Frank_ The Voice - James Kaplan [209]
Yet the truth is that Sinatra made many—many—recordings in his career just as bad as, if not worse than, “Mama Will Bark.” In the late 1940s and early 1950s alone he did a substantial number of true dogs, the likes of “Chattanoogie Shoe Shine Boy,” “One Finger Melody,” “The Hucklebuck,” and, in a July 1951 reunion with his old boss Harry James (who was also under Miller’s thrall at Columbia), “Castle Rock,” which James called “the worst thing that either one of us ever recorded.”
“Mama Will Bark” isn’t that. It’s kind of cute and kind of sweet, and even if it’s ultimately regrettable, it’s also pretty harmless. It is, quite simply, a cartoon of a song—a dream-duet between a boy dog (Frank) and a girl dog (Dagmar)—and Frank, whether to his credit or his shame, is wholeheartedly into it. He sings along to the mambo beat in good voice and with good humor, neither taking the thing too seriously nor (sorry) dogging it. Between Frank’s wooing choruses (“You look so lovely in the moonlight … Your eyes are shining like the starlight”), Dagmar delivers her recitativo interjections (“Mama will bark … Papa will spank”) in absurdly flat, Appalachian-accented tones—she was clearly a lot better to look at than to listen to. And despite what Frank said about growling and barking, Bain handles almost all the heavy lifting in that department: all Sinatra has to do is give out with a couple of yips and a single “woof” at the end.
But he hated himself in the morning.
Friedwald points out he might not have had any regrets if the record had simply died, but it didn’t—it charted. The canny Miller released “I’m a Fool to Want You” and “Mama Will Bark” as the A and B sides of a 45-rpm disc on June 23, and (based on number of jukebox plays) “Fool” reached number 14 and “Mama,” number 21. It was ironic, to say the least: the apex and the nadir of his art on two sides of one thin disc. And the public, at this point anyway, liked them both just about the same.
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Frank and Ava at the Desert Inn, September 1951. He would try facial hair from time to time over the years: It was not a good look for him. (photo credit 28.1)
A week after woofing that woof, Frank flew west with serious business in mind. Ava was taking his calls, but barely: she was curt and wouldn’t see him. When he went to 320 North Carolwood to try to talk Nancy into giving him a divorce at last, it was with hat in hand. And Nancy, who couldn’t help herself when it came to Frank, was genuinely worried about him. All at once, his sadness (which she knew so well) had a quality of desperation. “If I can’t get a divorce,” he begged her, “where is there for me to go and what is there for me to do?”
They talked, and agreed to talk again. He greeted the children sadly and left. He came back twice more—it was the most the kids had seen of him in a long time. As always, Little Nancy had the fantasy that he might be coming home to stay. Husband and wife went into the living room and closed the door; the nanny shooed the children away. Nancy Barbato Sinatra looked into the eyes of the man who had occupied the center of her life for almost fifteen years and asked him if this was what he really wanted.
He quietly told her that it was.
On May 29, Nancy informed the press that she and Frank had come to a decision. “This is what Frank wants,” she said, “and I’ve said yes. I have told the attorneys to work out the details.”
A few days later, she told Louella Parsons: “I don’t think a woman can be blamed for trying to hold her home together, especially when there are children. I held out a long time because I love Frank and I thought he would come back. But, when I saw there was absolutely no chance, and that he really wanted to marry someone else, I had my lawyer get in touch with his lawyer.” Then she said, “I am now convinced that a divorce is the only way for my happiness as well as Frank’s.”
Yes was one thing; lawyers