His Way_ The Unauthorized Biography of Frank Sinatra - Kitty Kelley [102]
“Everyone in Hollywood knew of his struggles ‘to divorce or not to divorce,’ and the columnists as well as the industry were giving him a very bad time.”
The artistic chemistry between Frank and his headstrong leading lady soured immediately after rehearsals began, and their vicious arguments soon could be heard throughout the studio. He called her a “bowlegged bitch of a Brooklyn blonde” and she retaliated, denouncing him as “a skinny, no-talent, stupid, Hoboken bastard.” One night they flew into such a rage at each other that Shelley slugged him, and Frank stormed off the set. “Contrary to other Italians I have known since, he didn’t hit me back,” said Shelley. “Maybe he went home and hit Ava Gardner.”
The next morning, studio executives begged Shelley to make peace with her temperamental co-star. “Mr. Sinatra is going through a terrible and troubled period of his life and career,” said Leo Spitz, the financial wizard of Universal. “He’s going against all his religious training and has periods when he loses his voice, and it terrifies him. And he is not famous as an actor but a singer.… That’s no excuse for him behaving so outrageously, but you’re both liberals, and maybe with your ideals of brotherhood you can bring yourself to understand the reasons that are making him behave the way he did.”
Shelley acquiesced and showed up the next day for shooting, but Frank was unrepentant. They rehearsed their scene, at the end of which he was supposed to look into the camera and say, “I’ll have a cup of coffee and leave you two lovebirds alone.” Instead, when the cameras started rolling, Frank changed the dialogue. “I’ll go have a cup of Jack Daniel’s or I’m going to pull that blond broad’s hair out by its black roots,” he said. Shelley slammed him over the head and stormed off the set, refusing to leave her home for two days. Finally, she received a tearful call from Nancy Sinatra begging her to go back to the studio to finish the picture. Nancy said: “Shelley, Frank doesn’t get the twenty-five thousand dollars for the picture. The bank might foreclose the mortgage on the house. My children are going to be out in the street. Please finish the picture or they won’t give me the twenty-five thousand dollars.”
Again, Shelley relented and returned to the studio to finish the film, but she and Frank did not part friends.
Despite Frank’s feelings of guilt about leaving his home, he finally decided to push Nancy hard for a divorce. After giving her a mink coat for her birthday, he pleaded for his freedom. She still remained unconvinced that he was sure of what he wanted, but this time he convinced her. “If I cannot get a divorce, where is there for me to go and what is there for me to do?” he asked. Nancy gave in. She notified her attorney of her decision and then called the press.
“Yes, we have come to a decision—the attorneys are working on it now,” she said on May 29, 1951. “This is what Frank wants, and I’ve said yes. I refused him a divorce for a long time because I thought he would come back to his home. … I am now convinced that a divorce is the only way for my happiness as well as Frank’s. I think it is better for the children too.”
When reporters asked him if Nancy’s decision now left him free to marry Ava, he snarled: “I’ll flatten you if you ask me one more question about that. That’s purely personal.”
Three months later, Nancy still had not filed for divorce, so when Frank and Ava left for an Acapulco vacation in August, the press assumed that he was going to obtain a quick Mexican divorce and marry Ava, and they turned out in force to cover the story. When Frank saw all the reporters waiting for him at the Los Angeles airport, he