His Way_ The Unauthorized Biography of Frank Sinatra - Kitty Kelley [157]
“Nancy was clearly the favorite. No doubt about it,” said Doug Prestine, a close friend and neighbor of the Sinatra children. “Tina was too young to be affected by the favoritism, but it sure was tough on Frankie. Big Frank spoiled Nancy to the neglect of Frankie, and it hurt him a lot. He never got the equivalent of anything that she got, none of the trips with Big Frank or any of the super gifts, and certainly none of the attention and affection. It was Nancy who got to be on Frank’s television show with Elvis Presley, not Frankie. Nancy had a huge bedroom in their Bel-Air house on Nims Road and Frankie had a real tiny one. Nancy had loads of clothes but Frankie barely had any. Big Frank gave Nancy her own television set, and poor Frankie didn’t even have a radio of his own. One day, the rivalry really got to him, and the two of us pulled one of the parts out of Nancy’s television set so that it wouldn’t work anymore. That sabotage was more than just prankishness on Frankie’s part. He was hurting from being so ignored by his dad and struck back at Nancy. There was always a distance between them because of his dad’s overindulgence towards her.
“I still remember when we were walking home from school one day and, completely out of context, Frankie turned to me and said, ‘You don’t know how lucky you are to have a real father.’ Even though we were only about thirteen years old at the time, I knew that that statement was significant; I just didn’t know what to say to him. Big Frank would come around when he was in town, or for a special occasion like Thanksgiving, but then he’d be gone for months at a time. He called a lot, but that wasn’t enough for the kids. At least, it wasn’t enough for Frankie.
“One night, the two of us were watching television in the library of the Sinatra house when Big Frank crashed through the gate in his Eldorado Cadillac with the hand-brushed stainless steel top. He was real drunk and wearing a white dinner jacket that was torn and dirty, as if he’d been in a fight or rolling around the gutter someplace. He wasn’t the least belligerent. In fact, he was kind of friendly. He slurred his words and said, ‘What are you two doing?’ I was stunned to see him in that condition because I’d never seen a grown-up drunk before, but Frankie wasn’t surprised at all. He very matter-of-factly went outside, got his dad out of the car, and carried him into the house, where we tried to wash him up and poured some coffee down him. Then Big Frank passed out on the couch, and we went back to watching TV. Frankie acted like it happened all the time.”
Early on, young Frank saw how much his sister and his mother adored his father. Hungry for some of that same affection, he began fashioning himself in his father’s likeness, imitating his mannerisms, his singing, his speech.
“If I stand in front of the fireplace with my hands behind my back, he does the same thing,” Frank said of his ten-year-old boy. “He kills me. When I do a television show, he’ll quote everything I said the next time I see him.”
Frank’s way of demonstrating love was through lavish gifts, and his former wife and children always looked forward to opening “Daddy’s presents.”
“I was one of Nancy, Jr.’s closest friends and I remember the first Christmas that I spent with the Sinatras,” said Rona Barrett, the Hollywood commentator. “It was incredible. There was a stack of Frank’s presents higher than the tree for Nancy and Tina, and a brand-new car with a red satin ribbon on it for Nancy, Sr., but scarcely anything for Frankie. It was so pathetic. The girls got furs and diamond bracelets and cashmere sweaters and silk blouses and loads of one-hundred-dollar shoes. I’d say