Frank_ The Voice - James Kaplan [249]
Strict privacy was ordered for the actress, wife of Crooner Frank Sinatra. There are neither visitors nor phone calls. Only a doctor saw her.
Filming continues in Kenya by shooting scenes in which Miss Gardner does not appear.
Frank got the news along with everyone else, and, at length, reached her by phone in London.
Her voice was weak. There was an echo on the line. God only knew who was listening in.
He’d been worried sick about her. Was she okay? What had happened?
What had happened was that like a moron, she’d eaten some fucking lettuce, which any sane white person in Africa knew you should never do in a million years … More important, though—what about his screen test?
He told her, and she was happy for him. Genuinely happy, even though she had just aborted their child … But she was so tired—would he understand if she slept a little?
Of course he would understand. She should get her rest, and he would call her when he got to New York.
The first thing he did when he hung up was drive to Billy Ruser’s jewelry store in Beverly Hills and pick out a present, for her birthday and Christmas—a pair of earrings, emeralds to go with her eyes. Ruser, an old pal, helped Frank himself.
They were gorgeous. “How much?”
“Twenty-two thousand.”
Frank exhaled and looked out the window, his eyes suddenly moist.
“Frank, give the earrings to Ava.”
“Billy, I can’t afford these.”
Ruser put them in a box and pushed it across the counter. “You pay me when you have it.”
Then he bought Christmas presents for the kids and Nancy—he would be far away at Christmas. Frank borrowed a couple of grand from Van Heusen, who was swimming in dough, still cranking out movie songs for Crosby. He and Chester made plans for later, a couple of girls, one black and one white …
He drove over to Holmby Hills. Nancy was holding the fort with the money he sent her, though the big house was still on the market. She simply didn’t need all that space, and she could bank a nice sum if she sized down.
She was practical. But Frank was also surprised to see, when she opened the front door, just how good she looked—as though, without him, she would have withered up and blown away, grown old overnight. She was wearing his pearls, and the smell of something delicious cooking in the kitchen somehow added to her allure. Ava couldn’t—wouldn’t—boil water … He kissed his ex-wife. On the mouth. She kissed back just a tiny bit, as if she’d momentarily forgotten everything—but then she was tapping him on the chest. Asking him what he was doing.
Then Nancy junior was there, in a sweater and blue jeans and saddle shoes. He noticed the little swellings underneath the sweater.
Tina, four, edged up under her mother’s arm, staring up at him; behind them, eight-year-old Frankie sat silently on the steps, his hair combed neatly, a scab from a playground accident on his forehead, his dark eyes suspicious.
Frank picked up the bags he’d brought. Christmas was early this year!
Nancy Sandra cheered. Her little sister smiled shyly; the boy raised his eyebrows. Frank’s ex-wife gave him a knowing look, but seemed pleased anyway.
He asked if he could come in. She nodded.
Her dignity was indestructible; she had begun to make a life without him. She cultivated the gossip columnists, many of them women; they naturally took her side. Hedda Hopper wrote in early November:
When I was on my lecture tour, a Nancy Sinatra fan wanted to know if she’d take Frank back. So I asked her.
“The idea is ridiculous,” she said. “Frank’s a married man now. He sees our children all the time, and he loves them. But as for anything else, it never enters my head.” Her friend Jim Henaghan brought an oil man to see her house, so maybe one of these days she’ll sell it and buy a smaller place. Nancy’s quite a gal.
Romances were hinted at, but her most steadfast companion outside the Barbato circle seemed to be the similarly single Barbara “Missy” Stanwyck. Mostly, though, the former Mrs. Sinatra took great care to stay busy. The columnist Edith Gwynn wrote (on the very day