming fans. That they had stopped screaming was probably what made him this way. The Jack Daniel’s definitely helped loosen him up.

part of the whole Bogart mystique. Another was his enormous talent and success (he had won the Oscar that year for The African Queen), and the third part of what made Bogart Bogart was his fabulous wife, Betty. Even though she was a head taller than him and looked like a sleek, tawny lioness, and had this deep sophisticated voice, Betty was just a young girl from the Bronx, as in awe of the whole scene as Frank was. Bogart was in his fifties, Betty was in her early twenties, and when he called her “kid,” he meant it. Frank was about thirty-seven at this time, but around his idol he seemed like a kid, too.

by Anonymousreply 21February 23, 2017 9:02 PM

Sinatra never showed up with Ava, or with any other woman. Everyone knew that Ava was his woman, and that she was hurting him terribly by not loving him the same way he loved her. No one would even mention her, or say, “Frank, how’s Ava?” She was off lim its. Once, somebody put on a new Sinatra record, “I’m a Fool to Want You,” without realizing it was his own personal torch song to Ava.

There was an interminable silence until the song was over. No one even dared to compliment Frank on it. I think it was Ruth Gordon who broke the ice by suggesting they all play charades.

By and large, this first Rat Pack was a pretty tame lot. It would be hard to imagine Frank, Dean, and Sammy, in their latter incarnation of the Rat Pack, playing charades. The Bogart pack was like a civilized, witty New York cocktail party, an Algonquin Round Table kind of experience.

There was a lot of drinking, not just Jack Daniel’s, but martinis, mixed drinks, champagne, and no one ever got really drunk, except for Judy Garland on a few occasions. When Judy got plastered, the worst she would do was get up and start belting show tunes like “You Can’t Get a Man with a Gun,” and everyone would join in. I never had to drive guests home who couldn’t make it on their own.

The discussions at these parties would usually revolve around the movies, how bad they were, who was screwing whom, both at the studios and offscreen. Everyone was great friends, but they were all very concerned with who was making the most money and who was getting the best parts. They were united in their hatred of the studio moguls like the Warners, the Cohns, the Goldwyns

by Anonymousreply 22February 23, 2017 9:06 PM

All in all, the Bogart evenings were models of decorum, dialogue, and taste. It would get a whole lot raunchier in the years to come when Frank would take control.

The taking of that control was beginning to happen bit by bit before my eyes, especially after Frank returned from Hawaii from shooting Eternity. He seemed to know, six months before the movie was released, that this was a winner.

He also recorded what would become his first hit record in years, “Young at Heart,” on his new contract with Capitol. It was a nice way to say “Fuck you!” to Columbia Records, which had dropped him the year before.

He even had a nice way to say “Fuck you!” to Swifty Lazar, who was sucking up to him more and more with each bit of proof that Frank was going to be that rare person to beat the Hollywood curse

Once when Lazar and I were in New York, Frank, the great practical jokester, enlisted Harry Kurnitz to get the landlady to give them the key to Lazar’s apartment. They came in during the middle of the night with a contractor and bricked up the wall to the closet that contained all of Lazar’s beloved English clothes, and then painted the whole thing to make it look like one big wall. Lazar went crazy when he came back. If there had been Candid Camera back then, this would have been the perfect stunt, just to see the look on Lazar’s face.

by Anonymousreply 23February 23, 2017 9:11 PM

I once communicated with someone who knew Frank's butler. She said he was the real deal and he was a very nice man. She said he knew a lot about Hollywood.

by Anonymousreply 24February 23, 2017 9:49 PM

I'm bumping this old thread. More stories about Sinatra, please! Any personal encounters?

by Anonymousreply 25May 11, 2019 9:00 AM
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