Frank_ The Voice - James Kaplan [237]
She asked Ava if she would like something to drink. Ava asked for vodka.
“God, Ava,” Joan Cohn said, when the maid had brought the vodka, “you’re going to ruin your skin.”
“What the hell,” Ava said, and took a long pull from the glass.
The two women looked at each other, the studio chief’s wife aware that Ava seemed on edge. Finally, the actress lit a cigarette and said, “Joan, I’ve come to ask you a big favor.”
Ava seemed to gather her courage.
“I want you to get Harry to give Frank the Maggio role in From Here to Eternity,” she finally said.
Joan Cohn lit a cigarette herself. She stared at Ava, who continued in a nervous rush of words. “He wants that part more than anything in the world, and he’s got to have it, otherwise I’m afraid he’ll kill himself. Please, promise me that you’ll help. Just get him a test. Please, Joan. Just a test.”
Harry Cohn’s wife blinked at the spectacle of this haughtily gorgeous woman, this major star, pleading with her, almost stammering. Harry had mentioned Sinatra’s telegrams, had told her about the lunch where Frank begged Cohn to let him work for nothing. It had touched the studio chief in a strange way, but, he admitted to his wife, it had also made him feel a certain contempt for the singer. That, Cohn had told his wife, was all Sinatra was: a fucking crooner. What possessed this schmuck to think he could do anything on a movie screen besides sing and dance and smile? The balls on him!
Still, Cohn’s wife told him about the visit, and Harry Cohn found himself intrigued by the notion of Ava Gardner as a supplicant. He conceived an idea. The studio chief and his wife had a tenant living in the guesthouse on their property, a painter named Paul Clemens. Clemens, a former WPA artist, had moved to California in the late 1930s and now made a good living doing portraits of movie stars. He was an amusing fellow, tall and bespectacled and distracted-looking, slightly cynical but good company, and it pleased Cohn to feel he was supporting the arts by housing him. Cohn, who prided himself on knowing everything about everybody in Hollywood, knew that Clemens and Ava were pals—he’d painted her picture, probably gotten a lay out of the deal. And so one morning on his way to work, Harry tapped on his tenant’s door and suggested—as landlord to tenant—that the artist invite his pal Miss Gardner over to the Cohns’ for dinner sometime.
It was a pleasant evening, and Ava got loaded right away. She knew all about Cohn’s reputation as a bully, but wouldn’t have been scared of him in any case. She looked him in the eye. “You know who’s right for that part of Maggio, don’t you?” she said. “That son of a bitch of a husband of mine.”
Cohn stared at her with that bulldog-terrier face. Christ, she was gorgeous.
“For God’s sake, Harry,” Ava suddenly said. “I’ll give you a free picture if you’ll just test him.”
The studio chief smiled as he looked her up and down. What else, he wondered, might she give him for free?
“We bumped into Frank and Ava at Frascati’s restaurant in Beverly Hills, and whatever trouble they might have had is evidently over,” Hedda Hopper wrote.
We’ve never seen a more loving couple. They were extremely considerate and attentive to one another. Ava, a brunette again with a “little boy bob” haircut, looked wonderful. While Ava is doing “Mogambo” in Africa, Frank will stay as closely as possible to her. He told us that there were 60 theaters in Africa in which he could play. When the company goes to England, it’ll be easy for Frank to be on hand,