His Way_ The Unauthorized Biography of Frank Sinatra - Kitty Kelley [174]
Frank frequently tried to make amends for his bizarre behavior with an act of generosity. A few days after he ruined the Norman Rockwell painting, he sent his friend an expensive Japanese print as Van Heusen had predicted, and it was accepted without any recrimination.
Still, the violence within Frank kept people at bay, leaving some of the women in his life to receive the roughest treatment, possibly because they came to know him so intimately. During the time Natalie Wood dated Frank, he insulted her so terribly at a party in his home that she went screaming from the table in tears. Even so, he threw her a surprise party on her twenty-first birthday, and on her twenty-second he sent her twenty-two bouquets, and had them delivered one by one hourly. He also ordered twenty-two musicians to serenade her.
“He was Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and sometimes you didn’t know which one you were going to get,” said Judith Campbell. “Frank’s Dr. Jekyll was a charmer, but his Mr. Hyde was frightening, truly frightening.”
“It was really something to see,” said the woman who lived with Jimmy Van Heusen. “Frank would bring someone to the desert for the weekend, and, of course, we’d have to be there, so I saw a lot of what I call Frank’s ‘before-and-after’ treatment. Before bed, he would be so charming. The girl was ‘mademoiselle this,’ ‘darling that,’ and ‘my sweet baby.’ He was [a] cavalier, a perfect gentleman. You never saw anything like this man in your life. He’d jump across the room to light a cigarette. He’d fill her glass with champagne every time she took a sip. With a hand on her neck he’d say, ‘You’re beautiful tonight,’ or he’d whisper loudly enough for all of us to hear, ‘No one prettier has ever been in my house. You look radiant, gorgeous.’ Then the next day we’d go over for his interminable pool party, where everyone drank for hours, followed by his spaghetti dinner, which was followed by more drinking. It was the next day that we’d always find the other Frank, the one who wouldn’t speak to the girl, who had been the most beautiful woman in the world the night before. Sometimes he wouldn’t even go near her, nor would he tolerate any affectionate overtures from her. Humped and dumped. The minute the conquest was achieved, kaput. The girl could pack her bags. I saw so many of them leave his house in tears.”
Paul Chandler, who worked as a houseman for Frank for many years, said one of his jobs was to drive the women home the next morning. “Frank was just like a child. He wanted every new toy there was, and then after he played with it, he’d just toss the toy away. Those girls were no more than toys to him. Some mornings, I’d get to the house and find four or five of them in the bed at the same time, and all colors of girls, too, let me tell you,” he said.
It was this “swinging” image of Frank that so fascinated President Kennedy, who delighted in hearing reports of what Frank was doing, and especially with whom. During her visits to the White House, Judith Campbell was quizzed by JFK endlessly. “Almost immediately, Jack started pumping me for gossip, most of it directed at Frank,” she said. “ ‘What was Frank doing? Was it true that he was seeing Janet Leigh?’ We always went through the same old routine.”
“It’s true that Jack loved hearing about Frank’s Hollywood broads,” said Peter Lawford. He added that the President enjoyed movie and show business gossip so much that he subscribed to Variety to keep up with what was going on.
“During one of our private dinners, he brought up Sinatra and said, ‘I really should do something for Frank.’ Jack was always so grateful to him for all the work he’d done in the campaign raising money. He said, ‘Maybe I’ll ask him to the White House for dinner or lunch.’