Frank_ The Voice - James Kaplan [176]
Frank smiled at Dolly, too happy to be angry with her (Dolly’s demands for money had stepped up as his bank account dwindled). His every waking hour—there weren’t many sleeping ones—was occupied with thinking of her, seeing her, making love with her, fighting with her, making up with her.
In truth, he was running ragged. In between obsessive bouts with Ava, there were very bad fights with Nancy. Work—what little there was of it—was going badly too. Back in California, on Light Up Time, two days after Christmas, he sailed into an up-tempo, jazz-combo arrangement of Brown, DeSylva, and Henderson’s “You’re the Cream in My Coffee” (“You’re the salt in my stew”) like a ship without a rudder, fast and out of tune and not seeming to care much. Then, in the second chorus, he simply blew the lyric. “You’re the starch in my collar,” he repeated, like a man sleepwalking. “I said that, didn’t I,” he remarked with a laugh, then tossed off the rest of the song, more of a walk-through than a performance.
24
Frank arrives at the CBS Playhouse to rehearse for a radio show, mid 1940s. George Evans, in hat, flanks him; Manie Sacks is to the right, in dark coat. (photo credit 24.1)
Finally there was good news. On the Town got splendid reviews and, more important for MGM, did big business. Betty Comden and Adolph Green’s adaptation of their Broadway musical (originally a ballet by Jerome Robbins and Leonard Bernstein called Fancy Free) made for a wonderful picture, a perfect piece of postwar exuberance. The story of three sailors on leave in the big city sparkled, especially in its spectacular opening sequence, shot in Technicolor-glorious locales around New York. The performances by Kelly, Sinatra, Jules Munshin, Ann Miller, Betty Garrett, and Vera-Ellen were buoyant. But in the end the picture was Gene Kelly’s: Frank was really just along for the ride. Kelly got top billing. He not only co-directed and choreographed; he (along with Donen) had insisted, brilliantly, that they shoot on location in New York instead of on an MGM soundstage.1 It had cost a lot more, but the results were worth it. On the Town set box-office records at Radio City. “Never before has any motion picture grossed as much in one day in any theater anywhere,” exclaimed Motion Picture Daily.
Frank Sinatra wasn’t celebrating. He didn’t like being outshone by Kelly, and he hadn’t gotten to sing any important ballads in the film (he’d especially coveted the beautiful “Lonely Town,” but it had been jettisoned by the studio, along with most of the rest of Leonard Bernstein’s great score, and replaced with chirpier songs by the less than great Roger Edens). But mostly he was tired of putting on a sailor suit. He said so loudly, and Louis B. Mayer had big ears. There was another big problem: Ava Gardner. Mayer’s stars misbehaved all the time, and, LB knew, often with each other, but most of them had the good sense to keep it hidden from the public. These two simply didn’t give a damn. It got under Mayer’s skin. It was a direct challenge to his power, and with the rise of television and the fall of MGM’s profits, power was something that Louis B. Mayer was fretting about constantly.
And so—much given to saber rattling these days—Mayer had warned months earlier that Sinatra’s contract was in jeopardy, as was Ava’s, if the two didn’t stop their carryings-on.
Frank at least had the good sense to take stock of his career at the beginning of 1950, and everything he saw worried him. In the middle of January he flew to New York and, after taking in Lena Horne’s show at the Copacabana, sat down for a 4:00 a.m. cup of coffee with George Evans.
Evans represented both the Copa and Horne, who was making $60,000 a week there. Lena Horne’s career was booming; Sinatra’s, not. He told Evans all about Ava; he laid his cards on the table. There had been many women, but he had never felt this way before. He was going