His Way_ The Unauthorized Biography of Frank Sinatra - Kitty Kelley [216]
Hailing another jeep and driver, Dexter sped off to find the director, who was roaring down the highway nursing his bruised feelings. Catching up to him, Dexter pulled him over to the side of the road and begged him to return to the picture, swearing that he would bring Sinatra around. After an hour of persuasion, the two men returned to the location and the director set up for his shot with Frank, who was still standing by himself under the tree.
Dexter approached him. “Look, Frank, the director is ready to shoot now. The scene is all set up. I know you’re uptight and you’ve got some problems, which are none of my business, but this could be a wonderful picture for you if you would only participate. The important thing is that the clock is running and all this time is costing money—your money and Warner Bros, money. So why don’t you come back with me now and do the scene. Be a professional and let’s make this picture work.”
Sinatra looked at his friend with venom, turned on his heel, and walked to the set. Approaching the director, he said, “Okay, what do you want me to do?”
For the next three days, shooting in England went according to schedule, and the cast and crew looked forward to moving to Copenhagen for the next location site.
“All of us were due to film in Denmark,” said Derren Nesbitt, Frank’s British co-star. “Then my schedule was changed, and I didn’t have to go. Sinatra knew I was disappointed, so he arranged for me and my family to join them. He had a car pick us up at our home in the country and take us to the airport, then his private plane to Copenhagen. When we arrived, he’d left a manila envelope for us with money. I remember remarking how difficult it would be to spend this amount in ten days, and then the same amount arrived again in a plain manila envelope every morning at the hotel. We had a wonderful time. He was very generous.”
In Denmark, Frank told Dexter that he wanted the weekend off to fly back to Los Angeles to star in a benefit for Governor Edmund “Pat” Brown, who was running for his third term. Brown’s Republican challenger was Ronald Reagan, a former actor and president of the Screen Actors Guild, who was making his first run for public office.
“I told him to take the time off and I’d shoot around him for a few days,” said Dexter. “I was a big Pat Brown supporter myself and thought it was a worthy cause, especially against Reagan, whom Frank and I both couldn’t stand.”
Sinatra’s antipathy toward Reagan in 1966 was intense. “He hated the guy, just hated him,” said a woman who lived with Jimmy Van Heusen. “We’d be at some party, and if the Reagans arrived, Frank would snip his fingers and say, ‘C’mon, Chester. We’re leaving. I can’t stand that fucking Ronnie. He’s such a bore. Every time you get near the bastard, he makes a speech and he never knows what he’s talking about. The trouble with Reagan is that no one would give him a job.’ This happened time and time again because Frank could not abide being in the same room with the Reagans. Every time they’d walk in, we’d have to walk out, and each time we’d have to listen to Frank’s diatribe against Reagan all over again.”
“It’s true that Sinatra despised Ronnie almost as much as Richard Nixon,” said Peter Lawford. “He said he thought he was a real right-wing John Birch Society nut—‘dumb and dangerous,’ he’d say, and so simple-minded. He swore he’d move out of California