His Way_ The Unauthorized Biography of Frank Sinatra - Kitty Kelley [35]
“The bus pulled out with the rest of the boys at about half past midnight,” recalled Frank. “I’d said good-bye to them all and it was snowing. There was nobody around, and I stood alone in the snow with just my suitcase and watched the taillights disappear. Then the tears started, and I tried to run after the bus.”
A few days later, he began rehearsing with the Dorsey band, convinced that he was at last on his way to becoming a star. He even arrived with one of the trappings—an entourage that consisted of Hank Sanicola, his piano player and protector, and Nick Sevano, the young man from Hoboken who had become his general factotum.
Nick had worked for De Santo tailors in Hoboken and had helped Frank get his clothes made there.
“I started by helping Frank dress,” Nick said. “He always liked my sharp pinstriped suits and my silk ties, so I started helping him pick out his clothes. When I quit my job, I became his valet, secretary, gofer—everything. I lived with Frank and Nancy on the weekends on Audubon Avenue in Jersey City and I traveled with Frank on the road. I had to do everything for him—screen all his calls, buy his ties, design his clothes, deliver his records to disc jockeys, run his errands. You name it, I did it.
“Frank became a star within a few months of starting with Dorsey when he recorded ‘I’ll Never Smile Again.’ That’s the song that launched him, and became number one on the hit parade for weeks. After that, Tommy put Frank’s name above everyone—above Connie Haines, above Jo Stafford and The Pied Pipers, and above all the other musicians, including Buddy Rich, who hated Frank because of it.”
A brilliant and dynamic drummer, Rich did not like the new singer, who was as cocksure about his talent as Buddy was of his own. Equally arrogant, both men had violent tempers, which erupted when the band played the Meadowbrook in New Jersey. By that time, Frank had persuaded Tommy Dorsey to include his picture at the bottom of the band’s publicity poster. Buddy Rich saw the poster and exploded. If anyone deserved to be featured, he said, it was he and not some lousy singer with jug ears. Dorsey did not budge. Buddy retaliated by speeding up his tempo whenever Frank sang his slow ballads, and soon Frank was complaining that Buddy’s drums messed up his vocals. Their fights escalated, sometimes terrifying members of the band who happened to be present.
Jo Stafford saw one such incident backstage at the Astor Hotel in New York. “Buddy called Frank a name,” she said, “and Frank grabbed a heavy glass pitcher filled with water and ice and threw it at Buddy’s head. Buddy ducked. If he hadn’t, he probably would have been killed or seriously hurt. The pitcher hit the wall so hard that pieces of glass were embedded in the plaster.”
San Francisco columnist Herb Caen recalled going backstage at the Golden Gate Theater one night and seeing the drummer trying to skewer the singer.
“Buddy was trying to ram Frank against the wall with his cymbal—the high F cymbal that you play with your foot—and Sinatra was screaming and swinging at him,” he said. “Finally, Tommy broke it up with the help of a couple guys in the band.”
Frank did not tolerate anyone’s interfering with his singing. At one point, he refused to share the microphone with Connie Haines, Dorsey’s female vocalist, because the little southerner attracted too much attention.
“When Frank wouldn’t let me sing on the same mike, I’d look at some guy in uniform in the audience and sing to him instead,” said Connie Haines. “The guys loved it and started hollering and screaming for me, which really made Frank mad. He was ready to kill me. Between choruses, I’d step out to do the boogie or the lindy, and Frank would always belittle me. ‘Do your thing, cornball,’ he’d say. He didn’t like me because I was from down south and wasn’t New York sophisticated like he thought he was. Finally, he told Tommy to fire me, but Tommy fired him instead, and for two weeks we worked with the guy who played Doc [Milburn Stone] on Gunsmoke. Then Frank