His Way_ The Unauthorized Biography of Frank Sinatra - Kitty Kelley [173]
The two women sat in silent terror as Frank said he was going to stop the show and put Desi out of business. Van Heusen tried to cajole Frank into leaving. Every five minutes he said, “Well, looks like Desi isn’t going to show. Let’s shove off,” but Frank refused to move. Minutes later, Desi walked in flanked by two huge Italian bodyguards, each one standing well over six feet and weighing at least three hundred pounds.
Seeing Frank sitting at one of the tables, Desi yelled across the restaurant at the top of his drunken voice, “Hi ya, dago.” Thinking Frank was there to have a good time, Desi walked over with the two bodyguards. With a tight jaw, Frank introduced him to his group, which was holding its breath in anticipation of mayhem. Frank turned to Desi and told him what he and some of his influential Italian friends thought about the show making the Italians gangsters. “What do you want me to do—make them all Jews?” said Desi. He said that he wasn’t afraid of Frank’s friends, and the argument went on from there. Frank admitted he’d never seen The Untouchables but said he knew what he was talking about because “I always know what I’m talking about. That’s how I got where I am.”
Desi laughed. “Oh, yeah,” he said in his thick Cuban accent. “Well, I remember when you couldn’t get a yob. Couldn’t get a yob. So why don’t you forget all this bullshit and just have your drinks and enjoy yourself. Stop getting your nose in where it doesn’t belong, you and your so-called friends.”
Unruffled, Desi meandered back to the bar with the two bodyguards, leaving Frank full of unspent bluster. Obviously embarrassed, he looked around the table and said, “I just couldn’t hit him. We’ve been pals for too long.”
“Yeah, what’s the point,” said Van Heusen soothingly.
As they were leaving, Frank spotted two women sitting at a nearby table and invited them to join the group at Van Heusen’s house for a party.
At four A.M., the group headed for Van Heusen’s house in Palm Desert, relieved that the crisis over Desi Arnaz had been averted. They didn’t know that Frank was so upset that he would soon move his production company out of the Desilu Studios. But they saw how humiliated Frank felt to have backed down on his threats when he walked into Jimmy’s den, where a large Norman Rockwell portrait hung on the wall. One of the composer’s most treasured possessions, it portrayed Van Heusen sitting at the piano in his pajama top, and it was a special gift from the artist. Grabbing a carving knife from the kitchen, Frank lunged at the painting and slashed the canvas to shreds.
“If you try to fix that or put it back, I will come and blow the fucking wall off,” he said.
Van Heusen did not say a word; the women exchanged frightened glances. Finally, one of the two women picked up at the country club said solicitously, “I love your records, Frank.”
Looking at her contemptuously, Sinatra said, “Why don’t you go slash your wrists.”
After Frank had left the house, Van Heusen’s date asked, “How could you stand there and let him do that?”
“Tomorrow he’ll be so sorry that he’ll send me some print worth five thousand dollars or something.”
“What difference does that make?” she asked. “That can’t replace a Norman Rockwell.”
She was unable to comprehend why this very strong man acquiesced to Sinatra, whom he addressed as “your eminence” to his face and referred to behind his back as “the monster.”
“Why do you put up with his craziness?” she asked. “Pick up hookers for him? Go over there all the time and stay up with him until all hours of the morning and sit back and watch him treat people like dirt?”
“Because he sings my songs, that’s why. I’m a whore for my music.”
Jimmy Van Heusen had learned long before to tolerate the strange twists in Frank’s psyche that drove him to savage behavior. Other close friends made the same allowances.
“Yes, there is a cruel streak in Frank, no question about it,” said Anthony Quinn, “but I still love the guy. He’s what