His Way_ The Unauthorized Biography of Frank Sinatra - Kitty Kelley [51]
“We had some great times in those days,” said Nick Sevano. “Frank was always going, going, going, and we were always with him, going to the theater, to the fights, to see Zero Mostel or Billie Holiday, eating with George Raft and Betty Grable, going to the Stork Club, Lindy’s and the Copa, flying to California, going to the Hollywood Palladium, meeting Spencer Tracy and Cary Grant. Those were the good times, the fun times, when Frank could make us forget what a pain in the ass he was.”
The stage door at the Paramount was stacked six deep with petitioners begging for a coveted spot on The Varsity. It was there that Ben Barton had appeared one night and ended up starting the music company with Frank and Hank Sanicola.
Ben was more than a business partner. He became close with the Sinatras, stayed with them in Hasbrouck Heights, took care of Frank’s parents, sent flowers to Dolly for Frank on Mother’s Day, and, most of all, was Nancy’s confidant, listening to her complaints about Frank’s other women. He advised her to turn her eyes away and shut her ears. Long after their divorce he said: “If she’d done what I told her, she’d still be married to him. …”
Song pluggers pleaded with Frank for attention. Even Fred (“Tamby”) Tamburro, Frank’s bullying nemesis from the days of The Hoboken Four, came knocking.
“Frank, look,” said Tamby. “You gotta do me a favor. A big favor. I just got married. Give me a job with you.”
Sinatra knew he had forty-three sport jackets that he liked to have hanging a certain way, shirts that had to be carefully laundered—without starch—and exactly folded, and twenty-one pairs of shoes he insisted on lining up in a long, even row on the floor. He offered to take Tamby on as his valet.
“Me, shining your shoes and getting your shirts? Me?” Tamby refused to lower himself to the level of a manservant. Instead, he asked to use Sinatra’s name for a year and bill himself as the man who originally sang with The Voice, but Frank refused.
“I can’t understand why this man never helped me,” said Tamby many years later. “I’m not the best singer in the world, but I’m not the worst either. I asked him to let me use his name for a year—to travel up and down the country and bill myself as Sinatra’s original partner—but he said, ‘No dice. No way.’ ”
Everyone in the entourage was covetous of his own position, and everyone was excited about going to Hollywood, where Frank was to star in Higher and Higher for RKO with Michèle Morgan and Jack Haley.
“This was Frank’s first big film in which he was going to be the star, and all of us were pretty revved up about going with him,” said Nick Sevano. “Except for Nancy. She was staying home because she was pregnant and had to take care of Little Nancy. She was fit to be tied about it and took it out on all of us. She was so upset because she was not included that she started raising hell with Frank. She was especially mad that I was going.”
Friction between Big Nancy and Nick had been growing for months because Frank spent more time with his friend than with his wife. Nick lived with them in New Jersey. He was with Frank nightly, frequently staying with him in a suite at the Astor Hotel when it was too late to drive home.
“I was with him all the time in those days, and Nancy resented it,” Nick said. “She was insecure and very jealous of anyone who was close to Frank. She hated Hank Sanicola, too, but Hank didn’t come home at night with Frank and live with them in the house the way I did.
“Nancy would call Frank, and I’d hear him say, ‘All right, Nancy, I’m coming home for dinner,’ and then he’d never make it. Hours later, on the way home, he’d stew about it. He broke many, many promises in those days. Nancy would call Dolly, and Dolly would call Frank and say, ‘You promised her, Frank. You promised Nancy that you would be there.’ It was terrible, but Frank didn’t have time to spend with a family. He was too distracted with getting ahead, with his responsibilities to his career, his work, his radio programs, his rehearsals,