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“It was a Fireman’s Ball in the fall of 1952 and Frank came because his dad asked him to be there,” said his childhood friend, Tony Mac. “He came with Ava Gardner in a limousine and his mom made sure there were cops with billy clubs to help him get through the crowd. I remember the date well because Jimmy “Doo Doo” Shannon was dying of cancer, and this was about three weeks before he died. Doo Doo was one of the guys from the neighborhood, and Frank ate at his house all through grammar school. So we all went to see Frankie that night. I remember saying, ‘How about coming to see Doo Doo Shannon. He’s dying.’ Frank said he just couldn’t make it and leave Ava waiting in the limousine. He didn’t have the time.

“He sang onstage that night and hit some clinkers, and so people booed him and threw fruit and stuff, kidding around. When he was singing on WAAT Radio, he hit clinkers then, too, and we laughed at him, but now, well, it was different. Oh, did he get mad.”

Afterward Frank ran offstage and asked Tony Costello, one of the policemen, to show him out the back way. “I don’t want to have to go out through there,” he said, nodding peevishly to the crowd.

“I led him down the back steps to the street. There were no fans, nothing. As we shook hands and said good-bye, Frank said, ‘Tony, I’ll never come back and do another thing for the people of Hoboken as long as I live.’ ”

The next night Frank was singing at Bill Miller’s Riviera in Fort Lee, New Jersey, and Ava, sitting ringside, saw Marilyn Maxwell walk in. As soon as Frank walked onstage and started singing, Ava was convinced that he was singing for no one else but his former lover. Hurling curses in the air, she stormed out of the club and boarded a plane for Hollywood. When she arrived, she sent her wedding ring to Frank with a bitter note. Sammy Davis, Jr., later saw Frank walking down a New York street all by himself, no fans, no friends, no entourage. “I’ve got problems, baby,” Frank said. “That’s what happens when you get hung up on a chick.”

Frank also confided in Earl Wilson. “I never so much as looked at another gal since Ava. I’m nuts about her and I don’t think it’s dead, but it certainly is all up in the air now.”

But he told other reporters that the disagreement was trivial. “We have a career problem,” he said. “I’m going to see my wife in about ten days in Hollywood. I think everything will work out all right.”

Frank followed Ava to the West Coast, but the volatile union erupted again days later in Palm Springs. Ava, who seemed to thrive on danger, laughed as she recalled the hair-pulling, glass-shattering event thirty years later.

“Frank and I were having one of our fights, as if that was anything new,” she said. “Most of our fights were funny, but that one was the funniest of the lot.

“I was always deciding I couldn’t go on living with him, and this was one of our spells apart when he was trying to talk me into going back. He told me that he had let Lana [Turner] have the house in Palm Springs for a week, and wanted me to go away with him someplace, but I had already arranged to be with my sister, Bappie. As usual, Frank didn’t like any plan that didn’t include him, so he started his usual line: ‘Swell. You just go off with your sister, and I’ll be in Palm Springs fucking Lana Turner.’

“I didn’t really believe him, but I did start to think about it, and I decided I didn’t like it too much. So I grabbed the car, collected Bappie, and off we drove to Palm Springs. As we got near the house, I suddenly saw Frank’s car cruising around outside as if he was keeping watch on the place. As we got nearer, he drove away.

“When we got into the house, we found Lana there with Ben Cole, who was also a friend of mine, and they both seemed surprised and a little embarrassed to see me. They asked if I wanted them to go, and I said, ‘Hell, no. There’s plenty of room for all of us.’

“I hadn’t been there more than ten minutes when the door bursts open and in storms Frank looking like Al Capone and the Boston