His Way_ The Unauthorized Biography of Frank Sinatra - Kitty Kelley [146]
This was the closest Bacall ever came to admitting her passion for Frank during the time that her husband was dying. “It was no secret to any of us,” said playwright Ketti Frings, who visited Bogart at home during his last days. “Everybody knew about Betty and Frank. We just hoped Bogie wouldn’t find out. That would have been more killing than the cancer.”
On Monday, January 14, 1957, Humphrey Bogart died, three weeks after his fifty-seventh birthday. Frank was performing in New York at the Copa when he got the news. He canceled his next two appearances, telling his agents, “I can’t go on. I wouldn’t be coherent.” He called Lauren Bacall in California and offered her his house in Palm Springs for two weeks, then canceled three more shows. But he still couldn’t bring himself to fly to the West Coast for the funeral.
The rest of the Bogart Rat Pack was there in full force, with David Niven, Swifty Lazar, and Mike Romanoff serving as pallbearers. Adolph Green and Betty Comden flew in from New York. Nunnally Johnson flew in from Georgia. Frank remained in Manhattan. He pleaded laryngitis, but close friends suspected that he had developed a crippling case of what George Evans once called “the guilt germs.”
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Frank made front-page headlines in February 1957 with a Hollywood scandal that lasted for months.
WITNESS SAYS SINATRA LIED blared the Los Angeles Mirror-News.
SINATRA AND “PRIVATE EYE” TO FACE PERJURY QUIZ roared the Los Angeles Examiner.
At issue was Frank’s honesty in relating what had happened the evening of November 5, 1954, when he and Joe DiMaggio were suspected of staging a raid on an apartment in which Marilyn Monroe was supposedly having a lesbian relationship. Sinatra and DiMaggio were attempting to get evidence to use in the divorce she was seeking from DiMaggio, but they never caught Marilyn because the wrong apartment door was broken down.
After Confidential published a story entitled “The Real Reason for Marilyn Monroe’s Divorce from Joe DiMaggio,” which detailed the break-in, the California State Senate Investigating Committee began probing how stories about movie stars were leaked to exposé magazines. Frank was subpoenaed to testify about his part in the midnight raid. At first he refused, saying he didn’t have any information relevant to the case. Then he threatened to sue the chief of police of Los Angeles, the police captain in charge of intelligence, and the two police detectives who served the subpoena on him in bed at four A.M., claiming that the service was improper.
“It was a good thing I was asleep,” said Frank, “or I might have gotten a gun.”
“It seems to me that somebody is attempting to take the spotlight away from the real issue in this matter,” said the police chief, dismissing Frank’s threat.
Finally forced to testify, Frank swore under oath that he had simply driven DiMaggio to the scene of the raid, where they were met by Philip Irwin and Barney Ruditsky, the two private detectives they had hired to gather evidence on Marilyn. Frank claimed that while he stood by his car smoking, DiMaggio; Billy Karen, the maître d’ of the Villa Capri; Hank Sanicola; and the two detectives crashed into the apartment of Florence Kotz.
DiMaggio later claimed that he hadn’t broken into the apartment either; Billy Karen said he didn’t remember what happened; Hank Sanicola said that he and Frank stayed at the Villa Capri restaurant all night; and Barney Ruditsky was excused from testifying because of a heart ailment.
Philip Irwin testified that “almost all of Mr. Sinatra’s statements were false.” The twenty-four-year-old detective said that he was afraid to say much more because of his fear of Sinatra and the possibility of physical violence.
“Do you still fear him?” asked the committee counsel.
“Still very much so,” said Irwin.
“What do you fear?”
“I’m afraid of being beaten up again.”
“Aside from