Frank_ The Voice - James Kaplan [217]
“He still is,” Chester said. “He’s still a pain in the ass, too. He doesn’t deserve the shit he’s been getting, though.” He paused for a second. “He’s also looking for a piano player.”
“Well, hell, now that you’ve built him up.”
“Listen—he’s still the best singer there is. And he’s only a pain in the ass to his friends. He likes musicians. Especially good musicians.”
“Then why doesn’t he have a piano player?”
“Why the hell do you think? He’s broke!”
Miller grinned. “Now I’m really interested.”
“He’s got a television show, though. And CBS isn’t broke.”
Later that night, having been sold on Miller by Chester, Sinatra accompanied the songwriter up to the Skyroom. The pianist struck up a solo version of “Polka Dots and Moonbeams,” lightly swinging, with sparse tasty chords—the dancers on the floor barely had to break stride—and both Frank and Jimmy couldn’t help smiling.
After a short medley of other Sinatra hits, each played so perfectly that Frank’s vocal cords twitched sympathetically as he listened, Miller took a break and Sinatra walked over to the piano.
“How’d you like to work with me, kid?” he asked.
Miller, who was almost a year older than Sinatra, pursed his lips, then nodded. “Okay,” he said.
29
Wedding day, November 7, 1951. Their bliss was short-lived, as bliss always was for Frank. (photo credit 29.1)
Frank hadn’t recorded since July, the same month the sponsors pulled the plug on his radio show. (He would go into the recording studio only once more that year, in mid-October, to wax a studio version of his Meet Danny Wilson duet with Shelley Winters, “A Good Man Is Hard to Find.” Due to lack of interest, the record was never released.) There were no future bookings. His six-week Nevada residence was up on September 19, but as he prepared to file for divorce, his attorney got word from Nancy’s attorney that to better protect the children, she planned to contest Frank’s action and secure a prior California divorce. The property settlement in the separate-maintenance agreement was no longer acceptable, Nancy and her lawyer said: Frank owed her back alimony—$40,805, to be exact.
With the checks from the Riverside and the Desert Inn going straight to Nancy, Frank barely had $400, let alone forty thousand. Knowing this, she sent her lawyer to court to obtain a levy against Frank’s office building at 177 South Robertson.
Frank and Nancy were at a standoff: he didn’t want to pay her all he owed her until she gave him his freedom; she didn’t want to give him his freedom until he paid all he owed her.
He flew to New York to rehearse for the TV show, but even as he stood in CBS Studio 50, a cardboard cup of coffee in one hand and a Camel in the other, he got word that the L.A. law firm that had been representing him in the divorce proceedings was suing him for $12,250 in unpaid legal fees. The firm had slapped a lien on the already-levied 177 South Robertson building and, for good measure, on Twin Palms as well.
He drew on the cigarette and exhaled. Fuck ’em.
There was more bad news. Bulova had pulled out of The Frank Sinatra Show. The only sponsor the network was able to attract was Ekco, the housewares company, for just the first fifteen minutes of the sixty. And CBS had moved the show from Saturday night to Tuesday, opposite another TV behemoth, Mr. Television himself, Milton Berle, on Texaco Star Theater.
Fuck ’em.
On October 3, at the Polo Grounds, the New York Giants’ Bobby Thomson hit the most famous home run in baseball history to win the National League play-offs against the Brooklyn