Frank_ The Voice - James Kaplan [82]
“It wasn’t much of an intimidation,” D’Orazio said. “In fact, one of the guys was so excited about meeting Tommy Dorsey, he had to be talked out of going back and asking the guy for his autograph after they left his office.”
The story seems just too charming not to be true.
There was little charm, however, once the lawyers and agents got involved. Saul Jaffe, who was indeed the secretary of the American Federation of Radio Artists, actually did threaten Tommy Dorsey with exclusion from the airwaves, and Dorsey—who perhaps had already been softened up by a threatening telephone call and a threatening visit—took his point. All that remained was the paperwork. MCA was able to snatch Sinatra away from his former agency, Rockwell-O’Keefe, by brokering the deal—which essentially just meant moving money around. Dorsey got $60,000 ($700,000 today) to finally cut Frank loose: $35,000 of it came from MCA itself, advanced to its new client; Columbia Records advanced the remaining $25,000 to its new recording artist.
Lawyers, agents, executives, goons, mobsters, gofers—all dancing attendance on the Golden Boy, who yawned, picked his teeth, and winked at the next beautiful girl at his dressing-room door, while his publicist pulled out what remained of his hair.
By the end of 1943, Frank Sinatra had ascended from mere teen idol to bona fide American superstar, one of only a handful of such creatures who had existed up to that point in history—think Caruso, Chaplin, Valentino, Crosby—but one who possessed unprecedented power and influence. Sinatra was a radio and recording star; he was soon to break through in the movies. He had smashed attendance records at the Paramount and wowed the snooty nightclub crowds at the Riobamba—and then, historically, in October, he knocked them dead at the Waldorf-Astoria’s Wedgwood Room, a venue of such high tone that Cole Porter himself descended from his thirty-third-floor suite to take in the show (and, presumably, forgive the singer for blowing the lyrics to “Night and Day” back at the Rustic Cabin).8 Sinatra had vocalized along with the Cleveland, Philadelphia, and Los Angeles philharmonics. Soon he would pay a call on the president of the United States—his idol Franklin Delano Roosevelt (who would ask Sinatra to clue him in on the winner of that week’s Your Hit Parade). But he still had a big problem.
Along with sixteen million other young men, Sinatra had first registered for the draft in December 1940. As a new father, he had been granted an exemption from service, but now, in the fall of 1943, with the United States throwing every resource into the conflicts in Europe and the Pacific, the government was about to abolish deferments for married fathers. Meanwhile, Sinatra was already catching flak from resentful soldiers (“Hey, Wop. Why aren’t you in uniform?”), and George Evans was doing plenty of scrambling to keep his prize client from looking like a slacker, making sure the press knew he was singing “God Bless America” at war-bond rallies (lots of them), and on American Forces Radio shows, and on unbreakable vinyl V-Discs to be sent to soldiers and sailors overseas.
But would Frankie be sent overseas? Plenty of entertainers were on their way: Buddy Rich had signed up, as had Joe Bushkin and Jack Leonard and Glenn Miller and Artie Shaw and Rudy Vallée, not to mention Gene Kelly and Mickey Rooney (with a heart murmur, yet) and Clark Gable (dentures and all) and Jimmy Stewart and Joe DiMaggio, though the only fighting John Wayne would do would be on celluloid.
At the end of October, Sinatra dutifully reported to the local board examining physician for the U.S. Army in Jersey City, where, in a preliminary examination, a Dr. Povalski declared the singer fit for service, classifying him 1-A. In early December, the Army, in the person of Captain Joseph Weintrob, M.D., examined Sinatra again, in Newark, and declared him 4-F. His Physical Examination and Induction form read, “Frank Albert Sinatra [note first