Frank_ The Voice - James Kaplan [330]
17 “BALI TOO H’AI”: International News Service, May 4, 1950.
18 “Yes, I’ll probably see”: Kelley, His Way, p. 166.
19 “I remember one time”: Server, Ava Gardner, p. 197.
20 “A very, very wild spirit”: Ibid., p. 201.
21 “ ‘Ava,’ Bappie said”: Gardner, Ava, p. 241.
22 “thought she was the most”: Server, Ava Gardner, p. 197.
23 “Someone had passed”: Gardner, Ava, p. 246.
24 “it just got into her blood”: Server, Ava Gardner, p. 187.
25 “Oh, what a lovely surprise”: Ibid., p. 205.
26 “Of course, I knew”: Ibid., p. 207.
27 “They can’t make this”: Shaw, Twentieth-Century Romantic, p. 139.
28 “This bullfighter is nothing”: Server, Ava Gardner, p. 207.
29 “Eiffel Tower and stuff”: Shaw, Twentieth-Century Romantic, p. 139.
CHAPTER 26
1. The incident rhymes strangely with the 1970 visit by Elvis Presley to President Richard M. Nixon, in which Presley volunteered to be a “Federal Agent-at-Large” in the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs. Like Sinatra, Presley cited his ability to mix with undesirables—in this case, hippies. And like Sinatra, Elvis got the brush-off—though in a nicer way (for one thing, Nixon took the meeting).
SOURCE NOTES
2 “It takes real courage”: Richmond, Fever, p. 177.
3 “Sinatra, astoundingly thin”: Ibid.
4 “If TV is his oyster”: Havers, Sinatra, p. 148.
5 “Sipping tea on stage”: Nancy Sinatra, American Legend, p. 96.
6 “I watched mass hysteria”: Shaw, Twentieth-Century Romantic, p. 141.
7 “Bless me, he’s GOOD”: Ibid.
8 “People who simply put”: Ibid.
9 “pleasant throwaways”: George Avakian, in discussion with the author, Oct. 2006.
10 “a cute little novelty”: Frank Sinatra, interview with Ben Heller, WMID, Atlantic City, N.J., Sept. 4, 1950.
11 “There’s no sign of life”: Wilson, Sinatra, p. 94.
12 “I don’t think Frank”: Nancy Sinatra, American Legend, p. 97.
13 “Bright, with good”: Friedwald, Sinatra! p. 185.
14 “DATE: SEPTEMBER 7, 1950”: Kuntz and Kuntz, Sinatra Files, p. 67.
15 “the Hollywood–Los Angeles underworld”: Dixon (Ill.) Evening Telegraph, May 29, 1950.
16 “Sinatra’s decline”: Ibid.
17 “heard the whispered”: Server, Ava Gardner, p. 215.
18 “a tear or so”: “Frank Sinatras Legally Parted by Court Action,” Los Angeles Times, Sept. 29, 1950.
19 “I don’t feel much”: Ibid.
20 “I would see her faint”: Nancy Sinatra, My Father, p. 74.
21 “Frank Sinatra walked off”: Shaw, Twentieth-Century Romantic, p. 144.
22 “a surprisingly good actor”: Ibid.
23 “bad pacing, bad scripting”: Ibid.
24 “Frank was always late”: Kelley, His Way, p. 171.
25 “Frank was always washing”: Ibid.
26 “Frank was insanely jealous”: Ibid., p. 170.
CHAPTER 27
1. There are some who claim that it was Frank himself who came up with the idea to do a record with Dagmar: he was always a willful, often shrewd, manager of his own career—though sometimes he was more headstrong than wise. In any case, desperate times call for desperate measures, and if the duet was Frank’s idea, we should probably applaud him for his audacity, if not his perspicacity.
2. In fact, there is a famous list of some two hundred important popular songs that Sinatra never recorded, out of either sheer neglect or (far more likely) fear that they wouldn’t sell.
3. Miller threatened to terminate Clooney’s contract if she didn’t record “Come On-a My House.” And as the producer Paul Weston, Jo Stafford’s husband, told Charles L. Granata, “You can’t believe the crap that he had Jo record, tunes like ‘Underneath the Overpass,’ stuff that just died. He would be very persuasive, and the artist didn’t have much choice. They’d say, ‘This is a piece of crap,’ and Mitch would say, ‘Oh, it’s gonna be a hit,’ so they’d do it” (Friedwald, Sinatra! p. 193).
SOURCE NOTES
4 “We like Eddie Fisher”: Ed O’Brien, in discussion with the author, March 2007.
5 “You had to”: Havers, Sinatra, p. 169.
6 “Singer Eddie Fisher”: Fisher, Been There, Done That, p. 42.
7 “The cash customers”: Ibid.
8