300 Billie Holiday: ints. Brad Dexter, George Jacobs, Jacobs and Stadiem, 150–. “Lady Day”: Watertown liner notes by Ed O’Brien. Sinatra first came upon the song “Lady Day” in August 1969 while recording the album Watertown. Oddly, the song’s writers had not known that Billie Holiday was affectionately known as “Lady Day.” Dissatisfied with his performance of the song on Watertown, Sinatra rerecorded it in the fall, and it appeared on the 1971 album Sinatra and Company (Friedwald, 442, 436, Rednour, 250).
302–303 Other kindnesses: (maid’s husband) Coronet, Oct. 1964; (bootblack) Boxing Monthly, Jul. 1998, eulogy for FS by Sonny King, St. Viator’s Church, Las Vegas, May 27, 1998; (girl’s leg) int. Jerry Lewis; (elderly couple) LAHE, Dec. 25, 1970; (child burned) McCall’s, Oct. 1974; (truckload) (Long Beach, CA) Press-Telegram,May 16, 1998; (“send them a nickel”) Sinatra with Coplon, 136; (“The one condition”) (Long Beach, CA) Press-Telegram, May 16, 1998; ( padrone) e.g., Barzini, Caesar, 69–, Sterling, 48, Davis, Mafia Dynasty, 164–; (“In a certain way”) int. Peter Duchin.
303 fiftieth birthday, etc.: (Talese/Esquire article) “Frank Sinatra Has a Cold,” Esquire, Apr. 1966; (“all set up”) int. of Gay Talese by David Talbot of Salon, kindly supplied to authors; (article acclaimed) eds. Petkov and Mustazza, 90, “The Greatest Story Ever Told,” anniversary edition supplement to Esquire; (“As a singer”) Douglas-Home, 42; (“try to nail”) int. of Gay Talese by David Talbot; (NBC/CBS/major stories) Esquire, Apr. 1966, Where or When? Howlett, 135, Life, Apr. 23, Billboard, Nov. 20, Newsweek, Nov. 29, Look, Nov. 30, 1965.
303 September of My Years: September of My Years was followed within months by A Man and His Music, packed with songs identified with Sinatra.
303–04 voice lower/Camels: Billboard, Nov. 20, 1965. Sinatra had previously smoked Lucky Strikes, but had switched to Camels by the mid-1960s (Strikes— Kahn, 113, Douglas-Home, photo caption; Camels—ints. Mort Viner, Tony Mottola, Hamill, 16); (“The silken”) High Fidelity, Aug. 1971; (birthday party/“Tit Willow”) Sinatra, Legend, 197, Freedland, 319, “Tit Willow” lyrics for Nancy Jr., MHL; (toupees/transplant) Esquire, Apr. 1966, Newsweek, Jan. 19, 1987, Ragano and Raab, 82; (“nubby and raw”) Esquire, Apr. 1966; (Jacobs/“I was ushered”) Open House with Gloria Hunniford, Channel 5 (UK), May 12, 2002, and tape of unid. BBC Radio 4 program, supplied to authors by Peggy Connelly; (“I’m a symmetrical”) Life, Apr. 23, 1965.
305 FS and rock ’n’ roll: (“Frank Sinatra lamenting”) Allen Ginsberg, The Fall of America, New York: City Lights, 1974, 4, Gigliotti, preface; (Beatles/73 million)Beatles, The Beatles Anthology, London: Cassell, 2000, 119, “1,000 Days of Beatle Mania,” Mojo Special Edition, 2002, 89; (FS “defeated rock”) Newsweek, Feb. 26, 1962; (Beatles top singles/albums) Chet Flippo, McCartney, London: Sidgwick and Jackson, 1988, 182; (Capitol/Livingston) “1,000 Days,” 107; (“We came out of nowhere”) Beatles, 119; (“Long hair”/“He didn’t care”/smash radio) Jacobs and Stadiem, 233, 7; (“He genuinely”) int. Rock Brynner; (repelled) Taraborrelli, 427; (“miss the point”) Look, Oct. 31, 1967; (Lennon/“Peggy Lee”) Beatles, 198; (McCartney/“if anyone”) Beatles, 22, Flippo, 20.
305 “I thought I was writing”: Beatles, 22. As well as having referred to writing the song for Sinatra, McCartney has separately suggested he had his own father in mind. His father was in his late fifties at the time his son has said he wrote the song. “When I’m Sixty-Four” was not copyrighted, however, until 1967 (Flippo, 20, Beatles, 360).
306 “We must stop”: Life, Apr. 23, 1965; (Starr’s wife) corr. Tita Cahn, lyrics kindly supplied to authors by Tita Cahn, Rolling Stone, Jun. 25, 1998; (McCartney jet) Flippo, 231; (Harrison guest) LAT, Nov. 19, 1968; (“Something”/ “Yesterday”) Rednour, 85; (praise) LAT, Aug. 28, 1975, Dec. 1, 2001, New York, Apr. 28, 1980, FS monologue at Caesars Palace, May 5, 1978, audiotape in authors’ collection; (“it inspired”/“He needs”) Esquire, Apr. 1966.
Chapter 29: The Child Bride
307 Ava and FS: (Vegas opening) Los Angeles Examiner, Feb. 7, 1961, Shaw, Sinatra, 282; (Los Angeles) LAHE, Mar. 28, 1962.
3077Madrid/“They went”: int. Dan Arney. “Dinner parties Ava gave,” her friend Betty Wallers remembered, “often stretched to twenty-four- or even thirty-six-hour parties, and men used to drop exhausted like soldiers on a forced march. . . . She would call me at 3:00 a.m. and ask me to a ‘marvelous party.’ She would introduce me to a ‘great flamenco singer’ and it would turn out to be the elevator boy” (Higham, Ava, 208, and see Flamini, 242–); (plane/“dry out”) ints. Dan Arney, Ben Tatar; (“Can you imagine?”) int. Sonny King.
307–08 Other women: (“take out”/“I brought”) Hellerman with Renner, 101; (hatcheck girl) Life, Apr. 23, 1965; (whore) SAC Salt Lake City to SAC Los Angeles, Nov. 3, 1960, FBI 62-4867-9, “File Review & Summary Check,” Sep. 19, 1960, FBI 100-41413-121, int. Al Porcino; (“First, there were”/“I don’t understand”) Good Housekeeping, Jul. 1960; (“I’m supposed”) Life, Apr. 23, 1965.
308 Prowse: (met Can-Can) Los Angeles Examiner, Nov. 27, 1960; (Prowse background)Coronet, Oct. 1961, (London) Times, Sep. 16, 1996; (“He was singing”) int. Shirley MacLaine; (British colonial family, etc.) Coronet, Oct. 1961.
308–09 “amazingly kind”: Freedland, 267. Juliet Prowse was interviewed by the author Michael Freedland shortly before her death, at the age of fifty-nine, in 1996. The quotations used here were first published in Freedland’s Sinatra biography All the Way, published in the UK (Michael Freedland, All the Way, London: Orion, 1998, esp. chap. 20, and ints. and corr. Michael Freedland. The authors thank him for permission to quote from interviews.); (knitted/gardened/ painted) ibid., 267, 283; (“She smothers”) Newsweek, May 25, 1998; (proposed) Freedland, 267, M/G int. of Jay Bernstein; (FS to South Africa) Jacobs and Stadiem, 170; (parents to L.A.) Photoplay, Apr. 1962, but see Parsons, 158–; (drunk/“throw things”/“never quarreled”/stop working) Freedland, 267–; (“the big love”) ibid., 280; (street corner/cartwheels/“really like a father”) ibid., 268.
309 “I knew”: ibid., 281. Prowse also had a dalliance with Elvis Presley while both were performing in the movie GI Blues. This too, she said, infuriated Sinatra (Los Angeles Examiner Magazine, Sep. 18, LAT, Oct. 30, 1960, and Freedland, 282).
309 FS and Monroe: (met 1954) int. Milton Greene, 1984.
309–10 bizarre incident/“It looked”/rushed into bedroom: Summers, Goddess, 153–. Author Anthony Summers covered the break-in episode, generally known as the Wrong Door Raid, in his 1985 Monroe biography, Goddess. It now seems that Sinatra, not DiMaggio, recruited the detectives. An interview with the late former IRS agent John Daley, in particular, buttressed the allegation that Sinatra was one of those who broke into the apartment. Another interview, in 2002, further strengthened the claim. A former detective, the late John Danoff, moreover, told Summers he was involved—apparently in 1959 or early 1960—when DiMaggio tried to catch Sinatra with Monroe (Summers covered—Summers, Goddess, 153–; FS recruited—Robin Moore and Gene Schoor, Marilyn & Joe DiMaggio, New York: Manor, 1977, 222–, Jacobs and Stadiem, 95; Daley—int. John Daley, 1983; 2002 interview—int. with detectives’ colleague, who is still working and requested anonymity; DiMaggio tried—int. John Danoff, 1983).
310 Marilyn: (solicitous/“Maf”/use his house) ibid., 312; (Allan) int. the late Rupert Allan, 1983; (“protector”/“little friend”) int. Sonny King; (“As physicallybeautiful”) Fisher with Fisher, 73, and see Earl Wilson, Show Business Laid Bare, New York: Signet, 1974, 63–.
310 yacht/“I remember”: int. Jeanne Martin, Summers, Goddess, 313–. Author Summers first described the trip in his book Goddess. Jeanne Martin kept the album of photographs Sinatra sent his guests as a souvenir, and in 2001 kindly provided the authors with the photograph of Sinatra and Monroe aboard the yacht; (“She was taking”) Summers, Goddess, 434; (Pepitone/“He pulled”) ibid., 314; (Johnson/“the vapors”) Edwin Hoyt, Marilyn: The Tragic Venus, Radnor, PA: Chilton, 1973, 239; (“deeply saddened”) Summers, Go
ddess, 422, and see Fisher with Fisher, 254; (“in shock”) Jacobs and Stadiem, 173; (Barred from funeral) int. Inez Melson, 1983, Summers, Goddess, 482; (“Who?”) Summers, Goddess, 310.
311 Prowse break-up: (popped question/said yes/broke off) Freedland, 281–, LAT, Jan. 10, Feb. 23, Time, Jan. 19, New York Daily News, Jan. 30, 1962. Just days before the announcement that he was engaged to Prowse, Sinatra had been in Australia with the actress Dorothy Provine. He had been seeing Provine during the hiatus in his courtship of Prowse (Parade Magazine, Apr. 1, Time, Jan. 19, 1962, Jacobs and Stadiem, 152, int. Dan Arney); (“He was”) int. Shirley MacLaine; (Ava telegram) Freedland, 282.
312 Ava 1962–64: (“stayed very, very”/“If a pretty”) Gardner, 267; (both in Italy) O’Brien, Film Guide, 166–, New York Daily News, Sep. 10, 1964, Wayne, 234; (Ava and Scott) Gardner, 254–, John Huston, An Open Book, New York: Da Capo, 1994, 328–, Flamini, 262–; (“Frank and I”) int. Brad Dexter.
312–14 Farrow affair: (parents’ separate bedrooms/Ava affair) For Gardner’s affair with John Farrow, see page 166, supra. (met FS/“you stay away”) Farrow, 78; (FS met 1964) O’Brien, Film Guide, 167; (Parsons godmother) Farrow, 34; (Cukor godfather) Edward Epstein and Joe Morella, Mia, London: Robert Hale, 1991, 35; (“wide-eyed sprite”) Life, May 5, 1967; (“waif”) Mirabella, Mar. 1997; (“heartbreaking”) Photoplay, Mar. 1965; (“impossibly naïve”) Farrow, 118; (“afraid of men”) Photoplay, Mar. 1965; (only time in bed) Farrow, 73, and see 80; (5′ 5″/20-20-20/falsies) Life, May 5, 1967, Farrow, 72; (Dalí/party) Farrow, 66; (“a very clever”) Kelley, 345—Edie Goetz was the wife of producer William; (Minnelli/“stronger”) Farrow, 94, unid. clip, “Mia Farrow’s Secret Scheme to Keep Her Frank,” Mar. 1968, MHL; (FS initiative) Farrow, 78–; (screening/held hand/asked to fly) ibid., 79–; (“googly eyes”) GQ, Nov. 1999; (badgered FS) Kelley, 344; (arrived house/photos of Ava) Farrow, 87; (“the cat slept alone”) ibid., 83; (weekends/painted/sketched/crosswords) ibid., 85–, unid. clip, “Mia Has Already Passed Sinatra’s Marriage Test,” Aug. 1965, MHL; (“diamond koala”) Farrow, 98; (cigarette case) Epstein and Morella, 80; (Thunderbird) Sinatra, My Father, 202; (“Charlie Brown”) int. Leonora Hornblow; (“Angel Face”/“Baby Face”) Farrow, 88; (“what a beautiful”) ibid., 90; (“The Impossible Dream”) Look, Oct. 31, 1967, Rednour, 52; (kept Mia to himself) Farrow, 89; (not introduce to children) ibid., Sinatra with Coplon, 112; (not at fiftieth) ibid., 111, Kristi Groteke with Marjorie Rosen, Mia & Woody, New York: Carroll and Graf, 1994, 53; (“Frank was really plastered”) int. Sonny King; (befriended) Sinatra with Coplon, 112, Sinatra, My Father, 203.
314 “Frank had decided”/set included/“kids’ table”: Life, May 5, 1967, Farrow, 91. Other Sinatra regulars were playwright Leonard Gershe, Gregory and Veronique Peck, actor Martin Gabel and his TV personality wife, Arlene Francis, and the writer Harry Kurnitz. Guests also included producer Leland Hayward and his wife, Pamela Hayward, a future U.S. ambassador to France. The men and women in the group were not all as old as suggested by Life’s interviewee, but they were indeed past their youth.
314–15 3 compartments, etc.: Farrow, 91–, 100–, 110; (“She would call”) int. Sonny King; (throw money/Jack Daniel’s) Farrow, 91–, 100, 110; (“interminable”/hookers) ibid., 92–, 112; (whores who resembled Mia) Jacobs and Stadiem, 8–; (cruise) Time, Aug. 20, 1965, Farrow, 95; (Martin/Scotch) ibid., 90; (“chasm”/went off traveling) ibid., 101; (MacRae) Sheila MacRae with Paul Jeffers, Hollywood Mother of the Year, New York: Birch Lane, 1992, 158–; (“beautifulbrunette”) “Joseph Fischetti,” May 6, 1966, FBI 92-3024-88, “Supplemental Correlation Summary,” Feb. 25, 1969, FBI 62-23219-60.
315 Engagement/marriage: (ask to marry/ring/$85,000) Farrow, 101–, Sinatra, My Father, 203, Kelley, 355; (“Marry Mia?”) Chicago Daily News, May 8–9, 1976. In July 1966, however, it was Farrow’s mother who announced the engagement, declaring herself “delighted” (NYT, Jul. 14, 1966); (not “emotionally prepared”) Photoplay, Oct. 1965.
315 “My son is just”: LAHE, Aug. 13, 1965. Sinatra’s mother had always gotten on with Ava Gardner, and was still welcoming her at her home in New Jersey as late as the mid-1960s (int. Ken Roberts, Jacobs and Stadiem, 98); (“couldn’t seem to make up”) Hollywood Citizen-News, Apr. 24, 1967, LAHE, Aug. 22, 1965; (“He wanted”) int. Shirley MacLaine.
316 “The Ava eyes brighten”: Sciacca, 19; Ava Gardner’s comment was made on September 30, 1966, following the New York premiere of her film The Bible the previous night. Another source quoted her as having said, “I always knew Frank always (sic) wanted a boy with a cunt.” Gardner was drinking heavily during the interview with Reed, and may have delivered the barb in the second, cruder version—Reed may have cleaned the comment up for publication. Mia Farrow separately quoted Gardner as declaring that Mia “was the child she and Frank never had” (Ava’s comment—Rex Reed, Do You Sleep in the Nude? New York: New American Library, 1968, 70; premiere—NYT, Sep. 29, 1966; “was the child”— Farrow, 95).
316–17 continued to see Ava: int. Peter Levinson; (“I went up”) Hellerman with Renner, 102; (“I guess”) Jacobs and Stadiem, 231–; (“The thing that triggered it”) int. Brad Dexter; (dined with Peggy Connelly) int. Peggy Connelly; (MacRae) MacRae with Jeffers, 175; (prostitute) Jacobs and Stadiem, 234; (wedding) Hollywood Citizen-News, Jul. 20, Life, Jul. 27, 1966; (not told family) Sinatra with Coplon, 113–, Farrow, 102; (“call Miss G.”) Kelley, 356; (“child bride”) Graham, 125; (“a little bit like”) Farrow, 118.
317 differences with Mia: (“the Swinger and the Flower Child”) Sinatra, My Father, 202; (“cute”/Daisy) Sinatra with Coplon, 116; (“When Frank walked”) int. Sonny King, Taraborrelli, 359; (Mia “was dancing”) int. Sandra Giles; (Mia wanted children) Sinatra with Coplon, 121, Epstein and Morrella, 152, Life, May 5, 1967; (Vietnam) ibid., Farrow, 115.
317 Bolling dalliance: Gossip also linked Sinatra at the time with the actress Jill St. John, with whom he had reportedly had a dalliance in 1963 (Bolling—int. in Globe, Dec. 23, 1997, O’Brien, Film Guide, 184; St. John, 1967—O’Brien, 184, Jacobs and Stadiem, 12; St. John, 1963—Newsweek, Oct. 28, 1963, Hellerman with Renner, 99, Wilson, Sinatra, 178).
317 cage: unid. article by Debbie Sherwood, Mar., 1968, MHL.
317 Rift re career/“To lose”/Rudin/India/divorce: Farrow, 107–, 112, 120–, 134–, and see Wilson, Sinatra, 227, Newsweek, Oct. 16, 1967. Burt Lancaster, who became close to Sinatra, said the singer “never mentioned” Mia in the years immediately after the divorce. Farrow has said, though, that he “remained a true friend, always there when I needed him.” She recalled that in 1992, when her liaison with Woody Allen disintegrated amidst ugly allegations about Allen’s sexual behavior, the Sinatra family rallied around her. “Frank,” she wrote, “even offered to break Woody’s legs.” One measure of Farrow’s lasting affection for Sinatra is that she named her Vietnamese-born adopted daughter Frankie-Minh (“never mentioned”—Coronet, Mar., 1972; “true friend”—Philadelphia Inquirer, May 17, 1998, and see Groteke with Rosen, 54; rallied/“even offered”/Frankie-Minh— Farrow, 280, 309).
318 rumors of abuse: Epstein and Morella, 137; (Susskind/“showed up”) Kelley, 370, 533; (Mia repeatedly said) LAT, Sep. 26, 1986, Groteke with Rosen, 54; (“If there’s one guy”) Photoplay, Apr. 1965.
318 Gabor: Gabor with Leigh, 165. Gabor’s reference to Mulholland Drive apparently relates to the house Sinatra had built in the 1950s on Bowmont Drive atop Coldwater Canyon. It had gated access to Mulholland. Other Los Angeles–area homes during the Farrow relationship included a rented apartment on Doheny Drive, a rented house on Sunset Boulevard, and—following the wedding—a Tudor-style house on Copa De Oro. For several months in the early 1970s, after the alleged powder-room incident and before his marriage to Barbara Marx, Sinatra had an affair with Zsa Zsa’s sister Eva (Mulholland/Bowmont—LAT, Oct. 1, Dec. 16, 1989, Feb. 18, 25, Mar. 4, 1990, Sinatra with Coplon, 102, 187; Doheny—Farrow, 85; Sunset—Sinatra with Coplon, 112, Jacobs and Stadiem
, 3; De Oro—Farrow, 104, Sinatra, 203, Sinatra with Coplon, 117; Eva—Gabor with Leigh, 166, TV Guide, Oct. 30, 1993, and see Sinatra with Coplon, 160).
318–20 Rape allegation: (incident) ints. Susan Murphy; the authors found Susan Murphy’s account credible. As mentioned earlier, Sinatra used messages sent across restaurants to initiate contact with Sandra Giles, Judith Campbell, and Michael Hellerman’s date. The same year he spotted Murphy in a restaurant, he used a similar ploy to approach the actress Patty Duke. The industrialist Daniel Schwartz and others Murphy mentioned were indeed part of the Sinatra circle at the time. The ambience and activity she described is consistent with the authors’ wider research. Murphy had been briefly married in her midteens, and was not without sexual experience. Yet even in 2003, when interviewed by the authors, she spoke of what happened that night as a “horrific” memory. Murphy is not now the woman’s name (Duke—Patty Duke and Kenneth Turan, Call Me Anna, New York: Bantam, 1987, 194–; Schwartz/FS circle—e.g., Sinatra, My Father, 218).
Chapter 30: Out of Control
321 “A star”: CBS News special.
321 edict: Look, May 28, 1957.
322 threats: (“Let me tell”) Kelley, 528; (Prowse/“You’d better get”) (London) Observer, Dec. 13, 1998, Freedland, 281; (Bolling re potential beating) Globe, Dec. 23, 1997.
322 threats/attacks on press: (“It’s Sinatra”) Kelley, 370; (“In some segments”/Bacon friendly) LAHE, Dec, 7, 1979, int. James Bacon, Freedland, 316, Shaw, Entertainer, 12.
322 Vandergrift & Finkelstein: A claim that Sinatra ordered his driver to “Run the bastard down!” was not substantiated. Finkelstein disowned it. The columnist Earl Wilson looked into the story, but could not resolve various inconsistencies (LAT, (LA) Mirror-News, Nov. 4, 1958, “Correlation Summary,” Jun. 8, 1964, FSFBI, Wilson, Sinatra, 323–).