His Way_ The Unauthorized Biography of Frank Sinatra - Kitty Kelley [108]
“Can you imagine being fired by an agency that never had to sell you?” said Frank. He despised MCA president Lew Wasserman so heartily for cutting him loose that he didn’t speak to him for ten years. Wasserman remained unconcerned. MCA was the most powerful agency in the world, and a client like Sinatra, who was so hostile to the press, was a liability.
Without an agency, Frank turned to friends like Manie Sacks for help. And he appealed to Bob Weitman to book him into the Paramount for the opening of Meet Danny Wilson in March 1952. The Paramount had been the scene of his greatest box office triumphs, where thousands of bobby-soxers filled the theater and then ran up and down the aisles screaming his name and hurling themselves into the orchestra pit just to get closer to him. Five years later, he could not even fill the balcony.
The day after his opening the headline in the New York World Telegram and Sun said it all: GONE ON FRANKIE IN ’42; GONE IN ’52. The accompanying article was an open letter to the singer from Muriel Fischer. “I saw you last night. But I didn’t get ‘that old feeling’ … I sat in the balcony. And Í felt kind of lonely. It was so empty. The usher said there were 750 seats in the second balcony—and 749 were unfilled.… Later I stood outside the stage entrance. About a dozen people were waiting around. Three girls were saying ‘Frankie’ soft and swoonlike. I asked, ‘How do you like Frankie?’ They said, ‘Frankie Laine, he’s wonderful.’ I heard a girl sighing, ‘I’m mad about him,’ so I asked her who. ‘Johnnie Ray,’ she cried. All of a sudden, Mr. Sinatra, I felt sort of old!”
Frank played the Chez Paree in Chicago, a nightclub with seating capacity for 1,200, and brought in only 150 patrons. Columbia Records refused to renew his contract, and his fan clubs disbanded. His engagement at the Cocoanut Grove in Los Angeles was embarrassing, especially for some of his friends who didn’t want to be seen attending. Sammy Cahn cringed when Frank gave him credit from the stage for some special material he’d written. “Believe me,” said Cahn, “I could have done without it.”
Although no one wanted to write stories about Frank anymore, he kept his publicity firm on a monthly retainer, but complained because he wasn’t getting press coverage. Press agent Budd Granoff offered to reduce his fee, but pride kept Frank from paying a lesser rate than the other stars Granoff was handling.
“He was paying us four hundred dollars a week, and he felt it was too much money because he wasn’t working and didn’t have any money,” said Granoff. “So I went to see him and said, ‘Frank, you don’t want to see anybody, you don’t want to do any interviews, you’re not doing anything, so why don’t we cut the thing in half for the time being?’ He got very angry. Referring to Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, he said, ‘How much is the skinny Jew-boy and the dumb Wop paying you?’ I said four hundred dollars. He said, ‘What is the fat boy paying you,’ meaning Mario Lanza. I said four hundred dollars. He was very angry, very hurt. ‘You don’t change the fee,’ he said. ‘I change the fee, and I’ll pay you four hundred dollars.’ ”
If Frank’s career was sputtering, Ava’s was soaring. She had been chosen to plant her hands and feet in wet cement in the forecourt of Grauman’s Chinese Theater, a Hollywood honor accorded only the biggest stars, and one that Frank would not receive for another thirteen years. Later, MGM offered her a new ten-year contract for twelve pictures at $100,000 per picture. True to her word, she insisted that Metro hire Frank as her leading man for one of those movies. After the box office failure of Meet Danny Wilson, Universal had refused to renew his option for a second film despite his pleas, but he kept telling Ava that all he needed was one good role to put him over the top again. Dedicated to helping him in any way she could, Ava refused to sign her new contract until the studio lawyers added a clause entitled Services of Frank Sinatra, which stated:
(a)Should