His Way_ The Unauthorized Biography of Frank Sinatra - Kitty Kelley [115]
While Lastfogel and Weisbrod tried to persuade Fred Zinnemann, Frank called Buddy Adler, who was producing the picture for Columbia.
“It’s an acting part, Frankie,” said the producer.
“It’s me,” said Frank. “It’s me.”
Frank also called his friend Jack Entratter, who had left the Copa and was now in Las Vegas running the Sands Hotel for Frank Costello and Joey Adonis, the two men Entratter had fronted for at the Copacabana in New York. Jack was a close friend of Harry Cohn and went fishing with him every other weekend. Aware of this, Frank begged Jack to talk to Harry about the role. Jack promised to do so, and later told Cohn that Frank wanted to play Maggio. But Harry Cohn had already made up his mind about the casting. He wanted Columbia stars in the movie, and suggested Robert Mitchum to play Sgt. Milton Warden, a role that finally went to Burt Lancaster; Aldo Ray to play Robert E. Lee Prewitt (Montgomery Clift won it); Joan Crawford to play the promiscuous wife of the captain (Deborah Kerr), and Eli Wallach to play Maggio.
Harry Cohn told his wife that he was being swamped with all sorts of appeals on Frank’s behalf, even from Hollywood columnists who were writing about Frank’s campaign to play the supporting character role with fifth billing in the credits.
Joan Cohn seized the moment to make good on her promise to Ava. “Why not consider Frank for the role?” she asked her husband. “He’s Italian and scrawny, so he’d be perfect in the scene where skinny little Maggio has to go up against that great big Sgt. ‘Fatso’ Judson (Ernest Borgnine).”
“You, too, huh?” said Cohn to his wife. “I just don’t think it would work. Besides, I’d have to test Frank, and you know he’d never lower himself for that.”
“I bet he would,” said Joan Cohn. “I’ll bet you anything you want to bet that Frank Sinatra will do a test. Just try him, Harry. A test can’t hurt, and then you’ll know for sure.”
Jonie Taps, a vice-president of Columbia Pictures and one of Cohn’s closest associates, also pushed for giving Frank a test. “Harry still didn’t like the idea,” said Taps. “He said, ‘Give me one good reason why I should put him in a picture?’ I said, ‘You may want Ava Gardner for a picture sometime. She loves Frank and she’ll appreciate it.’ Ava helped out, too, by giving Harry a call and asking him to cast Frank.”
Finally, Harry Cohn called Frank and said that he shouldn’t get his hopes up, but if he’d be willing to test for Maggio, he might be considered. Frank was ecstatic and agreed to the test. He waited weeks for Cohn to call him back, but he never heard a word. When Frank stopped by the studio to inquire, he was told that there was nothing definite to tell him yet. Then he read that Cohn and Fred Zinnemann were really interested in Eli Wallach for the role. In despair Frank left with Ava for Africa, telling his agents to cable him if there was any possible hope that he still might be tested. If so, he would fly back to Hollywood on a moment’s notice and at his own expense.
The Sinatras flew to Nairobi on November 7, 1952, and celebrated their first wedding anniversary on a stratocruiser ten thousand miles from home. “We felt kinda sorry for ourselves,” Frank later wrote in a letter, “but we exchanged our gifts and opened a not-too-chilled bottle of champagne to toast our first milestone.” He gave Ava a huge globe-shaped ring studded with diamonds, which he charged to her, and she gave him a thin platinum watch.
“It was quite an occasion for me,” she said later. “I had been married twice but never for a whole year.