His Way_ The Unauthorized Biography of Frank Sinatra - Kitty Kelley [52]
“Then she’d blame me for carousing with Frank. She accused me of getting all the broads for him because I was a bachelor, but I can assure you that I never had to get any women for Frank in those days.”
One day not long before Frank and his crew were to leave for the West Coast, Frank told Nick to run some errands, and make a few purchases. Nick was embarrassed to say that he’d run out of his expense money, and he could no longer bear going to Nancy because she questioned every purchase and every expense, wanting to know why it was bought, where, for how much, and for whom. So he crept into the master bedroom and took a ten-dollar bill from the top of the dresser. She saw him and later told Frank that Nick was stealing. She would not let up on the subject and finally forced her husband’s hand.
A few nights later Frank and Nick left the Paramount and headed for Forty-ninth Street, where Frank kept his car parked for the ride back to New Jersey. On the way to the garage, Frank didn’t say much, but when they reached the car, he didn’t tell Nick to get in as he usually did. Instead, Frank lowered his head and said, “Why don’t you stay at the hotel tonight, and I’ll be in touch.”
Nick realized there was severe conflict at home, so he agreed to stay in their suite at the Astor Hotel. “I sort of sensed that something was wrong, but I thought that he’d forget about it. I didn’t take it too seriously until Hank called me the next day to say that Frank wanted me fired. I couldn’t believe it. After more than four years of living and working together, he couldn’t look me in the eye and tell me himself. If he’d just said he was under a lot of pressure at home, I would’ve understood, but he couldn’t even do that. He couldn’t communicate. I knew how much he hated confrontations but—I was dumbstruck by the whole thing, and in addition to being hurt, I was scared. I didn’t know what I was going to do. I couldn’t go back to Hoboken, not after everything I’d seen and done with Frank. I was desperate, just desperate.”
People were shocked when they heard the news. Nick had been with Frank since 1939. He had designed Frank’s clothes when Frank first went on his own, had handled all Frank’s phone calls, letters, and public relations during the Dorsey days, always staying in the background. He ran all Frank’s errands, shielded him from Nancy, and placated Dolly. He bought all the presents that Frank wanted to give and shouldered him in and out of cabs so that he would not be trampled by his young fans. He seemed to have dedicated himself to Frank.
He had even acted as his romantic emissary, flying to Saranac, New York, to visit Alora Gooding when she was hospitalized with tuberculosis. Frank had sent him because he couldn’t go himself, and he didn’t want Alora to be alone. Nick had gone and been snowed in.
One of Frank’s entourage remembered the night Frank threw up all over Nick outside of Patsy D’Amore’s Villa Capri in Los Angeles, and Nick carried him back to the Sunset Towers and put him to bed. He also recalled how much Nick hated hookers and how Frank used to send them around to his room as a joke. Nick had been Frank’s Friar Tuck, his Sancho Panza.
Even Dolly Sinatra was stunned. She called Nick the minute she found out. “Don’t worry,” she said. “It’s that bitch wife of his that’s to blame. That bastard will call you. I’ll get him on the phone to you. He’ll know that you were the best friend he ever had. Don’t worry.” Two weeks later, she phoned Nick again: “Did that no good son of a bitch call you yet?”
“Frank never called, but those phone calls from Dolly gave me the confidence to keep going,” said Nick. “Then Tommy Dorsey phoned and asked me to come with him.”
Having sacrificed his best friend to his wife, Frank hired his Hoboken cousin, also named Frank Sinatra, but called Junior, to be his valet. Then he left for the coast with Axel Stordahl, Hank Sanicola, and George Evans to film Higher and Higher.
When he arrived in California,