Frank_ The Voice - James Kaplan [11]
We are told that after Frankie recounted the Garrick incident to Dolly (no doubt carefully spinning it in his favor), she never spoke to the man again. For his part, Sinatra didn’t talk to his godfather for close to five decades. He failed to invite Garrick to his first wedding, to the baptisms of any of his children, or to Dolly and Marty’s fiftieth-anniversary party.
Then, out of the blue, not long after Dolly died (in 1977), Sinatra phoned Garrick, asking if he could come by to visit. Generously, Garrick told him that would be fine. Sinatra didn’t show up.
He called several more times, but each time failed to appear.
Finally, in 1982, the sixty-six-year-old Sinatra went to see the eighty-five-year-old Garrick and his wife in their three-room apartment in a senior citizens’ building in Hoboken. Not alone—he brought along his secretary, Dorothy Uhlemann, and his best friend, Jilly Rizzo, as insulation. Picture the commotion in the tiny apartment as, amid cooking smells and a barking television, the tanned and bewigged superstar and his retinue enter. Sinatra surprisingly timid at first, Dorothy’s sweetness and Jilly’s gruff bonhomie covering the initial awkward silences. Frank then presents the elderly couple with an elaborate fruit basket and an envelope containing five $100 bills. Much more is to come, he promises. Finally, all material gestures having been exhausted, Sinatra and Garrick embrace, and both men weep. Sinatra tells his godfather he has never gotten in touch because he was scared.
But now Dolly Sinatra is in the grave, and it’s safe.
3
Even then he could wear a hat. Frankie had a charge account at Geismar’s, a Hoboken department store, and a wardrobe so fabulous that he acquired a new nickname: “Slacksey O’Brien.” Circa 1929. (photo credit 3.1)
On the sheer strength of her chutzpah, young Dolly moved her little family ever farther from Guinea Town and toward the plusher districts closer to the Hudson. In December 1931, as former business executives stood on breadlines and sold apples, the Sinatras (and ever-present Uncle Vincent) relocated again, this time to an honest-to-God four-story house at 841 Garden Street (a very nice address), replete with central heating, several bathrooms, a gold birdbath at the entrance, a mahogany dining-room set, a baby grand piano, and—like something out of Dinner at Eight—a chaise longue and gold and white French telephone (number: HOboken 3–0985) in the master bedroom.
True, Dolly would need to scrape every nickel and dime, not to mention take in boarders, to pay the substantial mortgage (the house cost over $13,000, a bloody fortune in those days), but that was part of her master plan. She had already lifted the Sinatras out of the lower middle class. And she announced as much in the society pages of the Jersey Observer: “[A] New Year’s Eve party was given at the home of Mr. and Mrs. M. Sinatra of upper Garden Street in honor of their son, Frank. Dancing was enjoyed. Vocal selections were given by Miss Marie Roemer and Miss Mary Scott, accompanied by Frank Sinatra.”1
Upper Garden Street.
Accompanied by Frank Sinatra.
It isn’t so hard to imagine that the musical portion of the festivities had initially been planned for the two young ladies alone, and that headstrong Frankie had shoehorned himself in, to Marty’s displeasure and Dolly’s ambivalent approval. That she commemorated his participation afterward doubtless had more to do with wanting to wring every possible drop of family glory out of the event than with a sudden acceptance of his boyish dream. He was still a dropout and a ne’er-do-well, drawing free room and board under the expensive roof of 841 Garden Street.
Since there was a depression on and no loafing was countenanced in Dolly’s house, he was put to work.