His Way_ The Unauthorized Biography of Frank Sinatra - Kitty Kelley [222]
In 1967, Mia signed with Paramount to make Rosemary’s Baby and begged her agent to call David Susskind in New York for the role of the mute in Johnny Belinda, which was being made as a television movie for ABC. Susskind said absolutely no. The agent asked why, and the producer gave him four reasons: “She can’t act, she’s too thin, she’s Frank Sinatra’s wife, and she has the sex appeal of Spam.”
“Be reasonable, David,” said the agent. “She doesn’t need sex appeal to play a deaf mute, does she?”
Susskind conceded that point, but said his mind was made up. “I don’t want any trouble on this production, and with the wife of Frank Sinatra, you’ve automatically got trouble,” he said.
The next day, Mia called him herself to plead for the part. “Please, please, please reconsider me,” she said. “I’d give anything in the world to play that part. Please reconsider me for it.”
“I can’t chance it, Mia,” said Susskind. “I know your husband doesn’t want you to work, and he’s not all that keen on me anyway. It just won’t work.”
“Mr. Susskind, my career is very important to me,” said Mia. “I need a role like this. Please listen to me. I’m an actress first and a wife second. Please.”
After several days of negotiating, the producer relented and cast Mia in the role that had won an Academy Award for Jane Wyman in 1948.
Rehearsals started in California, but midway through, Mia was hospitalized.
“I started to worry because we only had a week or so to go before airing and I needed to make a decision about replacing her,” Susskind said. “So I flew out to the Coast, and she showed up for work with black welts all over her body. She was bruised from head to foot, with mean red gashes and marks all over her arms and shoulders and throat as if she’d been badly beaten. She looked like she’d been roughed up pretty bad. I sat down with her and said, ‘Mia dear, I don’t think someone wants you to do this role.’ She lowered her eyes and said that she still wanted to do it. She begged and pleaded with me and said she would be fine. She pointed out that most of the damage was done below her face, so we could cover her up with makeup, which we did, but in certain lights you could still see those awful welts. I felt so sorry for that poor kid.”
Months later, Susskind and his wife were sitting in one of their favorite New York restaurants, where they had come to know the mistress of Vincent “Jimmy Blue Eyes” Alo, a member of the Vito Genovese Mafia family, and through her, the mobster himself.
“Mary, the Mafia mistress, called me one night and insisted on seeing me on urgent business,” said Susskind. “She was so uncomfortable about what she was trying to tell me that she couldn’t get it out for at least an hour. Finally, she said, ‘David, someone doesn’t like you … someone wants to hurt you and hurt you bad. Nothing fatal. He doesn’t want to kill you. Just break an arm and a leg.… It’s Sinatra. He’s put the word out to get you. You used his wife in a movie when he didn’t want his wife to work. He’s mad, and he’s going to get other gangsters to do it for him. My guy says that no one touches anyone in the East without his okay, and that if anyone touches you, he won’t be alive the next day. But he says that you’re not to go to Las Vegas or Miami. He can’t control what goes on there.’
“I said I would never think of going to either place, but I sure as hell didn’t want to be told I couldn’t go,” said Susskind. “But I saw how serious she was, so I said that I would stay out of those places for the next year or so. Naturally, my opinion of Frank Sinatra is biased as a result. I think he’s an ill-bred swine who operates on the level of an animal, with no sensibilities whatsoever.”
Frayed at the edges, Frank’s marriage began unraveling because he thought that Mia enjoyed being