Frank Sinatra Anecdotes

He nearly married Lauren Bacall.

Not me personally but I read once that Sinatra and Jerry Garcia met each other while waiting for a helicopter and had a pretty intense conversation about music. That's pretty awesome and weird.

If you want anecdotes, read his valet's book, Mr. S, My Life With Frank Sinatra. Valet's name is George Jacobs. It is nothing but sex, personal habits, celebrities he fucked and attitudes towards women and marriage. And Sinatra's enormous cock (a third leg). And who Sinatra modeled his style and wardrobe after (Humphrey Bogart). Jacobs claimed Sinatra didn't care about age, that he could fall in love with an 80 year old as easily as a 40 year old. In fact he was turned down by an older woman (some mega Hollywood socialite type) when he was in middle age and of course hated her with a passion ever since. Forever hung up on Ava Gardner. Pity fucked Judy Garland a lot who Jacobs describes as "adorable" in her younger days but very needy and a real chore later on. In fact a bunch of celebrity women thought of Sinatra and his cock as their on-call security blanket. Sinatra may have really worked the lonely hearts routine in his music but the reality is there were a million women ready to make him feel better but he felt he deserved perfection (perfect looks AND a certain status in Sinatra's world) and his loneliness came about because he just couldn't find it. TBC

Sinatra also fucked Marilyn Monroe a lot according to Jacobs, whom Jacobs describes as a drunk and a real slob. She's mixed up with the Kennedys and that's also around the time Sinatra is fucking her. Jacobs was always lying to her when she'd call and Sinatra was out fucking somebody else (sometimes Jean Smith, JFK's sister). When she'd get boozy she'd tell Jacobs she thought she and Sinatra should get married. Jacobs opinion was Sinatra wouldn't really care that she was a drunk but her being a slob was the deal breaker. Sinatra would sometimes shower three times a day, the third time "Just for the cleanliness feel of it." Jacobs respects Mia Farrow. He insists she had the allure of a young Kate Moss and that whole "she's a boy" thing was just Ava Gardner being bitchy (Jacobs adores Ava Gardner).

He HATES Sinatra's third wife, Barbara Marx. Apparently everybody did. By that time, Sinatra had fired/frozen Jacobs out but he still heard stories plus he knew his man.

Lots of Sinatra fucking some movie star or other that gets hung up on him and wants him to put a ring on it and then he decides he could do better. Kim Novak (not so great body per Sinatra, great face). Juliette Prowse - everything great in the body, forget what the problem was but it was something.

TBD

Barbara was a real see you next Tuesday

I meant TBC, not TBD.

Sinatra did kind of keep his family going and his first wife Nancy kept the candle in the window. Sinatra's mother hated Nancy and thought sonny boy could do much better. Adored Ava. When Sinatra was broken hearted over something or other Jacobs once asked him why he didn't just get back with Nancy Sr., and Sinatra was like, "No." It wasn't "I'm not in love." It was she wasn't hot enough, not status enough, not what he thought he should have. He wasn't going to settle for his first wife.

Sinatra was super compulsive about hygiene, grooming, etc., the whole thing. OCD about it. He also took everything personally, didn't forgive, thought he was owed the best, particularly, and again, when it came to women. And he was very particular, as already implied above. Some of the most beautiful /famous women in the world that he nailed he was like, "Eh, fat ankles." Or didn't like the mole. Or the leg/torso proportion. Or the neck wasn't long. So no matter what their plans, soon they were history.

Jacobs was fired because he was tasked with babysitting Mia Farrow one night and she went to a club, and was photographed doing the watusi (or SOMETHING) with Jacobs, and it hit the gossip columns. That was it, Jacobs was done. I think he actually sobbed, but no go. Years later he ran into Sinatra and was shocked by the toupee and the whole try hard thing Sinatra had going on (even a girdle or truss, I think). Sinatra just didn't have enough left to deal with his fourth wife, Barbara. And he hit the skids to where he was singing 70s covers like "Bad Bad Leroy Brown". Jacobs of course cried when seeing Sinatra and tried to choke out some words but Sinatra sort of patted him on the back like "there there, no point in dredging up history. There there." Had lost his mojo.

No surprise he was a complete weasel and chicken shit. The mob got mad at him one time because he was supposed to do some courier thing using his celebrity and he got too nervous and almost blew it. I can't really tell what he did for the mob. Mostly Sinatra loved having the perceived muscle behind him but of course he screamed like a bitch anytime he was outmanned or didn't have security to handle the adversary.

This is the gist, I am sure some particulars are off but the essence and what it conveys is correct.

I can't remember if this is Jacobs or another story - think it's somewhere else - but at some point during their marriage Barbara went to the plastic surgeon and had EVERYTHING done, so she was at home in bed with tubes dripping. Sinatra happened to come in (separate bedrooms, of course) and she was like "GET OUT!" and he was like "Oh God." He'd hit that stage where there was no starting over, so he just dealt with it.

Thanks R6 - nice meaty gossip. More like that please. I’m shocked that his dick was that good. I honestly assumed it was more about the singer thing. Italians can be hung - but there are better.

Oh, one of my favorite parts of the book because it shows how Kennedy wannabe Sinatra was. For the record, the Kennedys tried hard to poach not just each other's women and wives, but their best friends' women and wives, particularly if they were good looking (of course). I think they were either all gay and doing it by proxy, or they were just that degenerate / competitive. Jacobs marries a very good looking woman. Can't recall if she's black or white. But she's hot. Sintara starts making remarks. Pretty soon, Jacobs notices his wife is playing swoony Sinatra songs on the record player. It's all getting very sketchy. He doesn't say that they fucked, but he thinks that they fucked. And of course Sinatra moved on and Jacobs pretended it never happened. Marriage didn't last, of course. Honestly, at times I felt Jacobs wanted to sample that third leg himself, except for him being pretty salacious about Ava Gardner and Mia (although he's brutal about some of the movie stars Sinatra banged).

This was really the era when if some other guy in your circle or pack or posse or even family had ANYTHING or ANYONE of value, the wannabe alpha pissed on it to take it over.

R7, it was the best book. I was in Barnes & Noble and decided to skim it. Pretty soon my eyes were popping out and I sat down. Jacobs knew what the people want. There was no veneer. Minimal musical analysis. Just enough to create context, show respect and a little historical color. Otherwise it's personality, compulsions, that enormous dick (Jacobs swears it hung halfway to his knee), famous people, bitchery, etc. For all the dirt he spills on Sinatra, it's clear Jacobs adored him or wanted to be him. He doesn't judge Sinatra's shallow judgments, but some of the stuff about what a chicken shit whiny weasel Sinatra really was when in amongst the tough guys is hilarious. I think Desi Arnaz Jr. owned his ass (which doesn't surprise me at all).

Thanks for the summary, I'll have to check out the book. That's interesting you mention the toupee and the girdle. It does seem like he kind of gave up. It's just sort of weird that a guy who was an icon stopped trying. I've read that Dylan and Don Was tried to approach him about recording an album in the 80s and Sinatra didn't bite. Lennon, Elton John, Brian Wilson, and Bono wrote him songs, he didn't touch them.

Did anybody on here ever hear about what he was like those last years?

I understand if you were a friend, there was nothing he wouldn’t do for you.....but if an enemy....look out.

[quote] It's just sort of weird that a guy who was an icon stopped trying.

I saw him in concert with Liza Minnelli and Sammy Davis, Jr. in the 1980s. (My parents gave us the tickets.)

Sinatra was awful. He seemed bored and pissed off.

R9 Desi Sr, not Jr.

R11 if you were a friend there WAS nothing he wouldn't do for you but according to the book many friends became enemies overnight. One moment they were bosom buddies, the next they were unforgiven and persona non grata, often for some thing only Sinatra could perceive, or some rule he never articulated.

Jacobs swears to God Marlena Dietrich and Greta Garbo fucked (I really hope I'm not hallucinating this part but I think that's in the book). While adoring Ava Gardner, he makes fun of her and some other movie star for complaining about their legs. They all kept an eye on their peers and Ava Gardner and this other star were peeved about some rival who had long, great legs because their own legs were neither long nor great. Of course the photography of the time, not to mention the bespoke tailoring, helped the illusion they had great legs. Ever since reading that I check out Ava's when I see stills. I also remember in another book or article a Marilyn Monroe quote that everyone thought she had long, great legs but they were stumpy. And they are. And not good. Bad knees, calf contour a big meh. But she had those hips, that ass, and enough curve in the thigh that standing on her toes or posing properly, she could convey a shapely leg impression.

Ava was certainly a beauty in her day......

Frank bought Jungle Gardenia perfume for Ava and loved it so much that he was known to wear a dab or two himself. He also wore Creed Bois du Portugal and Puig Agua Lavanda.

Sinatra hung out at Studio 54 at least one time. He looks like the most uncomfortable guy on the planet.

I saw Liza, Frank and Sammy in concert together. It was sensational. Three pros in action. They don't make 'em like that anymore. What a show!

The concert was supposed to be Frank, Sammy and Dean; however, after Dean's son, Dean Paul, died, Dean Martin lost the will to live and couldn't go on any longer. A sad end to a great entertainer. However, Liza was one of the boys and an even greater performer than Frank and Sammy. Seeing the three of them together was a thrill.

The Ultimate Event!

The Ultimate Event!

"...and Sinatra was out fucking somebody else (sometimes Jean Smith, JFK's sister"

Now that I hadn't heard!

Good to hear that at least one of the Kennedy sisters ever got some serious dick.

From Esquire:

Frank Sinatra Has a Cold," ran in April 1966 and became one of the most celebrated magazine stories ever published, a pioneering example of what came to be called New Journalism—a work of rigorously faithful fact enlivened with the kind of vivid storytelling that had previously been reserved for fiction. The piece conjures a deeply rich portrait of one of the era's most guarded figures and tells a larger story about entertainment, celebrity, and America itself.

Good in depth read.

When I was 5, my parents had tickets to see Sinatra at The Sabre Room, a mob owned nightclub in the Chicago suburbs. My mom got sick, so my dad took me as his date. It was a big deal—my mom got me decked out and my dad held the car door open for me like a gent and played up the daddy-daughter date night thing.

It was 1970, and swanky. Lots of big hair, fancy cocktails, sparkly things. I was absolutely dazzled walking into the club and having people make a fuss over me. It was like the scene in Goodfellows with the waters parting and my dad and I being led to a cocktail table near the stage.

Anyway, I was the only 5 year in the place, a fact that Sinatra recognized as as he stepped out. After his first couple songs, he came down into the audience and asked my dad permission to bring me on stage. He scooped me up, and I’ll never forget his smell. It was musky and comforting.

He introduced me to the crowd as his fiancée. Then he asked me some questions about myself. I felt completely safe and comfortable with him. I was a real daddy’s girl and he reminded me a lot of my dad—a tough Italian guy who loved his kids.

Then he sang Nancy With the Laughing Face to me. He carried me back to my dad, gave me a big hug and kiss, and then shook my dad’s hand and thanked him for bringing me. We later found out that he paid the tab, and the next day a dozen roses and bottle of champagne were delivered to my mom with a note from Sinatra saying he hoped she was feeling better. My parents were stunned and had no idea how he knew where we lived.

Obviously, I’ve been a huge fan ever since. He had a dark side, but I forgive him everything.

Great story R22

Love your story R22!

My grandmother was so in love with him.

Terrific story, R22! And as a fellow Chicagoan, I remember the TV ads for The Sabre Room!

I’m R22: a brief epilogue to my story that might be of interest. My dad, who was full-blooded Italian, and his friends didn’t respect Sinatra because “he made a fool of himself over broads.” They would make fun of him over it. But they all loved his music. After that nightclub experience, my dad would shut down any derision of Sinatra, saying “he was nice to my kid. Who cares if he cried over Ava.”

That’s one thing that I haven’t seen in books/movies about Sinatra: always makes it seem like Italian guys all worshipped him. That wasn’t my experience. There were complicated feelings filled with envy, admiration, disdain. I always thought that would be an interesting exploration of men of that era struggling with strong feelings for each other through the frame of Sinatra.

I live near Hoboken, Sinatras home town even though he has never been back there the old school Italians still worship him. They named their riverfront drive Frank Sinatra Boulevard.

I remember one funny story in Jacobs' book. Sinatra was making a movie with Spencer Tracy (Devil at 4 O'Clock) and he invited Tracy and Hepburn over for a spaghetti dinner. Apparently Sinatra found Hepburn physically attractive and wanted to fuck her, but she wasn't interested, and he reacted weirdly in front of Tracy and Hepburn. He threw the bowl of spaghetti at the wall either in front of T&H, or afterward.

I saw Nancy Sinatra at a car wash on Ventura and Fulton in the 80's.

Thanks for sharing that wonderful story R22.

Thank You, r22. That was fun to read and what a memory your parents and Sinatra provided you!

You write: "My dad, who was full-blooded Italian, and his friends didn’t respect Sinatra because “he made a fool of himself over broads.”

I understand that Mario Puzo's novel "The Godfather" elicits varied reactions in the Italian-American community, however, your words reminded that Puzo alludes to that attitude you describe in reference to Fredo and Johnny Fantane. Fredo is "banging cocktail waitresses two at a time" and, can't control his Anglo wife. Although Vito Corleone is dead by the time Fredo is described that way, iirc, he is dismayed by all the reports of Johnny Fantane is making a fool of himself over his star beautiful wife he left his first wife for and describes it as unmanly.

Anyway here's my anecdote supplied by Eddie Fisher in his trashy, delicious, compulsively readable tell-all "Been there, Done That" : Elizabeth Taylor aborted hers and Sinatra's embryo.

Fisher describes how it was thrilling that Taylor had an "I don't give a fuck attitude" about everybody, including Louis B. Mayer, and didn't hide it to their faces, EXCEPT Sinatra. He claimed Taylor would routinely, to him, call down Sinatra to the lowest behind his back (post-fling that resulted in her pregnancy) and yet at a party for Elizabeth, Sinatra showed up and, instead of telling him off as she would with anybody else, Taylor kissed his ass.

Fisher said that was the only time he had ever saw Taylor be a two-face and he admitted he lost some respect for her.

Reading this thread, and having to remind myself what Americans mean when they say 'Italians', i.e. just dullards born in America with a delusional interest in eugenics science.

[quote]"full blooded Italians"

Sounds like something someone who owns a set of head calipers would say.

Back in the early 80s my uncle worked as a chauffeur. He had to pick up Sinatra for his show at the Grandstand and just drive him where he wanted to go in Toronto.

The day after he landed , my uncle gets called to pick him up. Sinatra asked if my uncle knew where a certain cafe was and to drive him there. My uncle knew the place as a hangout for local goombahs.

After a couple of hours Sinatra comes out gets into the car and tells my uncle to take him back to the hotel.

Sinatra says, "No matter where I go I can never get away from those fucking guys."

Even in his later years he still had to kowtow to the mafia.

Sinatra's kids HATED Barbara Marx. Just hated her. When the old bitch finally croaked a while back, Nancy and Tina probably popped a bottle of champagne.

r32 "full blooded" is a common saying for Americans, and not at all sinister. Many Americans, particularly those born after WWII, are not 100% anything and are a mixture of several different ethnicities.

Great thread.

I was never a Sinatra fan until about 5 years ago when I watched him sing ANGEL EYES whilst fingering a cigarette and drifting off the dark stage whilst singing “Excuse me whilst I disappear”. I think it was in the Alex Gibney Documentary ALL OR NOTHING AT ALL.

The story of him it giving a shit as he is repeatedly punched by Rex Harrison, after implying Harrison was a coward following the suicide of Carole Landis, is gold as well.

R22 Wow wow wow!!! That brought me to tears. Beautiful.

[quote]He HATES Sinatra's third wife, Barbara Marx.

FOURTH, not third.

Sinatra hated Michael Buble.

Sinatra died in 1998. Buble cut his first record in 2003.

I think it's possible Sinatra could be Ronan's bio dad, if he and Mia were still secretly hooking up at the time, which Mia as much as said they were. Whenever I saw a picture of Ronan Farrow I would think "there's no way in hell Woody Allen could be that kid's biological father." And that was years before Mia ever said anything about Sinatra. I assume she was screwing around with another man a the time of Ronan's conception.

Ronan Farrow had a nose job and wears pale blue contacts to make himself look more like Sinatra and less like Woody Allen. But then, if you look at pictures of him as an un-altered kid, he looks like a clone of Mia Farrow, so there's no telling who his father is from his looks.

Thanks for the story, R22!

Sinatra kept re-visiting almost all of his sexual partners. Princess Grace was one. He had his own villa in Monaco so he could meet her secretly. She's just one example. But he had lots of sex with lots of women. He never completely let go of the women he was fond of.

Louis B. Mayer was a fan of Frank Sinatra and had him purchased from RKO. Sinatra later claimed that it resulted in a salary jump from $25,000 to $130,000 per picture. However, his career at MGM would end only three years later, in 1949. One day at lunch in the MGM commissary, Frank was told that Mayer was injured during a riding accident, Sinatra is said to have replied, "Nah, he fell off Ginny Simms," referring to Mayer's current paramour. The remark made its way back to Mayer and promptly got Sinatra fired from the studio.

The firing marked the start of a tough period for Sinatra. He left his first wife, Nancy; had his ups and downs with Ava Gardner, had to sing novelty songs for Mitch Miller, drank heavily and spent five years in personal and professional hell until he got the role of Maggio in "From Here to Eternity" for which he won an Academy Award.

That's the sexiest picture of Ava Gardner I've ever seen at R15. She looked so much better in her prime with long, loosely styled hair instead of short, severe, matronly '50s hair.

Frank Sinatra, the Zayn Malik of the 1940s

He set Liza up with his business managers after she hit it big because he didn't want to her to be taken advantage of like Judy was.

The poster who pointed out about Frank throwing the pasta, is incorrect. Frank Sinatra threw the pasta at the wall because it wasn't al dente. He was in a rage and he took his anger out on the butler. Hepburn and Tracy left because they detested how horribly he treated the butler. Frank's butler loved him yet I believe the butler was self loathing to an extent because Frank could be very nasty to him. There are couple of more things that Frank's butler pointed out in the book which is not mentioned in this thread so far. The butler said Joseph Kennedy was a devil incarnate and he was pure evil. He also said Lawrence Harvey was a gross sleaze. He said Laurence Harvey said to the Butler (remember he was black), you're like a box of chocolates, which I can't wait to open up.

There was a lady on Facebook who met the butler, and she said he had a lot more info on Hollywood he shared with her. She said he carried businesses type cards around which stated something like, I was Frank Sinatra's butler.

BTW, my mother had a friend was a costume designer in Hollywood. She said Ava wanted her to be her secretly ,but she turned it down because people in Hollywood told her to stay away because she would hit on her secretaries. I think Ava was a major nympho who was bi. However, she LOVED MEN big time, especially bull fighters. My mother's fiend said Ava was so incredibly beautiful that when she walked into a room. everyone stared at her and couldn't take their eyes off of her. She said what you see in photographs and film didn't do her incredible beauty justice. So when I read Frank had an issue with Ava's legs? He sounds like a complete horses ass.

BTW, another thing. My sister did her thesis in college on the American mafia ,and she was always extremely studious and extremely though in her work. By the time she was done with her research for her thesis, her professor said her thesis had so much info that it was practically a book. She said Frank Sinatra's name kept coming up constantly in her extensive research on the mafia. She wasn't looking for him ,but he was so involved with the mafia that his name was very intertwined with the archives of information on the mob that is out there. She said he laundered money for the mafia greatly. Money connected with narcotics, etc. Also, the people in Hollywood were very, very scared of him because he was connected with the mafia, which gave him a lot of power to throw his weight around. In fact, he made many female actresses have sex with him if they wanted to make it in Hollywood. However, there were some in Hollywood who loved to be around him because he could get things done for you, and they loved his power.

"I think they were either all gay and doing it by proxy, or they were just that degenerate"

Spoken like a true Sinatra fan.

Great story r22.

R48, you need to discover the joy of breaking up a long story into paragraphs.

Here is the book by Frank Sinatra's ex-butler.

r45 those short 50s hairstyles didn't do anything for anyone, they were so matronly-looking.

R52, I have to disagree with you on that. It just depends on the woman. My mother had a short hair cut in the 50s when she was a teen and she looked super cute. It was called the poodle cut.

Nancy Sinatra is on Twitter a lot. Engages with fans, too.

Here is a book a man worked for Frank Sinatra when Frank was older and towards the end of his life. He said Barbra and Franks children were fighting over Franks will and he wasn't even dead yet. Apparently he was very sad at the end of his life. I haven't read the book, but I look forward reading it.

Wasn't there a story that the archbishop of Los Angeles giving Barbara a crucifix and the kids ripped it out of her hands, causing her to bleed? I think this may have been right after the funeral.

^gave

Well, a minor anecdote that I remember reading. Some teenage girl was invited to a little party at the Sinatra house, hosted by one of the Sinatra daughters. She accidentally knocked a ceramic figurine off the mantel, and the Sinatra female who invited her was furious. This teenage guest went to find Frank himself to apologize, and he went over to the mantel, and found the matching figurine for the broken piece, and knocked it to the floor, breaking it, too. And he told her to dry her eyes, because it didn't meant anything. I can imagine my Dad doing that.

R16, I knew about Puig Agua Lavanda, but I don't recall reading that he wore Creed Bois du Portugal. I still wear both of them. And I knew that Elizabeth Taylor wore Jungle Gardenia, but not Ava.

Sinatra used to fool around with Judy Garland when she was at her fattest.

He didn't like the idea of having intercourse with her because he didn't want to see her naked. But he did like Judy -- and blow jobs.

Judy didn't mind giving him blow jobs, but complained, 'A gal likes to get fucked now and then."

Creed PR has claimed that BDP was his signature fragrance, although it could just be that they sent him a free bottle or something. Pretty much everybody who knew him confirms that he wore Agua Lavanda.

According to the company that holds the current trademark for Jungle Gardenia, it was a favorite of not only Liz and Ava but also Joan Crawford, Joan Bennett, Barbara Stanwyck, and Natalie Wood.

He carved a steak with a steak knife on the naked chest of a hooker he had in bed at the time supposedly.........a real charmer. Supposedly SInatra had a long l track record of immediately getting cosy with ex wives and widows of his closest friends...........seems like he wanted to be first one in or something ...........the Bacall example was just one of many many

R22, thanks so much, that's such a great anecdote. How lucky were you!

'A gal likes to get fucked now and then."

That's going on my Christmas card.

My half Italian grandmother had The Godfather series. She felt the movies mocked Italians. Especially Brando’s performance.

Anyway, Sinatra was really complicated.

I have the book by George Jacobs. I've reread it a few times. Definitely heavy on the gossip but also quite human. He adored Sinatra. Sinatra was a sex addict according the Jacobs. Could be the most thoughtful generous guy but the by the biggest horses ass. I am a huge fan of him as a singer but not as a person.

^ but could also be the biggest horses ass.

A great singer, and also a major bully, especially to people like Peter Lawford.

Peter Lawford was a doormat pussy.

Peter Lawford does not come off well in the book.

Sinatra ushered in the era of the great baritones in pop singing. He did have what some would call vocal flaws, but his styling and timing and phrasing and resonance leave him atop of greater voices still. And his great sensitivity. As a singer.

Agree 100%

The stuff about Ava’s legs (and Marilyn’s legs) comes from a pure insecurity on Frank’s part. The most beautiful woman in the world broke my heart - but let’s laugh at her with my butler because of her calf definition!

These days it’s identified as “negging”.

Ain't nothing wrong with that broad's legs.

Garland had a better movie career than Sinatra.

And, while it lasted, a better tv career than Sinatra. Her TV show was broadcast from 9 to 10 pm on Sunday nights on CBS.

Everyone hated his last wife Barbara—including Frank. She was a shallow, controlling, bitch.

I think Liv Tyler could do a bio pic on Ava.

A close relative married a close person to Sinatra, (not famous, but mentioned in the book Me and Mr. S, which is fabulous). They had a 40 something year friendship, and through the relative my parents had dinners with Frank, hung out backstage after a concert when he came to NYC, etc. He was very kind to them. He liked being around normal people, if he could trust them. In the early 8Os all the relatives had dinner with Frank and Barbara, and my grandmother, who was off the boat Irish and didn’t really care for Italians, was not impressed with Frank. He loved it- he hung around her all night, trying to win her over. I wish my mom was still alive, she remembered every detail. My dad remembers but can’t do detail the same way, and to this day doesn’t recognize how cool it is that they were shouted out by Sinatra in concert and drank champagne in his dressing room.

In the summer of 1977 our parents took our child self to dinner at Chasens . At the next booth were seated Frank Sinatra and family. As Frank got up, presumably to go to the T room, we noted that he was very hot.

Where's that freak found over at the Hasselback Rosie thread?

In addition to the Jacobs book, read Lee Server's bio of Ava Gardner "Love is Nothing".

Gardner mentally and emotionally abused Sinatra.

He was helpless over his feelings for her. Gardner, as most humans beings do in a relationship where they know they have the upper had, could not resist asserting her power.

I'm not defending Sinatra. He gave back as much misery and better, to most people around him. Not to Gardner.

upper hand

[quote]Gardner mentally and emotionally abused Sinatra.

A common trait among alcoholics, which Gardner definitely was.

R22: Your R26 is even more interesting than R22. A fascinating notion, worth exploring. If you don't have a blog, you should start one.

Now I am thinking of Judy Garland and all her lavender relationships. She always preferred being with gay men. She must have been able to give good head and liked it that way for the most part. I thought it was because she liked the ladies, but maybe not so much now.

He was a narcissist who had a lot of power--a combination of his stardom and his mob connections--and so he liked to bully. Enjoying bullying is pretty unforgivable: it means you are treating someone solely as a means rather than as an end in themselves, and liking it. He had a number of friends and women who were fascinated by him because of that power, but I really respect the people in old Hollywood who found it disgusting, like Tracy and Hepburn.

He had the talent to be a great actor, but he found acting boring, and refused to work at it.

He was a great liberal in his youth--one of the most outspoken in Hollywood--but as time went on his principles were corrupted, and he abandoned liberalism mostly because of a snit fit he had because the Kennedys did not bow down enough to him. Plus even though he had famously championed racial tolerance, he would say nasty things about blacks and other minorities in front of his thuggish friends to fit in and to make them laugh.

He is a classic example of a basically good person who became a monster because of too much fame and power.

Wasn't his mother Dolly the Abortion Queen of Hoboken?

Yes, his mother was an abortionist. In the days when abortion was illegal, there were women who would give at-home abortions with knitting needles and such. You have to remember that back then many women got pregnant constantly and they didn't want to have 12 kids.

Frank Sinatra had a cousin named Richard Sinatra who seems to have broken into movies through Roger Corman.

He had a co-starring role in his first movie "The Beast of Haunted Cave,"

A little later he had non-credited bit parts in two of Frank's movies: "Ocean's 11" and "Robin and the Seven Hoods".

After that, his career petered out and he died at age 43 - no cause of death ever made public.

Frank was a huge tipper. My dad worked as a valet at the Hollywood Palladium in college during the 50s. The guys would fight over over bringing up Sinatra's car because he would tip $100, which was a fortune back then.

Years later, my dad used the same CPA as Frank. Frank was slowing down and only booking $6 million a year in work- what it cost him to live.

And yes, Barbara was vile. Pulled the old jewelry switch. Picked out her gift, had a copy made and sold the real piece back to the store. Frank was just too old and burned out to divorce her.

Yes, everybody hated Barbara. She was a bitch on wheels. But as r89 said, old Frank was just too weary to do anything about it.

Sinatra was a grade-A bully. Bono is a pretentious, sycophantic ass who perpetuated Sinatra's image as a suave tough guy, glossing over the fact that it was common knowledge Sinatra was not a nice man, this article illustrates what was open secret. Trying to get a Asian-American casino dealer fired because she wouldn't help him cheat then making racist threats against her. Classic Sinatra hidden from public view.

I remember being a little kid with my parents at a department store.

I was told that I could pick out any album. I choose a Frank Sinatra Christmas album.

My dad said, "Who doesn't like being wished a Merry Christmas by someone connected to the mob?"

I didn't get the album. And it was one of the first times I remember my father talking to me like I was an adult and in on the joke.

Frank was a very generous and kind man but he gave big and privately, not like the Pharisee hypocrites (Gates, etc) who give publicly that they may receive praise and public acclaim plus massive tax deductions.

Dolly must have been a hoot. When Frank wanted to bring Barbara Marx to his mother's house for dinner she said "Don't you bring no whore into my house"!!!!

[quote] Frank was a very generous and kind man

Yeah, a real kind man. He would slap female croupiers and beat up male civilians if they pissed him off in any way. He also physically abused his girlfriends.

R48 briefly mentioned Joseph Kennedy Sr.

I remember clearly from Jacobs' book his writing about old Joe's visit to the Sinatra home where he would stay for a few days. Sinatra told Jacobs up front that their guest was to be called "Mr Ambassador" and at first Jacobs didn't know who JK was. ( Jacobs knew and liked JFK.)

In preparation for the visit, Sinatra brought in several hookers, and I seem to remember some of them were Native American. Jacobs said that Sinatra treated such women (hookers) well.

Anyway, old Joe arrives and within 24 hours, all but 1 of the women had left.

Joe Kennedy liked to burn their breasts with his lit cigar.

When Joe died and there were all those write ups about the Kennedy patriarch, Jacobs cynically remarked how phony it all was since Joe really was a pig.

"Gardner mentally and emotionally abused Sinatra. He was helpless over his feelings for her. Gardner, as most humans beings do in a relationship where they know they have the upper had, could not resist asserting her power. "

Good for her, but it's still insufficient Karma! Sinatra used and abused hundreds or thousands of women, from random casino dealers to wives, so good on any gal that paid him back a little of what he gave out. He was a narcissistic bully who enjoyed humiliating and pushing other people around, anyone who made him suffer gets approval from me.

And Sinatra beat the crap out of Gardner on many occasions while they were married, she not only failed to make him suffer nearly as much as he made others suffered, she probably didn't even get her own back.

A hundred pounds of cock.

Were there any men back then who weren't total shits to women? All the old movie stars and singers were pretty awful.

I recently read a bio of Bette Davis, and her third husband Gary Merrill got drunk and smacked her around for the entire 10 years of their marriage. In today's world, he would've gone straight to jail.

Actually, R98, I'm sure there are plenty of abusive marriages in today's Hollywood. And female celebrities whose husband smack them around don't call the cops and send his sorry ass to jail, because that would be bad for their image. They don't want to know the public that they're a fool who married a loser and lets themselves be smacked around, they want the public to think they have perfect lives, so they put up with awful marriages.

Just like regular schmoes.

Poor Frank's POS mom. After the plane crash, they found shreds of her mu-mu hanging from a tree.

Dolly Sinatra died on January 6, 1977, when the Las Vegas bound Lear Jet she was on crashed into the San Bernardino Mountains.

Dean Martin Jr. died on March 21, 1987, on a routine training mission, when his F-4 crashed into the San Bernardino Mountains.

If he was so hung, how come we have no photos a la Hammaconda? No bulge shots anywhere?

Frank was hung. It's more than a legend. That famous line of Ava's started it all. She said it in anger and pity too. Watching him perform at his low times. "He's only a hundred and nineteen pounds and nineteen pounds of that is cock."

I note that R93 has reverted back to her old name now that she's fallen off the wagon.

Bottoms up, whore!

There is a very revealing photo of a very young Frank with a semi showing through his pants. Massive thick uncut. A gold star for the sister who finds it online. Just for all you sizemologists out there.

I have heard Ava Gardner was very, very down to earth and she never thought of herself as above anyone. As I recall, from the book that is mentioned on this thread, Mr. S she said to the butler, I'm from the south and lets face it, we are all intermarried white trash down there. She said to him, I wouldn't doubt if I have some black in me. The butler adored her. Also, she could hang out with movie crews ,and knew how to talk to the guys. Carole Lombard was the same as well. Carole Lombard refused a dressing room on set because she wanted to connect with the crew ,and she didn't play the star routine she too was well loved. They both swore big time.

The poster who said male movie stars beat up their wives in Old Hollywood, I disagree with you. Not all of them beat up their girlfriends and wife's. There were some who were decent men. Those who did beat up their wives or girlfriends were usually professional slime ball losers in their real lives. One example is Dick Hames who was a major loser who would beat up super jaw dropping stunning Rita Hayworth. However, especially in the studio system, everyone was able to get away with such horrible behavior because it was covered up by the studios.

Dominick Dunne once said that Frank Sinatra hated him because he had a Yale or Harvard type of education.Dominick said he never did anything to the man, and he didn't care about Frank's or anyone's educational background. He said his wife was in a wheel chair ,and Frank was nasty to his wife telling her off because she was Dominick Dunne's wife. Dominick Dunne said he was in rage that Frank Sinatra went after his wife because Dominick said if he wanted to go after me, then do it but not my wife. Also, Dominick's wife was a disabled person. Dominick Dunne said Frank was nothing but a thug.Yes, Dominick was a closet homo, but he cared very,very deeply for his wife in his way. After all, they had 4 children together. I think Dominick was a tormented homo. Maybe the real reason Frank was mean to him because he was a homo?

Also, I once read an autobiography by a Hollywood agent who really had some no holds barred stuff to say about various people and things he encountered in Hollywood. It was really interesting and a very fun read. He said he hated Frank Sinatra because the way he treated people so terribly. He said Frank made jokes about Sammy Davis Jr. on stage ,but there were jokes which he used to be ruthless and cruel to Sammy off stage. For example, the Rat Pack checked in to a hotel in Las Vegas and Frank sent a huge watermelon and a plater of fired chicken to Sammy's room. Frank thought that was hilarious. The agent said to Sammy, how can you take that? Sammy said sadly, well? Frank doesn't mean it. The agent said I could tell he was hurt by Frank. This was the tip of the iceberg the things he mentions in his book that is awful.

Look, I recognize Frank Sinatra's enormous talent, and I think he had an incredible technique how he would sing songs and how he used his voice. There will never ever be anyone like him. However, from all of the things I have read and heard about him in his real-life, everyday life, sorry ,but I don't like him at all. Especially how badly he treated women! WOW!!

BTW, I have heard and read that if Frank was your friend, he would treat you like gold and he would be very sweet to you.But if you were not his friend or he didn't like you or you might have pissed him off, you were in serious trouble to the point you would pee in your pants.

[quote]The poster who said male movie stars beat up their wives in Old Hollywood, I disagree with you. Not all of them beat up their girlfriends and wife's.

FFS I didn't say they ALL beat their wives. God, the reading comprehension on this site is appalling. I said they were, in general, shits to the women in their lives. Which was true in many cases.

Told you I was hardcore.

R106 There's more to the Sinatra/Dunne story than that. It's detailed in Craig Brown's (he more recently wrote "99 Glimpses of Princess Margaret") earlier book, "Hello, Goodbye, Hello" and excerpted below. Suffice to say, Dunne's job, life, and marriage hit the skids after that, a decline that took him a decade or more to recover from. But recover he did, to the point when, in the mid-90's as he was covering OJ Simpson's trial for [italic]Vanity Fair[/italic], he was the center of attention everywhere he went socially in Los Angeles. Including one night at an old friend's house:

"Returning to the city of his epic failure, Dunne was suddenly sought out by precisely the type of folks who had shunned him when he was down and out. He became Hollywood's most desirable guest, gladly accepting invitations to share the scoop on O.J. in dining rooms all over Beverly Hills.

One of those nights he was invited to Gregory Peck's house where he was the center of attention -- overshadowing a petulant, sulking old singer named Frank Sinatra.

"Life" says Dunne "Is too perfect for words."

I wanna hear about Monroe and her personal hygiene, or lack thereof.

wow, very interesting thread!

I saw on TV many years ago some guy said Frank used yardley soap! Is this true? coz I've been using it for years...

Monroe, like many addicts, did not pay attention to her personal hygiene or a clean living space. She was pretty gross, like a lot of alkies/addicts are when it comes to cleanliness.

Frank was a bully and an insecure vain man. But he did a heck of a lot to stand by Sammy. Pivotal on getting him into white only hotels. Standing by him when Sammy married a white woman.

Frank Sinatra's approach to race was VERY progressive for the time. He refused to play at hotels where Sammy Davis, Jr. was not welcome to get a room.

Looking at his attitudes through a 2019 filter is very unfair.

Monroe, like many addicts, did not pay attention to her personal hygiene or a clean living space. She was pretty gross, like a lot of alkies/addicts are when it comes to cleanliness.

Bullshit. She was clean as can be. And her trailer was neat as a pin. Inside of her refrigerator was too. Saw that with my own eyes. My mother did too.

She had her flaws, I know. But I saw her for a week. And this not clean issue - is just not true.

R115: Someone from the production company would have cleaned her trailer.

Monroe was notorious for smelling bad.

Well R115. Did you smell her? I did and in no way did she didn't smell nor seem unclean. Geez. I think I will believe my own senses. But whatever you need to believe...go right ahead.

It has been written in several Marilyn biographies that she sometimes neglected her hygiene and had an unpleasant odour. One wouldn't expect that on a movie set - it was more likely in her private life. Although alcoholic pill heads can give off a distinctly medicinal smell through their perspiration as well.

It's pretty easy to see that onscreen Marilyn was a separate creature from the private woman.

Fish usually smell bad anyway.

Nice to see you again, Misfit Girl.

I remember your stories from the set, especially the Gable one.

Welcome back.

It’s not wrong to view Sinatra’s views on race through contemporary eyes...that sounds like somebody wants to give him a pass..although Frank and the white members of the Rat Pack went to bat for Sammy, they also engaged in some somewhat sadistic jokes about his race and skin color. You won’t give past homophobes a pass for their antiquated and harmful attitudes about gays and lesbians, would you? Lemme think about it NO!

If that's how Sinatra treated his friends... why did he have friends?

I really don't understand the dynamics of a group like that, where everyone accepts abuse from the group alpha. Were the rest of the Rat Pack just hanging around because they thought it'd help their careers, or did they consider that to be genuine friendship?

Frank loved Sammy Davis more than any other man. He never got over his death. It's complicated. And yes people certainly did tolerate other things in other times. Ava Gardner had a lot of gay male friends. Some of them quite famous. That she often referred to as fags. It doesn't make it right but it was just more acceptable language. My bf's parents called him a sissy just a few weeks ago when talking about his younger self. They are only in their late fifties.

A lot of people on DL don't seem to exist in the real world or have relationships with people. Of course out best friends and partners should love us unconditionally. Find me a gay man capable of that! They They don't exist. I don't admire Sinatra at all as a man. But I can still appreciate his talent and be fascinated by his life and complicated personality. He certainly was a racist.

Interesting. I meant to type he certainly WASN'T a racist. Sinatra's work for black equality and his adoration of Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, Sammy and so many other black artists and musicians is well known. He did call Johnny Mathis the African Queen. Sorry but that is still funny.

[quote]It’s not wrong to view Sinatra’s views on race through contemporary eyes...that sounds like somebody wants to give him a pass..although Frank and the white members of the Rat Pack went to bat for Sammy, they also engaged in some somewhat sadistic jokes about his race and skin color. You won’t give past homophobes a pass for their antiquated and harmful attitudes about gays and lesbians, would you? Lemme think about it NO!

You're an idiot.

[quote]If that's how Sinatra treated his friends... why did he have friends?

He was a powerful man in show business. Those type of people are indulged all types of bad behavior by their "friends" (AKA people who think he can get them their next job).

[quote]I saw on TV many years ago some guy said Frank used yardley soap! Is this true? coz I've been using it for years...

Sorry, but it won't make your dick grow to the size of Frank's.

Was Yardley a boutique soap back then? Today is't really cheap, you can find it in the drugstore.

R128 It was sold in drugstores in the '60s. But was heavily marketed to be chicly British, which was seen as very "happening" then.

yardley soap smells great, the lavender one is available everywhere. I love the lemon verbena as well.

R6 I love the way you write.

If Frank had been a younger man, the marriage to Barbara probably wouldn't have lasted five years, but like others have said he was just too old and tired to do anything by that time. They had separate bedrooms and did their own thing much of the time. Nobody liked Barbara, she was a high-handed bitch.

R26, I grew up in an Italian neighborhood. My parents are both from Italy. Italians didn't love Sinatra, Americans (Italian Americans did). That might be a peculiarity of my neighborhood growing up, but I always wondered why people would assume I loved Sinatra because I'm Italian.

About that dick. He was petite, so was it really big or just relative to his tiny frame?

When I was 10 my best friend, who came from a wealthy family, invited me to see Frank open the Richfield Coliseum in Ohio. I think I vaguely knew who he was and I didn't really want to go but my mother said it would be rude to decline the invitation and it would be something I'd always remember.

After the concert a man came to our seats and told us to follow him. Puzzled, I asked my friend's mother where we were going and she said, "To see Mr Sinatra." We were guided backstage to a room where Frank was holding court. He spoke to us one by one and when it was my turn he asked, "How did you like the show son?" I told him I liked most of it. He laughed and said, "Stay honest kid."

[quote]After the concert a man came to our seats and told us to follow him. Puzzled, I asked my friend's mother where we were going and she said, "To see Mr Sinatra." We were guided backstage to a room where Frank was holding court. He spoke to us one by one and when it was my turn he asked, "How did you like the show son?" I told him I liked most of it. He laughed and said, "Stay honest kid." I was roughed up leaving the concert and still have trouble walking and speaking.

....

R135, LOL!

I was at one of his shows at Radio City Music Hall in October '92. He was in great form. Really energized by the New York audience and all the love they were giving him. Did encore after encore, which was a rarity. I was third row so I had a good view of the teleprompters at the corner of the stage, the print was so big you could literally read them from there. At one point I read the prompters "Barbara says let's go" and the concert was over. Bitch. Probably had a reservation at Le Cirque.

Barbara did very well for a former hooker/cocktail waitress/model.

Quincy Jones once said that the problem with Frank Sinatra was that he needed to keep getting himself young pussy. Once he settled for that old pussy, he got old.

I wonder if Frank's kids ever called Barbara a whore to her face. I know I would've.

I never thought Frank Sinatra was attractive. He sounds unpleasant. But I guess he was powerful and talented, so people kowtowed to him.

"About that dick. He was petite, so was it really big or just relative to his tiny frame? "

Well, it impressed Ava Gardner, and she'd seen a few!

R1, An excerpt from the George Jacobs book regarding Bacall.

"I felt awful for Betty, who had enjoyed such a classic romance with Bogie. Perhaps only one of these in a lifetime was all anyone could expect. By the same token, Mr. S could only have one grand passion in his life, and that was Ava. Betty, who had gotten spoiled by Bogie, simply wanted more than Frank could give her. Mr. S desperately tried to copy Bogart in every way, but when it came to loving Betty, the mold had been broken. Not only did Mr. S now turn against Betty Bacall, he turned on her. He called her “the Jew bitch.” He complained to his buddies how spoiled she was, how cold, how badly she kissed, and, worst of all among his friends, that she couldn’t—or wouldn’t, give a blow job. “All she does is whistle,” Mr. S said, nastily referring to Bacall’s famous suggestive line in her first film, To Have and Have Not. Cocksucking, in this group, was considered the highest feminine art. To fail here was to be less than a woman."

R144 Frank! Betty! Please stop. You're both selfish cunts!

We were surprised to read that Barbara was very close to Frank's age, only 10 years younger.

For such an oldbag to $trike it rich like that is truly an inspiratia to all of us women 'of a certain age'

Barbara Sinatra was married to Zeppo Marx before Frank. While her husband was dying, Barbara was having sex with Frank planning her next move, which was to marry Frank. She was a calculating manipulator who was a gold digger.

I once read a book about the Rat Pack which is well done by the way.The author said that many show girls who had sex with Frank said he was sexually strange. They said he was turned on by playing records of himself while he had sex with the various girls. Also, he loved orgies.

The various posts pointing out Marylin's bad hygiene is a fact. Gloria Steinem wrote a book on Marilyn and Steinem said Marilyn would show up at movie sets with period stains on her clothes, and another person said she would lay naked in bed eating food and her bed had food crumbs all over inside of the bed. Peter Lawford said I never had sex with her because I was repulsed by her bad hygiene. However, he was her friend who he claimed he cared for very much.They finally determined that Marilyn was bipolar which would explain a lot about her behavior.

Joe DiMaggio, hated the Rat Pack and the Hollywood crowd. When Marilyn died, they all wanted to go to Marilyn's funeral ,but Joe DiMaggio refused to let them attend the funeral. He said you used her enough now leave her alone. Short time before Marilyn's death Frank was responsible for Marilyn getting raped by his mafia pal Giancana.

Again, those asking how could people be friends with Frank if he did various negative things, well there were two types of people that hung around Frank. There was those who were scared pee less because once they found out he was connected with the mafia, and he was especially connected with the extremely ruthless Sam Giancana. An actor, I forgot who it was said, people in Hollywood panicked and made sure they didn't piss him off. He had the power to ruin you in Hollywood. Also, he had power to make starlets have sex with him if they wanted to keep their careers. The second type of people that hung out with Frank were people in Hollywood who loved to be around him because he exuded power ,and he got things done. If they wanted something done they would go to their powerful mafia connected friend Frank Sinatra to help resolve the issue.

Joe Di Mag was an uncut tinymeat but Marilyn did confide to her dear sister Truman Capote that "it got the job done"

[quote]she would lay naked in bed eating food and her bed had food crumbs all over inside of the bed.

Who doesn’t do that?

R149, Hi Chrissy!

I'm sure Ronan Farrow knows whether or not Sinatra was his bio father. All he would have to do is get a DNA test to figure out his ethnic heritage. If the test determined that he was 50% Italian, well there you go.

This thread is great!

"Golly yes, I'll rim you while Ava sucks your cock!"

It’s clear he was a piece of #%^* bully for the ages.

Umm, would a piece of #%^* bully be holding this puppy so adorably? I don't think so!

Did anything that Frank Sinatra did over the years -was any worse than Bill Cosby drugging and raping hundreds of woman since the 1960's!

r156 Yes.

R157-Perhaps you're right.

I just finished reading all this. Great thread and soooo much better than the tRump, Jussie and Istagram hookers.

The worst story I know, mentioned briefly above, was Mr. Sinatra luring MM to Lake Tahoe where she was drugged and raped by Frank, Sam Giancana and a house full of hoods. It lasted 2 days. That poor woman.

Frank Sinatra was a pig.

Barbara Marx, the hooker, was exactly what he deserved. I know she was abusive to him in his last years.

Good.

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Both Nancy and Tina boycotted Barbara's funeral. It must kill them that she's buried next to Frank in Palm Springs.

Weren't Barbara Marx and Nancy Reagan bff's? Figures, two old high class hookers (but hookers nonetheless) bonding. They must have told each other war stories about being on their knees in front of Hollywood studio execs.

Barbara couldn't stand Nancy. It was the kids who invited Nance to the funeral. And in Barbara's autobio, she tried to gloss over her. She was the same way with Peggy Lee---both were head over heels for Frank. Nancy at one point told Frank to leave Barbara.

My favorite was when Australia went on strike against Frank Sinatra. He insulted journalists, and their union stood up for them. Other unions joined in solidarity.

[quote]Robert Hawke, head of the Australian Council of Trade Unions (and a future Prime Minister of Australia) seized the opportunity and intensified the brouhaha by mobilizing other unions. Theatrical unions cancelled Sinatra’s second Melbourne concert. Transport Workers Union members refused to refuel Sinatra’s private jet. Hotel union members would not serve the Sinatra party or handle their luggage.

[quote]Sinatra’s lawyer and US diplomat Norman Hannah had to meet with 30 union representatives where they negotiated for over four hours. In the end, Sinatra had to issue an apology.

George Masters was generou$ to us in the mid 1990s but was clearly not all there due to drugs and Miss Boozette.

Kitty Kelley's book, HIS WAY, also described Sinatra as a mama's boy. His mother was an abortionist known as "Hat Pin Dolly."

She also relates how he once ate ham and eggs off a hooker's bare chest. Disgusting pig.

so he basically fucked everyone...did he use condoms? I'm surprised there are no bastards kids.

what about STDs?

[quote]If that's how Sinatra treated his friends... why did he have friends?

For whatever reasons, he was a man who could not stand to be alone. Except for when he slept, he was constantly surrounded by a traveling entourage that served some function or the other including keeping him amused. Be sure to read the Gay Talese story "Frank Sinatra Has a Cold" linked above. Talese managed to insinuate himself into the fringes of this group and followed them for month doing the research for the story. It was probably the most insightful piece about Sinatra than had been published to date.

^followed them for months

Well, since I'm easily influenced, I just ordered a bottle of Jungle Gardenia. And I'm a manly man.

It's still strange to me that so many semi-respectable people were good friends or lovers with Sinatra. The mob does work in mysterious ways. But people like Janet Leigh and Tony Curtis, especially Roz Russell and her husband, whom Frank would often stay with. Later the Reagans and Kissingers. Lauren Bacall and of course Shirley Maclaine who overstates how well she knew him. But at least Shirley was critical of him when he was still alive. Marlene just loved Fwankie for the cuddling but so many other high class Hollywood and Washington broads carried on with Sinatra for years.He knew how to switch gears with women according to their station in life. Very mafioso. Ava was his kryptonite. Such feline beauty, a raven haired, green eyed goddess. She was a wildcat in and out of bed and she could drink him under the table. Sinatra was kind of a weak man in many ways. He answered to a lot of people, including wives and children and studio and mob bosses. Ava told people to fuck off and lived life on her own terms. They both ended up sick or demented from too much booze and cigarettes, too many late nights, too many parties. Both playing Sinatra records. But Ava had some real friends who loved her. Frank had respect I suppose, in a busted nose kind of way.

So why were so many seemingly respectable people friends with Frank?

I love "DL Cliff Notes" like R3/4 etc

Do DL Queens think Sinatra ever let a guy give him a blow job?

R173

McQueen ,yes. Newman, yes. Lennon, yes. Some famous actors with ties to Scientology, yes.

Sinatra? IMO, no. He doesn't seem like the type that'd let a guy touch him that way and live.

[quote]So why were so many seemingly respectable people friends with Frank?

R171 Evidently, you need to to to R21's link and read the Gay Talese piece. He was a vindictive bastard who also could be extremely generous and loyal.

The day of Sinatra’s funeral there were a big blow up between Barbara and the daughters Nancy and Tina. Nancy updated the Ainatra website to say Frank would receive minster honors, Barbara said no and Nancy, Tina and their lawyer went to Barbara’s house to confront her where she opened the door and shook a copy of the will in their faces. It was touch and go whether they would show at the funeral, they did but there was further tension when Barbara’s son spoke. I believe Tina interviewed some years before when Barbara tried to have her son legally adopted by Frank. After he died there was a lot of tension between Barbara and Tina. A vineyard was doing a Sinatra wine and pulled out of the deal when Tina and Barbara fought bitterly over which picture of Frank to use on the bottle. Supposedly, at Frank’s burial, Nancy Jr had a video camera recording the events and Tina was heard looking at Barbara and saying “just wait until that bitch tells me what to do”

My Sinatra story is that my parents took my paternal grandparents out for their 25th wedding anniversary to Patsys restaurant in New York. This would have been 1982. Frank and Barbara came in with Tina and her date. They went and joined Suzanne Pleshette and her then husband and Frank sang Happy Birthday to Suzanne. My mother remembers being a bit peeved that Sinatra was fawned over and their server disappeared and all the staff were over shaking Sinatra’s hand and acting like he was the messiah. Suzanne shared her birthday cake with the other patrons, my mom says it was in the shape of a theatre ticket. She also thought Suzanne was breathtakingly beautiful but wasn’t impressed by Sinatra’s looks. Frank and Barbara didn’t stay to eat, they had a drink and left and the staff gave them a bag of goodies (jars of sauce, pasta, dessert) to take home. My grandparents were non plussed and not too impressed that Sinatra’s caused such a fuss. My grandmother said he was “full of his own importance”.

Ugh, my phone hates DL

* to say Frank would receive military honors

* Tina intervened when Barbara tried to have her son legally adopted

What Sinatra did for black performers back when is absolutely important and if you're one of these dolts who judges people by today's standards, then you're not as evolved as you think you are. I mean how dumb are you that you apply 2019 beliefs to the 1940s/50s?

My Sinatra story - In 1986 I worked for GTE as a Directory Assistance Operator (411) and Palm Springs/Rancho Mirage was part of our service area. Out of the thousands of calls I handled every day, one call in particular I will never forget. The man I spoke with called me "Doll", told me I had such a lovely voice (I actually was voted "Best Sound" by my fellow operators that year), and asked me if I ever did any singing. He was very chatty and flirty, asked my age (24) and then asked if I knew who Frank Sinatra was....he actually seemed very touched that I knew of him.

From all that has been documented of his last years and how Barbara kept him very isolated, almost a prisoner in his home, the telephone was important to Frank, and his contact with me that day is one I will never forget.

This is why I love DL. I hope some of you are getting paid to write.

I suspect that becoming Sinatra's close friend or part of the Rat Pack was as much a trap as anything. Because once there, in your cozy spot on the top of the Hollywood social food chain, you couldn't ever piss off Sinatra for any reason because if you failed to please him while there, he'd regard you as a traitor and ruin you the way he ruined Peter Lawford. So once you were in that group, you couldn't try to leave without being ruined.

I wonder if being in that stupid "Ocean" movie was worth that kind of worry?

Why exactly did Lawford fall out of favor with Sinatra?

R182, he failed to convince his brother-in-law, President Kennedy, to come stay at Sinatra's Palm Springs mansion when he visited California. Kennedy's people didn't want him connected to a Mob associate (after he'd won the election anyway), and this was something that was entirely outside Lawford's control. He couldn't overrule Robert Kennedy, who starting to launch a public war on the Mob, or Kennedy's political advisors, he was just an in-law and an actor.

But Sinatra was angry that President Kennedy didn't want to associate with him in public, and however valid the President's reasons were, someone had to suffer. Sinatra had assigned Lawford an impossible task, and when he failed to make it happen, Sinatra ruined his career.

And that's what I meant, when I said that being Sinatra's friend was a trap, and must have been as worrying as hell after a while. You'd just never know when he'd turn on you, or why.

Patty Duke said she dated him in the 60s and they never had sex. They'd just sit on the bed and talk.

Why did he marry Farrow?

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Oh my r186 I saw the picture before I read your comment and thought it was Nancy Jr. I was about to say she shouldn’t have gone crazy with the cosmetic work because she was aging fine but wow what a dead ringer that lady is.

R174-John Lennon gave blow jobs as well. I'm not saying he was gay but he wasn't straight either.

R173, In his biography of Merv Griffin, Darwin Porter claims Merv and Sinatra had a one night stand.

r188 AND he married Yoko! closet gay by DL standards...

Nancy Jr has had everything lifted multiple times.

Nancy Jr. wouldn't even appear on camera in the recent American Masters profile of Sammy Davis. She only provided voice over. But Kim NOVAK did appear and finally admitted to her affair with Sammy!

Nancy is a good egg as they say. A good twitter follow. She's not too certain of herself but she is a young thinking progressive dem. I don't think she is in the best of health. She has referred to herself as an old lady a number of times. Frank must have been a decent father, at least to her. Nancy adored both her parents, quite aside from the fact that she is a very rich daddy's girl. Almost 80 years old herself.

[R174]-John Lennon gave blow jobs as well. I'm not saying he was gay but he wasn't straight either.

—Anonymous reply 188

I listed Lennon as someone I believe gave blow jobs in my post. What's your point?

Nancy Sinatra is like your mom's cool friend who comes over for Thanksgiving. She'll go out on the front porch to have a glass of wine and a cig with you before dinner starts.

When did Frank turn Republican? Didn't it have to do with the Kennedy snubbing?

Nancy has said that Frank would never align himself with today's Republican party. She is huge outspoken critic of the one in the White House now.

Frank had his favorites in Hollywood and would do favors for them if he considered you a friend. He became good friends with Tony Danza, and he asked to appear in a cameo on Who's the Boss, which he did.

Allegedly, Sinatra and Nancy Reagan had an affair. Maybe he turned Republican for her?

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At least Frank didn't embrace Nixon. He turned Republican for the reasons stated upthread about the Kennedys and because he got old. Ronnie and Nancy gave him the respectability he craved. He didn't have to ask it. He was married to the old hooker by then and so was Ronnie. Sinatra was still liberal and rebellious personally but professionally he enjoyed access and musically he got old and judgemental too. Tale as old as time.

Sinatra's Kennedy Center honor was so lame and pretty embarrassing. No Rosemary Clooney or Joe Williams, none of the prestige musicians he loved and not even Tony Bennett saloon singing some gorgeous song, No tap dancing or sorrow or triumph. Just some damn boys choir from Hoboken. Republican.

"Hat Pin Dolly."

Frank Sinatra's mother hated Barbara so much she refused to fly on Frank's plane with her so he chartered another for her. that is the one that crashed. She openly referred to Barbara as a whore. I think the poster who said Barbara sold her Jewels and pocketed the cash. Some of her jewels were recently sold for millions. Part of Sinatra's deal with the casino's is tha tthey had to pay him partially in Jewels for Barbara. They also chartered yacht for him in the Summer in the South of France. He was on the Lady Ghislaine the last sumer of his life. I saw him at Eden Roc. He knew a friend of my parents. I said Mr Sinatra, you supplied the soundtrack of my life. He replied he supplied the soundtrack for everybody's life. When my friends and I were on the raft, we sang Summer Wind as he passed by in the yacht's tender. He tipped his Captain's hat to us.

^ Yuck. It's okay to admire him from afar and a distance of time, but what kind of jerkface would say "Mr. Sinatra, you supplied the soundtrack of my life?" That's very bad dialogue and his response was even worse. What an ass. R200 was just dying to type "Eden Rock and Lady Ghislaine." Tacky. What young person would know the song The Summer Wind? I just looked it up.

Frank had special underwear made to hold his dick in. Wore a bad toupee and might just be addled & arrogant enough to say that he supplied the soundtrack for everyone's life. Maybe. But I doubt it. Doesn't sound like him.

Gross story, regardless.

R201 fuck you. Who the fuck are YOU to judge someone's interaction with someone else. You sound like a miserable piece of shit that no one wants to be around.

What a strange outburst R202! You sound unhinged. Your structure and use of caps is leaking material. An undignified response. Try not to drink anymore tonight R202.

I'm quite popular to be honest. It's important to be honest. I wish you well.

Put down the drinky-poos, girls!

Dear R201, R200 here. You spelled "Eden Roc" wrong, something that is quite common among the common. I did not run up to Frank randomly. I was invited to lunch by my parent's friend who was also staying at the hotel. The Sinatra's were guests of my parents friend. There was also a Bond (Moore) at the table as well as Michael and Shakira Caine. I left that part out purposely so as not to provoke a reaction from an asshole like you. There is nothing to be gained by mentioning Lady Ghislaine. She is a tragic boat. The owner Robert Maxwell killed himself by jumping from her in the middle of the night. His family was left with nothing but debts and lawsuits. His daughter has had a horrible life. I was supplying the thread with an anecdote about Frank Sinatra as described in the title of this thread. You should start your own thread, "Unhappy People Who Overreact and Come off As Assholes".

All anecdotes welcome R200. Thanks for contributing something other than pure cuntery ala R201.

r205 that was a nice story, just ignore the idiot.

[quote]His daughter has had a horrible life.

R205 You mean wealthy socialite Ghislaine Maxwell, procurer of underage girls for registered sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and his international pedo ring? Boo hoo.

Mia Farrow tells some scary stories about him in her book :What Falls Away. I heard Frank and drummer Buddy Rich had a mini orgy with two hookers in Vegas and at one point Rich touched Frank's ass. Sinatra was so homophobic he had his goons beat the shit out of Rich.

I apologize R200. I didn't realize that you are now in your eighties. Lovely story. Totally fabricated of course. I try to show respect for ancient white gays more than twice my age. From now on I shall hang on your every word gramps. Nice touch how you encourage your own posts from another dee-vice R206. Get some rest and come back with another story tomorrow. I love you as Miss Warwick.

Frank was very close to Bennett Cerf. He and Mia made a famous appearance as mystery guests on WML? in 1967. He would never appear on the show while his archenemy Dorothy Kilgallen was alive.

R201 is really strange and way out of line.

If you block R201 half the thread disappears. A little too invested.

During the time Sammy was porking Kim Novak he happened to be a restaurant urinal with show-off Milton "12 inches" Berle.

Uncle Milty shook his monster at Sammy and said "When Kim Novak gets a look at this you'll be back to fucking Hattie McDaniel"!

The many things I have read about Frank Sinatra and gays, R209, I believe that story what Mia Farrow said in her book. BTW, what did Frank Sinatra expect? He was part of an orgy ,and I'm sure men in an event like that might touch another man or something. You are naked and open for someone to do or try to do anything to you.He hated gays BIG TIME. He was only friends with some of them now and then when he could benefit from them professionally ,and then once he got what he wanted out of them, he wanted nothing to do with them. One example that is pretty known is Montgomery Clift. Everyone called him Monty. Clift was an ultra professional actor and Frank wanted to be as talented as Clift. Therefore he befriended Clift. However, when Clift was drunk at one of Frank's parties ,and hit on a guy at the party, Frank was in rage and told him to get out immediately. Frank didn't want any gay stuff going on.

BTW, it was said that Montgomery Clift was literally beautiful ,and in fact men were mesmerized by his astonishing looks. Apparently Clift had incredible ability to seduce straight men ,and there were tons of men who wanted and who did, have sex with Clift.

BTW, The Kitty Kelly bio on Frank Sinatra was well researched and considered to be very well done. However, her other bios are considered bombs because she did not do very good research and she made some questionable claims. I think since Frank Sinatra's bio was such a big seller and very well received by literary critics I think she was in a hurry to pump out more bios. As a result, she seemed like she didn't invest in her usual professional frame of mind by observing and analyzing the research, interviews, and facts which formulated her bios there after Frank's bio. All though I have heard about one exception, the bio on Oprah was pretty well done.

Yes, I know people say well Frank Sinatra donated money to fight AIDS, etc. So? he did it to make himself look good to everyone else. I have heard things about rich people donating money to charity and yet they are horrible people. It doesn't make them a saint.

We doubt, Mary r215, that Frank would have given money to the multi-billion dollar global criminal con$piracy known as "HIV/AID$".

Provide verificatia or STFU!

Why won’t Nancy Jr appear on camera, insecure about her looks? I haven’t read her book but I have read Tina’s. I think Nancy was closer to and more forgiving of Frank. Tina has more anger. Tina also goes on and on about a mini series she produced on Sinatra that was controversial within the family. I believe Barbara’s family had a problem with it. I must see if it’s out there on the internet, i haven’t seen it.

Frank's estate at death was valued at $3 billion? And that's in 1998 dollars.

R218 do you always pull numbers out of your ass, or were you farting?

R218, Oh my gosh!! I didn't know he was worth that much.

R217, Nancy appeared on CBS Sunday Morning as recently as 2015.

Sinatra may not have been close to Nixon, but he definitely was close to Agnew after the latter resigned from the Vice Presidency. In fact, Sinatra's friendship allowed Agnew into the circles of power where he could schmooze and make business contacts. Agnew ended up making a lot of the groundwork for cozy relationships with Arab businessmen.

Agnew was such a crook.

Elder gays should recall this:

Agnew Son Arrested

BALTIMORE (UPI) A man who told police he and his wife watched James R. Agnew peer through their bedroom window at them for a half hour has filed trespassing charges against the 25-year-old son of former Vice President Spiro T. Agnew. A police report on the “Peeping Tom” incident released today said that Timothy Frye. 17, and his wife, Susan, were watching television in the living room of their north Baltimore apartment at 2:25 a.m. Monday, then Mrs. Frye walked into the bedroom and spotted a face at the window . The report said Mrs. Frye told her husband and the two of them sat in the living room for 30 minutes, watching the man watching them. Frye finally went to his mother’s nearby apartment and called police, then went outside and chased Agnew. Police took Agnew to St. Joseph’s Hospital where he identified himself as “John Johnson.” Police later determined he was the former vice president’s son. He was arrested on a warrant sworn out by Frye and released on his own recognizance pending trial July 30.

How ironic that both the real and the rumoured son of big time homophobe Frank Sinatra were rumoured to be or in Ronans case are gay.

semi recent picture

DL Queens are obsessed with Frank Sinatra and his 12 inch cock.

Nancy looks a lot like her father.

R221 Well, she's a deluded daddy's girl but charming and likable, so let's enjoy this classic Sinatra tune... from Nancy.

Nancy sang my all-time favorite Bond theme, “You Only Live Twice”. She’s also been refreshingly candid about her vocal limitations over the years, and admitted she was absolutely terrified when it came time to record the song with composer John Barry and the orchestra.

R27 Sinatra went back to Hoboken a couple of times, despite swearing in 1948 he'd never return after he was booed on stage at the Union Club. He might have been particularly sensitive as he was getting booed a lot back then - it was not the best time of his life. But he came back.

He campaigned at the St. Anne's Feast in Hoboken with Ronald Reagan during Reagan's second campaign in 1984 and returned the following year to pick up a degree at the Stevens Institute. Ol' Blue Eyes was an (honorary) Doctor of Engineering.

Was Frank upset that Frank Jr. was a sissy?

Frank did not have a good relationship with his son. Nancy Jr was the child he was closest to although in later years that fell apart because Nancy has admitted she hadn’t seen Frank in years and learned of his death after the fact over the phone. She was never told he was ill and close to death.

His son Frank Jr toured with Frank at some point and he was very hard on his son, criticizing and emasculating him in front of the band.

Frank was living proof that you don't need good looks to pull women. Talent and charisma, which bring fame and money, will also get you women. Because he was really a homely, skinny guy.

Only $$$$$$$$$$$ is required to get fish. Nothing else required.

And a 19 pound dick.

R234- You're right. Frank Sinatra, especially in his youth was a SCRAWNY RUNT.

His films "The Detective" and the Tony Rome series have negative, stereotypical portrayals of gays. Although they do have some campy elements and hoopy lines from Jill St. John.

R233, Pure nonsense that Frank was not close to daughter Nancy. There's lots of good dish from daughter Tina on this Larry King Show from one week after Frank died in 1998.

Elizabeth, Ava or Vivian? In their prime, who wins the Battle of the Brunettes?

I read in a bio on Monty Clift that Sinatra had him thrown out of his house. He threw a party for the cast of FROM HERE TO ETERNITY and a drunken Monty allegedly made a pass at a male party member. Frank was appalled and allegedly got his goons to bodily throw Monty out and I am not sure if they ever spoke again after that.

R240, I would say Ava. She seemed to have an attitude of not needing anything from a man except for the "D". Liz seemed greedy and Vivien was just bat-shit crazy.

"Elizabeth, Ava or Vivian?"

Viv was the most beautiful and talented, and Ava was the sexiest.

But Liz pulled the most dick.

Interesting interview indeed at R239. Tina Sinatra seems like a cool chick.

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Tina is telling quite a few porkies in that Larry King interview. If you didn’t know any better you’d think she almost liked and respected Barbara.

Nancy had a meltdown on Twitter a few years ago over Barbara. Called her a bitch and accused her of keeping them from Frank’s deathbed. She didn’t go to Barbara’s funeral, ignored her passing on Twitter and when someone tweeted their sympathies she said her mother, the real Mrs Sinatra, was still alive (true at the time) and all but said she was glad Barbara was dead. A few years ago she liked an old gossip article someone tweeted about Barbara giving Frank’s downstairs corner bedroom to her son. I noted it because I think old broads with grudges make the best brunch buddies. I have only heard good things about Nancy though, she is supposedly a nice lady and she comes across well on her Twitter feed so I have to believe Barbara really was awful for Nancy to boycott the funeral.

Nancy's a little nuts. Just saying. She once tried to keep a record company from releasing unreleased vault Sinatra material because, "Daddy didn't have a smile in his voice when he recorded it."

You'd be a little nuts too if you grew up with Frank as your father.

Ronan Farrow: Yes or no?

????

I would say yes if I hadn’t seen Ronan’s grandfather. He’s a carbon copy of his granddad. Nancy has said she’d be happy to have Ronan as family, Tina said Frank had a vasectomy.

[quote]Elizabeth, Ava or Vivian? In their prime, who wins the Battle of the Brunettes?

I was never a brunette. More like a dishwater blonde.

Thanks to you bitches I went out and got the Jacobs book from the library today (natch, not paying for it). I'm only onto chapter 2 and it's a delightfully trashy read.

I also went ahead and checked out Pete Hamill's sycophantic 'Why Sinatra Matters' to read after, sort of as a palate cleanser.

R254 I never knew Pete Hamill wrote a book about Sinatra. I was watching the movie version of his novel ‘Flesh & Blood’ and there’s a few references to Sinatra that made me think Hamill was a fan. I’ll have to check it out.

I'll try to remember to post about it here r255 and let you know. It's a very short volume, which is why I picked it up, from early browsing Hamill appears to be a fan.

I know Nancy Jr and she really is a nice person. Not a snob in the least. The mom Nancy was great too, with the jewelry of death.

Who got the jewels when she died r256?

sorry meant r257^^

R258, the daughters. Lots of the pieces are brooches and things that would need to be reset. I don't know Tina, but Nancy Jr isn't into expensive jewelry.

One thing, there will be no auction. Anything sold would be direct and discreet. Plus, they don't need the money.

Does Tina have children? I know Nancy Jr has some kids and grandkids.

Did Frank Jr have any legitimate offspring? didn't he have a child later in life or am I not recalling correctly. Asking since these descendants obvs receive the bulk of the royalties from Sinatra's estate.

R261, Nancy has two daughters from late husband Hugh Lambert. Tina has no children. Frank, Jr. has a son named Michael from a past relationship.

R257 any gossip on Ronan?

r262 Does Michael Sinatra have inheritance rights, ie did he receive his father's share of Frank's estate (royalties, income, etc). Or is all of that going eventually to Nancy Jr's two kids.

Just checked Michael's twitter and surprisingly he's pretty left-leaning. Lots of political retweets against the current WH occupant. Seems intelligent. Funny how most of the younger Sinatras ended up back with Dems after his long flirtation with Republicans.

Frank Jr. actually has two other children in addition to Michael, a daughter, and another son. Frank Jr. has probably the saddest story of all the Sinatra kids. If you ever want to read a great article on the level of Frank Sinatra Has A Cold, read Frank Sinatra Jr. Is Worth Six Buddy Grecos.

R244. The stalking incident Larry brings up to Tina was an alarming story when it happened in 1993, and basically ruined James Farentino's career.

LOS ANGELES (AP) _ Actor James Farentino was charged with stalking and threatening Tina Sinatra following their breakup. A lawyer for Farentino denied the charge Friday.

Farentino threatened to kill Ms. Sinatra after the couple’s stormy five- year romance ended in January, said Deputy City Attorney Liz Gertz. The death threats against Frank Sinatra’s daughter ″had sort of been going on off and on″ for months, Gertz said.

″The charges are completely untrue and unfounded,″ said Blaine Greenberg, one of Farentino’s lawyers. ″If the prosecutor decides to push the charge, we’re positive that Jim will be completely exonerated.″

Ms. Sinatra obtained a temporary restraining order against Farentino on April 16 after he faxed her a threatening message, Gertz said. The no-contact order became permanent May 6, she said.

Farentino was arrested July 30 and charged in Municipal Court with one count of stalking, one count of ignoring the restraining order and two counts of making annoying phone calls, Gertz said.

Farentino posted $50,000 bail, which was eliminated on Tuesday, Gertz said. He’s now free on his own recognizance and arraignment is scheduled for Aug. 27, she said.

Now that Barbara, Nancy Sr., Frank Sr. and Frank Jr. are all gone I wonder how much does the Sinatra estate generate for Nancy Jr. and Tina? Is it a lot? I imagine Frank left his wife Barbara a specified amount and the rest to his own kids.

Apparently Barbara and Frank had a long-ish affair while she was still married to Zeppo Marx, but it was before he got ill with cancer. I think Zeppo actually was cared for and spent time with Barbara and her son Bobby and his family at the end of his life. This was after she was already married to Frank.

Zeppo was not Bobby's biological father, though he went by the name Robert Marx.

Nancy’s daughter often appears at 54 Below in NY. Sometimes doing her own music, sometimes going her grandfather’s songs. We caught her there last year when we went in for drinks after seeing a show. We had no idea who she was and only figured it out when we heard someone asking the coat check girl if Nancy ever came to the shows.

Tina was married and divorced young and dated around a lot after that. She dated Robert Wagner and Dodi Al Fayed and was out on the town a lot but since the stalking incident with Farrentino I don’t think she’s been linked to any man. She was very good friends with Suzanne Pleshette and Eva Gabor. I saw a card she sent Eva, it said “from your kid sister, Tina”. They say she has Frank’s personality and Nancy Jr has her mother’s personality.

R210 I hope you get cancer, and die painfully.

Barbara Sinatra was worth 200 million when she died, so the kids didn't get everything. Those kids had a good mother who lived forever though. Such a strange family dynamic. Frank Sinatra was generous as they say. How he made his money and who suffered for it is another story. He was as dirty as they come.

John F Kennedy would never have been President without Sinatra and the Mob.

Using Peter Lawford as an intermediary, Joe Kennedy asked Sinatra to get the Mob's help in electing JFK. Wonder of wonders, the strongly anti-Catholic West Virginia Democratic primary went for Kennedy.

This story has been around for a long time and Tina Sinatra confirmed it on that biography "All or Nothing at All". Well worth seeing if you want to know about Sinatra. Certainly not all glowing.

Joe Kennedy's stroke in December of 1961 incapacitated him which reduced his influence.

Then Bobby Kennedy goes after the Mob, despite their helping his brother get elected. Some people think if old Joe's health had been OK, he would have stopped Bobby from those actions.

Wiretaps on Mob guys recorded their conversations talking about killing Sinatra after Bobby's attacks because it was Sinatra who had vouched for the Kennedys and then was betrayed.

Hardly surprising Sinatra became angry with the Kennedys after their betrayal.

Barbara got the houses and a few investment properties (office buildings in LA), she got control of some of his music. I don’t understand it fully but the kids got the earlier Capitol catalogue, Barbara got some later stuff. Frank re-recorded some of the old Capitol catalogue meaning Barbara now owned those recordings so Tina sued her father to stop the release of the re-recordings. Tina is glossing over a lot in the Larry King interview. She’s blatantly lying actually, it was commmon knowledge the kids were not happy with the will and hated Barbara’s guts. In her defence blasting Barbara on Larry King a week after Frank’s burial was not going to be a good look for her when she was already getting bad press.

Christ, this is the best ever DL thread!!!!!

Thank you everyone! <3

R273, The family lawyer, Robert Finkelstein, joining Tina during that interview was sexy as fuck. He and Tina dated for a while after Frank's death.

I remember all the internecine fighting and bad blood between Barbara and the kids when Frank passed. It was pretty out in the open and being discussed on the news shows. Is anyone here able to write up a succinct summary of who got what in the will? r273 gives some details, which I believe is accurate, esp the part about his catalog being split.

It was pretty ballsy of Barbara to have her son 'adopted' basically by Zeppo during their marriage, then later try to talk Sinatra into adopting him when he was a middle aged adult! No wonder his own kids (Sinatra's) went crazy over the idea, and hated Barbara so much. Golddiggers Are Us.

So the kids got the earlier Columbia and Capitol recordings, and Barbara got the later Reprise ones?

I would think the Capital/Columbia catalogs have most of the value.

Tina definitely resembles her mother.

Bless her, the old bird lived to be 101.

From the Enquirer but juicy

To respond to my own post, I easily found a link to the LA Times from 1998, re Sinatra's will. He left Barbara $3.5 million in cash, all their homes (there were at least 5 of them), cars, books, paintings and silverware and 25% of his personal property. She also got rights and royalties to his "Trilogy" recordings from '79-'80, but no mention of the ever-important rest of his catalog. She did get the rights to market his name/likeness which gave her some power as that had value.

This kids got bequests and split his 'personal property'. The article mentions trust being previously set up, this is likely where the right/royalties for the rest of his catalog went.

LMFAO! Ryan Murphy can you get this on film for us?

“And the face-to-face meeting was a disaster from the moment they walked into the house," said the source. "When they got there, the first thing Barbara did was wave Frank's will in their faces -- and say tauntingly, 'Good for me -- bad for you!'

"Tina got into a huge fight with Barbara, ending up shouting at her -- then storming out of the house.

Nancy Jr is like her mother. Don't forget, Nancy made lots of money on her own. People always fight over money, but even with the whore Barbara Frank was very wealthy.

I posted about the jewelry and earlier about the CPA, but Frank up until practically the very end worked to make what it cost him a year to live and didn't need to touch his investments.

I seem to remember he left his son his recordings.

Also I believe he stipulated that if anyone contested his will, that they would automatically get nothing at all.

Exactly r282. When's the tv miniseries.

Link below to BBC story re Sinatra's estate which states that most of his recording rights - the bulk of the value of his estate - were already placed in living trusts for the kids by the time he passed.

This was Sinatra in 1943, not quite 30. Ronan Farrow is around the same age now and looks nothing like him.

Should clarify that the "Trilogy" recordings that Sinatra made in 1979, which did go to Barbara, including his infamous rendition of "New York, New York". So she and her heirs got that.

I live in Buffalo NY and pass this lady's old apartment almost everyday. She was a paralyzed woman who was confined to her bed and used to always wave out the window and chat with people who went by. Frank used to send her Christmas presents every year and flowers on her birthday. He even sent her a new mattress and a brand new TV. My mom says they eventually met but this is the only article I could find so far. I believe she died in 1999.

Ronan knows who his father is. And for all the Barbara hatred, they adore him.

Who is they r289, the Sinatra kids? I did a search and can only find Tina saying Frank had a vasectomy and wasn’t the father and a tweet from Nancy neither confirming nor denying. Nancy and Mia tweet at each other, I’m sure she’d give some DNA if Ronan wanted the truth.

Frank Sinatra's daughter Nancy has taken her dad's death so hard that alarmed friends and family fear she's becoming unhinged with grief.

Unable to sleep because she's haunted by memories of her father in his coffin, Nancy spends hours listening to his records, writing embarrassingly weepy tributes on her Internet web site -- and railing against her stepmother, Barbara Sinatra.

"Nancy badly needs counseling -- and she's not getting it," a family source told The ENQUIRER.

Her sister Tina grew furious at her elder sister's outpouring of grief on the web site -- where an out-of-control Nancy went so far as to plead with fans, "If there are typos etc., please understand that I am typing with tears in my eyes."

Disclosed the insider: "Finally family members sat Nancy down and told her, 'You're making the family look foolish. Show some dignity!'

"After that confrontation Nancy and Tina didn't talk for days." Nancy was her father's favorite, and in his final struggle for life she was closer to Ol' Blue Eyes than either Tina or her brother Frank Jr., say friends.

"After Frank's death, she spent hours at the mortuary every day, talking to her father and saying her farewells," disclosed the family source. "She was inconsolable."

Long after the funeral was over, Nancy told friends, "I can't close my eyes without seeing Dad lying in his casket. He was so thin and frail."

And her worried family felt 58-year-old Nancy was cracking when she decided to use the family web site to express her grief -- and began posting rambling "random memories" about her father's death, divulged the source.

"She typed them on her home computer -- as she listened to CDs of her father singing or ran a video of a Sinatra movie."

In a direct shot at Barbara -- whom a bitter Nancy felt should have contacted the Sinatra kids when their dad was dying -- she wrote on the web site, "I felt the heat of anger. Why had we not been told? Why did we not have the chance to kiss him one more time and help give his spirit the support it probably needed to propel itself forward to the light?"

Nancy also posted an eye-popping description of touching her late father's "cold hands" that made Tina, 49, hit the roof.

"Daddy was already cold," divulged Nancy. "He hated being cold. He hated being touched by cold hands, and now his were."

Revealed the source: "That was too much for Tina. Adding to Tina's fury was that while she was publicly denying a rift between the kids and Barbara, Nancy was letting slip details that confirmed the bitter feud."

Check out Nancy's Instagram. She posted an award Ronan won.

Ronan is not Sinatra's kid. Mia is batshit and vengeful. Her other kids hate her. Sinatra was not screwing Mia in 1987. Sinatra was not even fucking showgirls in 1987. Jack Daniels was his mistress.

Mia recently claimed Sinatra was the "love of her life." She didn't relate to him very well when she was 21. They were married for less than two years and spent a lot of that apart. But he always looked out for her, as he did with his other ex wives. Mia is in her mid seventies. Not heavy romance years. She's cray. It was a very good year....

Her childhood friend Liza will soon claim that Peter Allen was the great love of her life! Nancy Jr. and Mia are good friends too. Nancy is also quite crazy and very emotionally naive for 78 years old. It's only natural that she is pleased with Ronan's accomplishments. But Nancy Jr. would cuddle up with a dead man if he resembled her daddy.

Nancy Sinatra addresses the rumor about Mia Farrow's son, Ronan, being the son of Frank Sinatra: "Nonsense."

Thank you, Nancy. It is nonsense.

I own an auction catalog which some of Frank Sinatra's estate was auctioned off. He owned A HUGE COLLECTION of FABERGE!! So the poster who said Frank was worth 3 billion dollars makes sense because to own that many pieces of Carl Faberge, you have to be mega wealthy. Ever since I was a little kid I always wanted to own just one piece of Faberge, and here the guy had a vast collection!! I think I will cry now, LOL!

When Frank Sinatra died I was working in this antique store ,and one of the antique dealers was a lady who was from a very, very wealthy food dynasty. She was really great, and a very down to earth fun person. We were talking about Frank Sinatra's death and I said to her, the news reported what his children received from his estate and I 'm shocked because it wasn't as enormous as I thought they would receive. I figured Frank Sinatra was worth much, much more than what was reported at the time. She smiled and she said, you don't know how the rich and famous really leave their estate to their family. She said what he most likely did like most people in Frank Sinatra's level of wealth was he distributed the bulk of his children's inheritance to them when he was alive or rather very near the time of his death. That is how these type of highly wealthy people get around paying the clobbering estate taxes. She said therefore, what is reposted is not the real bulk of his family's inheritance ,but an amount of money to make people ,especially the IRS, think they really inherited and if they taxed that amount of money its not a big deal. She said the true inheritance will never be revealed to the public. She said no one will really know but the family.

BTW, Frank Sinatra took financial care of Ava Gardner till the day she died. She was broke and even though she and Frank weren't together anymore, he made sure she was taken care of because she was the love of his life. I saw pictures of her apartment in London, and let me tell you, it was super, super classic French elegance. She had gorgeous antique French furnishings and decorative arts. I wonder if Frank took all of her personal effects when she died because I guess he payed for everything.

Frank Jr. should've gone to law school or something. He was a prime example of a celebrity offspring who never should've tried for a show business career.

There's an Ava Gardner Museum in Smithfield, NC where many of her costumes and possessions and memorabilia are on display.

[quote]I posted about the jewelry and earlier about the CPA, but Frank up until practically the very end worked to make what it cost him a year to live and didn't need to touch his investments.

That was very smart on his part. Basically "I need to give X number of concerts per year to fund my lifestyle, without touching my investments, so that's what I'll do." And he did just that. Pretty brilliant.

[quote]Nancy and Mia tweet at each other, I’m sure she’d give some DNA if Ronan wanted the truth.

As has been said before, Ronan wouldn't really need to do a DNA match with any of the Sinatra family. He could just get his DNA tested on his own, and if it came back that he was 50% Italian, well BA-DA BING BABY!

It suits Ronan to leave it vague because he probably knows how much it pisses off Woody.

In 1982, I worked at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel, answering phones in Room Service. About 2:30 one afternoon, I got a call from Ava Gardner. In a somewhat slurred voice, she ordered breakfast. I complimented her, adding that I had recently seen “On the Beach,” adding I had always enjoyed her work in that film. She said, “Oh, thank you!” She was very sweet. (I don’t suppose at that point in her life she was getting too many compliments.)

When I gave the order to the Maitre D’, he explained that Mr. Sinatra maintained a suite in the Waldorf Towers, and that, whenever Ms. Gardner was in town, she was to be accorded every amenity. He was certainly devoted to her.

I'm not sure Frank was worth $3 billion, that might be pushing it. I can easily see close to $1B though.

Trusts hide the true amount of someone's worth. I would not doubt for a second that Frank Sinatra's estate is worth in the billion dollar range. Also, Nancy Sinatra Sr. received a nice percentage of his income per their divorce settlement. His children didn't mind because she was their mother and her estate would eventually become theirs. This was told to me by the son of Frank's press agent, Bud Granoff who was married to Nancy Sinatra's best friend the singer Kitty Kallen.

the overrated Morrissey struck up a friendship with Nancy and produced some new tracks for her - not sure if he wrote the songs, but if he did they would suck since he's never written a memorable melody in his life.

My grandparents and great aunts/great uncles were all of Sinatra's generation and he was like a god to them. And they weren't even Italian. When Sinatra died some of them were still living and it was like a death in the family.

Why the hate for Barbara? She was married to him for 22 years, the same as Nancy. Most of the hate and name calling seems to be based on things said or implied by two daughters. They didn't like any woman who got close to dad. If Sinatra hadn't wanted to be married to Barbara he would have gotten rid of her. I doubt Barbara enjoyed taking care of a sick old man who ended up with dementia.

R303, One of Nancy, Sr.'s closest friends was Barbara Stanwyck.

R306, you are talking out your ass. Nobody liked Barbara, even her friends.. The girls love Mia and Ronan.

Barbara was a whore. She lied, cheated and stole what she could but fortunately Frank had great financial advisors.

She belongs in the BJ Hall if Fame with Nancy Reagan.

Look at what a great big tall dyke stanwyck is compared to nancy!

r70 it does boil down to personal taste but Sinatra is nothing compared to Tony Bennett. Sinatra had the better song book and bigger name due to Hollywood though.

Bennett was Sinatra's favorite singer.

Isn't Tony mob connected too? He sang at all their shindigs.

I am really enjoying this thread, I'm learning so much! Thank you to all the posters!

[quote]The Gardner-Sinatra marriage was tumultuous. Gardner confided to Artie Shaw, her second husband, that, "With him [Frank], it's impossible... It's like being with a woman. He's so gentle. It's as though he thinks I'll break, as though I'm a piece of Dresden china, and he's gonna hurt me."[11] During their marriage, Gardner became pregnant twice, but aborted both pregnancies. "MGM had all sorts of penalty clauses about their stars having babies", according to her autobiography, which was published 8 months after her death.[12]

11. Kaplan, James, Frank The Voice, Doubleday, 2010, p. 416

12. Gardner, Ava. Ava: My Story. New York: Bantam, 1990.

Nancy Sr. never remarried, and she was only in her early 30s when she and Frank got divorced. Never was linked to another man for the rest of her life. VERY good friends with Barbara Stanwyck. Hmmm....

R309, Barbara Stanwyck was 5'5" tall.

R314, Nancy Sr. was Ross Hunter's beard for years.

R243 Re Ava, Elizabeth or Vivian? I'm speaking looks alone. Not personality, sex appeal or body but strictly beauty of face.

For shear symmetry of features, I'd give a slight edge to Elizabeth. Plus she had those jewel tone eyes.

Overview of Frank Jr.'s 1963 kidnapping, including Nancy Sr., Frank Jr. and Tina dealing with the media after his release.

Why did Ava dump Frank?

If you read the book by Sinatra's manager, Sinatra may have had a lot of earning power but he spent recklessly--at least a million dollars a year. The incessant touring when he was past his better days was the one way to ensure Sinatra was able to maintain the extravagant lifestyle he'd become accustomed to. This is why the Duets albums were so important to Barbara---and why they propped up a senile Sinatra in front of a microphone and tried to coax usable recordings out of him.

Barbara Marx wasn’t all that. Why did Sinatra marry her?

She had a vag like a snapping turtle, could suck the finish off silver plate and was up for anal.

When did Sinatra finally stop doing concerts? I know they kept sending him out on tour long past the time he should have retired.

After he collapsed onstage in March '94, it became clear the end was near. He finished out the year, and gave one last performance at his golf invitational in February of 1995. They tried everything to cope with his failing eyesight, hearing, and memory--at one point they considered an earpiece to feed him the lyrics. He definitely should have packed it in for good around 1986-7.

Frank Jr. tried getting him into the studio to record an album in 1988. The session was a disaster. Sinatra was confused by the arrangement and kept coming in early. It took close to twenty takes to get a usable track. Sinatra took home a tape, listened to it, and canceled the project.

Thank you r324. I knew somebody would know the answer.

I've heard stories of Sinatra forgetting lyrics in concert and using giant cue cards that were visible to the audience and this was happening as far back as the late 70s or early 80s. He went on for MUCH longer than he should have.

There were apparently problems when he recorded the Duets albums, apparently he was so out of it by then they could only record him doing one phrase at a time and they had to splice it all together. Many, if not most, of his Duet partners recorded their tracks separately.

I recall a story where Frank was singing into the wrong end of the microphone. He was holding it upside down.

Frank Jr figured he woukd realize it, but no. After about a ninety seconds, Frank Jr sent a tech person out with a new microphone, as if the one Frank had been holding upside down was faulty.

Perhaps it's mentioned upthread, so forgive me if I'm repeating:

In addition to Peter Lawford, Frank also turned against Joey Bishop and banned him from the rat pack. Bishop always claimed "I had no idea what I'd done"! Anyone know the reason?

On the front gate of Frank's Palm Springs house was a notice reading, "if you haven't been invited, you better have a damn good reason for ringing this bell".

R325, the first night of the recording session, Frank had a panic attack upon seeing the special recording booth they had set up. The second night, he refused to sing, complaining about his throat. It wasn't until they set him up with a hand-held mike and made it seem like a live performance that he was able to feel comfortable enough to record. They recorded whole songs though--not line by line. I've heard the raw solo tracks. Ultimately though they used a lot of vocal tracks from live performances.

Sinatra bitched about Streisand insisting that she use "Francis", which required him to go in and re-record "my Barbra" on their "I've Got a Crush on You."

Iirc, a sound engineer on the project spilled that little nugget.

I'm sure everybody on here has seen this, but I'll post it anyway - the excellent HBO documentary from a few years ago called "Sinatra: All Or Nothing At All"

Here's part 1 -

"Sinatra: All Or Nothing At All" Part 2 -

My mother was a girl in Hoboken in the 30s and 40s. She never liked Sinatra calling him a gavone. Dialect for cafone. She saw him as nothing but a low class Italian acting like a thug and his voice did nothing for her. As opposed to an aunt who adored him until Hoboken gave a parade in his honor and he didn't show. After that she had no use for him. They gave another parade for him and he did show but by then the damage was done.

I was when very young able to speak to a couple of old Italians who were older than my mother and they claimed that Sinatra really hated the town because he was a real misfit as a kid cruelly mocked and made fun of by his peers. Which is why maybe he himself idolized mobsters and turned into such a nasty bully himself when he achieved success. Kind of like Streisand. Treating people horribly with occasional acts of kindness. Supreme narcissism borne of self loathing and having the money and power to kick people around.

Something I see never discussed about Dolly and hasn't been mentioned yet, maybe it's in the Kelly book?, but she was also a midwife. In other words she was a very ambitious politically well connected woman in her small pond who was looking out for the poor immigrant Italian women coming into Hoboken. She was getting them abortions when they were having another mouth to feed which was a head spinning catastrophe when there wasn't enough money to feed the children you had and also coming to women's homes to help them give birth. Pretty progressive.

Sinatra despised Hoboken and wanted out from the poverty and unhappy memories. Now ironically only those with many millions can afford the town. And those narrow cramped railroad flats where if you raised the rent $5 you would have a shitstorm on your hands go for close to 2k a month or converted into a 'luxury' condo would go for half a million at the very least. And no parking! Those old Italians who didn't run to the suburbs but bought property for a few thousand a building made their children very wealthy.

Funny to think that Hoboken, of all places, is now an upper-class area full of hipsters and foreigners with money.

Your mother had bad taste R332. Few singers have risen on sheer vocal talent alone. Sinatra and Streisand (as much as I dislike her singing) both did. Sinatra was a student of the best jazz singers, was a young pop sensation and over decades just got better. Strip away the legend and he is still a great stylist and singer. Babra was given a Stradivarius golden voice that she didn't enjoy but knew how to value. But they both were gavone: rude, coarse, uneducated. Crude.

It's fascinating to me that Sinatra's and Streisand's paths crossed only rarely over more than 30 years of sharing the limelight. For all their similarities, they seemed to steer clear of one another. I think there've only been two photographs of the two together.

1964

Early 90s

R304 Morrissey has never written a memorable melody? Puhleeease.

There's a reversal of fortunateness between the photos at R336 and R337. Thanks or posting.

Streisand is such an asshole but I bet she respected Sinatra. He was a very emotional singer for a man. Not fake vocal emotion - the real thing.

Bennett achieved something different with Aretha. Neither of them sound their best, but it's kind of heartbreaking. They weren't afraid to be beautiful.

Frank hated ugly dames. No wonder he didn't care for Barbra.

People who had ugly run ins with Sinatra could no longer listen to his voice. My mother knew he was a wop with a big chip on his shoulder with a nasty temper. She knew his type. My aunt who when he gave a big fuck you to Hoboken no longer listened to him.

I adore early Sondheim but when I was waiting to get his autograph he turned with such a fury on the guy in front of me who just wanted him to sign his Into the Woods cd. I was with a friend and we immediately turned on our heels and walked away. Had he turned on me like that I wouldn't have been able to listen to my beloved recordings of his obcs again. Dominick Dunne couldn't listen to Sinatra. Sometimes you can't separate the artist from the art especially if their of your own time.

I love Streisand's early recordings before she became a total studio /Hollywood product but I get no pleasure hearing how she is such a shit to people except when she's on plugola alley. And then she's such a mensch.

Frank Sinatra used to love to listen to stories the mob told him how they murdered people. He wanted them to tell him in gory detail.

I have a feeling Frank hated Dominick Dunne because Dunne was a closet homo and homos were one of the things that Frank hated to the point it disgusted him.

Frank's mother was a horrible person. She was one tough broad. She would black mail politicians because she had the dirt on them because girls who had sex with them went to Dolly to get an abortion.Dolly was able to buy the best for her only child Frank and shower him with luxury from the abortion business, but mainly blackmail.

Meh I wouldn’t call that a horrible person but an enterprising one. Had I been born in her era and circumstances I would have done the same.

'if they're of your own time' ugh

And I think he's a great artist. I have a number of his lps. Really lps. He has the most phonogenic voice and his uncanny instinctive phrasing is beyond compare. The Callas of pop music. Saw him twice in Carnegie from a fairly close seat on a side tier. He still had the goods. Shearing opened for him.

I read Dunne's essay where, about Sinatra, he wrote "I hated the man". I can't recall if that was published in VF, or elsewhere.

As a previous poster alluded to, Sinatra publicly humiliated Dunne and his wife at a restaurant or party. Iirc, Dunne said it wasn't only for himself that he hated him, but moreso that Sinatra so deeply humiliated his wife.

Sinatra is definitely one of those cases where I have to separate the artist from the man. I love him as an artist, but as a person he was a real shit. A thug and a bully. Yes, I know he could be generous and did some good things, but overall he was terrible. That doesn't reflect my opinion of his talent, though.

The poster who stated more detail about Marilyn and Cal Nevada lodge incident is heart breaking. I knew Frank brought Marilyn to his Cal Nevada lodge, and didn't tell her the horror what was instore for her. But, I didn't realize it was to such an intense degree. She was gang raped for 2 days by a large group of mobsters? And Frank brought her to his lodge so his mob buddies could rape her? that bastard! That poor lady her life was complete HELL. When Marilyn Monroe was a little kid she was repeatedly molested by different foster fathers. Then she gets raped again! UGH!! That is really painful and so sad. She died right near the time this happened. I wonder if Marilyn really did commit suicide because of this? What a mess!

I am aware that Marilyn had A LOT of affairs with men because she looking for love and validation from men. Not only was she bi-polar, from what I have heard she was emotionally and psychologically wounded ,and then out of all the places to be in that horrible condition, HOLLYWOOD!! She didn't stand a chance. The men saw a golden opportunity to take advantage of someone who was very damaged.

I remember Debbie Reynolds once said in an interview she said to Marilyn, look, the Kennedys and all of these others are no good and you should stay way from them. Marilyn said, but they are my friends, and they care about me.

R346, yes, I too see it that way.

They used many, many real life mafia in the Godfather. One of the real life mobsters who acted in the Godfather just came out with an autobiography. He said he dated Marilyn Monroe when he was really young ,and he was at Cal Nevada lodge when the rape happened to Marilyn Monroe. He also claims he knows who murdered her.Apparently he had affairs with many actresses. He has a lot of gossip in the book of many other things as well. I think he talks about Frank Sinatra. I just ordered his book from the library and its waiting for me. I can't wait to read it!

BTW, a lot of people on Amazon are leaving comments that they don't believe him, and they think he is embellishing the facts or lying. How the hell do they know he is lying? When I read it I will take it with a grain of salt of course.

I Posted The Book Link In Case If Anyone Might Be Interested In Getting The Book And Reading It.

Apologies if this has been posted upthread, but in the light of that repulsive Marilyn story any put-down of Sinatra bears repeating.

Recently read somewhere that Sinatra finally engineered a meeting with The Pope of his day. Not an audience, but some reception.

Sinatra was introduced to him as a singer. The Pope had no idea who he was, but asked what operas he had appeared in? Delicious (doubtless innocent) put-down.

Despite that stellar progress from Hoboken, Sinatra had no status at The Vatican. No Domingo or Pavarotti he. He'd surely wanted more from the longed-for meeting.

Wasn’t it called the Cal-Neva Lodge?

Even the most powerful, feared and connected people end up as sad recluses whose power and influence have evaporated with age, time and younger generations taking over. Sinatra is an excellent example of that.

Nothing lasts forever.

[quote]I read in a bio on Monty Clift that Sinatra had him thrown out of his house. He threw a party for the cast of FROM HERE TO ETERNITY and a drunken Monty allegedly made a pass at a male party member. Frank was appalled and allegedly got his goons to bodily throw Monty out and I am not sure if they ever spoke again after that.

This is funny, as Frank's character in From Here to Eternity had gay sex in Honolulu for drinks/cash (in the book, not the film).

[quote]Streisand is such an asshole but I bet she respected Sinatra.

She used to dismiss him as a "saloon singer" whenever her manager tried to talk her into singing with him.

Apparently, she relented before Sinatra died.

The only reason the very competitive Streisand finally decided to duet with Sinatra was because he had lost his voice and she still had hers. She enjoyed swooping around him, showing off.

What does Babs do now that her voice is gone, and it really is gone now.?

R355, She's about to perform in concert in the UK.

Suggest R355 you listen to the tracks Lady Liberty and Take Care of This House on her latest CD and claim she has no voice left. Pretty much still the best their is. She made that crack about Sinatra when she was about 19- imagine being 19 or 20 and taking the entertainment world by storm... I think she matured to understate since then and appreciated Sinatra, who definitely was a fan of hers. Me: I think Sinatra was a great singer and an absolute thug.

Will Babs also come to Europe?

Upcoming concerts (1)

Sunday 07 July 2019

Barbra Streisand

Hyde Park, London, UK

Streisand has never been all that popular in continental Europe. Of course people know who she is, but she's never been the superstar she is in the US.

Get seats far back. No need to see that face.

I know opinion are like assholes, everyone has one. But, that whole gang rape of Marilyn sounds false or exaggerated

R362 it's been around for years; the version I heard two black bodyguards were also involved. Doesn't make it true, but I'm inclined to believe it

I don't believe it. In fact I think it is nonsense. Sinatra would not let that happen to a woman he knew and liked. I do believe that he may have set it up for Giancana to screw Marilyn. But not a two day gangbang. She would be hospitalized if that ever happened. Marilyn was, by most accounts in pretty good spirits in the two months before she died. The story is unnecessarily salacious.

There are lots of tales about the rat pack with hookers giving blow jobs all night under the table while they played poker or when they sweat out last nights booze in the sauna. Sinatra was no doubt a pig. So is Jack Nicholson.

Nicholson is born again these days.

You mean as in found Jesus for himself r365? for real?

Will Barbra ever find Jesus? Before it's too late. She has sinned against the world and plans to do it again in July.

[quote]the version I heard two black bodyguards were also involved

Nigerian, perchance?

I think R365 is trippin'...

[quote]During a 1992 Vanity Fair interview, Nicholson stated, "I don't believe in God now. I can still work up an envy for someone who has a faith. I can see how that could be a deeply soothing experience."

R368 bravo! I read your response and laughed out loud! Well done!

Barbra Streisand? R367 your comment sounds nuts. And R365, no way has Nicholson found Jesus!

R361, Ya think?

Is it true that the $100 Babs tickets are for standing room?

This is *the* best thread currently on DL and one of the best DL threads EVER!!!!

I love you guys; thank you so much to all who are contributing/have contributed and commented so far!

I am more than halfway through but there is just *so* much awesome and juicy stuff here, I have been up reading it all night and can’t get through it all in one sitting. I’m forcing myself to get some sleep now before work...

I just wanted to say thank you and that I can’t wait to read more tonight; I’m fascinated and enthralled by this thread. Love, love, love it!!

Here's an interesting article: "Frank Sinatra: How did he make it to 82?"

From the article:

[quote]It’s interesting that late in life he did put on some weight and started looking fuller, although I’m sure it wasn’t muscle. However, I learned that a doctor had put him on Elavil, which is a tricyclic antidepressant that is rarely prescribed any more. It’s a very nasty drug, and one of the side effects of Elavil is weight gain- substantial weight gain. Note that his face got very round. That's a common side effect of Elavil.

That’s interesting. Everything I’ve read about his last decade sounds so sad and depressing so it’s no wonder he was actually depressed. The weight gain didn’t seem that much of a red flag though because the majority of men get fat in old age. In one of the articles posted earlier in the thread there’s an anecdote that sums up his fall from power. It says he sat in his hospital bed helplessly watching as Nancy Jr was restrained by a nurse from physically assaulting her step mother. Karma got him in the end. He would have been better off if he never married Barbara, dated young chippies until he got too old even for that and then enjoyed his granddaughters and played some golf.

Wow, I never knew it got so bad that Nancy had to be restrained! Jesus, Barbara was really the gold-digging whore of all time.

Natalie Wood enjoyed riding the Sinatra sausage for a while.

The Bootlegger Joe Kennedy had Marilyn Monroe RUBBED OUT because both Kennedy brothers were fucking here and she was going to tell!

R379, Old Joe was a vegetable in a wheelchair in 1962.

R380

You're welcome!

Marilyn was murdered with full government/media coverup co-opertion. It was not possible without that full approval/cooperation. So it was on the Federal and state and city level

This thread is like DL in the old days.

[R378] Sinatra was one of Natalie Wood's pallbearers.

Xxxx

R385, such a riveting post.

I love this thread sooooo much! I really hope we can complete it and there is a part 2 and 3.

Thank you so much everybody for the great stories. I would love to hear anything more about Ava Gardner because I adore her too and her 19 (!!!!) inch waist!

I wonder how Barbara felt about Frank taking care of Ava in Ava's last years.

If Frank was that close to Natalie Wood, I'm surprised Robert Wagner survived her tragic death.

In Eliot Weisman's (Sinatra's manager at the end of his career) memoir, he mentions the battles over Elavil. It was clear that it had a terrible effect on Sinatra. And yet Sinatra continued to take it. They even had an intervention of sorts to convince Sinatra to stop taking the drug, but all Sinatra could do was just weep. Barbara objected to his being taken off the drug because the withdrawal could cause him to have a psychotic break. They wouldn't take him off the road. It sounds like a terrible end, and for the life of me, I don't understand how Sinatra could have been blackmailed into continuing to take a drug that was turning him into a vegetable. Whatever the man's faults, that's a shitty way to end it.

[post redacted because linking to dailymail.co.uk clearly indicates that the poster is either a troll or an idiot (probably both, honestly.) Our advice is that you just ignore this poster but whatever you do, don't click on any link to this putrid rag.]

I wonder if the Elavil contributed to the dementia or senility or whatever he had in the last years. I don't believe the drug is given anymore because of the awful side effects.

Yes, they kept sending him out on the road when he was very diminished, both mentally and vocally. He should've been at home in Palm Springs in a very comfortable retirement. But too many people were getting lots of money off of Sinatra being on tour.

Dear R391 oh thank you, yes I have read it!

Have you seen Ava on What’s My Line ? Frank and Mia were on it too, but I would love to have seen Frank and Ava together! (Well I don’t think they appeared together...I have only seen what’s my line on YouTube as I’m 29!)

Yes R393. Ava was something else. We can feel her sexual energy and great allure all these years later. Such a beautiful woman.

Thank you R394!

Here is the link to Frank and Mia on WML. It’s pretty sweet even if Mia does look like his teenage daughter, oh dear.

I also call bullshit on the Marilyn gang rape.

No mention of Dean Martin yet. Sinatra and Dean were considered best of friends. Dean seemed to be the total opposite of Sinatra. Tall dark and handsome. A sweet and kind man who liked his privacy. Martin also had a huge Movie and TV career. I never really read any bad gossip him.

R389, Actually, Sinatra used his power to pressure the then coroner to be fired.

"In suspending Noguchi, Supervisor Kenneth Hahn said the board was reacting to a stream of letters and telegrams -- 'all negative' - calling for the firing of Noguchi. Sinatra's letter was released to reporters.

'I am particularly disturbed by Dr. Noguchi's constant seeking of headlines and publicity for himself in investigations involving entertainers and other well-known individuals,' Sinatra said.

The Board of Supervisors voted unanimously Thursday to suspend Noguchi for 30 days, effective next Friday, pending completion of the county's investigation into alleged mismanagement and misuse of the coroner's office.

Noguchi, 55, the basis for the 'Quincy' television series, has been harshly criticized by the supervisors for his 'sensationalized and editorialized' statements about the deaths of celebrities such as actors William Holden and Natalie Wood."

R389, Frank fucked Wagner's current wife, Jill St. John, back in the 1960s.

R397 I remember reading Shirley MacLaine's memoir about her Rat Pack years in which she described how Dean Martin managed to float above the milieu with a special status accorded to only certain people, that of "menefreghista"...

[quote]Getting to know Dean was another story [than getting to know Jerry]. The words that come to mind are those that describe a person cut off from feeling – purposefully cut off. Perhaps that was why he seemed so devil-may-care and so coolly casual. The Italians, I later learned, had a more apt word for it, menefreghista, which means “one who does not give a fuck.” Dean Martin was basically a menefreghista.

Dean Martin used to have dinner with ex Jeannie and the family every Sunday night at Hamburger Hamlet on Sunset. In fact, Nancy and her mom were there all the time as well.

The last few years of his life were kind of sad. He would be at dinner by himself, forgetful but still willing to pose for pictures. I remember one night he had taken out his teeth and couldn't find them. The servers looked everywhere, including going through the dumpster. It turned out he had wrapped them in a napkin and was sitting on them.

Is this what poor Britney can look forward to?

Did Shirley sleep with Frank? I can’t imagine that coupling for some reason. She was super cute in her prime but no sex appeal.

Some boring facts for you antidepressant queens:

Elavil, aka amitriptyline, is still a major antidepressant, in the top 100 prescribed drugs in the US. It's on the world health org's essential medications list. It has many medical uses other than as an antidepressant.

It's not clear why Frank would want to take this medication. It's not very interesting. It tends to make one feel sedated similar to benadryl. It doesn't make you feel buzzed or high. It can cause confusion, esp. in older adults (like Frank when he took it).

But the freak out about Frank becoming deranged from Elavil seems exaggerated. It's possible he was on other meds too, or was drinking.

R403 According to her memoir, she had a huge crush on Dean and went to his house like a lovesick puppy to proclaim her love. When she got there he invited her in amidst his wife and five kids, sat her down in his study to hear what she had to say like a concerned father and she ultimately chickened out.

Footage of Frank lying his ass off to get a casino license. His toupee looks like a yarmulke. The 1962 Giancana visit to Cal Neva is briefly mentioned too.

Sidebar - How come nobody ever killed that Exner broad? Nothing worse than an old whore with a grudge, right Frank?

Sinatra was jealous of Martin's natural comedic skills.

I find the whole "Rat-Pack" thing cringe-inducing.

r404, I'm sure it wasn't lost on Barbara that it took the edge off his aggression. Fascinating, thanks for sharing your perspective.

Dean Martin basically lost the will to live after his son was killed in that plane crash.

I remember Tina Sinatra talking about the last time Frank and Dean saw each other. They met for dinner at Da Vinci or DeMatteo's. Dean couldn't hear Frank, so Frank took out his hearing aid and gave it to Dean, and then Frank couldn't hear Dean. Frank threw pieces of bread at Dean to try to get a rise out of him, but Dean was just tired. The dinner kind of sputtered on with the two basically unable to really communicate meaningfully. When they parted, Dean told Frank, "don't come back."

Shirley MacLaine had sex with A LOT of men. Shirley and her brother Warren Beatty must have had a screwed up brings because both seem like they were sex addicts.She said that the Rat Pack protected her affairs with various guys from the press. This BS oh I had a little crush on Frank ,but that was it, I don't buy. I think she had sex with those guys at least to show appreciation to them.

Joey Bishop really didn't care too much for the Rat Pack stuff. What he loved the most was being home, and eating his dinner in front of the TV. Also, he wasn't the type that was in to having a lot sex with various girls. I think he was more of a family guy.

I once herd Dean Martin got off being filmed while having sex with various girls. Dean Martin was extremely connected with the mafia. However, the difference between Dean Martin and Frank when it came to the mafia, was Frank loved the mob but Dean didn't. The mob helped Dean get his career off the ground, and Dean owed them. He was stuck and I think he didn't like it. In fact Dean's son said his father told him, never owe anyone anything because you will regret it. His son said he knew what he meant by that. I worked with a lady whose daughter was a manger at a concert hall. This lady told me she met everyone ,and she said Dean Martin was a real people person. He would get into a conversation with anyone. She said you could be the janitor ,and he would get into a conversation with you. He wasn't stuck up with his nose up in the air.

I think a poster on this thread mentioned this already, but Ava was the type of lady which there was no BS with her. She was straight forward and down to earth. Liz Taylor who is considered one of the most beautiful women in history once said, Ava is the most beautiful woman I had ever seen and working and living in Hollywood I have seen A LOT.

BTW, talking about Liz, there has been some rumors in various books and other sources that Liz and Marilyn once had a sexual fling. Apparently Liz said Marilyn was thee most sensual woman she ever met.

Natalie Wood was Frank's mistress for a while. I think her evil mother pushed her into it because she thought it would be good for her career,and you never said no to Frank.

Eldersister Warren Beatty cruised us about 20 years ago in a restaurant in Bel Air, probably near where she lives. She was dining with an ugly fish, btw. We were alone at the next table. Needless to say we declined the attentia.

Robert Wagner dated Tina Sinatra but remained close to Frank and Barbara, he gave a eulogy at Barbara Sinatra’s funeral.

OP- Thanks, I've thoroughly enjoyed this thread.

That WML clip was interesting. Mia Farrow was so sweet looking. Arlene Frances is wonderful

You could tell from that clip that Frank was use to having people kowtow to him.

That toupee was horrible

R401 remember that vile grifter that sunk her hooks into Robert Blake with a baby and then she was disposed of? One of the celebs she was trying to work was Dean at the end of his life. I saw a photo of the two of them during the coverage of her murder but it doesn't seem to be online anymore

R360, then why do her late career concerts sell out in minutes and her CDs go to the top of charts in Europe. And why did France give her it's highest award in the arts?

No, Streisand has never been a huge superstar in the UK or Europe. She's well-known as an American celeb, but not at the level she is in the US.

Agree, she is a name most people over 40 would recognise and she’s considered a great talent but no where near the level of fame she has in the US. There’s a bit of a scandal in Ireland at the moment because (gay) Irish leader Leo Varadkar used his position to send Kylie Minogie a fan letter offering to welcome her to Ireland. Unfortunately, Kylie Minogue is a superstar to European gays moreso than Barbara and that’s embarrassing. With straight people she’s lumped in with Cher and Tina Turner. Her way of life would be very offputting to most Europeans too. I do recall an Oprah expisode airing that showcased ghe mall in her house and the consensus around the office was that it was disgusting, gauche and showed she cane from nothing - in Europe the latter is an insult, in the US I think it’s a plus.

Sinatra is also not the God in Europe he is in the US either. Elvis has remained far more popular. I know young Europeans who will go to Nashville to see Graceland but I don’t believe they would know anything about Sinatra beyond being able to put the name to the face (as it looked at his prime). His death didn’t make much impact here.

R419, then explain my comment at 417. And offer some proof, Her concerts and CDs and even the lousy Focker movies have gone to the top of charts and box office in Europe. Those Focker movies made her more money abroad then any of he movies most think she is famous for in the US (Funny Girl, Way We Were, What's Up Doc etc.)

r420, see r419. Barbara certainly has an audience in Europe, but she's not a major star like she is here.

BTW have you looked at the top of the charts in recent years? People you have never heard of a day in your life go to #1 now.

Those Focker movies were ensembles, Barbra wasn't the star. And they were marketed as family-oriented comedies.

I’m R419 There is no explanation needed. She has an audience, she is known. She is not a mega superstar, major gay icon and not someone that is talked about all that much. If she did a European tour I have no doubt she would sell out, as would Cher and Tina Turner but she’s wouldn’t get the type or press and fawning she gets in the US. Liza is another who isn’t regarded as highly in Europe as she is in the US. As someone who travels frequently between the two I have often wondered why certain celebrities can’t translate their US fame to Europe to the same extent. I think there are many factors.

Dean Martin is one man who said he wanted to break all connections with the mafia and survived it. He told them he appreciated his help, but he had a family, but he wanted out. He said if they had to kill him, then kill him. He wasn't changing his mind. Apparently, they left him alone.

R424 Yes, he stood up to the mob because of that "IDGAF" quality. Good for him.

"Sinatra and Dean were considered best of friends."

Like I said above, for most of the Rat Pack, friendship with Sinatra must have been as much as a curse as a blessing. Once you were in with Sinatra you had to dance to his tune, or he'd destroy you the way he destroyed Peter Lawford and others who failed to please him. But Martin was different, he didn't need Sinatra.

He didn't need Sinatra's help with his career, he didn't need an alpha male to worship, and it seems he was one of those self-contained people who didn't *need* anyone else. So his friendship with Sinatra would have been that of equals or near equals, people who could enjoy each other's company with no dependence or bullying. Which must have been an exception for Sinatra, he obviously liked to completely dominate his friends and relatives. But the love of his life and his best friend were people who wouldn't let him pull that shit, at least he could accept a relationship where he wasn't the boss. The highest class of assholes can't, which I suppose makes Sinatra... 98% asshole.

Why did they hate Barbara so much? Did they feel she exploited Frank?

R419 Graceland is in Memphis not Nashville.

Barbara Marx Sinatra was an agent of Karma.

After a lifetime of bullying and dominating everyone around him, Sinatra found out what it was like to be bullied, dominated, manipulated, and abused.

The New York Pulic Library had an entertaining Sinatra exhibit. I was shocked that he was so tiny. It's hard to see from the photos but his tuxedo and especially the cowboy outfit were almost Prince-size except the legs were longer. His thighs were incredibly small.

There was a sound booth where you go to sing "New York, New York," a mixing console where you got to mix a song, and a fun recreation of the Hollywood sound studio where he recorded a lot of his songs. The studio scene had a fake glass of Jack Daniels w/ phony ice cubes).

I wished that there had been more stuff about Ava Gardner but his kids sponsored this exhibit so there wasn't much of Ava only Nancy Sr. He liked to paint and there was a section that had his paintings. Boy, they were pretty awful.

I especially liked his elegant calling cards/stationery notes and ukelele. I've seen his mugshot a million times but it was sobering to see it in the exhibit. Can you imagine the days when adultry was illegal?!

I knew someone who was friends with Sinatra and Dean Martin. Dean sounds like he genuinely was a really nice guy.

OT...wow I was prescribed amitriptyline 3 weeks ago. Only 10mg daily for esophageal spasms. I haven't noticed my GI issues improving but have had constipation and morning fogginess. I take the the pill at night and even after 7-8 hours of sleep, it's really difficult to get out of bed.

I'm going to look out for weight gain and the moon face...any sign and I'm going to ask the doctor for something else.

This might have been posted earlier. you can rent Sinatra's house, Twin Palms, in Palm Springs.

Sinatra's own mother openly referred to Barbara as a whore.

I bet she pronounced it "who-wer" like a lot of the old-timers did.

Nancy has ranted about the Palm Springs house on Twitter. I can’t recall the content now but she was again blaming Barbara for destroying it in some way.

I think I really noticed how diminutive a young Frank was when he sang with Ethel Merman. He is lost in the costume and you just want to sit him down and feed him a few bowls of pasta.

OT but does anyone know anything about the singer Al Martino who was of that era. I’ve been following his daughter on Instagram and she has a similar obsession with him that NancyJr has with Frank. Had he any involvement with Frank or the rat pack? What about Tony Bennett, was he in Frank’s circle at all.

David Janssen’s wife, the first one, claimed to have aborted Frank Sinatra’s baby.

Ava was a slut but Barbara was a whore. Because whores get paid. I'm sure Barbara Sinatra was a gold digger and controlling lady of the compound. But Sinatra was not weak or senile when he married her. He chose her instead of Melania or an Asian Nurse. She catered to him. He didn't marry his fortunes that easily. He wanted the right wife for the Reagan, semi respectable society and philanthropic years of his career. Barbara wasn't even pretty. I don't feel sorry for Sinatra that he ended up in a loveless marriage to a greedy bitch that cost him hundreds of millions. Barbara Marx put up with him for 20 years. The whore earned it.

I just looked up Frank’s height. It said 5’8”. Which probably means he was closer to 5’6”

And Judy Garland was 4’11? Never knew she was so tiny

The father/daughter relationship is interesting to me as someone without sisters. I just can’t imagine a man (let’s say, Bette Davis’s son) talking about Bette the way the Sinatra sisters talk about Frank. A man writing those tweets, giving those interviews, assaulting his step father would be considered a total loon and possibly a pervert. Alison Martino is another one who never stops talking about daddy and going back to all his old haunts, living in the past, unable to let go. Natalie Cole was hologramming her father into countless duets. Heck, DLs most hated Moogan McCain can’t go a day without bringing up daddy and writing love notes to him on Twitter.

I don’t get it. I always thought I’d prefer a daughter if I ever adopt a child but then I look at these type of relationships and think I wouldn’t want my daughter to get THAT kind of close to me. I would be creeped out.

Al Martino played the Sinatra-like Johnny Fontane in "The Godfather," so I'm sure there was no love lost between them.

I never knew Sinatra was that short. For some reason I always thought he was around 5'11".

The irony is that Al Martino was far more mob-owned than Sinatra ever was.

Was Al Martino the one with the horse's head in his bed?

Natalie Cole was a teenager when her father died. In a long troubled life, she proved to be just as talented as her father. The only thing incestuous was the marketing of her most excellent album. "Unforgettable." Natalie was legit in every way and more than ready to sing those classic songs. She had already proved herself a threat to Aretha, admired by Ella and a full on dance diva top 40 pop sensation. What a voice. One of the great singers of the last 40 years.

Nancy and Tina Sinatra are another story. They aren't bad people but their closeness to their father was a bit weird. Nancy was 77 years old when her mother died. Not many spoiled girls have that kind of closeness with parents for so long in life. Her daddy fixation would be creepy no matter when he died. But to love your parents deeply and demonstrably is not unusual for Italians, Jews and Black people. The old saying is true: you won't fully grow up until your parents are dead.

I'm almost thru reading the book that kicked off this thread, by Sinatra's former valet George Jacobs (I'm at r254). Have to say this book DELIVERS everything promised here. By far one of the most entertaining books about Hollywood, and I've read plenty. Every poster at DL who fancies themselves a celeb gossip fan should read this.

Sinatra's contradictions were a real and seen by everyone who knew him. He loved hookers, but treated them better than some of his exes - the 'honest whore' theory was real for him. He did have an affair with a very young (possibly underaged) Natalie Wood, but that morphed into a mentor/avuncular type of thing and they were friends for life; he even pushed her towards Robert Wagner whom he liked.

He took lifelong care of Ava, til the end. r388 mentions how Barbara took it. She really had no choice, and was probably ok as she'd done the same for her ex Zeppo Marx at the end of his life, caring for him while he battled cancer alone in Palm Springs, down the street from her and Sinatra.

All the Sinatra kids but esp Nancy Jr were very close to both their parents, as mentioned it was the old Italian close family way of things that both Frank and Nancy Sr. kept even long after leaving Hoboken. Sinatra himself was a spoiled only child, and spoiled his kids accordingly.

The story of Nancy Jr tussling with Barbara in Frank's hospital room is sad but highlights how bitter things were between her and his kids. I tend to blame Barbara, since by all accounts the Sinatra kids had great relations with both Ava and Mia, even after they divorced their Dad. It still isn't obvious to me how he ended up married to her for so long.

[quote]It still isn't obvious to me how he ended up married to her for so long.

As others have said, he was old and tired and past the point of starting over. He just dealt with it. I also think it was somewhat bearable for him because they had separate groups of friends, and several residences, so they weren't together 24/7.

The girls really did get their asses handed to them by Barbara. They allowed themselves to be alienated from their father because of their antipathy for Barbara--essentially isolating him further.

R433 Well, Franks' mother was called "Hat Pin Dolly" due to the rumor that she performed back-alley abortions. Some think that is where Frank's compulsive hand-washing came from --- his shame of at what his mother did.

r447 if Sinatra hadn't allowed that situation to get so out of control it wouldn't have. He basically owned Barbara and held the reins there. He let her dominate, and the kids probably couldn't take being around it. She allegedly held tight control of access to him at the end.

Jesus Christ. Sinatra was a terrible man who used, adored, abused, burned and humiliated women. He married Mia in a fever of mid-life crisis to appear hip. Mia was a hollywood blue blood hippie. He left her because she made a movie and cut her hair. It wasn't a deep love.

Ava was not only one of the most gorgeous women in the world, she was an untrainable beast. She famously said that Frank made love like a woman and she liked it rough! She aborted his baby, cheated on him and had a magic beauty and pussy that she didn't intend to waste. He cried and slit his wrists. She went out dancing. The idea that they would make it together until old age is ludicrous. The "Love of My Life" is never the one who stays.

Barbara Sinatra was probably a witch, but an 80 year old man is different from a 50 year old one. His spouse should have more say and power than an old man's children. People fight for this right. Barbara didn't hasten Frank's death, she wasn't young herself. She must have loved him, if he was at all loveable. They sure as fuck disagreed about everything, but Sinatra was in the end loyal to the wife who outlasted him. Not the pizza sauce one that he first married and encouraged their children's hate for Barbara Sinatra. It's not always so dramatic, but it's not so unusual. A wife of 22 years can't be written off as a whore. They all prospered and lost. Barbara should have let the kids come round, but it seems likely that they were hysterical angry messes who were too stressful for a sick old man.

r449, I think maybe at first, the power dynamic favored Sinatra. But Sinatra realized at a certain point that he couldn't walk away---the cost was going to be too great, both in monetary terms and in loss of face. Barbara was unlike Mia, Ava, and Big Nancy. She wasn't going to go quietly. And Sinatra wanted peace in his old age. I think he was trapped in between the demands of his daughters and his wife.

Puh-lease. Barbara Marx was called a "whore" by people like Sinatra's outspoken mom Dolly because she WAS a whore, literally. Had started out as a showgirl who morphed into on of the many 'starlets-for-rent' that flourished all over Hollywood in the late 40s and 50s. Sinatra allegedly first dated her then, he had a great deal of respect for these women and often treated them better than his own spouses and gfs. Zeppo Marx made an honest woman of her first, and she got her hooks into Sinatra when he was older and in a transitional phase of life.

The 'pizza sauce' 1st wife, Nancy, was by all accounts a fabulous mother and friend to everyone who knew her in Hollywood. She was loyal to Sinatra all the way to the end; there's no record of her 'encouraging' her kids to dislike Barbara or engage in anything like that. Remember, she never bad-mouthed Ava to the kids and would have had reason to do so; note all three kids had great relations with Ava and Mia even long after they left Frank's life.

Money was at the root of much of the tension there. Everyone made out very well there in the end.

It's a rare straight man who is a better ex-husband than he is a husband, but it sounds like Sinatra was one.

He and Mia were very fond of each other to the end. Frankie Randall, a close friend of Sinatra's, said that Sinatra spoke to three people every day: Nancy Jr., Mia, and his wife.

I wonder what Frank would think of Ronan being a big ol' maricon.

Sadly, r455, he would likely show the same prejudices as any other straight, white, successful American man born in 1915--if there are even any such men born in 1915 alive now, that is.

Tina has hinted in interviews that when Frank would sleep over, long after the divorce, he would sleep with Nancy, Sr.

R250 No. Ronan does look like Sinatra but I don't believe Sinatra is his dad. Ronan looks like Mia who looks like her dad, John Farrow.

Nancy Sr. could never say no to that HUGE COCK.

There is some strange and unnecessary romanticism going on in this thread. I guarantee that Frank never slept over (FUCKED) with the ragu maker Nancy (senior) after he was married to Ava. As in the next 48 years of his life.

He respected her as the mother of his children. He didn't want to fuck her after he'd been lost in the stars. Not that he ever was faithful to her. Those Sinatra daughters would say anything to make believe they were still a family. Frank was forever gone from BIG Nancy before Tina was 1 year old.

There is some strange and unnecessary romanticism going on in this thread. I guarantee that Frank never slept over (FUCKED) with the ragu maker Nancy (senior) after he was married to Ava. As in the next 48 years of his life.

He respected her as the mother of his children. He didn't want to fuck her after he'd been lost in the stars. Not that he ever was faithful to her. Those Sinatra daughters would say anything to make believe they were still a family. Frank was forever gone from BIG Nancy before Tina was 1 year old.

r460, we heard you the first time.

Ah, well that was an accident that I know nothing about R462. I wouldn't care to bore you. I never had my fingers on a computer before R462. May I provide your deceased mother with company?

Gianni Russo's book sounds like an interesting read.

Martino isn’t so much obsessed with her Father as anything vintage. I think her FB page is LA vintage or something along those lines. She features her dad now and then on her instagram but she is more about estate sale finds and preserving California history. Her stories of growing up in Hollywood are fantastic.

R465 Indeed they are. I enjoy her posts as I’m always the only person in the room who likes LA! The posts about her father do lay it on a little thick though and I usually don’t read them. I’m sure he was a good father to her but she makes a saint of the man. I know he had another family back in Philly and before meeting Alison’s mother he had a daughter with a woman who I’m not sure he acknowledged. The hero worship is too much.

Tina has said her mother never spoke ill of Ava, and Tina admits had she been in her mother’s shoes she would have killed Frank. Nancy Sr didn’t go to Frank’s burial though and Tina sort of dodged why by saying it “wasn’t for her”. The feuding between the girls and Barbara started from the beginning so I don’t blame Nancy Sr for wanting to stay away from all the drama. I doubt she had any respect for Barbara but I suspect she didn’t like how her daughters were handling the situation either.

When Nancy Jr posed for Playboy she was on Geraldo. She said her father was in terrific health and would be around for a long time. They even played a clip of Frank in the 1980s telling Nancy he’d be around for a long time. I thought Nancy was in deep denial about his health and she seemed fragile, vulnerable and insecure that day. I don’t think Barbara was right to allegedly chose not to tell his children that he was in the hospital but it may have been the best for Frank. I think the girls would have been a pair of hysterics and likely would have went for Barbara’s jugular.

Three was even a slugfest over his last words. The daughters said they were “I’m losing it” and then he peacefully lost consciousness. Barbara called that yenta Cindy Adams and told her they were “I don’t want to go, I don’t want to do. I want to see another Christmas”. She was clearly trying to upset the girls by suggesting his passing wasn’t peaceful and he was agitated and desperately trying to cling to life while they were at home watching the finale of Seinfeld.

Anyone know where Nancy, Sr. is buried?

Cremated I think, Tina said on Larry Kind that she and Nancy would be cremated.

Interesting R466 I hadn’t bothered to find out much about Al Martino but now I’m intrigued.

Frank Sinatra threatened Tommy Sands when he divorced Nancy Jr. Frank ruined his career and threatened he was going to have him killed. Sands moved to Hawaii to get away and start a new life. Sands denies Frank did that of course because what else is going to say? The guy was probably scarred of Frank shitnatra pee less.

Frank Sinatra hated Ronna Barrett and her career was ruined. She pissed Frank off by saying Nancey Jr's relationship with her father Frank was really weird to the point she was hinting it was sort of incestuous.

He hated Dorothy Kilgallen ,and he sent her a tomb stone with her name on it. Dorothy Kilgallen death is high believed to be a murder because she found out who really killed Kennedy. Her death was really weird and considered a cold case.

The posters who said Frank Deserved Barbara Sinatra because it was Karma, nailed it! I have heard Frank was pretty nasty to Barbara and call her awful names. When he was angry at someone and go into his usual scary rages, she would be able to come him down.

BTW, Frank's kids and his wife, Barbara, were fighting over his will and over all his estate and he wasn't dead yet.

I'll never forget how people used to protect and defend Frank Sinatra, especially Italian Americans, to the point of outrageous degree. I was talking to this Italian lady and this other lady who I used to work with both adored Frank Sinatra. I brought up the incident which Frank threw a lady through a glass plate window because she asked for an autograph. The two ladies said, well maybe he just wanted to be left alone ,and eat his dinner. He was probably tired after a day of work, LOL!! I mean! WOW!! I mean no concern about the poor lady who went to the hospital.

R470, Sinatra threw an autograph seeking lady through a plate glass window?!? What?? (When?)

Is this well known? Did he pay for her medical care? This sounds crazy....

Sounds like the book "Sinatra: The Life," by Anthony Summers (2005) is none too flattering and includes least one claim that Sinatra pushed a woman through a plate-glass window. Were there others?

[quote]" The book also includes agent Milt Ebbins' claim that Sinatra invited a hat-check girl from Hollywood's Florentine Gardens back to his house, only to push her "through a plate-glass window" when she "wouldn't cooperate sexually. ... She was severely injured. Many stitches. ... Frank settled for a large sum of money.

Alison Martino is known as a star fucker (not in the literal sense). She does a great job with her Vintage Los Angeles page on FB, but she's basically a socialite. When she talks to you, she's always looking over your shoulder for a more important person in the room.

She's fortunate that her dad left her and the mom very well off. VERY. Judi (the mom) sold her house in the Beverly Hills flats a couple years ago and lives in the same building as Alison- the Empire West.

Other than an occasional project like a Jayne Mansfield documentary, she spends her days having lunch or dinner at Tana's, La Scala and the Beverly Hills Hotel. And looking for memorabilia at estate sales and on eBay.

Her life is kind of sad. I don't think she's dated since Don Rickles son died.

R468, Nancy, Sr. was a devout Roman Catholic. I can't see a New Jersey Italian girl of her generation agreeing to cremation.

If the Sinatra daughters outlive Robert Marx, who would raise a stink, I could see them having Frank reburied in a Sinatra family plot, like Judy's kids did with her.

R473 Was she Rickles’ son’s girlfriend/wife? She’s a good looking woman, I did wonder why she didn’t seem to date. Sitting in my cubicle I’m not sure I’d call that sad, I’d swap in a nanosecond! But I guess she could have picked up a more fulfilling job, I recall she was very upset over the new owners tearing down her childhood home, I think they got 11 million for it. I’ve always thought I’d love to have lunch with her and hear her stories but I can certainly believe she would be watching the door for someone more important to come in.

R412 Were you sitting on your teeth?

An online obit says Nancy Barbato Sinatra was in the care of Pierce Brothers Westwood Memorial Park and Mortary. Doesn’t give any funeral or burial details. She passed in Rancho Mirage.

The Martino home was not torn down. Alison used to drive by, complaining over any changes the new owners made.

She only dated Larry, they were never married.

R478 Thanks. I thought it must have been torn down by the way she wrote about the changes. I believe she lived there in the guest house for a very long time, well into her thirties anyway.

Lol, Alison's claims to fame are E! Mysteries and Scandals with AJ Benza and Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew.

Fortunately for her, she's mostly interested in people like Trini Lopez and others that are long forgotten and love any attention. Her dad's best friend was More Amsterdam.

I can't name the actress, but there was a Christmas party in her building and she asked actress to come down to look at her photos and other stuff. Said actress was furious to find out that she was filming with her cell phone and did not ask permission.

Morey, not More.

Trini Lopez! Trini was on Carson with Suzanne Pleshette about 40 years ago (my babysitter let me stay up to watch) and he told her he was her neighbor and lived in the same condo building. I think Suzanne didn’t seem too enthusiastic, I don’t remember. I guess he’s still living at the Empire West then. I haven’t thought of him in decades.

Roman Catholics aren't supposed to cremate? I thought that was just Jews.

Roman Catholics weren’t allowed for a long time. Now cremation is permitted but the remains must be buried in consecrated ground. They do not want them being scattered or kept on the mantle. Tina says in the Larry King clip above that she and Nancy will be cremated and kept by relatives until someone eventually chucks them in the garbage. Larry was shocked they didn’t want to go down with Frank out in PS. My own 70 year old relatives wouldn’t dream of being cremated, it’s still taboo with that generation.

Suzanne decorated the lobby of the Empire West. Recently changed.

Thank you for the explanation, r484. None of the Catholics I know are devout, so I was curious about what the older rules were. The things you learn from Datalounge!

Interesting that Tina and Nancy won't be buried next to their father. Frank Jr. was cremated and his ashes were not interred anywhere.

We shall be tossed into the same grave with our great grandparents in a tiny Catholic church yard deep in the Irish countryside of Boyle, Roscommon.

Alison had an old queen real estate agent on her Instagram live stories. I’m not sure if he knew he was being filmed now that you mention it. He was showing her a unit for sale at the Empire West and he was spilling great Suzanne Pleshette tea. Unfortunately the Insta stories are only so many seconds and would cut him off. He was giving some great gossip about Suzanne’s second husband and got cut off and when it picked him back up he had moved on to something else. He did mention, relevant to this thread, that Nancy Jr, Nancy Sr, Tina, Frank Jr and Barbara and Robert all got together in person for the first time since Frank Sr’s funeral at the memorial for Suzanne’s second hubby Tommy.

Alison is a straight woman in a gay man's body. Who stalks Joanne Worley, Nancy Dussault and Ruth Buzzi?

One of the stories from that great 2 part documentary "All or Nothing at All"...

When Sinatra was still married to Nancy, they had a big party at their house. (They were living in California then.)

Sinatra invited his girlfriend Marilyn Maxwell.

Nancy who knew about Maxwell, threw her out of the house. Maxwell complained to Frank. Frank went to Nancy and told her she must apologize to Maxwell.

Nancy told him that he must be kidding and completely refused.

It's been a couple years since I watched this, but I seem to recall that Nancy Sr was actually recorded telling this story.

WOW. I didn’t know anything about Barbara Marx. What a revelation! All this time I thought that Frank had married up. She was just another borderline slutbag.

Wasn't Marilyn Maxwell the mistress of Bob Hope?

So a lot of Hollywood wives and widows of famous and powerful men have shady pasts?

Yes men and women in Hollywood tend to have dreadful taste in spouses.

R492

Check out the story at reply 2 from this old DL thread.

I knew there was something about a bracelet, but couldn't remember the details which are covered at this link.

Here's part one of the documentary on Youtube

Frank Sinatra: All or Nothing at All

You can hear the Maxwell story at around the 1:14:00 mark of the video at R496.

R486, Barbara is buried next to Frank. No way would Nancy, Jr. or Tina want to have their remains buried anywhere near Barbara for eternity.

R484, My mother died three years ago at 97 and we had planned to bury her with my father but the cemetery informed us he wasn't buried deep enough 50 years ago to accommodate another casket. The only way I could have her share his grave would be if she were cremated. It was important to me that they be together, so I signed off on her cremation.

Nancy Sr.'s BFF went with cremation.

Barbara Stanwyck ORIGINAL NAME Ruby Stevens BIRTH16 Jul 1907

Brooklyn, Kings County (Brooklyn), New York, USA

DEATH 20 Jan 1990 (aged 82)

Santa Monica, Los Angeles County, California, USA

BURIAL Cremated, Ashes scattered, Specifically: Ashes scattered in Lone Pine, California

"and the problem now of course is, you must simply hold your horses, to hurry now would simply be a crime, cuz nice and easy does it every time."

[quote] likely would have went

Oh, dear.

[quote]I've played for hoofers who can't hoof

[quote]I've played for tone-deaf singers

[quote]And once, when I insulted Frank

[quote]I played with broken fingers

--"Jeanette's Show-Biz Number" from "The Full Monty."

Here is Alison Martino's blog. Thanks to the poster who told us about it. It will be fun to read.

R484, R486: My sister-in-law's parents were devout Catholics and were cremated. I didn't know about her mother being cremated, so I was shocked when her father was cremated because I thought Catholics weren't allowed. My SIL explained what R484 said -- it's OK as long as the ashed are buried in consecrated ground, and they were. Not sure when the mother's ashes were buried, but the father's were buried next to hers about 2 1/2 months after he died.

2nd picture is Alison and the Nancy's, closing of the Hamlet

[quote]We shall be tossed into the same grave with our great grandparents in a tiny Catholic churchyard deep in the Irish countryside of Boyle, Roscommon. —Mrs Patrick Campbell

Have you checked to see if the church staff even have the necessary hazmat suits, dear?

Not an anecdote, but would I love to hear how *this* meeting went.

Unnerving image @ R508. Frankie is well into crypt-keeperdom - but Madge looks like Mae West in 'Sextette.' Good times.

I once saw Dean Martin at the Sunset Hamburger Hamlet location a gazillion years ago. He was alone, getting hammered.

He ate and drank there multiple times a week for years.

He had his own restaurant on the Sunset Strip - Dean that is - at some point. Called Dino’s Lodge. Sinatra sold pasta sauce in supermarkets in the 70s, it was called Artanis which is Sinatra backwards.

The sinatra estate worth 3 billion? Dont be idiotic. Frank Sinatra spent every dollar he ever made until later in life. He worked as long as he did to build up the estates value. Death taxes took 50%. And no, putting everything in a trust doesnt cut out taxes. His biggest asset was obviously his music catelog and his trademark/image /licensing. This can result in lucrative profits forever but there was no huge wad of cash when he died. Not the 3 billion variety.

I think alot of the tough guy act and bravado on Sinatra s part was actually over compensation as being a lounge singer or a male singer and an actor is a feminine job. He had to act the tough guy. My impression, he was the kiind of guy that would start a fight and have his bodyguard do the actual fighting. Sinatra s ego got in the way of everything/

will say one thing tho, he had an on and off thing with Marilyn Monroe for years and years and they came close to marrying in 1961. Despite what you might think, Marilyn was very discriminating in who she married. So Sinatra must have had alot on the ball other than his rumored endowment, shall we say.

Sinatra's estate likely isn't worth 3 billion or maybe not even a billion, but the music catalog (I believe he owned many of his master recordings) and image licensing are still quite valuable. The trusts he set up cut out quite a bit of taxes - his kids, and eventually his grandkids, will not have to work in their lifetimes.

He did spend a lot, but managed to amass a valuable real estate and art collection while alive - Barbara inherited the brunt of this and was left very wealthy.

Monroe was half crazy the last decade of her life and had NO discrimination in who she slept with, confided in or anything else. That's been confirmed in nearly every bio of her - not sure where its stated she had some high refined sense of taste or discretion in her choice of men. Sinatra, Giancana, Roselli, JFK/RFK, Yves Montand, many others - none treated her particularly well. Sinatra, for all his many faults, did care for her and tried to be somewhat protective but that was difficult given the crazy train she was on at the end. He contemplated marrying her (according to sources inc. his longtime valet), partially as a way to protect her better, but ultimately didn't take the plunge.

You can add Arthur Miller to the list of people who didn't treat Marilyn particularly well.

No r512, it was called Sinatra's. Artanis was how he signed his paintings.

[quote]and eventually his grandkids, will not have to work in their lifetimes.

"Eventually?" Nancy's kids are middle-aged and Frank Jr.'s are in their 30s.

I think Nancy's daughter AJ commented in a recent article that because of the size of the Sinatra family, the cuts aren't as big as people think.

I imagine Barbara left everything to her son Bobby Marx (who was never actually adopted by Zeppo Marx his step-father). I bet he's worth a ton now, unless Frank determined that his assets would revert to his kids upon her death. Can you do that?

Alison Martino’s current live stories on Instagram are about Frank. She’s in Patsy’s restaurant in NYC touring his secret apartment above the restaurant.

This pasta sauce was spelled backwards.

Was a lounge singer a feminine job in the 40s/50s though. Or was it the equivalent of a rapper/rock singer today? Most of the guys came from tough ethnic backgrounds and in my parents record collection they had 1 female voice, Peggy Lee. The style of the time looks a bit femme today was very masculine in that era. My grandfather in his heyday bachelor years (52-62) dressed like Sinatra. Always a suit, neat as a pin, he even had a crease in his swim shorts! By the 80s he looked like a prissy old queen in those same clothes and with the same jewlery (pinky ring, bracelet, chain, flash gold cigarette lighter) because by then jewlery had gone out of fashion for men. In his day he was a gambling, hard drinking, pistol toting good ol’ boy. I can only image that kids in the late 70s/80s listening to hard rock must have thought Sinatra was a) a relic b) not very manly. Now, Elvis was not exactly macho looking in those jumpsuits but his music probably appeals more to young people these days.

Yeah, Sinatra in his tux was definitely a caricature by the early 80s; see Joe Piscopo's and Phil Hartman's impressions. The Baby Boomers were def pretty harsh on their parents' generation. It wasn't until Sinatra was a harmless, doddering old man that you saw any softening in their stance towards him. Compared to the way rockers of an older generation are received today, the Boomers didn't give any quarter.

R508 Did Barbara squander all their money on jewels so Frank had none for a decent wig?

r523, that's actually one of the better ones. Look at this monstrosity.

R524: "Do you carry something in the $5 range that is just a little more purple?"

-- Frank at the Ratty Korean Wig kiosk.

r520 Bad link.

[quote] Artanis was how he signed his paintings.

Yes--that was a plot point in a "Dick Van Dyke Show" episode.

A lot of men from that era wore bad toupes- Gene Kelly, Fred Astaire, Liberace.

R528, Jimmy Stewart, Charlton Heston, George Burns.

Bette Davis

Bette Davis wore that hideous "Dead Ringer" wig for YEARS. One of the ugliest wigs of all time, and she made it her "official" wig for public appearances.

He never gets any flack for it, but Tony Bennett has been wearing muskrats on his head for decades.

Corrected link to article about his pasta sauce. Before he died a few papers said Tina was licensing everything and anything with his image to make a buck and tarnishing the brand. She denied that and said she was very selective. Anyone know which was true?

The Sinatra line of dildos based on a mold of his endowment initially tested well. Unfortunately, a late modification doomed it--apparently, the hooker snatch scent turned a lot of people off.

Is this shade? “Fellow Italian food aficionados Eydie Gorme and Steve Lawrence, Suzanne Pleshette and Tommy Gallagher, and Pia Zadora and Meshulam Riklis all were encouraged to overdose on Artanis.” It sure seems like it to 2019 eyes

Were the lace curtains retractable, r534?

[quote]Before he died a few papers said Tina was licensing everything and anything with his image to make a buck and tarnishing the brand. She denied that and said she was very selective. Anyone know which was true?

Tina did not dilute the brand. The Frank Sinatra aquarium gravel I bought at Kmart was very classy.

Like R516 said, the pasta sauce is clearly labeled "Sinatra's." The LA Times writer @ R533 must have been been confused.

Here's a pic from the launch described in the article

Ahh the early 90s, yellow gold jewellery and oversized suits.

R539 Don Rickles was such an annoying, unfunny ham.

He probably said something really stupid/mean and everyone is acting like he's Oscar Wilde.

Surprised no one has mentioned an incident which got a ton of press when it occurred in 1973. At a pre inaugural party for Nixon, Sinatra ran into Maine Cheshire, a columnist for the Washington Post. In front of several witnesses, he told her, "Get away from me, you scum. Go home and take a bath. You're nothing but a two dollar cunt. You know what that means, don't you? You've been laying down for two dollars all your life." He then stuck two dollars into the wine glass she was holding and said, "Here's two dollars, baby, that's what you're used to."

It got a lot of press due to the "c word," unprintable at the time. She hired DC attorney Edward Bennett Williams who demanded a public apology but I don't think she ever got one.

^Maxine Cheshire, sorry -

he hated rock & roll and would not record any of it. although he finally agreed to record a Beatles song and it sucked. Nancy brought home a box of demo songwriter tapes after she was signed to Reprise and was listening to them in Sinatra's living room. She went into the kitchen where Frank sat and asked his opinion - he said "They all sound like shit except that one about the boots."

One of the best Sinatra stories I ever heard came from an old sideman of Sinatra's who used to play on all of his sessions. In the mid-70s, Sinatra was making a comeback and Reprise was pushing him to do more modern material, most of which Sinatra hated.

At this particular session, he was set to record Gordon Lightfoot's "If You Could Read My Mind." Lightfoot had been invited to the session. As with most of the material at these sessions, Sinatra had barely bothered to learn the song. He listened to the run through of the arrangement and studied the music sheet. Just before they were ready to cut the track, Sinatra announced, "too many words," and promptly dropped the sheet music to the floor. Lightfoot was absolutely stunned.

R545 "Too many notes" would have been funnier.

Too much of both. But "too many words" is much more cutting. Essentially taking Lightfoot's heartfelt lyrics and saying tldr. Sinatra was rude but wasn't wrong. It's a rambling mess.

Sinatra was starting to lose his mind at that time and probably couldn't handle complex lyrics.

Taking personal responsibility for any of his foibles was clearly not in Sinatra's playbook.

[quote]Don Rickles was such an annoying, unfunny ham.

Agree. An untalented hack who was somehow beloved. It guess it was a generational thing.

Frank didn’t like garlic or onions (bad breath) so his recipes seem pretty boring. i made his sausage and peppers and you bake them an hour till the pepppers are basically liquified.

How can you put your name on Italian food if you don't like garlic?

[quote]you bake them an hour till the pepppers are basically liquified

Did he have dentures?

Notice how I signed my post, r527.......

[quote] Agree. An untalented hack who was somehow beloved. It guess it was a generational thing.

Rickles and Jerry Lewis give me a headache. The two Bobs, Hope and Newhart put me to sleep. I had a job at an editing house once and they had access to the entire Carson licensing database. I would often stay late and watch clips from his shows. Don Rickels and Bob Newhart were opposites personality wise but both of them told the same stories and did the same jokes over and over on their many appearances. The audience was eating this up and I ....don’t get it. It has to be a generational thing.

Milton Berle never made laugh even once.

Bob Hope was a fossilized relic for decades before he actually died. I remember watching those Bob Hope specials in the 80s with my dad and it was just painful.

Those old Friar’s club roasts are awful. It’s unsettling now to see a bunch of white men make jokes about everyone except..straight white men. Every joke is punching down, which is the very opposite of what comedy later became. Blondes, mothers-in-law, retards, women, Japs, fat wives, lots of “hint, hint he’s light in the loafers” jokes. And you keep waiting for the self deprecating joke that will make all this seem good natured (like a Phyllis Diller) and it never comes.

R48, Sinatra didn't have an issue with Ava Gardner's legs. He thought she was perfection. AVA would bitch about her own legs. Apparently these Hollywood types were all acutely conscious of women in their age bracket and physical type who were also stars, so the women became acutely conscious of anything anyone else had over them. Jacobs describes Sinatra being picky about the different body parts of his dates, but never ever was he ever negative about anything to do with Ava. OT but Truman Capote - yes, he's a liar, but. Describes an afternoon out with Marilyn Monroe in New York Murrey Hill-ish area (Third Ave, thirties and forties). Monroe was paranoid about Elizabeth Taylor, and it was all about small things, like hands.

[quote]Bob Hope was a fossilized relic for decades before he actually died. I remember watching those Bob Hope specials in the 80s with my dad and it was just painful.

He just went to Vietnam so he could fuck me.

Hamburger Hamlet was a beloved institution here in the D.C. area. Georgetown and Bethesda. RIP.

Henny Youngman is another one. My grandfather owned tapes of his routines and he and the audience were just howling with laughter. It was completely foreign to me.

Riveting, R562, you should start a thread.

Sinatra's valet George Jacobs was with him for 15 years and noted that by the end of his tenure with him he had gotten very nasty and temperamental, prove to violent tantrums and rages. In earlier years his temper was a bit more moderated and under control. Jacobs put it down to advancing age and insecurity re his career in a time of the counter-culture. Plus his marriage to Mia was coming undone.

Someone upthread said the Sinatra family was large and so his inheritance was well spread out. Confused about that and disagree: Sinatra was an only child with no siblings and no discernible relationship with any cousins, and his parent pre-deceased him by many years. He only had three children, of those only two had their own kids: Nancy Jr has two daughters and at least one granddaughter, Frank Jr had a couple of kids but they weren't legitimate so I wonder how much of the estate they inherited.

He left million $ trusts to Nancy's daughters only. Once Nancy and Tina are gone I believe the bulk of everything goes to Nancy's girls. Nancy herself has lived very well, she recently sold her Santa Monica pad for over $5 mil.

Bobby Marx was left very wealthy by his connection to Sinatra via his mom, he inherited her estate, which consisted mostly of real estate, cash, art and jewels, so this isn't coming back to Frank's kids. Barbara did inherit rights to Sinatra's name/image, so I do wonder if that reverted back of if Bobby now has control of that (which would be strange imo).

[quote]How can you put your name on Italian food if you don't like garlic?

I'm Italian and Greek, and I hate raw tomatoes and wine.

R564, Likewise, Marilyn Monroe's estate is in the hands of Lee Strasberg's widow, someone Marilyn never even met.

Nancy's daughter was being a tad untruthful. Her mom had big money in her own right, and Nancy Sr. received a quite generous settlement from Frank, including a percentage of his income.

All that stays with the daughters and grandkids.

And BTW, Nancy Jr. sold her place in Santa Monica years ago after only a year living there.

I'm generation X and I think Don Rickles was hilarious. He made fun of everyone. He was like the male Joan Rivers which no one was off limits and he wasn't PC. He made fun Barbra Baboon who thinks Michal Jackson raping kids wasn't a big deal Streisand right to her face not behind her back. The big baby couldn't take it and left the room while others laughed at Don Rickles making fun of them because they didn't take themselves seriously. He made fun of Frank Sinatra and Frank wound up liking him because Don Rickles wasn't afraid of making fun of Frank. Don, was the only guy who could make fun of Frank and get away with it. Also, he made Frank crack up with laughter.

You have to be kidding me. Dean Martin roasts were hilarious because on the contrary, they were making fun of each other and putting each other down. No one took it personally and again, no one took themselves seriously.BTW, Dean Martin's daughter is going to bring the roasts back. I think it won't make it because people today are way too uptight and about everything and anal.

I also love the younger Bob Hope movies. He was really funny in those films. However I agree, as he got older he wasn't the same.

BTW, I once read on a gossip page many moons ago that Bob Hope might have been bisexual? Has anyone heard that? Apparently when Bob Hope did those USO tours, some of the soldiers complained he got a little too friendly?

We liked when Bob Hope reported that the Statue of Liberty had "AID$" and they suspected the Staten Island Ferry. Just shows how insane the "HIV/AID$ Inc." $cam really is.

In this clip, Frank introduces George C. Scott at a tribute to James Cagney.

Given that Scott lived with Ava, and regularly beat her in his drunken rages, which I'm sure Ava related back to Frank, this clip seems too close for comfort.

Ava's maid said Scott threaten to scar Ava's face with a piece of broken glass. Ava's maid said Scott was scary when he was drunk. I think Ava's maid told Frank about Scott's threats, and Frank said he is doing this to my Ava?!! I'll kill him!!

Tina was always in control of the licensing company, Sheffield I think it’s called but Barbara owned it which was the source of so much of the friction between them. If Bobby Marx now owns it and is Tina’s boss I can’t imagine how that is working out. I remember a Bev Hills waiter on an old thread here described serving Tina and called her “a raging hot mess” who would meet a friend for lunch, go back to a corner booth and spend the lunch ripping people to shreds and having a meltdown. I hope for everyone’s sake that company is now hers.

Reportedly, after Scott broke her jaw, Frank had two of his goons drag Scott out into the desert where Frank personally delivered his ultimatum.

Tina Sinatra's always been a little off her rocker. Good thing she never had kids.

Tina and Nancy still refer to Frank as "Daddy" which I find a tad creepy for some reason.

Do you get creeped out when Liza and Lorna refer to Judy as mama? Or should they refer to her as "mother?" Like Norman.

Don Rickles was GAY.

R575, RFK's kids still refer to Bobby and Ethel as Daddy and Mommy.

BTW, Ethel turns 91 this week.

[quote]I'm generation X and I think Don Rickles was hilarious. He made fun of everyone. He was like the male Joan Rivers which no one was off limits and he wasn't PC. He made fun Barbra Baboon

The wit of your "Barbra Baboon" joke explains everything.

Lots of adult kids refer to their father as Daddy.

I started calling my parents by their first names around puberty. They also stopped the “honey” , “little man”, “sweetheart” around that time too and as I reached adulthood and no longer needed discipline and hands on parenting it was nice to be equals on a first name basis. Most of my friends had a nickname for their dads when we were teens. Some of the ones I remember were “punk”, “Flint” and “bubba”. It’s regional and depends on ethnic background I suppose. I think women get away with daddy and mommy better than men. A grown man saying mommy would raise a lot of eyebrows.

I remember seeing Don Rickles on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson.

Sinatra was a guest and stayed for Rickels monologue.

Rickles looked over at Sinatra, sitting on the couch and said...

"Yeah, Frank. Make yourself comfortable. Hit somebody."

Sinatra laughed loud and long.

JR Ewing on DALLAS was 50ish and he called his father DADDY all the time. As did Bobby Ewing.

[quote]I choose a Frank Sinatra Christmas album. My dad said, "Who doesn't like being wished a Merry Christmas by someone connected to the mob?" I didn't get the album. And it was one of the first times I remember my father talking to me like I was an adult and in on the joke.

That’s sweet, r92. We never forget.

Some great moments about DL dads are being shared in this thread.

I never understood the Rickles/Sinatra friendship since Rickles got a lot of cheap laughs mocking Sinatra, who was sensitive to criticism of any kind. Sinatra fell out with his other friends....Dean, Sammy, Lawford, JFK, etc, but he never had a problem with Rickles, who really wasn't that funny, charismatic or cool.

Ronald Reagan called his WIFE "Mommy."

r585, Rickles was rather nauseatingly obsequious towards Sinatra, so there's that.

r570 Sinatra's valet in his book wrote that he used to 'worship' George C Scott as an actor, until he took up with Ava and they all found out he was beating her. Then he couldn't stand him. Ava eventually threw Scott out, who went back to Colleen Dewhurst, had a breakdown and ended up in Silver Hill. Sinatra may have ended up feeling a bit sorry for him after that, 'there by the grace of god go I' kind of thing.

"Liz Taylor who is considered one of the most beautiful women in history once said, Ava is the most beautiful woman I had ever seen and working and living in Hollywood I have seen A LOT. "

Howard Huges, who already had Ava and Hedy Lamarr, went crazy for Elizabeth in 1948-ish. He offered to build her a studio plus a million dollars in cash for her hand in marriage. Teenage Elizabeth refused cause she was clamored upon by young and handsome rich heirs.

R524 His toupee is "The Marv Albert" in Pewter.

R575, R576. I love Nancy Sinatra and Liza Minnelli. However, they could refer to their parents as "my father" or "my mother." It's a bit nauseating, sickening sweet and forcing other to have unwarranted adoration when adult children refer to their parents to other adults as "Daddy" or "Mama" or "Mom" or "Mommy."

He or she is not my Daddy or Mama. It's just as nice and not so creepy to simply say "my father" or "my mother." Personally, I don't even say "my mom" or "my dad." It's "my mother and father." Maybe it's an East Coast thing, and I have respect for other people's parents, but enough talking to me as if I were your parent.

R591, get a life.

George C Scott was so revered in the 70s-80s, but he's really an overrated bore. He seemed drunk ALL the time later on. What a nasty mess he was.

R593 He's quite fantastic in Dr. Strangelove.

R594, quite sexy, too.

My mother and her siblings refer to her and their mother as mommy and her and their father as daddy. They love their parents immensely and it is their way of expressing their love for their parents. They miss their parents dearly. Its not a big deal. Who gives a rat's ass. I believe its your life, and whatever works for you and/or your family how you acknowledge your parents, go for it.

[quote]Howard Huges, who already had Ava and Hedy Lamarr, went crazy for Elizabeth in 1948-ish. He offered to build her a studio plus a million dollars in cash for her hand in marriage. Teenage Elizabeth refused cause she was clamored upon by young and handsome rich heirs.

I think it was around that time or a bit before Liz had met Monty Clift and fell in love with him. I don't think she ever got over him and became his life long friend and protector.

You’re a racist, 210.

Maybe Sinatra let Rickles roast him because the latter had similar…connections.

Another Sinatra thread?