His Way_ The Unauthorized Biography of Frank Sinatra - Kitty Kelley [72]
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In 1946, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer was the mecca of movie studios—the richest, the biggest, the best. Producing one full-length feature film every week, this fantasy factory boasted as its motto “More Stars Than There Are in the Heavens.” By the time Frank Sinatra had his RKO contract renegotiated by MCA so that he could go to MGM, the Culver City studio had reached eighteen million dollars a year in profits—its largest ever. MCA agents Lew Wasserman and Harry Friedman informed the studio that Sinatra wanted the “morals clause” changed, that he insisted on making at least one outside picture a year, plus sixteen radio guest appearances, and that he demanded the publishing rights to the music in alternate films. It took three months of negotiations, but MGM agreed to everything, including a twelve-week-a-year vacation. He was signed to a five-year contract at $260,000 a year.
Frank arrived on the MGM lot when the ten top movie stars in the world were Ingrid Bergman, Bing Crosby, Van Johnson, Gary Cooper, Bob Hope, Humphrey Bogart, Greer Garson, Margaret O’Brien, Betty Grable, and Roy Rogers. Frank was impressed but not intimidated. His records were selling at a rate of ten million a year, and for the third time he had won Downbeat’s award for the country’s favorite male singer as well as Metronome’s award for best male vocalist. Unlike most contract players, he came to MGM as a star in his own right, with his own press agents, his own entourage, and a devoted army of fans.
Feeling as though he were in the most beautiful harem on earth, he tacked a sheet of paper to his dressing room door. On it were the names of the MGM actresses he most desired; over a period of time he systematically checked off each one.
One of the most dazzling was Marilyn Maxwell, an ex-band singer who was every man’s fantasy of a movie star: tall and voluptuous, with white porcelain skin, long platinum hair, and a smile so inviting that only monks could resist. “She was gorgeous—simply gorgeous,” recalled Nick Sevano, “and nice too. She spent hours showing me around Hollywood when I first came out because she knew that I had once been associated with Frank, and they were crazy about each other.”
Marilyn, who was divorcing actor John Conte at the time, told friends that she was going to marry Frank, who had promised to divorce Nancy. In fact, Frank had asked his wife for a divorce, but Nancy refused even to consider it. In a rage, he stormed out of the house and left for New York to start filming It Happened in Brooklyn two weeks ahead of schedule. He asked Marilyn to meet him there on June 19 to go to the Billy Conn-Joe Louis heavyweight title fight with Toots Shor and his wife.
Toots was flabbergasted when Frank told him he was bringing Marilyn and strenuously argued against it. He said that a championship fight at Madison Square Garden was too public an occasion for him to be seen with anyone but his wife. Frank ignored him, so Toots called Manie Sacks and George Evans and pleaded with them to do something. Nothing worked until George Evans called Marilyn Maxwell personally and begged her not to go, effectively ending the relationship. Frank went to the fight by himself and sat with Joe DiMaggio and Marlene Dietrich.
Unaccustomed to taking orders, he resisted the studio regime throughout the shooting of It Happened in Brooklyn with Kathryn Grayson, Peter Lawford, and Jimmy Durante.
“I got a break when we were starting this new picture in New York,” he said at the time. “We were shooting on the Brooklyn Bridge. We’d get out there in the morning and there’d be fog, so I wouldn’t have to work all day.”
MGM production memos show that even when the fog lifted, Frank did not work very much on either coast:
7/7:
Company had early call, stood by until 1:00 P.M., then called Sinatra to be ready at 3:15 P.M., sent car for him but could