Frank_ The Voice - James Kaplan [130]
The place went dead quiet. Even Podell teared up. Sinatra stared at the floor. Fortunately, a Variety reporter was there to witness the whole thing. SINATRA’S STOOGERY FOR PHIL SILVERS NY NITERY PREEM AN INSPIRED EVENT, the headline read the next morning. The accompanying story said, “That appreciative gesture by Sinatra understandably sets him in a niche all his own in the big, sentimental heart of show business.”
The reaction of the sentimental but businesslike Louis B. Mayer is unrecorded.
On Tuesday the tenth, Sinatra was back in L.A., wrung out by the trip. Whorf was doing his best to shoot the movie around him, but at a certain point the director could do nothing without his star. It turned out Whorf would have to wait a while longer. The studio’s production memo for that day reads:
Bobby Burns [now Sinatra’s manager—another theft from Dorsey] phoned 9/10 and said Sinatra arrived from New York that morning, but was tired and would not report, that he would broadcast [his radio show] on Wednesday and report on Thursday.
A couple of days later even the production memos were beginning to sound exasperated:
Called Sinatra for rehearsal but didn’t report. He had an appointment to rehearse with [the choreographer] Jack Donohue at 10:30 a.m. but didn’t come in. Publicity Department also had made appointment with him to shoot magazine cover still. He finally arrived on lot at 2:20 p.m., shot the poster still, and then went to Stage 10 and ran through number once with Mr. Donohue. Sinatra said it was a “cinch,” said he had an appointment and had to leave, which he did, without further rehearsing, at 2:45 p.m.
On the twenty-third, a Monday, Sinatra could barely pull himself out of bed:
Sinatra only worked part of day. He worked from 11:22 a.m. to 12:05, when dismissed for lunch. He was called back to rehearse at 1:05, but he did not report.
It wasn’t just that he was ambivalent about filmmaking: there was trouble at home. The ever-present low-level hostilities between Frank and Nancy had escalated into open warfare. It didn’t matter how much he tried to justify that nightclub picture of him and Lana—yes, they worked on the same lot; yes, Mayer liked his valuable properties to be seen together, et cetera, et cetera. But there was no getting around that giddy look on his face, his tight clasp of her hand. They looked like two honeymooners. In apparent acknowledgment of her guilt, Turner had curtailed her friendly visits to Nancy.
Nancy had other complaints. Frank had just bought Dolly and Marty a new house in Weehawken for $22,000. Out of pocket, cash, and without consulting Nancy, who tried hard to control the family purse strings. Furious, Nancy opened her doors, wide, to her own family. At any given hour of the day, three generations of Barbatos were present, nieces and nephews draped all over the place; aunts, uncles, and cousins chatting in the kitchen. Frank, who had done his best to look as though he lived there, now no longer saw the need. He and his wife weren’t speaking: What was the point?
On Saturday night, October 5, he went to a party hosted by Sonja Henie: Lana was there. She and Frank danced together “many times,” a subsequent newspaper account reported. He failed to go home that night.
The next day he phoned Nancy and told her he wanted a separation. A divorce? she asked.
He wanted his freedom, he told her. He didn’t want a divorce. He was going to find an apartment. She slammed down the phone.
A half hour later, having done her best to compose herself, she called Evans at home. Evans’s wife answered, then handed the telephone to her husband. The moment Nancy heard George’s voice, she broke down sobbing.
As soon as he understood that the inevitable had finally happened, the publicist went into crisis mode. He could sit on the story for a little while, but just a little while. If he didn’t shape the narrative, it would spill out raw or exaggerated into public. First, however, Evans attempted a desperation play: he called Frank and tried to talk some sense into him.