His Way_ The Unauthorized Biography of Frank Sinatra - Kitty Kelley [127]
“George was supposed to keep Frank from slashing his wrists again,” said Abe Lastfogel, the agency president. “He was perfect for Frank because he knew all the gangsters—Meyer Lansky, Vincent ‘Jimmy Blue Eyes’ Alo, Frank Costello—all of them!”
Wood was an agency vice-president making twenty-five thousand dollars a year, plus bonuses and an unlimited expense account. Despite his importance, George became a virtual baby-sitter for Frank, and never left his side. “When Frank ate, I ate,” he said. “When he slept, I slept. When he felt like walking, I walked with him. When he took a haircut, I took a haircut. I loved the guy.”
The heartbreak Frank suffered over Ava seeped into his music, giving new poignancy to lyrics of loss and loneliness. The songs he sang in the clubs expressed the brooding melancholy he was feeling at the time. Charged with more power and emotion than ever before, his voice resonated with deep pain and turbulent longing as he sang “I’m a Fool to Want You,” making each word seem like a cry of anguish for being so ensnared by Ava.
Like the blues singers of old, Frank poured out his feelings, making his soulful ballads sound like anthems of remorse. He laid himself bare during this period, and his plaintive voice touched the hearts of listeners, who could almost feel the pain of this heartbroken man. “Don’t Worry ’Bout Me,” “My One and Only Love,” “It’s a Blue World,” and “There Will Never Be Another You” sprang from his agony and grief. His intonation imparted a deeper, more personal meaning to Harold Aden’s and Ira Gershwin’s:
The night is bitter,
The stars have lost their glitter.
The winds get colder.
And suddenly you’re older.
And all because of a gal that got away.
Generations of men sitting in bars drinking and brooding about their own broken romances and sexual betrayals identified with this macho man who was brought to his knees by lost love. They heard him introduce songs about men who have been done wrong by women, saying, “Shake hands with the vice-president of the club,” and they understood and commiserated. In a few years, he would give these same men musical aphrodisiacs with which they could seduce their women, but right now his was a soul in abject misery, and his music reflected it.
“It was Ava who did that, who taught him how to sing a torch song,” said Nelson Riddle. “That’s how he learned. She was the greatest love of his life, and he lost her.”
Critic George Simon wrote that Frank “produced some of his most emotional recordings during this period,” but the country was more interested in the belting renditions of Frankie Laine and Eddie Fisher than the searing torch songs of Frank Sinatra.
After leaving Columbia Records in 1952, Frank had not been able to get a contract with any recording company, including RCA Victor, where his good friend, Manie Sacks, was vice-president. Finally, the William Morris agency managed to obtain a one-year contract for him with Capitol Records, a fledgling Hollywood company, provided that Frank forfeit an advance and pay all his own studio costs.
June Hutton and Axel Stordahl persuaded Dave Dexter of Capitol to take a chance on Frank. The producer went to his boss, artists and repertoire chief Alan W. Livingston, and urged him to call Sam Weisbord and draw up a Sinatra contract. “I don’t know if he can come back on records,” Dexter told Livingston, “but I promise his output will be musically good—you won’t hear any barking dogs.” After the contract was signed, Livingston called Frank to discuss his choice of arrangers and the type of orchestra that should accompany him.
“By the way, your producer will be Dave Dexter,” he said. “He’s raring to help you kick off a whole new career.”
“That bastard?” screamed Frank. “I won’t work with him. He’s the jerk who rapped