His Way_ The Unauthorized Biography of Frank Sinatra - Kitty Kelley [57]
As far as they knew, the god they worshiped was a loving family man who cherished his wife and sang lullabies to his daughter. He seemed extremely boyish, wearing floppy bow ties and eating banana splits every day. He was friendly and so patient about signing autographs. He never got in a bad mood and never ever lost his temper. He seemed so vulnerable, so shy, so nice, so sincere. George Evans knew that the worshipful young fans needed to believe this myth to continue their adoration, and he nearly lost his mind trying to keep their shining image of Frankie intact.
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Frank had not been present for the birth of his first child, Nancy Sandra, in 1940. Nor was he with his wife when their son was born on January 10, 1944, in the Margaret Hague Maternity Hospital in Jersey City, New Jersey. He was in Hollywood filming Step Lively and starring in a weekly radio show sponsored by Vimms Vitamins. But the ever-faithful George Evans was by Nancy’s bedside to take care of everything.
Evans called Frank to give him the news and told reporters that the singer was very happy. “He wanted a boy very much,” said the press agent. Then he headed for the florist and had three dozen red roses sent to Nancy from her husband with a card that read, “Congratulations to you, darling, and to the little guy for picking himself such a wonderful mom. All my love.”
The next day, Evans arrived at the hospital early and helped get Nancy ready to meet the press in a pale blue quilted bed jacket that he had selected for the occasion. He propped a framed photograph of Frank next to her bed, fluffed the pillows, and told her to hold up the eight-pound-thirteen-ounce baby boy to admire the picture of his father, which would give photographers their best shot of the day. Then he called in the reporters and cameramen.
“I’m glad he’s a boy because that’s what Frank always wanted—a junior,” said Nancy. “When he was told by telephone last night, he was so excited he couldn’t even talk.”
Seeing the wirephoto of his wife and newborn son the next day, Frank said, “Fine-looking lad and no bobby socks, either.” He told reporters that he didn’t care what Frank, Jr., did when he grew up as long as he never became a singer. “No following in Dad’s footsteps, that’s for sure,” he said.
The next day on his CBS radio show, Frank talked to his wife and baby over the air, saying, “I’d like to sing one of my favorite songs to my little son in New Jersey. So pull up a chair, Nancy, and bring the baby with you. I want him really to hear this.”
Later Frank would admit that having the baby was an attempt to save a bad marriage. “I thought that another child would cement our marriage,” he said, “and we had Frankie, Jr. But endless tours, nightclub work, and a hundred other business activities kept me away from home most of the time. Little by little, we [Nancy and I] drifted apart.”
The radio show that starred Frank featured a line-up of beautiful female stars like Ginger Rogers, Judy Garland, Ann Sheridan, Joan Blondell, and Joan Bennett. It was one of the reasons he was in no hurry to return home. Despite his wife, his three-and-a-half-year-old daughter, and his newborn son, he stayed on the West Coast for two and a half months basking in the glow of being a movie star.
Higher and Higher had been advertised by RKO as Frank Sinatra’s first film, which guaranteed record-breaking attendance by the nation’s bobby-soxers. But not all the New York critics were enthusiastic. Dismissing Higher and Higher as Lower and Lower, Bosley Crowther in The New York Times wrote that “Frankie is no Gable or Barrymore,” and the movie was nothing more than “a slapdash setting for the incredibly unctuous renderings of the Voice.”
The New York Herald-Tribune was more respectful, saying that Frank “does his stint