His Way_ The Unauthorized Biography of Frank Sinatra - Kitty Kelley [199]
To show his gratitude to the federal agents who worked on the case, Frank sent each one a gold watch from France worth two thousand dollars. They were made out of twenty-dollar gold pieces and had black velvet bands. But the FBI returned the watches to Sinatra with a letter from Dean Elson, special agent in charge of the Las Vegas office, telling him that they were not allowed to accept gifts. A few weeks later, Frank bought another two-thousand-dollar watch and sent it off to FBI director J. Edgar Hoover in Washington with thanks for all that the FBI had done to end his son’s kidnapping. Frank also enclosed the other watches for the agents who worked on the case. This time, they were not returned. Amused, Sinatra assumed then that he’d made a mistake the first time around by not sending a gift to the director.
During the kidnappers’ trial a few months later, Barry Keenan tried a bizarre defense. He said that the kidnapping was a hoax in which Frank Sinatra, Jr., participated to get publicity for himself and his budding new singing career. The jury did not believe the story and sentenced all three men to life in prison, but the idea of a hoax took root and dogged young Frank for many years.
“When the Independent Television News in London broadcast that it was just a publicity stunt on my part, Dad sued them for libel and collected a lot of money,” said Frank, Jr. “I forget how much we won, but I know that we donated the judgment to charity. Dad just wanted to keep the record clean and prove to the world that there was no hoax involved.”
Years later, Barry Keenan admitted that he had indeed made up the hoax story that had caused young Sinatra so much embarrassment.
“That kidnapping scarred young Frank for life,” said Nelson Riddle. “It brought him the wrong kind of publicity and alienated him even further from his father … but I think he’s turned out remarkably well given all that. He’s had the best mother in the world.”
Big Nancy devoted her life to her children, but made no secret of her desire to reconcile with their father, preferring to retain the status of a divorced woman and be Mrs. Barbato Sinatra for life than to remarry and lose the Sinatra name. She told friends, “Once you’ve had the best. …” Crushed by Frank’s engagement to Juliet Prowse in 1962, she said sadly, “Frank and I are a closed chapter. He wants a new life.” When the engagement was called off forty-three days later, she knew better than to hope for too much, for Frank had already told the press, “I love Nancy, but I’m not in love with her.”
Still, she raised her children to lionize their father, and she encouraged their dependence on him.
“I saw how close the family was when I did a play—Remains to Be Seen—with Tommy Sands in Chicago,” said Patricia Bosworth. “The whole Sinatra clan was there. I think even Frank, Jr., came down at one point. Every night they would go back to the hotel and call Daddy whether he was in Vegas or Beverly Hills, or wherever he was, and they would all talk to him except for Nancy, Sr., who sat on the couch watching television movies and eating big bags of hard candy. She kept saying, ‘Oh, what a life we had … I can’t help loving him still.… He’s a wonderful father, a wonderful father.’ One night she was watching Barbara Stanwyck on television and she said, ‘Barbara Stanwyck is just like me,’ meaning, I guess, that they both had lost their husbands to other women.”
Frank left the child rearing to Nancy, a strong, pragmatic woman who allowed him to be the soft, indulgent father. When Nancy, Jr., was nineteen years old, she became pregnant. Her mother took her to have an abortion.
“In those days, you didn’t sleep with anyone before marriage and you never had an abortion,” said Nancy, Jr. “I explained my reasons, and my mother understood. She never once made me feel guilty. Neither did my father. They simply didn’t want me hurt.”
“Little Nancy was a real daddy’s girl and she probably wouldn’t have married Tommy [Sands] if Frank hadn’t approved,” said