• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 1817 0

became native-born, and Evans made no mention, of course, of Uncle Babe’s prison record or Uncle Gus’s numbers operation. He raised Dolly from a Hoboken midwife with a thriving abortion business to a Red Cross nurse who had served her country in World War I. Marty was depicted as the head of the house. His place on the Hoboken fire department was left intact, with nothing said about how he got the job. Sensing that the public would not be endeared to a spoiled brat indulged by a mother as tough as a stevedore, Evans transformed Frankie into a poor, struggling little boy who barely survived the vicious gang wars in his slum neighborhood. He conjured up terrifying images of Hoboken brutes smashing one another with chains, knives, and brass knuckles. He depicted Frank as a Depression child who knew only poverty and deprivation. He was the American Dream personified.

But the most inventive part was Evans’s description of his client as a loving family man. He insisted that Frank wear his wedding band, and frequently had him quoted saying such things as: “Nobody comes before my wife, Nancy. That goes for now and for all time.” Giving “Mommy” full credit for his jaunty bow ties, Frank said, “We thought up that type of large bow tie as a trademark. Nancy shops around for bits of silk, keeps making new ones. I’ve got a hundred—I give lots away.” At the end of his radio broadcasts he always said, “Good night, Nancy.” When Nancy became pregnant again in 1943, no one was happier than the avuncular Evans, who hoped that it would solidify Frank in the eyes of the public as a happily married man and keep him out of the gossip columns.

“God, how George tried to keep Frank and Nancy together!” said Ben Barton, who started a music company with Frank and Hank Sanicola in 1944 to publish all of Frank’s songs. “He did everything he could to bust up Frank’s outside romances.”

“George was like a father to Frank, and he rode him hard about playing around with other women,” said Nick Sevano. “He did everything he could to keep him with Nancy. He said his fans wouldn’t tolerate him seeing other women when he was a married man with a three-year-old daughter at home and a baby on the way, and they’d drop him cold if he ever got a divorce.”

Evans did more than lecture Frank on the subject of fidelity; he took it upon himself to befriend Nancy, and he slowly transformed her from a little Italian housewife into an extremely winning woman. Knowing that Frank was fatally attracted to glamour, he wanted Nancy to be able to hold her own. He sent her to a dentist to get her teeth capped and recommended cosmetic surgery for her nose, which seemed to overpower her small face and almost obliterate her deep brown eyes. He also made a series of appointments for her at Helena Rubinstein for makeup lessons and hair styling.

Then he took her shopping, insisting that she stop making her own clothes and spend money on something striking so that she would be beautifully dressed when Frank took her out, thereby making him proud of her. This was the hardest part for Nancy, who had been budgeting all her life. She believed in saving, and Frank in spending, so she handled the family finances. Always cutting corners, she asked her brother-in-law, Anthony Puzo, an accountant, to do their taxes, and took legal matters to Danny Figarelli, the brother-in-law who was a lawyer. She knew that the family wouldn’t charge as much as outsiders. Ironically, the more money Frank made, the tighter Nancy held on to it.

When they bought their house in Hasbrouck Heights, New Jersey, in 1943, Nancy suggested that Frank call Don Milo, the Hoboken musician who had dressed him for the Major Bowes audition. Milo was now the purchasing agent for Republic Pictures and entitled to a forty percent discount on furniture. Nancy wanted a Stork Line bedroom set, plus new living room, dining room, and kitchen furniture, but she didn’t want to pay full price. So Frank phoned Milo and Nancy bought everything wholesale.

She resented reimbursing Nick Sevano and Hank Sanicola for business expenses, especially