Frank_ The Voice - James Kaplan [85]
On January 1, Sinatra legally became a California resident, a status he would maintain until the end of his life. On January 5, he began a new radio show on CBS, The Frank Sinatra Program. Unlike Your Hit Parade—on which the singer continued, but only as a glorified co-host—and the now defunct Songs by Sinatra, which had aired, unsponsored, for just fifteen minutes weekly, the new broadcast was a star vehicle, thirty minutes every Wednesday night, with a big-time backer, Vimms Vitamins. (“Take a minute! See what’s in it! When you’re buying a vitamin product, read the label! Make sure you get all the vitamins recommended by government experts! You do in Vimms! And three essential minerals also!”)
In compliance with Sinatra’s demands, the new show (with Stordahl conducting the orchestra, and the Bobby Tucker Singers back in service as the Vimms Vocalists) was broadcast from Hollywood.
He had come west to start shooting his second RKO feature, Step Lively, a musical version of the hit Broadway comedy Room Service, with songs written by his old pal Sammy Cahn and Cahn’s partner Jule Styne. Radio could make a crooner an imaginary friend to the great American audience, but movies could make him larger than life: look at Bing.
First, though, came a minor distraction.
At 5:50 p.m. on Monday, January 10, Nancy Sinatra once again gave birth at the Margaret Hague Maternity Hospital in Jersey City, again unattended by her husband. During Little Nancy’s delivery three and a half years earlier, Frank had been just across the Hudson River, singing with Dorsey at the Astor roof. For the birth of his only son, he managed to be all the way across the country. “Dad was on the air in the middle of a radio show broadcast live from Hollywood when Franklin Wayne Emmanuel [sic] Sinatra was born,” writes Nancy junior, in Frank Sinatra: An American Legend. At 2:50 p.m. Pacific standard time on January 10, Frank Sinatra was certainly in the middle of something, but not a radio broadcast, since Your Hit Parade aired, live, on Saturday nights; the Vimms show, Wednesdays. And so Franklin Wayne Emanuel Sinatra came squalling into the world as he would remain in the world: fatherless, more or less.2
Evans immediately kicked into overdrive, slapping together a major photo op for the next day at Margaret Hague Maternity, arriving first thing in the morning to marshal the event. He first had Nancy don a pale blue quilted Best & Co. bed jacket, then brought in a cosmetologist and a beautician who made up, coiffed, and manicured her to the nines. Evans then handed Mom a framed photo of Dad and told her exactly what to do when the reporters trooped in: Smile. Hold up the baby. Hold up the photo.
Family was always an ambivalent matter with Sinatra. But the beautification of Nancy Sinatra was real. Once the nice ladies were done with her, she was beautiful—more so than any new mother had a right to be. When the reporters finally clumped in, clad in white coats for the occasion as if they were about to discover penicillin, brandishing their notebooks and giant flash cameras, Nancy was ready to answer their questions. Who was he named for? Which side of the family did he favor? Could he sing like his old man?
George stood behind them as they flashed away. He smiled at her, and she at him. And her smile was really beautiful.
Of course she wasn’t just smiling at Evans. She was thrilled about this baby, and even loved the attention. She was, after all, Mrs. Frank Sinatra—a very important position in America, not so very different from being the First Lady. She was aware of the privileges and responsibilities.
To a great degree it was like a political marriage: the public had begun to overwhelm the private. The time they actually spent together, just the two of them, was almost nonexistent