His Way_ The Unauthorized Biography of Frank Sinatra - Kitty Kelley [112]
“Frank then said to Lana, Ben, Bappie, and me: ‘Get the hell out of my house!’ And I yelled, ‘Fine! But since this is also my house, too, I’m gonna take out of it everything that belongs to me.’
“I started taking down pictures from the wall and Frank exploded. He grabbed everything I said was mine and hurled it outside onto the lawn. It was hysterical. Lana and Ben, who were both very frightened, fled from the house to look for somewhere else to stay, and when they came back for their things several hours later, we were still at it, and by that time the place was crawling with cops because the neighbors had called the police about all the noise. In the end, the local police chief, Gus Kettman, had to be called to keep the peace between us.”
Lana Turner has her own vivid recollection of that Saturday, October 18, 1952. She said Ava had arrived unannounced as she and Benton Cole were sitting at the pool. “I was all the more startled to see her because she and Frank were separated at the time,” said Lana, who apologized for the intrusion, saying that Frank had lent her the house. “ ‘He didn’t mention you’d be around.’
“ ‘Oh, screw him,’ said Ava. ‘He doesn’t know I’m here.’
“ ‘Do you want us to leave?’
“ ‘Oh, hell, no. There’s room for all of us.’ ”
The three of them sat by the pool together and then went into the kitchen for fried chicken when a crazed Frank Sinatra burst through the back door with his eyes blazing and his face a Day-Glo red.
“ ‘I bet you two broads have really been cutting me up,’ he said. We couldn’t say a word, and I just kept shaking my head no because we hadn’t even discussed him,” said Lana. “With that he pointed to Ava and growled, ‘You! Get in the bedroom. I want to talk to you!’ With a shrug Ava headed for the bedroom I’d been using. Frank followed her, and before long, harsh words came from that bedroom, and a crash, as though a piece of furniture was being thrown.”
Lana and Ben ran out of the house but, according to Lana, returned a few hours later concerned about what might have happened to Ava. “It was dark when we arrived at Frank’s place, and a strange sight greeted us,” she said. “Police cars were drawn up in front of the house, with red lights blinking, radios squawking. The glare of spotlights illuminated the house. The sounds of battle inside, I learned later, had grown so loud that neighbors had called the police.”
Having already rented another house for the week, Lana and Ben asked Ava to join them, knowing that she could not stay with Frank. That evening, Frank moved into Jimmy Van Heusen’s house, and Bappie took her battered sister to stay with Lana and Ben. “We did what we could to make Ava comfortable,” said Lana. “Poor Ava. She was badly shaken, and after my own grim experience, I could sympathize with her humiliation. But alone in my room I was surprised that I also felt sorry for Frank. It was a bad time for him. His career had slipped badly, and he was losing Ava.”
The fact that the police had been called to settle a dispute involving Frank Sinatra, Ava Gardner, and Lana Turner hit the newspapers with headlines that caused everyone in Hollywood to speculate about what had really happened to trigger such violence on Frank’s part.
BOUDOIR FIGHT HEADS FRANKIE AND AVA TO COURTS screamed the Los Angeles Daily Mirror.
SINATRA-AVA BOUDOIR ROW BUZZES roared the Los Angeles Times.
Neither story stated exactly what had happened except that Frank had ordered Artie Shaw’s second and fourth ex-wives (Ava and Lana) out of his Palm Springs house after a “dispute” and the police had been called “to restore peace.” With so much left to the imagination and no comments from anyone involved, the