His Way_ The Unauthorized Biography of Frank Sinatra - Kitty Kelley [106]
Staunchly defending Frank and Ava, Dolly said, “I’d like to tell those hypocrites who send me letters without signing their names that say ‘Aren’t you ashamed, Mrs. Sinatra, aren’t you ashamed that your boy divorced his wife and left three children just so he could marry that actress?’ I’d like to tell them that Frank loves his three children as much as he loves anything else in the world—that I, his mother, am proud that he married a wonderful girl like his Ava.”
Ava was the one and only woman in Frank’s life Dolly truly loved, for Ava immediately became “famiglia” (family)—the beloved “figlia” (daughter-in-law). Dolly had tried to maintain cordial relations with Big Nancy because she wanted to see her grandchildren, but she gave her heart to Ava and quickly forgave her for not being Italian or Catholic. After all, Ava was an international beauty, of exotic plumage, not a drab little peahen like Nancy. Since the premiere of Show Boat, Ava had become one of the biggest movie stars in the world, and as such was the only woman good enough to marry Dolly’s son, especially at this point in his life. With Ava beside him, he could scale the heights again. Dolly knew that Ava was already doing her part to help revive his movie career.
Besides, Frank was going to sing the following month for Prince Philip and Princess Elizabeth in London’s Coliseum. To Dolly, Ava was the kind of woman a man could proudly introduce to royalty; Nancy was better left at home cooking and taking care of children. Years later, when Frank first performed before the British Queen, he said he was so excited that he called Dolly in Hoboken. “Guess who your son was with tonight?” he shouted. “The Queen of England!” His mother was unimpressed. “Lucky Queen,” she said.
Ava enjoyed Frank’s tough, profane, funny mother, and the two women spent many hours together shopping and drinking and laughing. The barefoot girl from Grabtown and the Hoboken midwife had a lot in common. Both were Christmas babies. Ava’s birthday was December 24 and Dolly’s December 25. Both were ardent Democrats and uninhibited. “They both cursed in Technicolor,” said a friend of the family. Both adored Frankie and believed that he was the best singer in the world. Dolly was even known to smash a chair over the head of anyone who disagreed. Unlike the first Mrs. Frank Sinatra, Ava was not ashamed to visit Hoboken and walk down its blue-collar streets so her mother-in-law could show her off to all the star-struck neighbors and merchants.
“This marriage is blessed with good luck,” said Dolly, an inveterate gambler. “You got married at the seventh hour on the seventh day of the eleventh month. Seven, seven, eleven. You can’t miss.”
Frank agreed with his mother. “We’re over all our crises now,” he said. “We have nothing to worry about anymore.”
Ecstatic after the wedding ceremony, Ava went upstairs to change into her brown Christian Dior going-away outfit, her brown alligator shoes and purse, and the sapphire-blue mink stole that Frank had given her as a wedding present. He was already wearing the gold locket she had given him with a St. Christopher medal on one side, a St. Francis medal on the other, and her picture inside. They were going to honeymoon in Cuba for three days at the Hotel Nacional, which was owned in part by the crime syndicate.
When the bride came downstairs, Manie Sacks took her aside for a few seconds. “Look after him, Ava,” he said. “He’s had some hard knocks and he’s very fragile. It isn’t going to be easy living with a man whose career is in a slump.”
“I’ll do anything to make him happy,” said Ava.
“Then,” said Manie, “help him get back his self-confidence.”
13
Both Frank and Ava came from families in which the mother was the dominant force and the father was sweet, passive, and ineffectual. What Ava did not know and Frank could not articulate was the importance of his not being emasculated the way his quiet little father had been. Marty Sinatra, racked