His Way_ The Unauthorized Biography of Frank Sinatra - Kitty Kelley [23]
Despite probation, Dolly kept her table in the basement as she continued to perform her illegal operations for those who sought her out. She was arrested several other times. She had to go to court each time, but probably because of her political connections she was never sent to prison, despite being convicted of a felony.
“My mother was shocked by Dolly and her abortion business, but it didn’t bother me,” Marion said. “I was three years younger than Frank and still in high school when we met. He came to one of the Saturday night dances on the roof of Joseph Brandt Junior High and introduced himself as a neighbor. The next day he came to get me and said, ‘Come and meet my mother.’ We spent most of our time taking long walks together and necking or driving in his car. That was when gas cost thirteen cents a gallon.
“Sometimes we went to the Fabian Theater in Hoboken. Frank always wore a white hat with a gold anchor like a Navy captain’s hat. His whole life was music and singing, and he thought Bing Crosby was the greatest thing in the world.”
Dolly loved to sing and managed to do so at political beer parties every Saturday night. According to one of Frank’s Italian Hoboken friends, “We all sang. You can still stop any five guys here and get a harmony group going.”
But Frank seemed especially inspired by Bing Crosby movies. He decided he wanted to be a singer just like Bing, started smoking a pipe like Crosby’s and wearing the decorated Navy hat because Crosby always wore a hat. Dolly did not encourage him. In fact, when she saw Crosby’s picture on Frank’s bedroom wall, she threw a shoe at her son and called him a bum.
“After I met Dolly,” Marion said, “I would go over to see her every day after school and on the weekends too. She drank beer constantly and was always rushing the growler down to the gin mill. It was a big beer barrel can with a handle and lid that she would push to the corner bar to be filled with beer. She’d put butter on the edge of the rim so that she would not get so much foam, and then sip all day. She drank beer all the time but never seemed to get drunk.
“Before Frankie and I went out on Saturday nights, I would do Dolly’s hair for her parties. Saturday night was her time to howl. Marty would go off with the men and drink downtown in Little Italy, and Dolly would go out with her best friend, Rose Vaughn, all dressed up and wearing a spectacular hat with birds of paradise floating on gold shimmering roses that fell over the ear. She and Rose would hit every political meeting in town, drink beer, and sing “When Irish Eyes Are Smiling” until their lungs almost burst. After three hours, Dolly’s birds of paradise would be flying around her knees, and she and Rose would have to take a cab home. Frank, who was a very quiet guy, sometimes got embarrassed by all her carryings-on.
“Frank wanted a college education desperately, but he couldn’t get through high school. University studies would have been too much for him. He couldn’t read very well. But he still wanted to be like those boys up on the hill from Stevens Tech, and so he dressed the role and looked like Joe College. If you didn’t know he was a high school dropout, you’d think he was Harvard or Yale from the great clothes he wore.
“He didn’t have a job at the time, but he loved hanging around musicians, so I suggested that he get an orchestra together for our Wednesday night school dances. He’d just started singing [in public] a little bit [at about age 17], and in exchange for hiring the musicians he’d get to sing a few numbers with the band. I’d take money at the door, and when we got enough, we all went to the Village Inn in New York so that Frank could sing with the orchestra there. We’d go in and ask the manager beforehand to let Frankie sing. We said that’s the only way we would come in, and so he usually said